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  • Anand: A Biblical Flood, a Girl’s Death, and a Great-Grandfather’s Legacy

    Anand: A Biblical Flood, a Girl’s Death, and a Great-Grandfather’s Legacy


    Anand Giridharadas is a remarkable thinker and writer. In this post, he ties together the legacy of a very wealthy man who funded the fight against climate change and the terrible fate of his great-granddaughter Janie, who died in the flood in the Hill Cihntry of Texas.

    He wrote:

    In April 2013, Joe Barton, a Republican congressman from Texas, made a statement that transcended the traditional obscurity of House Subcommittee on Energy and Power proceedings to trigger national headlines. “Republican Congressman Cites Biblical Great Flood To Say Climate Change Isn’t Man-Made,” declared BuzzFeed.

    In a hearing about the Keystone pipline, Representative Barton, whom The New Yorker once described as one of “Washington’s most vociferous — and, arguably, most dangerous — climate change deniers,” played the denier’s game of delinking human activity from weather events: “I would point out that if you’re a believer in the Bible, one would have to say the Great Flood is an example of climate change and that certainly wasn’t because mankind had overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy.”

    Three months later, Barton received a campaign contribution from William Herbert Hunt, an oil baron in Dallas. It was neither the beginning nor the end of their alliance. According to the Open Secrets database, Hunt had already donated to Barton about ten times since 2005. And Hunt would go on to donate to Barton another half dozen times, as well as to the Texas Freedom Fund, a political action committee linked to Barton. Though most of Hunt’s donations were to Barton, he also donated to other climate deniers and foes of environmental protection, such as Christi Craddick, David McKinley, Dan Sullivan, and Dan Patrick, who once said former President Barack Obama “thinks he can change the weather…because he thinks he’s God.”

    I have not been able to get the Hunt family out of my heart after I learned from The New York Times over the weekend that one of William Herbert Hunt’s great-grandchildren, Janie Hunt, all of 9, was among the dozens tragically killed in those Texas floods that were biblical in proportion, if not in explanation. Remarkably, Janie was one of seven cousins who attended the camp, and the only one to die.

    Now, I know how the internet works. I know people pounce on news items like this to make heartless, cruel comments. The object of this essay is very different from that.

    I am a father, and I know what I’d do to protect my children’s lives. The answer is anything. I hope I live one day to become a great-grandfather. William Herbert Hunt, according to this Dallas Morning News obituary, passed in April 2024, at 95, a life long enough that he got to enjoy more than 72 years of married life, see his children and grandchildren grow and thrive, and even get to see 35 great-grandchildren of his line.

    I have to imagine that Hunt, like me, would have done anything, absolutely anything, for his family. I even have to imagine that, if, by impossible magic, you could go back in time and a little birdie could whisper that one day a catastrophic flood, made more probable by climate change, made worse by fossil fuels, would claim one of his great-grandchildren at summer camp, Hunt might have reconsidered fundamental things.

    I have to believe that, because I refuse to believe that being an oilman makes you any less human. When the equation is made that simple, anyone would do the right thing. Anyone would do what it takes to save their own flesh and blood. But when it becomes more abstracted — when one’s activities indirectly cause X, which indirectly causes Y, which sometimes makes Z happen more often than usual — the mind loses its clarity. When no individual happening can be definitively linked to climate change, the deniability, the not-knowing, grows easier still. Suddenly a human being can go from doing anything to save their kin to doing nothing to save everyone’s. A person who, I have to imagine, would have given his own life for his great-granddaughter’s donates to those who have fought for a world that makes deaths like hers more likely.

    Source: OpenSecrets.org

    I am not writing to accuse one man. On the contrary, this story of a great-grandfather and his great-granddaughter is a story of a whole country and its descendants. As always, some will say the death of children should not be politicized. I hear that. But, also, what is politics for if it’s not a debate about stopping the death of children?

    I have sat with this story since I read the Times paragraph above. It has given me a pit in my stomach. I guess what one does with that is write. There is no glib I-told-you-so here. This is about what kind of great-grandparent all of us want to be, collectively. Do we want to put our heads down, do our work, justify it however we can justify it, donate to people who defend our interests, ignore the gathering evidence that we are on a path that will kill many of us and, at some point, take down the livable world?

    Or do we want to be the kind of great-grandparent who right now is acting to save great-grandchildren who aren’t even born yet, but who one day, beside some river, surrounded by inner tubes and kayaks and Crocs and flip-flops and cabins and bunk beds and singalongs and brightly colored blankets — the kind of elder who defends those lives and their right to glorious summers even before we know their names?

    What does it take to be that kind of great-grandparent now? It takes fighting back against the war on science that makes it harder for climate scientists and weather forecasters to do their jobs. It takes pushing back against extractive industries and their political protectors who would sell our future for a song, and who have made it unsafe for young girls to enjoy a Christian camp. It takes a campaign of media and organizing to educate people about the fact that a cabal of wealthy, well-connected corporate overlords is profiting at the expense of a future of carefree summers.

    I am still sitting with the pit in my stomach. My heart goes out to the Hunt family, to those six surviving cousins who must be feeling so many awful things that children should never have to. They are feeling things many others have already had to feel, and that more and more of us are going to be feeling if we continue down this road.

    On Instagram, an adult cousin of Janie, Tavia Hunt, who is the wife of Clark Hunt, the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs football team, shared the family’s pain and raised the old Jobian question of how to sustain faith in the wake of such inexplicable tragedy.

    I am not a religious person, but my heart goes out to her, too. And, whether or not you believe in the god she cites above, it is also, of course, people who let things happen in this world we live in. It is also we who allow things to happen to us. And part of me wonders if, even hopes that, there might be an awakening from a story that connects cause to effect, upstream to downstream, more clearly than usual in a crisis that has long suffered from nebulousness. Perhaps this family, out of this horror, can help rouse the rest of us to become the great-grandparents our descendants deserve.



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  • Trump’s law reshapes federal loans and Pell Grants, impacting California students

    Trump’s law reshapes federal loans and Pell Grants, impacting California students


    UC Berkeley students stroll around campus near the landmark Sather Gate on April 19, 2017.

    Photos by Alison Yin for EdSource

    Top Takeaways
    • The law blocks graduate students from taking out new Grad PLUS loans and caps Parent PLUS loans starting in 2026.
    • To maintain access to federal student loans, academic programs must soon show alumni earn more than peers without the same degree. 
    • The law expands Pell Grants to short-term workforce training and nixes an earlier proposal that likely would have reduced aid to many Pell recipients.

    The domestic policy law signed by President Donald Trump will have major implications on how students in California and across the country pay for college, with analysts describing it as the most consequential federal higher education legislation in decades.

    The most significant changes will impact access to federal loans and borrower repayment plans. The law also amends Pell Grant eligibility standards, expands qualified expenses for 529 college savings accounts, and is expected to raise the endowment tax on a few private universities, including Stanford. 

    Republican lawmakers say their suite of higher education policies aims to make college more affordable and reel in student debt while broadening access to career and technical education. Critics warn the package’s financial aid measures will do just the opposite, making higher education more expensive for low- and moderate-income students.

    “This is the biggest set of changes to higher education policy in America since at least 1992,” said Robert Kelchen, a professor of higher education at the University of Tennessee, noting that the Higher Education Act hasn’t been reauthorized since 2008. “In this reconciliation bill, there are effectively pieces of legislation that congressional Republicans have been working on for years.”

    The Grad PLUS program will stop accepting new borrowers

    The federal Grad PLUS program, loans which make it possible for graduate students to borrow up to the cost of attendance minus other financial aid, will stop accepting borrowers this time next year. Current borrowers, however, will be grandfathered in and allowed to continue accessing those loans.

    Graduate students will still have access to direct unsubsidized federal loans, but the bill caps those at $50,000 per year for students in professional programs, such as those studying to become lawyers or doctors, and most other graduate degrees at $20,500 per year. 

    The changes will reduce access to graduate school, particularly for low-income students who don’t have other funding options, said Melanie Storey, president and CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, a nonprofit membership organization representing financial aid professionals at colleges across the country. “Very capable students who come from more modest backgrounds may be unwilling to pursue graduate or professional education.”

    Some of those students may borrow from private lenders, but those loans “won’t come with the same kinds of terms and conditions and protections that a federal loan has,” she added.

    The University of Southern California may be hit particularly hard by the loss of those PLUS loans. “They have so many graduate programs, and they have a lot of students who do not get financial aid,” Kelchen said.

    The Grad PLUS program disbursed about $2 billion to students at California colleges and universities in the 2023-24 school year, federal data shows.

    Lower caps on Parent PLUS loans will limit borrowing

    Under the federal Parent PLUS loan program, parents used to have the ability to borrow up to the total cost of a student’s college education. A new cap starting July 2026 will limit borrowers to $20,000 per year and a lifetime maximum of $65,000 per student. Supporters argue that borrowing limits will slow rising tuition. 

    Parent PLUS loans have been “the loans of last resort” for students whose parents don’t qualify for private loans because of their credit, Kelchen said, so reducing the borrowing limit may hit students with substantial financial need the hardest. A brief by the Education Trust characterized them as “a double-edged sword for Black borrowers” in particular, who tend to have fewer resources to pay for college due to long-standing inequities in wealth and income.

    Capping the Parent PLUS program will likely either “discourage students from attending college or limit their choices,” Storey said. 

    Institutions will need to get creative to ensure low-income and first-generation students can continue enrolling, said Emmanual Guillory, senior director of government relations at the American Council on Education. 

    “It’s hard to say that institutions will just find a way to make up the difference and will offer more institutional aid for low-income students to help them be able to cover the cost,” he said.

    Former students’ earnings will determine loan access

    The reconciliation bill puts postsecondary programs to a new test: In order to access federal student loans, alumni must earn more than peers who didn’t study for the same degree. 

    Congressional Republicans say the idea is to hold colleges and universities accountable for what alumni ultimately earn when they join the workforce. Loosely, for a given field of study, an undergraduate degree program can continue accessing federal loans if the median earnings of former students exceed the median earnings of high school graduates in the same state. Graduate programs maintain access to federal loans by comparing former students to similarly situated bachelor’s degree holders.

    “It’s a really significant step towards the kind of focus on educational outcomes that we have seen both Republicans and Democrats talk about in recent years,” said Clare McCann, policy director at the Postsecondary Education & Economics Research Center. But McCann said it’s problematic that the measure doesn’t apply a similar standard to undergraduate certificate programs. 

    An analysis by Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, found that many associate degree programs could lose access to student loans, although associate degree students may be less likely to finance their educations in the first place. 

    “The promise of a lot of these programs is that you shouldn’t have to borrow,” Cooper said. “I kind of think that if these programs do have earnings outcomes that are so low, we probably shouldn’t be giving students loans for those programs, because it’s very unlikely that they’ll be able to repay their loans in full.”

    SAVE, other repayment plans will close to new borrowers

    The repayment terms will also change, reducing the number of plan choices to just two: a standard repayment plan and the Repayment Assistance Plan, which ties payment size to the borrower’s income. Supporters argue that doing so simplifies the options available to borrowers while putting them on a path to repay loan balances in full. 

    Most existing income-driven plans will later close to new borrowers, including the popular Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan, a Biden administration initiative aimed at lowering monthly payments. In California, about 600,000 borrowers are enrolled in the SAVE plan, according to the Student Borrower Protection Center.

    “For most borrowers, their payments will be drastically more expensive on a monthly and annual basis,” said Aissa Canchola Bañez, policy director of the Student Borrower Protection Center. 

    Loan deferments for economic hardship will be eliminated, and new limits will be placed on forbearance.

    Lawmakers nixed a Pell proposal that worried colleges

    The version of the reconciliation bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives would have increased academic credit requirements per semester to be considered a part-time or full-time student under the Pell Grant program. That proposal sparked concern among officials at California State University and the University of California that tens of thousands of their students would receive less money from Pell — or would lose eligibility altogether because they don’t take enough classes each term. 

    The universities may now breathe a sigh of relief: The final law makes more incremental adjustments to Pell, such as making students who receive full scholarships from other sources ineligible for Pell.

    Students can use Pell for short-term workforce training

    Starting in July 2026, Pell Grant recipients will be able to spend their awards on educational programs that last more than eight but less than 15 weeks at accredited institutions. Supporters of extending Pell to shorter programs say doing so will make educational programs more accessible to adult students who are already in the workforce.

    Kelchen said workforce Pell Grants have gained traction among a broad spectrum of policymakers due to frustration regarding the value of a college degree. “The goal is, by trying to encourage short-term credentials, you get people in through [an educational program] fast and back out into the economy,” he said. 

    But some are skeptical about the return on investment of weeks-long credential programs. Wesley Whistle, a project director who monitors higher education policy at the left-leaning think tank New America, said student earnings after completing short-term certificate programs “aren’t good on average” and that even when they do boost earnings, the positive effect “tends to fade after a year or two.” Researchers with the Institute of Education Sciences reported similar findings.

    Families with 529 plans will have more spending options

    The law also makes several changes to 529 plans, investment accounts typically used to save money for college, in which earnings are tax-deferred and withdrawals for qualified educational expenses are tax-exempt. The new law, starting in 2026, adds items including tutoring, standardized testing fees and some educational therapies to the list of qualified expenses while students are in K-12. After high school, the law also allows funds to be used for some professional credentials, not just college. 

    Researchers at the Brookings Institution have found that 529 plans mainly benefit wealthy families while costing the federal government billions in tax revenue. “Low-income people don’t have enough money to be able to save in this way,” McCann said.

    In California, the state’s 529 plan — ScholarShare 529 — managed more than $15.6 billion in more than 439,000 accounts as of June 2024. 

    A few selective universities will see an endowment tax hike 

    Critics, including the American Council on Education, have also warned that another provision of the law — increasing the endowment tax at a relatively small number of private universities from 1.4% to as much as 8% — could indirectly reduce the institutional financial aid available to their students. However, proponents argue that elite colleges hoard wealth while charging students exorbitant tuition. Based on their current endowment-to-student ratios, Stanford University and the California Institute of Technology would likely be among the universities to see a tax increase, while the University of Southern California, with its much larger student body, would probably be exempt.





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  • Invest in high-dosage tutoring to boost student achievement and recruit new teachers

    Invest in high-dosage tutoring to boost student achievement and recruit new teachers


    Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education

    Growing up with a physical disability, I feared that people would only see me on a surface level. I thought teachers, friends and peers would only see me for what I couldn’t do, not what I could.

    I’m fortunate, though. I’m strong, and I found those who believe in me. My teachers helped me overcome obstacles and saw that I am multifaceted — as every student is.

    Now, I’m in a place where I want to be that person — the role model, the cheerleader, the coach — for others. 

    I knew from a young age that I wanted to provide that sort of mentorship to others. While in college studying neuroscience, I heard about a high-dosage tutoring program where I could help students with their schoolwork virtually while fostering strong relationships with them. This form of tutoring creates a strong, sustained bond between the tutor and student and provides at least 90 minutes of direct instruction each week. I’m now in my second year of tutoring, and I’m a better person for it. Every school should invest in high-dosage tutoring programs, and anyone interested in pursuing a career in education should sign up. Here’s why. 

    Tutoring creates a pathway for new teachers. We need more equipped adults in the classroom. My program is the Ignite Fellowship through Teach For America California, which provides robust training so that we have the content knowledge and pedagogical skills we need to feel prepared and sustain our roles. Plus, we are paid stipends so we can afford to focus on this work.

    Teaching is a unique profession, and if we want to attract and retain educators, we should give them opportunities to test-drive the role. My experience with tutoring has shown me what it might be like to be a full-time teacher before committing. Since fellows are all college students, we’re also exposing our students to the possibility of college and beyond. I’m a proud member of Gen Z, and while you might only think of Gen Z as the TikTok generation, I think of our mission-driven sensibilities. We’re motivated to give back. A career in education aligns with this, and we should welcome this cadre of potential new teachers. 

    Relationships matter. Students won’t learn from someone they don’t like. They’re seeking role models who will take the time to get to know them as individuals; tutoring provides space to create that connection.

    I remember tutoring a special-needs student for the first time. At first, it was challenging — he could get frustrated and shut down. I didn’t give up on him. If my educators had given up on me when I was seeking support and validation, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I learned his favorite video games and his favorite Pokémon cards, then integrated those themes into our lessons. It’s key to learn your students’ distinct personalities. I watched him open up, and things clicked. The lesson is valuable: When teachers can relate concepts to students’ interests, it makes a huge difference to their learning. 

    One-on-one attention is powerful. Large classes and high student-teacher ratios don’t always allow teachers to provide the one-on-one attention each student deserves. Enter: tutors. In my program, students receive 45 minutes of personalized tutoring thrice a week. The instruction is research-based and tied into the curriculum. We’re not asking students for extra time or for parents to rearrange their schedules — we’re embedding this high-impact, high-dosage tutoring into the school day.

    As the achievement gap persists, it’s crucial that students receive individualized opportunities to learn and catch up. High-dosage tutoring allows this. Each semester I create close relationships with my students and learn their strengths and areas of growth, allowing me to tailor my teaching style to what’s going to be most effective for each student. And it’s working. At one of the schools where I tutor, Aspire Rosa Parks in Stockton, 71% of students working with Ignite fellows met their reading and math goals, and we provided 437 additional hours of individualized learning in just one semester. Plus, 98% of partner schools report that this tutoring boosts students’ academic achievement and engagement.

    My experience as a tutor has been incredibly eye-opening. In my two years as an Ignite fellow, I’ve been able to work with elementary and middle school students across five different schools, which allowed me to connect with underrepresented students who need extra resources. Plus, I have found an inclusive and supportive community of those who want to inspire future generations. I have become a better leader and have gained a new perspective on educational equity. High-dosage tutoring helps students reach their academic goals while also facilitating a sense of belonging and connection with adults who want them to succeed — it’s a win-win.

    ●●●

    Roxane Knorr is a Teach For America Ignite Fellow and a 2022 UCLA alumna.

    The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • Teacher uses jazz to explore California history, race and culture

    Teacher uses jazz to explore California history, race and culture


    Guillermo Tejeda and the Neighborhood Orchestra performing at the Venice Beach Jazz Festival.

    Guillermo Tejeda

    The first thing Guillermo Tejeda does when he visits a new school is hunt for the piano. At most schools, the teacher finds a dusty old instrument, out of tune, stashed away in a dark closet. 

    The cobwebs tell him all he needs to know about how little arts education those students have been getting. His go-to technique to get them more jazzed about learning is to tickle the ivories, make that piano come back to life.

    “I’ll bring it out, dust it off. I’ll bring students into the auditorium and I’ll do lessons there,” said Tejeda, a fourth grade teacher at Wadsworth Elementary in hardscrabble South Central Los Angeles. “I’m telling you, when I bring in song, when I bring music and performance into the classroom, the students light up in a way that really creates a meaningful experience for them.”

    A schoolteacher who is also a jazz musician and a member of the Neighborhood Orchestra Collective, Tejeda uses music in general and the narrative of the LA jazz scene in particular, to teach about history, race and culture, as well as to spark joy in the classroom. A father of three currently on parental leave with his 11-month-old daughter Maya, Tejeda started playing the guitar at the age of 6. His grandfather, a migrant farm worker with a love of mariachi and a hand gnarled from picking in the fields, taught him how to play. 

    “I’m from East LA and I became a teacher because I wanted to be the teacher that I never had,” he said. “We come from a marginalized community where it’s hard to be a teacher. A lot of the adults are stressed out. People are not feeling joy. How do we bring more joy? How do we bring more meaning into our lives? I think music is that vehicle.”

    Tejeda takes an expansive view of education that integrates the arts into all the disciplines to bring learning to life for children. His teaching feeds his music, he says, and his music feeds his teaching.

    “I wish I had a teacher like Guillermo when I was in fourth grade,” said Elmo Lovano, the founder of Jammcard: The Music Professionals Network, who developed School Gig, an app that connects artists to schools. “He’s a passionate guy. He’s incredibly talented. It’s important for artists to know you can still be doing your art, but being a teacher could be an amazing opportunity for you to make a living, stay at home, support your family, give back to the kids, the next generation, and also still do you.”

    Music is the prism through which his students become immersed in the history of their city, its politics and culture. He wants his students to be in tune with their heritage.

    “I teach on 41st and Central, which is a historic jazz corridor,” he said. “And when I got to that school site, it surprised me that so few teachers talked about that. The first thing I did was write a lesson plan about it.” 

    Tejeda, whose students call him ‘Mister’ as a nickname, makes sure his class learns about the rich legacy of jazz in Los Angeles. For example, the historic Central Avenue jazz corridor was, for decades a cultural mecca, the heart of the African-American community in the city. At a time when most of the country was rigidly segregated, it was also something of an oasis, a place where people of all races and classes came together over music. There, a pantheon of jazz luminaries, including Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday and Jelly Roll Morton, played to full houses.

    “The giants of Central Avenue may have gone, but their footprints still remain on all of American culture,” as basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar once put it. “The jazz musicians and record promoters also gave birth to rock ‘n’ roll, rhythm and blues, hip-hop and rap.”

    Guillermo Tejeda and members of the band Steam Down at the Venice Jazz Festival.
    credit: Luis Hernandez

    Steeping in the often overlooked history of their neighborhood, Tejeda says, can help children sharpen their sense of identity, belonging and pride. 

    “These kids have no idea how special and beautiful their neighborhoods are because all they see on the news is how messed up it is,” said Tejeda, long a champion of culturally relevant pedagogy. “I want them to know this is the place, right here in your hood, this is where a lot of jazz music was born.”

    Music often resonates with children on a deeper level than other forms of instruction. Tejeda is moved to tears remembering one little boy who had trouble engaging at school because of trauma at home. He only opened up when they began to play the piano together at recess. The piano became his sanctuary.

    “I’m shook when I come home because a lot of these kids are dealing with very hard stuff and they’re so resilient,” said Tejeda, his voice thick with emotion. 

    “Yes, math and science is important but the whole child is important, that’s what drives me.”

    Music also enhances both math and reading performance, experts say, perhaps partly because it enhances the neuroplasticity of the brain. Music amplifies learning across subject areas, experts say. 

    “Music and movement in addition to the more common modalities of written and verbal instruction is critical for including all kinds of learners in a well-rounded education,” said Jessica Mele, interim executive director of Create CA, an advocacy group. “It’s particularly beneficial for students whose first language is not English. Using art as a window into culture, race and history can engage students in complex conversations that they might not otherwise engage in.”

    Music can also be healing, research suggests. As a boy, Tejeda suffered from a stutter that only subsided when he sang. 

    “I keep it real with the kids because I see myself in them,” he said. “It’s crazy how impactful music has been for me.”

    It’s also a uniquely social experience that invites children to collaborate with their peers on projects that both require and reward focus and discipline, qualities that fuel academic success, experts say. Children practiced in the arts become accustomed to working collectively toward ambitious long-term goals.

    Perhaps most importantly for Tejeda, children often find their voice through music and the arts. They can gain a sense of confidence, social-emotional well-being and a passion for lifelong learning.

    “The end goals of music and education aren’t to memorize curriculums or key terms,” said Tejeda. “It’s really to find out who you are. It’s about self-determination and growing the full human being. I’m so excited to see this synergy of music and education because they are inextricable.”

    Tejeda’s ambition is to make school so stimulating that children want to go there every day because they are deeply engaged in their studies. At a time of chronic absenteeism and plummeting test scores, he has a transformative vision of arts education as reinvigorating the classroom.

    “I feel a deep calling to help effect change across California classrooms,” he said. “I am never going to stop teaching, because teaching and education is so essential to my soul. It is at the core of who I am,” but this “is a critical time for me to put my work into the next gear and figure out how I’m going to apply my passion and expertise to affect tangible change, more urgently, on a wider scale.” 

    Going forward, he hopes to pursue arts education advocacy on a broader level. He is also developing a new arts-driven curriculum, to “unleash the symphony of learning,” as Proposition 28, the state’s groundbreaking 2022 arts initiative, ramps up.

    “It’s like out of my dreams and into reality,” he said. “We’re going to create a new world for students. This is a revolutionary time.”





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  • What Trump’s budget and tax law means for California students

    What Trump’s budget and tax law means for California students


    Students at Wilson Elementary School in Selma participate in mental health awareness activities on May 24, 2023. Students are seen trying toys that can be used as coping mechanisms.

    Credit: Kristy Rangel

    Top Takeaways
    • Cuts to social safety net programs for the United States’ poorest will partly offset the $4.5 trillion in tax cuts weighted toward the wealthy.
    • $170 billion to immigration enforcement likely to harm student mental health, research shows.
    • Up to 151,000 children could lose health care in California, though advocates say the number is likely higher, as cuts may impact school-based health services.

    Hundreds of thousands of California’s low-income children and their families will likely see federally funded food support and health care shrink or vanish in the coming years under the mammoth budget and tax law that President Donald Trump rammed through a divided Congress and signed last week.

    Education cuts to come

    The $12 billion in cuts to K-12 schools and colleges that Trump proposed in May and the related $6.2 billion in federal funding that he ordered withheld from schools last week are not connected to the tax and budget bill that Congress just passed. They are the next target of Trump’s plan to hollow out funding for public education.

    The $12 billion cut — about 15% of what the U.S. Department of Education last appropriated for schools and universities — would take effect on Oct. 1, the start of the 2026 federal fiscal year. Trump’s plan would kill funding for educating migrant children and English learners, and end grants to attract candidates to become teachers, while maintaining current funding levels for Title I aid for poor children and students with disabilities.

    Because the forthcoming budget bill will require 60 votes in the Senate to pass, unlike the simple majority that Trump squeezed by last week with the budget and tax bill, opponents are optimistic they’ll be able to blunt some of the proposed cuts. They also believe they’ll get courts to reinstate the $6.2 billion that Trump withheld as of July 1. Congress already appropriated that money for states last February, in effect, to tide them over, since their fiscal year starts earlier, on July 1.

    “The bill will put young people and families at significant risk,” said Dave Gordon, Sacramento County superintendent of schools. “There’s nothing good about any of that. It’s cruel and it’s mean-spirited.”

    Immigrant families are bracing for ramped-up immigration enforcement as those efforts are now infused with an additional $170 billion. Those billions will be pulled in part from the $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid — known as Medi-Cal in California — and $186 billion cut from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides monthly payments for food to about 5 million Californians, including nearly 2 million under 18.

    State legislators did not set aside funds to account for cuts before approving the state budget, potentially leaving school districts to “absorb the shortfall,” as Visalia Unified stated it is prepared to do.

    Each district is facing a different reality. Some might have enough reserves to maintain current programming, while small and rural districts often heavily rely on federal dollars just to maintain basic educational infrastructure and services, said Fresno County’s schools Superintendent Michele Cantwell-Copher.

    Reduced spending on the poorest Americans will partly offset the $4.5 trillion in tax cuts weighted toward the wealthy, along with other features like a small increase in the $2,000 child tax credit. But the remaining $3 trillion will add to the federal deficit and be piled onto a record national debt to become a burden for the next generation of Americans. The higher interest payments on the debt they’ll pay as a portion of the federal budget will crowd out new spending options, including education and child care.

    What follows is a summary of what’s in the 2026 budget law, which will be phased in over several years, and its implications for families and children.

    Cuts to food assistance

    Around $186 billion is cut from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, also known as CalFresh in California, where over 55% of participants are families with children.

    An estimated 735,000 people are expected to lose their benefits, mainly because of new work requirements, according to the governor’s office.

    “Work requirements do not increase employment, it increases the red tape for vulnerable populations, causing more strain on hospitals with uninsured patients,” said Clarissa Doutherd, executive director of Parent Voices Oakland and a commissioner with First 5 Alameda County.

    The bill extends work requirements to a greater number of people, including those aged 55 to 64 and parents whose children are 14 or older.

    “Schools don’t exist in a vacuum. Cutbacks that impact the health and welfare of families create additional challenges for student support and academic success,” said Troy Flint, chief communications officer with the California School Boards Association.

    Since SNAP participation also determines eligibility for school lunch programs, a drop in enrollment could cut federal meal subsidies and raise state costs for meeting all students’ daily nutritional needs.

    Under the newly signed bill, states will also be required to front a greater amount of the program’s cost.

    States may need to cover between 5% and 15% of the benefits cost starting in 2028 if they have an error rate over 6% for recipients. This is a threshold that data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows only eight states met last year. California was not one of those states.

    It remains unclear what impact the cuts will have on schools, but the state has not provided any additional funding to backfill the cuts.

    Medi-Cal cuts

    Over half of all children in California are enrolled in Medi-Cal, as Medicaid is called in the state. An analysis of the House bill found that up to 151,000 children in California would lose health care coverage, largely due to changes in work requirements and eligibility.

    Mike Odeh, senior director of health policy at Children Now, said the number will likely be higher. The final bill exempts parents of children age 13 and under from meeting work requirements. Odeh said families with children over the age of 14 who do not report monthly work hours will likely lose coverage.

    Medicaid is the fourth-largest federal funding source for K-12 schools nationwide, providing roughly $7.5 billion in school-based health services every year. California is one of 25 states that bill Medi-Cal for school-based health services, including vision and hearing screenings, nursing services, school counseling services and environmental support for special education students.

    If local clinics shut down as a result of Medicaid cuts, more kids are likely to turn to school-based health services for care, Odeh said. “So there will be less resources available for school-based medical services as there’s also more demand for them,” Odeh added.

    Medi-Cal billing is also a core source of sustainable funding for nearly 300 school-based health centers statewide, offering services such as mental health counseling, primary care and speech or occupational therapy.

    School-based health centers are funded by a combination of grant funding and Medi-Cal reimbursements, with no state-funded grants to rely on, according to a spokesperson from the California School-Based Health Alliance.

    The bill also cuts the provider tax, a key source of funding for rural community hospitals, and prohibits the use of Medicaid dollars toward reproductive care at Planned Parenthood clinics, two main sites of health care used by young people in rural, high-poverty communities.

    In recent years, California has expanded efforts to include school-based mental health support in Medi-Cal reimbursement, including support for mental health clinicians, wellness coaches and peer support programs that were initially funded by the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative. Newly hired school-based mental health providers may lose a critical portion of funding when some students are no longer eligible to have those services reimbursed by Medi-Cal, according to the California School-Based Health Alliance.

    “We know that kids who are enrolled in Medicaid do better in school,” said Odeh. “They miss fewer school days, they’re more likely to graduate high school and less likely to drop out, they’re more likely to go to college and have fewer emergency room visits and hospitalizations as adults.”

    School choice for states that want it

    The budget law will establish the first big federally funded program granting tax credits to underwrite private school tuition. If it proves popular, the program would potentially divert billions of dollars in federal tax revenue that opponents argue would be better spent supporting public schools.

    All but the wealthiest parents would be eligible to receive up to $1,700 in direct tax credits to defray tuition to private schools or potentially use it for homeschooling. Other taxpayers could receive the same tax credit by donating to “Scholarship Granting Organizations,” which would award scholarships to attend private or religious schools in states that take on the program and manage the scholarships. The number and size of the scholarships would depend on the number of Americans who make tax-deductible contributions and the states that offer the program.

    That’s the catch: Congress included an opt-in provision, and California is one of 20 states that currently don’t have a private school choice program. Gov. Gavin Newsom has shown no interest in signing up, and a state Senate committee in March killed a bill that proposed a statewide education savings account. Teachers unions are unalterably opposed, charging that it will primarily subsidize parents who already send their kids to private schools.

    Lance Christensen, a longtime advocate of school choice and a former candidate for state superintendent of public construction, criticized Newsom and state leaders for locking California out of a program “providing billions of dollars in K-12 scholarships to poor and middle-class families in other states so their kids can get an education tailored for their needs.”

    California proponents of school choice, however, are hopeful that the federal tax credits could enhance passage of their own Children’s Educational Opportunity Act, establishing a state-controlled Education Savings Account. Supporters are collecting signatures to place the initiative on the 2026 statewide ballot. It would provide parents with $17,000 — the equivalent of public school funding per student — to enroll their children in a private school or cover expenses such as tutoring or special education services.

    Billions to Immigration and Customs Enforcement

    The massive infusion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, will likely increase anxiety among immigrant families, lead to more absences from schools and harm children’s mental health, according to research.

    “The children of immigrants, any time they’re away from their families, we hear examples that they’re worried at school about what might happen to their parents. That’s a huge mental toll that we’re asking every one of these kids that is an immigrant or lives in a mixed-status family to carry with them every day, 24 hours a day,” said Xilonin Cruz-Gonzalez, deputy director of Californians Together and co-chair of the National Newcomer Network.

    The funding is aimed at expanding detention centers to hold adults and families with children while their immigration cases are pending, and increasing the number of ICE agents.

    Immigration raids in California increased significantly toward the end of the latest school year, causing upheaval and fear among students whose family members — and sometimes themselves — were detained or deported.

    ICE’s methods in the state have included arresting U.S. citizens, detaining toddlers and elementary school students, and arresting immigrants with active legal asylum cases at their scheduled court appointments.

    “We already see families keeping their kids home from school and keeping their kids home from summer activities because they’re fearful to leave their houses,” Cruz-Gonzalez said.





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  • How veteran teachers can support new ones and keep them in the profession

    How veteran teachers can support new ones and keep them in the profession


    Middle school history teachers discuss their lesson plans for teaching about the Great Depression.

    Credit: Allison Shelley / American Education

    My first year of teaching was the worst year of my life. 

    I remember preparing for the new school year, prepping my classroom and making lesson plans. If you know the Central Valley of California, you know the summer heat and heavy lifting in a classroom are not the most desirable combination. However, I had hope in my heart, and I was so excited for my career to finally begin! 

    Then I made the grave mistake of going into the copy room packed with veteran teachers. I was eager to learn from them; they had the experience I lacked. One gave me a tip to “not smile until October” so the kids would know I was a tough teacher. One advised me to stick to worksheets so that I didn’t burn out. 

    While these bits of advice were well-intentioned, they were not what a budding teacher needed. Teaching is an extremely difficult profession, but it is also incredibly rewarding. There is an extreme learning curve for new teachers. Despite the credential program and a mentor teacher’s best efforts, nothing can thoroughly prepare you for your first classroom. 

    It’s no secret that there is a mass exodus of teachers leaving the profession. To keep people in the profession, we need to support them throughout. If the support is consistent and starts when a teacher first enters the school, there can be a shift in the number of people leaving and the school’s overall culture. 

    As I said, the copy room was a hot spot for negative talk. At every school I have worked in, this has reigned true. Instead of continuing to let the negative talk fester, I propose making the copy room a hub for ideas to be shared and support to be given. Dedicating a space on the wall where teachers can “shout out” each other can quickly change the room’s vibe. Having funny memes posted by the printer about how it’s always “jammin’.” A designated space where teachers can drop off or pick up extra supplies. Best yet, make every first Monday a little treat day. Each department takes turns bringing small treats. These little things can help build a culture and safe place for teachers, especially the newer ones, to feel supported. 

     Another method to support new teachers is to create a partnership between them and a veteran teacher. This veteran does not even need to be in the same content area. Instead, an experienced teacher that matches a new teacher in personality or classroom management style can be extremely beneficial. I distinctly remember the veteran teachers who guided me through my first few years, and I’m eternally grateful for them.

    One important aspect, however, is that veteran teachers must volunteer for this. Pushing this vital role on somebody who doesn’t want it would not work. This partnership can look like once a week, 30-minute check-in meetings. It can be regular, short observations. Maybe the two teachers team-teach a lesson while an administrator covers one of their classes. This partnership, however it is laid out, can be rich in growth for the veteran and new teacher. 

    Teachers of all ranks need to continue to grow and update their methods. This can be done by creating a culture of observation without the “gotcha!” feeling. Administrators can simply pop in, offer compliments, support, and notes in general, and then leave. Teachers working on the same content can observe others, offer feedback, and see new methods. The frequency of observations can help spot any areas of growth and strengths. As new teachers learn their individual teaching styles, it’s important that they be observed constructively, and it should be done often. 

    Inundating new teachers with supplemental training, resource books and websites can be overwhelming and exhausting. The goal is to support new teachers so they stay in the profession and feel appreciated. They do not need to hear horror stories constantly, receive unhelpful criticism or feel isolated. This will only increase the number of teachers leaving the profession.

    Teachers, administrators and support staff can all make an effort to openly welcome and support new teachers. Inviting a teacher to the staff outing, getting them the school shirt, helping them staple borders on the walls and supporting them however they need will make a difference in their career.

    •••

    Kati Begen is a high school biology educator and credential coach in Fresno and has earned a multiple-subject credential, a single-subject credential and a master’s degree in teaching.

    The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • Undocumented students in California navigate uncertainty and fear under Trump

    Undocumented students in California navigate uncertainty and fear under Trump


    Although attending and graduating from an American university is a great milestone for many undocumented students, it doesn’t eliminate their immigration status or fear for their livelihoods. 

    Mitzli Pavia Garcia, a 2024 San Diego State University graduate, remembers being 12 years old and running out of food and water on a three-day trek through the Arizona desert. Garcia and eight others attempted to cross the Mexico border into the United States for a month, turning back due to extreme weather or arrests. 

    Garcia and the group broke open cactuses to sip and prayed when they found a farm, taking gulps of water from the same trough as the cattle.

    Today, Garcia is a 28-year-old undocumented resident of the United States.

    Born in Cuautla, Mexico, Garcia was 6 years old when they first entered the United States. According to Garcia, their mom wanted to give them a life better than her own. Garcia’s mother never finished middle school, and their father did not complete elementary school.

    Garcia said they always navigate life aware of their immigration status. Struggling to keep up in high school while thinking about higher education, they recalled how colleges and financial aid programs required Social Security numbers to apply. And they worried about the record number of deportations during the Obama administration, which instilled fear in the undocumented community.

    “When I was in school, I knew that I was safe from immigration, so I loved learning,” Garcia said. “I was top of the class for some things, and it was really hard for me to push myself to do the best when I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to access higher education.”

    Garcia applied for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, hoping to receive security from the government as a student. Because Garcia and their mom had returned to Mexico to care for their grandmother before high school, their application was instantly rejected.

    The lack of security from DACA didn’t deter Garcia. 

    Garcia was accepted to San Diego State University in 2022 after attending San Diego Mesa and San Diego Miramar community colleges. 

    Garcia said undocumented students severely lacked support at SDSU. 

    “We have an undocumented resource center at San Diego State. It’s a great thing, but it’s the bare minimum,” Garcia said. “It’s a great space for undocumented students to go and sit, but it was hard for me to ask them for help because they don’t even have the resources.” 

    Garcia found more support from Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán, or MEChA, on campus. According to its website, MEChA is a national organization with local chapters that focus on Chicanx issues, including U.S. immigration and Central and South American political struggles.

    Garcia felt pressure even after graduating from a four-year university. They have been trying to achieve American citizenship, but have grown frustrated and worried about the lengthy process.

    “A lot of us still can’t legally work in the spaces that we worked so hard for four years because again, they require Social Security or legal status,” they said. “I submitted legal paperwork in 2020, then Covid hit. At the time, it was a five-year wait for the legal route that I was pursuing. It is now doubled, and now it’s a 10-year-plus wait. Trump keeps telling us, ‘Hey, do it the legal way,’ and then the legal way takes a quarter of your life.”

    Based on the legal proceedings he has completed, Garcia said, “I am not supposed to be deportable.” But they know, ICE “can hold me in a detention center if they want to, because they’re doing that now. They’re arresting citizens just because they’re brown, putting them in detention centers, and then not believing that they’re citizens, even with the paperwork. I don’t even feel safe to travel outside of San Diego, and when everything started happening a few weeks ago, I was afraid to leave my house.”

    Garcia finds strength in their undocumented identity, however.

    “We’ve feared this already before,” they said. “While they may be able to instill this fear in my community, I’m not going to let them instill that fear in me. I’m still here, I still made it out. We can still achieve our dreams.”

    By Roman Fong





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  • Threats, stress and politics pushing school superintendents out the door

    Threats, stress and politics pushing school superintendents out the door


    Former Temecula Valley Unified Superintendent Jodi McClay mouths “thank you” to the supporting crowd at Temecula Valley High School on June 13, the night she was fired.

    Credit: Anjali Sharif-Paul/MediaNews Group/The Sun via Getty Images

    The number of California school superintendents leaving their jobs is climbing, despite increased salaries and benefits. Some have reached retirement age or are moving to less stressful jobs. Some are being pushed out by newly elected school board majorities. A new crop of less experienced district leaders is taking their place. 

    Superintendent turnover in California grew from 11.7% after the 2019-20 school year, to 20.9% after the 2020-21 school year. Just over 18% left after the 2021-22 school year, said Rachel S. White, an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, who runs a research lab that collects data about school superintendents. 

    Turnover is particularly high this year because many superintendents who stuck it out during pandemic school closures, and the tumultuous years since, have had enough, White said.

    “This year, before the 2023 school year, I think people finally broke,” she said.

    Chris Evans, 52, decided to step down as superintendent of Natomas Unified in Sacramento at the end of last school year. He stayed on to help the new superintendent transition.

    “The job was always hard to begin with, and it’s become infinitely harder,” said Evans, who led the district for 11 years.

    “There are a number of folks in their 50s and 60s who are saying they are done,” he said.

    Pandemic made top job more difficult

    Superintendents’ jobs changed dramatically after the pandemic closed schools in March 2020. Instead of focusing on academics, strategic planning, school finances and community relations, superintendents were charged with navigating pandemic mandates and negotiating these changes with district unions. Superintendents also were tasked with ensuring there were enough computers and connectivity for students and staff to support virtual learning, all while dealing with parents who were angry their children were not in school.

    The reopening of schools did little to turn down the heat at school board meetings, which were politicized over issues such as the teaching of critical race theory and its tenets of systemic racism, and LGBTQ+ topics. School superintendents often found themselves the focus of community and parental ire — so much that some school districts paid for security for their superintendent.

    I can’t ever remember hearing of a superintendent that had gotten a death threat before. Now, I know personally four or five.

    Gregory Franklin

    Gregory Franklin, the former superintendent of Tustin Unified School District in Orange County, said he has never been threatened, but he knows other superintendents who have.

    “I can’t ever remember hearing of a superintendent that had gotten a death threat before,” said Franklin, who left Tustin Unified at the end of 2021 for another job. “Now, I know personally four or five. It’s just kind of shocking. So, I think, all of that being said, that when other possibilities present themselves, people are taking them.”

    Job turnover is a national problem

    The superintendent turnover problem is not California’s alone, according to the Superintendent Research Project. Nearly half of the country’s 500 largest school districts have changed leadership or are undergoing leadership changes since the pandemic began in March 2020. The study compared the two years before the pandemic to the first two years of the pandemic and found a 46% increase in superintendent turnover nationally.

    “What we are seeing is that the challenges are greater than ever before and the political environment is creating great instability in the institution, which is resulting in shorter tenure for superintendents,” said Dennis Smith, managing search partner for Leadership Associates, a recruitment agency that does many of the superintendent searches in California.

    Superintendents needed: many openings

    California school districts searching for superintendents include Sacramento City Unified, Eureka City Schools, Palm Springs Unified, Eastside Union, Pasadena Unified, Pajaro Valley Unified, Pacific Grove Unified, Culver City Unified, Newman-Crows Landing Unified, Solana Beach School District, Culver City Unified, Dixon Unified, Millbrae Elementary, Woodlake Unified, Hillsborough City, Merced City, Black Oak Mine Unified, North Monterey Unified and Dos Palos-Oro Loma Joint Unified. 

    The California School Boards Association projected a superintendent shortage five years ago, said Susan Heredia, CSBA past president. It began as baby boomers started to retire, she said.

    In the 15 months since Brett McFadden began work as a deputy superintendent at the Monterey County Office of Education, a quarter of the county’s 24 school districts have changed superintendents, he said.  McFadden was the Nevada Joint Union High School District superintendent until last school year.

    “If you look at the last 100 superintendents that had to leave their positions or their districts, you would be very hard-pressed to find any one of them that left because of test scores or left because of educational issues,” McFadden said. “They leave because of local politics, board relations, labor relations, a facility bond matter or a budget thing.”

    McFadden calls the Covid-19 pandemic the kindling that ignited the rise in single-issue adult-driven disputes, like those around masking and vaccinations, at school board meetings. 

    Demand is so high for superintendents that McFadden is already getting calls from search firms hoping to entice him to apply for jobs.

    “You know the paint on the door isn’t even dry yet with my name on it,” he said. “These search firms are now just aggressively looking for candidates.”

    Of the 30 candidates that apply for each candidate search, maybe eight to 10 meet the district’s qualifications, Evans said. Of those, there are only maybe three or four that could potentially be hired for the job, he said. 

    The high demand is driving up salaries and benefits packages, with total compensation surpassing the $500,000 mark in some cases.

    Firings making applicants wary

    Another factor pushing superintendents out the door is board members elected with the promise of firing the incumbent. The election of school board members who are determined to make significant changes in school districts has resulted in the firing of an unprecedented number of superintendents since the pandemic began in 2020, Smith said.

    The school board meetings, broadcast live, have been watched throughout the state — especially by other superintendents. 

    McFadden remembers watching Pajaro Valley Unified school board meetings in 2021 when the board fired Superintendent Michelle Rodriguez without notice and then reinstated her days later after a public uproar. Rodriguez left to lead the Stockton Unified School District this year.

    “You’d expect this in a Spanish novella or something, but you don’t expect it in your neighboring district,” he said.

    School boards can waive state credential requirement

    School boards largely determine the qualifications required for a superintendent in their district. Although the state of California requires school district superintendents to have both a teaching credential and an administrative credential, the school board can waive the credential requirement.

    At least six California school district superintendents did not have both a teaching and administrative credential in the 2022-23 school year, according to data reported to the state. The districts that waived the requirement that year included Visalia Unified, Los Angeles Unified, Mountain View Whisman Unified, Sacramento City Unified, Kingsburg Joint Union High School District and San Marino Unified, according to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

    Since there is no mandate to report this information in CALPADS, the state data system, there could be more superintendents without both credentials, said Anita Fitzhugh, California teaching credential commission spokesperson.

    Superintendents are watching these meetings and paying more attention than ever to whether they fit well with the community of the district before they apply for a job, said White, of the University of Tennessee.

    “I think it’s just a heightened awareness right now,” White said. “Especially if I’m going to pick up and move my entire family and start a position in a new place. I don’t want to be fired in two years.”

    Temecula Valley Unified has been a hotbed of controversy since a trio of conservative trustees took control of the board a year ago. The board fired Superintendent Jodi McClay in June and banned the teaching of critical race theory, passed a parental policy requiring staff to notify parents if students are transgender and removed social studies material because it included a section on LGBTQ+ rights activist Harvey Milk. 

    Although the search for a candidate ended on Nov. 13 with the hiring of Gary Woods, a former Beverly Hills Unified superintendent, the search firm indicated to one board member that there were fewer candidates than in the past. Quite a few candidates did not meet the requirements outlined by the district in a job description and some weren’t even from the education field, board member Allison Barclay told EdSource in early November.

    “I would assume that if you’re looking for a position anywhere, any company, any school district, you’re really going to look at what the situation is you’re walking into financially, culture-wise, all of those things,” Barclay said. “And so, having a school district that is making national news is probably not appealing to as many people as might be attracted to it when it wasn’t making national news and was just simply known as an award-winning school district. So, I can’t imagine that that’s been helpful.”

    State legislators responded to the spate of firings by passing a bill creating a cooling-off period, prohibiting school boards from firing a superintendent or assistant superintendent within 30 days of new board members being seated or recalled.

    The law also prevents school boards from firing school leaders at special or emergency board meetings, which require only 24 hours’ notice, instead of at a regular meeting, which requires the public to be informed of a meeting at least 72 hours in advance. The bill was signed by the governor in October.

    “People are recognizing it’s just not healthy for an organization to go through these flip-flops where you might have a 3-2 majority that keeps a school or a superintendent, then have an election where the 3-2 flips and then the superintendent is looking for a job,” Franklin said.

    Less experienced leaders hired

    Assistant or deputy superintendents in larger districts are moving into the lead role in smaller districts, or superintendents in smaller districts are taking the opportunity to move to more lucrative jobs in larger districts. Newer, younger superintendents are becoming more common, Smith said.

    To meet their administrative needs, many districts are also grooming their own talent, said Molly Schwarzhoff of Ray and Associates, a national education search firm.

    ‘I’m seeing different, perhaps less-seasoned individuals coming into the roles,” McFadden said. “That doesn’t mean they are less talented or more talented.”

    To help new superintendents prepare for their new role, the Association of California School Administrators offers a new superintendents seminar series, a superintendents academy and a new superintendents workshop before its annual Superintendents Symposium. 

    The 2023 Voice of the Superintendent Survey, conducted by education consulting firm EAB, recommends that school boards find ways to help superintendents feel successful in their role and allow them time to connect with students and collaborate with peers to staunch turnover. Superintendents surveyed for the report overwhelmingly said they need help navigating challenging conversations with the community. 

    Superintendents report directly to the school board, something first-time superintendents have never done before, said James Finkelstein, professor emeritus of public policy at George Mason University in Virginia. The new superintendent now has multiple bosses, often with divergent interests. They also have to deal directly with parents and external interest groups.

    “No amount of academic training or a certificate can prepare someone for this trial by fire,” Finkelstein said. “The bottom line is that there is no substitute for experience. But the catch-22 is that the only way to get the experience is by doing the job. Every school district would like an experienced superintendent who has demonstrated success in their previous position.  But finding those individuals is increasingly difficult, especially given the dramatic turnover since Covid.”





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  • Legislative Analyst’s Office forecasts $19 billion state budget deficit for schools and community colleges

    Legislative Analyst’s Office forecasts $19 billion state budget deficit for schools and community colleges


    California State Capitol

    Credit: Christopher Schodt for EdSource

    Schools and community colleges likely will face a $19 billion, three-year state funding deficit, the Legislative Analyst’s Office reported Thursday. The funding for TK-12 this year is $108 billion.

    The LAO’s annual projection is a forecast of what to expect from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s first pass next month on the 2024-25 state budget. It reflects a decline in funding in Proposition 98, the 35-year-old constitutional amendment that determines the portion of the state’s general fund that must go to schools and community colleges. Complicating the picture is that about half of the education deficit covers money that schools and community colleges spent in 2022-23.

    The overall projected state general fund budget deficit of $68 billion could also jeopardize 5% annual increases for the University of California and California State University systems that Gov. Gavin Newsom had agreed to, as well as children’s services not covered by Proposition 98.

    The projected shortfall is the largest financial challenge schools and community colleges will face since the Great Recession budget of 2009. However, the LAO said that schools are better positioned now because of an education rainy-day fund that the Legislature was required to sock away in the record-high revenue years of the past half-decade.  

    Edgar Zazueta, executive director of the Association of California School Administrators, cautioned that state leaders must avoid the sort of harsh cuts made during the Great Recession. They included forcing districts to borrow billions of dollars with the expectation they would be repaid later.

    “Fortunately, we have tools, including the Proposition 98 reserve, that we can leverage to protect Proposition 98 funding levels,” he said. “Even during fiscal times like these, public education must be prioritized and protected. We must continue to build on our state’s great momentum and investments that have been made these past few years.”

    The LAO report lays out several options to balance school spending, some of them jarring for schools and community colleges.

    One option is for the Legislature to preserve TK-14 funding approved last June and find the full $68 billion in cuts in the general fund. That would spare schools, but other programs for children outside of Proposition 98 funding would more likely be hit, including support and subsidized costs for child care.

    The opposite approach — the most painful to schools and community colleges and politically risky for legislators — would be to revise the 2022-23 and the current 2023-24 Proposition 98 funding downward to meet the minimum required by law. That would slash funding by $9 billion from 2022-23 and $6.3 billion for the current year, with a ripple effect of lowering the minimum guarantee for 2024-25 by $3.5 billion.

    The Legislature could ease the burden by draining the $8.1 billion rainy day fund. That would still leave about $10 billion in cuts. Billions of dollars in one-time funding, whether unspent so far this year, or allotted by the Legislature for the next several years, could be targets. These could include $1 billion as yet unallocated for developing community schools or money set aside for learning recovery and for after-school extended learning time. It could be politically unpopular for legislators to make significant school cuts in an election year. And they would have to approve a resolution that there is a fiscal emergency to reduce the Proposition 98 appropriation.

    The third alternative is somewhere in the middle — cuts to K-14 and cuts from other general fund programs.

    The Legislature had an inkling that economic conditions were worsening but no hard numbers when they passed the 2023-24 budget in June: The deadline for paying state and federal income taxes had been extended from April 15 to Oct. 16. So they didn’t know the impact on state revenues in 2022-23 and 2023-24 from slowing home sales, a drop in new startups in Silicon Valley, and from declining income of the top 1% of earners, who contribute 50% of the personal income tax receipts.

    The LAO’s forecast for state revenues for the general fund shows a big drop in 2022-23, a flat line in 2023-24 and a slight uptick in the next fiscal year. But the gray area shows the possibility of an additional decline or a quick recovery.
    Source: The Legislative Analyst’s Office.

    The LAO cautioned that economic conditions are volatile, and revenues will remain unpredictable. A graph of its revenue outlook shows slow growth in 2024-25, with a large gray penumbra of uncertainty above and below that line.

    Kevin Gordon, president of Capitol Advisors Group, an education consulting company based in Sacramento, said he was pleased that the LAO listed several options and did not recommend resetting funding to meet the Proposition 98 minimum, with “devastating cuts.”

    “The numbers are worrisome, but the approaches laid out are significant efforts to demonstrate how lawmakers might work to protect basic investment in education funding,” he said.





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  • Advanced algebra, data science and more: UC rethinks contested issues of high school math

    Advanced algebra, data science and more: UC rethinks contested issues of high school math


    Credit: JeswinThomas / Pexels

    Next month, a panel of University of California professors in the sciences and math will give their recommendations on the contentious issue of how much math high school students should know before taking a college-qualifying course in data science. Its answer could influence future course offerings and admissions requirements in math for UC and CSU.

    “There’s a tension between the interest in adhering to math standards and ensuring students learn math and also recognizing the changes that are happening in the uses of math in industry and the world in general,” said Pamela Burdman, executive director of Just Equations, a nonprofit that promotes policies that prepare students with quantitative skills to succeed in college. 

    “How UC resolves this issue will have a bearing on that, and the signals that UC sends to high schools about what is and isn’t approved will have a big impact on what this next generation of students learns.”

    The issue has embroiled California’s higher education decision-makers, and it mired proponents and opponents of California’s new TK-12 math framework in an acrimonious debate earlier this year.

    Advocates have cited the appeal of introductory data science as a way to broaden the boundaries of math to students who were turned off by it.  Traditionalists – STEM professors and professionals – countered that courses like introductory data science that include little advanced math content create the illusion that students are prepared for college-level quantitative work while discouraging them from pursuing STEM majors.

    Separate from this immediate question, a second group of UC, CSU and community college math professors is revisiting a more fundamental question: How much math knowledge is essential for any high school graduate with college aspirations, and separately for those interested in pursuing STEM, the social sciences or majors needing few quantitative skills?

    For the past two decades, the answer was cut-and-dried — and uniform. The CSU and UC defined foundational high school math as the topics and concepts covered by the three math courses – Algebra I, Geometry, and Advanced Algebra, which is Algebra II — that both systems require students to pass for admission. 

    With the state’s adoption of the Common Core math standards for K-12 in 2010, the options expanded to include Integrated I, II and III, which cover the same Common Core topics in a different order. Both UC and CSU encourage students to take a fourth year of math, and most do.

    The debate has centered on Algebra II. For future science, engineering and math majors, Algebra II is the gateway to the path from trigonometry and Pre-calculus to Calculus, which they must eventually take. But for the majority of non-STEM-bound students, Algebra II can be a slog: difficult, abstract and irrelevant to the college plans.

    Despite a general agreement that high school math should be more relatable and relevant, there is intense disagreement on the fix.

    New course offerings in the burgeoning fields of data science and statistics “present new ways to engage students. At the same time, they can foster the quantitative literacy — or competency with numerical data — that math courses are intended to provide,” Burdman wrote in a commentary in EdSource. “They have the potential to improve equity and ensure that quantitative literacy is a right, not a privilege.”  

    But with 17% of Black children, 23% of Hispanic children and 23% of low-income children scoring proficient in the latest Smarter Balanced tests, the need for effective and engaging math instruction must begin long before high school. The new TK-12 math framework, approved in July after multiple revisions and four years of debate, forcefully calls for fundamental changes in math instruction. 

    “Arguments about what content should be included in high school mathematics fail to acknowledge the elephant in the room: We haven’t yet figured out how to teach the concepts of algebra well to most students,” wrote psychology professors Ji Song of CSU Los Angeles and James Stigler of UCLA in an Edsource commentary.

    Committees of faculty senates of both UC and CSU have restated that Algebra II, along with geometry and Algebra I, provide the skills and quantitative reasoning needed for college work, in whatever paths students eventually choose.  

    “College and career readiness expectations include completion of these sequences or their equivalent that cover all of the Common Core standards,” the CSU Math Council wrote in a January resolution.

    But in 2020, the influential UC academic senate, which is authorized to oversee course content for admissions, sent a critical mixed message. In a statement, the Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools or BOARS invited proposals for a broader range of math courses for consideration that would enable students to “complete certain mathematics courses other than Algebra II or Mathematics III in their junior year of high school to fulfill the minimum admissions requirement.” BOARS said it saw the expanded options “as both a college preparation and equity issue.”

    Proponents of data science seized the opportunity, launching an end-run around what they perceived to be the inflexibility of math professors to change.

    New courses

    BOARS oversees policy, but the High School Articulation Unit, a small office in the UC President’s Office, does the evaluating and vetting of the tens of thousands of courses that course developers and high school teachers submit annually for approval. The office began authorizing new data science courses as meeting or “validating” the content requirements of Algebra II and Integrated III. The validation exemption presumed that the new course would build upon concepts and standards that students had covered in previous courses — in this case, Algebra II — or would be covered in the new course.

    Subsequently, 368 data science and related courses received approval for 2022-23 and 435 for 2023-24. Nearly all use one of a half-dozen or so data science curricula developed for high schools.

    There had been a precedent. As early as 2014, the UC had questionably validated statistics courses as satisfying Algebra II because they cover statistics standards that many Algebra II teachers frequently don’t get to, while not teaching other Algebra II content. However, extending validation to data science is more problematic since California has not established standards for the subject. As a result, there are no guidelines for what standards the courses should be teaching.

    A flaw in implementation or policy?

    In a detailed Nov. 12 letter to UC regents, Jelani Nelson, a professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley and a leading critic of weakening math requirements through course substitution, put the blame not on policy changes but on the course-approval process. An Articulation Unit with a small staff, none of whom had a background in STEM, was overwhelmed, he wrote.

    Others agree. Rick Ford, professor emeritus and former chair of the department of mathematics at CSU Chico, said that what once was a rigorous process for course approval had become a “horrendous” pro-forma exercise, “primarily reliant on the fidelity of submitters” to follow BOARS guidelines.

    The oldest and most popular course, Introduction to Data Science, developed by UCLA statistics professor Robert Gould through funding from the National Science Foundation and used throughout Los Angeles Unified, covered only the statistics standards, not other content in Algebra II. The same was the case with another popular course validated for Algebra II, “Explorations in Data Science,” developed by YouCubed, a Stanford University research center.

    Most students who had taken Introduction to Data Science so far had taken Algebra II, so that was not a problem. But those who took it as juniors in lieu of Algebra II might find the course shut doors instead of opening them. Those who might later decide they want to major in biology, computer science, chemistry, neurology or statistics, all of which require passing Calculus, would find themselves struggling for lack of Algebra II; the CSU, meanwhile, no longer offers remediation courses in math.

    “You’re asking a 14- or 15-year-old kid to make a lifelong decision in the spring of sophomore year,” said Ford, who chaired the influential Academic Preparation and Education Programs Committee of the CSU academic senate. “Watering down content is creating a multitrack system instead of giving all students the greatest chance of success.”

    A backlash followed

    News that UC was approving the substitution of data science for third-year Common Core math frustrated the faculty of CSU, which has relied on BOARS and the UC faculty for policy decisions since the two systems agreed to common course requirements, known as A-G, in 2003. Approving coursework that does not meet Common Core standards “brought to light the complete lack of control that the CSU has over the A-G high school requirements that are used for admission to our system,” the CSU senate stated in a January resolution. It called for the academic senates of both systems “to explore establishing joint decision-making” over new courses and changes to the A-G standards.

    In July, during the lead-up to the anticipated approval of the final version of the updated California Math Framework by the State Board of Education, tensions came to a head. Thousands of STEM professionals and UC and CSU faculty had signed petitions sharply criticizing earlier drafts of the math guidelines. The proposed framework had discouraged districts from offering Algebra I in eighth grade, compounding the challenge of taking Calculus before high school graduation, while encouraging students to take data science over STEM professions that were described as less interesting and collaborative. One of the five authors of the drafts was Jo Boaler, a prominent professor of mathematics education at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and co-founder of YouCubed.

    In the framework it adopted in July, the State Board of Education left it to districts to decide who should take Algebra in the eighth grade. The final version revised language conflating courses in data literacy, which all 21st-century students need, with math-intensive data science courses that, together with Calculus, would prepare students for a data science major in college. It also dropped a new third pathway for data science next to the traditional pathway leading to Calculus. 

    But the final framework hasn’t fully mollified critics, including Elizabeth Statmore, a math teacher at Lowell High in San Francisco and former software executive.

    “By encouraging students to abandon algebra before they’ve solidified their understanding, the (framework) makes it even more difficult for them to get back on that track — even more so now that our community colleges and CSUs have done away with remedial courses,” she wrote in an email. 

    “The only way we’re going to diversify STEM fields is to keep historically excluded young students on the algebraic thinking pathway just a little bit longer. That will give them the mathematical competencies they will need to make their own decisions about whether or not they want to pursue rigorous quantitative majors and careers.”

    Feeling the heat, BOARS hastily reversed positions on July 7 — days before the State Board meeting — revoking validation for meeting Algebra II requirements for all data science courses. And, in a letter to the State Board, BOARS Chair Barbara Knowlton requested wording changes to the proposed framework, which the board did, including deleting a diagram that showed data science as an option to sub for Algebra II.   

    “The data science courses that have to date been approved by UCOP’s high school articulation team appear not to have been designed as third- or fourth-year mathematics courses,” wrote Knowlton, a professor of psychology at UCLA.

    Ten days later, BOARS met again and clarified that there might be some exceptions for granting validation to those data science courses with “a prerequisite mastery of Algebra II content.” It also reiterated that the revocation of A-G credit would exempt students who are currently taking data science courses, with credit for Algebra II, or who had taken data science courses in past years.  

    “It’s been unfortunate that UC’s process of determining the rules has caused far more confusion than was needed,” said Burdman, the executive director of Just Equations.

    The minutes of the meeting revealed that BOARS members professed they didn’t know how the articulation unit in the President’s Office determined if courses could be substituted. Nor could they determine how many data science courses were designated as advanced math. The President’s Office said about 400 data science courses were being taught in California high schools.

    The minutes said that BOARS would appoint a working group, including professors of computer science, neuroscience, statistics and math, to clarify how to enforce the July 7 revocation vote, incorporate Algebra II as a course prerequisite, and determine the criteria for course validation.

    BOARS, whose meetings are not public,  hasn’t disclosed who’s in the group, although it includes no CSU faculty. The group has been meeting ahead of a December deadline so that BOARS can review and take action in January; only then will its recommendations be made public, Knowlton said in an interview. 

    There’s pressure to complete work in time for the next course cycle for the fall of 2024, starting in February, so that applicants know the new rules. “There is a concern among some people that if we don’t send this message quickly, there will be a proliferation of these courses,” she said.

    Knowlton hopes the work group will identify elements of algebra that are critical for student success and evaluate courses to see which ones don’t cover them. 

    “Some validated courses may leave out really very important foundational aspects of math, and we want to reiterate what those are,” she said. Course developers could choose to add concepts to qualify for validation for Algebra II; that’s what the developers of financial math have done. Or instead, they could offer courses like data science as advanced math in the fourth year of high school, with a prerequisite of Algebra II.

    Knowlton said BOARS is committed to equity in college admissions. But the challenge is balancing access and preparation, she said. “We want as much access as possible, yet it has to mean that students are prepared.”

    But Aly Martinez, the former math coordinator for San Diego Unified, is worried that efforts to create innovative and rigorous courses in data science and statistics will be swept aside if BOARS applies restrictions too broadly.

    After surveying students about their math interests, the district worked with the creators of CourseKata to turn its college statistics and data science course into two-year high school courses incorporating Algebra II standards and college and career pathway requirements. The courses can lead to Calculus for STEM majors; others can apply the knowledge to social science and other majors. The first-year course is popular and should be validated as satisfying Algebra II, she said.

    “There is momentum and excitement about this work,” said Martinez, who is now the director of math for the nonprofit Student Achievement Partners. “Those who are innovative should not be the ones getting hurt.”

    A fresh look at standards

    The second committee commissioned will take a broader and longer view of math content. Its members will include math professors from the CSU and community colleges, as well as UC, as a math subcommittee of a joint faculty body, the Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates.

    Kate Stevenson, a math professor at CSU Northridge and member of the new workgroup, said, “It’s not our goal to rewrite the standards, but to emphasize what parts of the standards are really critical to all students’ success and which are critical to life sciences as opposed to engineers, physicists and chemists.”

    The committee will probably not recommend dropping math standards but could look at reorganizing or de-emphasizing them, she said.

    Few Algebra II teachers find time for statistics standards, she said. “So what would a third year look like with a better balance between statistics and algebraic skills? Could we repeat less of Algebra I if we did the integrated pathway?”  she asked. “Or what parts of the algebra curriculum could really belong in Pre-calculus rather than in Algebra II?”

    Although it is not the role of the committee, Stevenson said she thinks the Common Core standards deserve revisiting. “It’s not that I don’t like the standards. But it’s very unlikely the mathematics that we agreed to in 2013 is the mathematics that we think students should have in 2030.”

    Clarification: The article was updated Dec. 15 with the exact number of data science courses that the Articulation Unit of the UC Office of the President approved for 2022 and 2023; they were fewer than the article had implied.





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