Legislation that calls for providing all state teachers and aides with math and reading training passed its first legislative hurdle despite the uncertainty of funding and the skepticism of advocates for English learners who dislike the bill’s nod to instruction in the “science of reading,” including phonics.
Senate Bill 1115 has no secure source of money heading into a tight fiscal year, with Gov. Gavin Newsom all but ruling out money for new programs. His January budget includes $20 million for a designated county office to train coaches who would then train their own teachers in what they learned.
Neither the bill’s author, Sen. Monique Limon, D-Santa Barbara, nor its sponsor, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, offered a cost estimate at a hearing of the Senate Education Committee last Wednesday, though it would cost at least hundreds of millions of dollars to train 300,000 teachers. They said they were willing to phase in and focus funding, such as concentrating on early literacy and numeracy skills, and to look for federal and dedicated sources of money.
Thurmond said training teachers to enable all students to read effectively “is an issue of moral clarity.” Neither he nor Limon offered a cost estimate that could run into hundreds of millions of dollars.
“In an age when we have access to substantial brain science about how students learn, it should be unacceptable to train only some educators in the best strategies to teach essential skills,” he said.
School districts have received billions of dollars between federal and state Covid relief funding, including money to address learning loss — money that could be used for teacher training — but none of that has been earmarked for that purpose.
State budgets have set aside $50 million to hire and train reading teachers in the most impoverished 5% of schools. But Thurmond said training of trainers, however, does not substitute for providing sufficient funding to ensure training for all teachers and support staff in “high-quality” programs in math and literacy.
The bill calls for the Department of Education to identify and recommend those high-quality programs by Jan. 1, 2026. For transitional kindergarten through sixth grade, those should align with “the science of reading” by focusing on results-driven methods of teaching, which may include, but is not limited to, offerings such as Lexia LETRS and CORE Learning.”
Singling out those specific trainings in the bill were red flags for two nonprofits that advocate for English learners: Californians Together and California Association of Bilingual Educators (CABE). The science of reading refers to research from multiple fields of science that confirm or discount theories on how children learn to read. LETRS and CORE Learning are intensive programs that explain a systematic approach to teaching phonics and other elements of reading consistent with the science of reading.
Californians Together and CABE, however, complain that those programs overemphasize phonics and “structured literacy” at the expense of English learners’ need for more attention to oral language and vocabulary development.
Calling Californians Together’s position on the bill a “tweener,” legislative advocate Cristina Salazar testified at a hearing last week, “We agree that we need more professional learning for educators, but we do have concerns with the bill. Specifically, it mentioned the science of reading, and it also names commercial programs.”
CABE legislative advocate Jennifer Bakers said her organization shares the same concerns and “hopes to have a collaborative conversation about a path to move forward.”
Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Boch, R-Yucaipa, asked Thurmond whether the intent is to train existing teachers in the new standards that new teachers will be trained on.
“Yes, that is correct,” Thurmond said.
Opposition from Californians Together and CABE this month factored into the quashing of a bill that would have required school districts and charter schools to train all TK to fifth-grade teachers and literacy coaches in instruction based on the science of reading and to buy textbooks from a list endorsed by the State Board of Education. Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Salinas, ordered Assembly Bill 2222 shelved without a hearing to give time for negotiations with opponents, including the California Teachers Association.
At the hearing, Thurmond acknowledged similarities between the two bills, although AB 2222 would have been a mandate, while AB 1115 would recommend the selection of trainings.
Along with mandating the science of reading approach to instruction, AB 2222 would have required that all TK to fifth-grade teachers, literacy coaches and specialists take a 30-hour minimum course in reading instruction by 2028. School districts and charter schools would purchase textbooks from an approved list endorsed by the State Board of Education.
Thurmond said the language of AB 1115 is well balanced in that it refers to both the science of reading and the state’s English Language Arts/English Language Development framework, which includes multiple strategies necessary for all students, including English learners, to learn how to read.
New math framework
July will mark a year since the State Board of Education adopted a revised California Mathematics Framework, which took four years and three revisions to pass. The drafters and supporters agree that the framework, with emphasis on tangible applications of math, as well as a deeper conceptual understanding of it, will require a shift in teaching and extensive training. But no significant money has been allocated yet, and the process of reviewing textbooks and materials has yet to begin.
In an interview, Limon said it is important to raise the issue of teacher training now, even if legislation is tied to a future appropriation.
Part of the public debate in committing public dollars should be, What would the program look like, and how will it serve diverse students? she said. “There is value to that discussion,” she said. Before her election to the Legislature, Limon served for six years on the Santa Barbara Unified school board.
In 2022-23, only 46.7% of California students met grade standards on the state’s English language arts test; the percentages were 36.6% for Hispanic, 29.9% for Black, and 35.3% for economically disadvantaged students. The scores were worse in math: 34.5% of students overall, with 22.7% of Latino, 16.9% of Black, and 22.9% of economically disadvantaged students meeting standards.
Gov. Gavin Newsom unveils his revised 2024-25 state budget during a news conference in Sacramento on May 10, 2024.
Credit: AP Photo / Rich Pedroncelli
Despite a further deterioration in state revenues, Gov. Gavin Newsom again pledged Friday to protect ongoing funding and the large-scale initiatives for TK-12 schools that he has set in motion.
“I just don’t want to see education cuts,” Newsom said during a news conference on the revision to the proposed 2024-25 state budget he presented in January. “Right now, I want to see us preserve the progress we have made on community schools, on preschool, on after-school-for-all, summer school — all the work we’ve been doing.”
Newsom’s comment during a two-hour session with reporters reflected the challenge of writing annual budgets subject to volatile revenue fluctuations dependent on the incomes of the top 1% of earners. Receipts from capital gains taxes that soared to $349 billion in 2021-22 dropped to $137 billion in 2023-24. The current fiscal year ends June 30.
As a result of the projected shortfall, other state operations could face additional cuts. Newsom didn’t make the same promise he made for schools to higher education, leaving California State University system officials on edge. In a statement, CSU Chancellor Mildred Garcia said she was “deeply concerned” about a revised state budget that would grant no increase next year, then a 2% increase in 2025-26, instead of a 10% increase over two years as promised in January.
“As the institution that educates the evolving workforce of California, this budget places us in a position of making difficult decisions,” Garcia said.
It was not clear whether the University of California would face similar cuts, although Newsom typically treats both systems similarly. UC officials would not comment on the issue. In a statement Friday, UC President Michael Drake said that the system is hoping to “finalize a budget that sustains the University’s research, public service, and education mission.”
The summary of revenue reductions and spending cuts Newsom released lacked the details that usually accompany a May budget revision; however, more information is expected by Tuesday, the deadline for statutory budget language.
Some TK-12 advocates expressed relief, nonetheless.
“Given the magnitude of the fiscal crisis, that the governor could put together a budget that largely protects K-12 is remarkable,” said education consultant Kevin Gordon,president of Capitol Advisors.
Derick Lennox, senior director of governmental relations and legal affairs with the California County Superintendents, was more cautious. “We can appreciate the governor’s commitment to hold schools harmless to the extent he can, but so much will all depend on the details for Proposition 98 and what is available,” he said, referring to the portion of the general fund that determines funding for TK-12 schools and community colleges.
Newsom said general fund revenues were expected to decline an additional $7 billion for a total of $27.6 billion for the three-year period from 2022-23 through 2024-25. The total deficit would be nearly twice as big, but the Legislature has made a combination of cuts, savings, and deferred spending since January.
The shortfall for TK-12 and community colleges, due to lower Proposition 98 funding, would be about $4.2 billion. Although details are scant, Newsom would make up for it mostly by emptying nearly all the remaining $9 billion rainy day fund for schools and community colleges.
Newsom said the average TK-12 per-student funding for 2024-25 would be $17,502 — $151 per student less than proposed in January. Despite that, funding would include a 1% cost of living increase, a smidge higher than in January.
The May revision lists about $1 billion in cuts for early education through high school. Most of the programs are funded by the general fund, not Proposition 98. It would preserve ongoing funding for the expanded transitional kindergarten program for 4-year-olds and long-awaited pay raises for child care providers.
Cuts would include:
$425 million to the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative out of a $4 billion investment, which Newsom said would reflect directing more funding to wellness centers at school sites. Carl Pinkston of the Black Parallel School Board expressed concern. “In the aftermath of the pandemic, many students continue to display signs of trauma, adversely affecting their academic performance and overall well-being,” he said. The initiative “is a critical program that champions equity, aiming to improve behavioral health outcomes for children and youth.”
Delayed funding for additional slots for state-funded child care. Instead of funding 146,000 as planned, the state will continue funding 119,000 new slots funded so far. “Delaying access to child care for the next two years to our youngest Californians is deeply troubling,” said Mary Ignatius, executive director of Parent Voices CA, an advocacy group. “Their childhoods do not pause. Their undiagnosed speech or other developmental delays will make it harder for them two years from now.”
Elimination of $550 million in facilities funding forpreschools, transitional kindergarten and full-day kindergarten programs. Newsom suggested funding could be included in a statewide school facilities bond. He said Friday that negotiations were continuing with legislative leaders for a bond on the statewide ballot in November.
A cut of $60.2 million to the Golden State Teacher Grant Program, which pays up to $20,000 to teacher candidates enrolled in credential programs who commit to working for years in priority schools.
Elimination of $48 million in 2025-26 and $98 million in 2026-27 for increased payments for state preschools that serve additional students with disabilities.
A cut of all but $100 million in ongoing funding for the Middle Class Scholarship Program, which previously received more than $600 million annually. In past years, more than 300,000 students across UC and CSU have received scholarships, which are available to students whose families earn up to $217,000.
Criticism of a key fix to the shortfall
Newsom’s solution for minimizing cuts to schools and community colleges would rely on a controversial maneuver. He would fill in the biggest piece of the shortfall — $8 billion in an unanticipated drop in Proposition 98 revenue in 2022-23 — by treating it as an overpayment of the state’s funding obligation. Since schools and community colleges have already spent the money, he’d fill in the gap by cutting the general fund — but not until 2028-29, when the state’s revenue picture presumably would have improved. Since Newsom announced the idea in January, the repayment obligation has grown to $8.8 billion.
An accounting move of that magnitude hasn‘t been done before. The Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) has questioned the tactic, and so did the California School Boards Association in a statement Friday in which it implied it might sue.
The association’s logic reflects the complexity of the Proposition 98 formula for determining funding. The school boards association asserts that the 2022-23 funding level was not a voluntary overpayment but rather a constitutional obligation on which subsequent years’ levels of funding are set.
“This accounting gimmick would lower the baseline for calculating education funding in subsequent years, subjecting California schools to lower revenue for the foreseeable future,” school boards association President Albert Gonzalez said. “This sets a terrible precedent that potentially destabilizes education funding and undermines the voters’ intent when they passed Proposition 98 more than 35 years ago.”
The California Department of Finance has insisted that the solution is legal. However, on Friday, Newsom did acknowledge that Proposition 98 is complicated.
“You need not only a Ph.D., but a physics degree, an engineering degree and everything else to unpack its complexities,” he said.
Thomas Edsall writes a regular feature for The New York Times. In this stunning article, he recounts the views of numerous scholars about what Trump has done since his Inauguration.
This is a gift article, meaning you can open the link and finish reading the article, which is usually behind a paywall.
Edsall writes:
One thing stands out amid all the chaos, corruption and disorder: the wanton destructiveness of the Trump presidency.
The targets of President Trump’s assaults include the law, higher education, medical research, ethical standards, America’s foreign alliances, free speech, the civil service, religion, the media and much more.
J. Michael Luttig, a former federal appeals court judge appointed by President George H.W. Bush, succinctly described his own view of the Trump presidency, writing by email that there had never
been a U.S. president who I consider even to have been destructive, let alone a president who has intentionally and deliberately set out to destroy literally every institution in America, up to and including American democracy and the rule of law. I even believe he is destroying the American presidency, though I would not say that is intentional and deliberate.
Some of the damage Trump has inflicted can be repaired by future administrations, but repairing relations with American allies, the restoration of lost government expertise and a return to productive research may take years, even with a new and determined president and Congress.
“This is going to completely kneecap biomedical research in this country,” Jennifer Zeitzer, the deputy executive director at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, told Science magazine. Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, warned that cuts will “totally destroy the nation’s public health infrastructure.”
I asked scholars of the presidency to evaluate the scope of Trump’s wreckage. “The gutting of expertise and experience going on right now under the blatantly false pretext of eliminating fraud and waste,” Sean Wilentz, a professor of history at Princeton, wrote by email, “is catastrophic and may never be completely repaired.”
I asked Wilentz whether Trump was unique in terms of his destructiveness or if there were presidential precedents. Wilentz replied:
There is no precedent, not even close, unless you consider Jefferson Davis an American president. Even to raise the question, with all due respect, is to minimize the crisis we’re in and the scope of Trump et al.’s. intentions.
Another question: Was Trump re-elected to promote an agenda of wreaking havoc, or is he pursuing an elitist right-wing program created by conservative ideologues who saw in Trump’s election the opportunity to pursue their goals?
Wilentz’s reply:
Trump’s closest allies intended chaos wrought by destruction which helps advance the elite reactionary programs. Chaos allows Trump to expand his governing by emergency powers, which could well include the imposition of martial law, if he so chose.
I asked Andrew Rudalevige, a political scientist at Bowdoin, how permanent the mayhem Trump has inflicted may prove to be. “Not to be flip,” Rudalevige replied by email, “but for children abroad denied food or lifesaving medicine because of arbitrary aid cuts, the answer is already distressingly permanent.”
From a broader perspective, Rudalevige wrote:
The damage caused to governmental expertise and simple competence could be long lasting. Firing probationary workers en masse may reduce the government employment head count, slightly, but it also purged those most likely to bring the freshest view and most up-to-date skills to government service, while souring them on that service. And norms of nonpoliticization in government service have taken a huge hit.
I sent the question I posed to Wilentz to other scholars of the presidency. It produced a wide variety of answers. Here is Rudalevige’s:
The comp that comes to mind is Andrew Johnson. It’s hardly guaranteed that Reconstruction after the Civil War would have succeeded even under Lincoln’s leadership. But Johnson took action after action designed to prevent racial reconciliation and economic opportunity, from vetoing key legislation to refusing to prevent mob violence against Blacks to pardoning former members of the Confederacy hierarchy. He affirmatively made government work worse and to prevent it from treating its citizens equally.
Another question: How much is Trump’s second-term agenda the invention of conservative elites, and how much is it a response to the demands of Trump’s MAGA supporters?
“Trump is not at all an unwitting victim,” Rudalevige wrote, “but those around him with wider and more systemic goals have more authority and are better organized in pursuit of those goals than they were in the first term.”
In this context, Rudalevige continued, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025
was not just a campaign manifesto but a bulwark against the inconsistency and individualism its authors thought had undermined the effectiveness of Trump’s first term. It was an insurance policy to secure the administrative state for conservative thought and yoke it to a cause beyond Trump or even Trumpism.
The alliance with Trump was a marriage of convenience — and the Trump legacy when it comes to staffing the White House and executive branch is a somewhat ironic one, as an unwitting vehicle for an agenda that goes far beyond the personalization of the presidency.
In the past, when presidential power has expanded, Rudalevige argued,
it has been in response to crisis: the Civil War, World War I, the Depression and World War II, 9/11. But no similar objective crisis faced us. So one had to be declared — via proclamations of “invasion” and the like — or even created. In the ensuing crisis more power may be delegated by Congress. But the analogue is something like an arsonist who rushes to put out the fire he started.
One widely shared view among those I queried is that Trump has severely damaged America’s relations with traditional allies everywhere.
Mara Rudman, a professor at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, wrote in an email:
The most lasting impact of this term will be felt in the damage done to the reputation of the United States as a safe harbor where the rule of law is king and where the Constitution is as sacred a national document as any country has developed.
Through his utter disregard for the law, Trump has shown both how precious and how fragile are the rules that undergird our institutions, our economic and national security and the foundation for our democracy.
To finish this excellent article, please open the link.
Zaida Ramos first learned the magic of mariachi from her father when she was a little girl. Now they make music together, running the bilingual music program for San Jose’s Alum Rock Union School District.
Her father, Juan, is the maestro, the music director. She’s the program director. The father and daughter duo collaborate to share the culture and heritage of mariachi music with their students. The Ramos clan has been teaching children music for more than two decades. It’s a veritable family business.
“Mariachi is how I grew up. In my family, we were always singing,” said Ramos, a vocalist who also plays the violin. “It’s so fulfilling for us, so rewarding, to share mariachi with the families and with the whole community. Everybody is part of the performance because everybody’s connected to these songs, you know? Many times you’ll hear the audience sing along, they laugh, they cry. It resonates with everybody in some way, it’s their story.”
Students from third to eighth grade gather after school and during the summer to steep in the folkloric music of the southwest region of Mexico, a musical tradition marked by stringed instruments, strolling musicians clad in intricately embroidered costumes and a distinctive yell known as a “grito.” The youngsters in this program learn how to play instruments, including the guitarron, guitar, vihuela, violin, and the trumpet and to sing, art forms that require equal parts creativity and discipline. They also learn the beauty and fluidity of ballet folklorico.
“I am really driven by the ideal of a free and public education, and the arts need to be part of that,” said Sofia Fojas, arts coordinator for the Santa Clara County Office of Education. “Music and the arts are part of being human. It’s a universal language, a way to bridge the different cultures we see in the classroom in California. It’s really about the importance of arts and culture and engaging youth who traditionally have not had access.”
Credit: Allie Palomera from SCCOE
Through the study of mariachi, children from this predominantly Latino district learn that music is more than sound. It’s also about identity, history and culture. Mariachi contains myriad meanings because there is great nuance and complexity embedded in its notes. While the melodies evoke Mexican heritage, with roots deep in the country’s colonial period, many of the themes are also universal.
“I believe that by embracing our cultural heritage and sharing our stories through music, we can inspire positive change and create a more harmonious society,” said Guillermo Tejeda, a musician who specializes in teaching history, jazz and mariachi to youth. “It’s incredibly rewarding to see how music can empower and inspire young people in our community.”
Carrying this rich artistic tradition into a new generation is part of what drives Ramos. She sees mariachi as a way to connect students to their own unique voice as well as the collective spirit of their community.
“I always tell them, you are ambassadors of your whole community,” said Ramos, who also works in real estate. “Wherever you go, you are not only representing East San Jose, you’re representing a whole culture. You’re representing Mexican culture and you’re representing mariachi. There’s a sense of pride in who you are.”
Struggle is often a part of the stories told in mariachi music. It’s also part of the reality of teaching music in a time of tight budgets and declining enrollment. While Ramos is cheered by how many of her students acquire a lifelong love of music, she wishes she didn’t always have to fight for more funding.
“We need more teachers, we need more instruments, we need more support, we need more time, we need more classes,” said Ramos, “and that all comes down to budgeting. We have lots of requests for the kids to perform and to represent Alum Rock, but if we don’t have the budget to support it, we can’t do it.”
Many arts advocates are hopeful that an infusion of Proposition 28 funding may help bolster projects like the mariachi program, an arts ed program that represents the cultural heritage of the community.
“Culturally relevant curriculum and instruction helps educators build relationships with students by leveraging what they bring to the classroom,” said Letty Kraus, director of the California County Superintendents Statewide Arts Initiative. “It helps ensure relevance and engagement and maximizes inclusivity.”
The braided nature of art, the way it’s tightly interwoven with history and culture over time, gives mariachi its power. Arts education also opens up avenues of opportunity and possibility for students as well as nurturing a sense of belonging, experts say.
“You’re teaching them about their own past,” said Fojas, who taught orchestra, band and mariachi for 20 years. “The majority of students that I taught were of Mexican descent, so when you’re teaching mariachi, you’re actually teaching them about the history of Mexico.”
In a post-pandemic world, when absenteeism and disengagement are running high, the arts can be a path to teach students how to persevere through adversity. Budding musicians must learn how to have the grit to rehearse tirelessly and then perform fearlessly before an audience. Fojas sees arts education as a magnet to draw students back to school.
“Everybody needs to understand the importance of art,” said Fojas. “Arts is culture, and when you deny people arts, you’re denying them culture, and those cultural artifacts are the things we leave behind. So if we deny youth the ability to participate in the arts, we’re denying future generations the ability to see what we’ve left behind.”
Cannabis has been legal in the state of California since 2016. With California universities adopting cannabis courses that allow students to explore all facets of the developing industry, federal roadblocks that restrict what kinds of courses can be offered remain.
What kinds of cannabis courses can California colleges offer?
Since legalization, several of California’s public universities have implemented courses exploring topics of business, law and public policy related to cannabis. However, the question of cultivation courses within agricultural programs remains a complex one.
Cal Poly Humboldt is one of the California universities that spearheaded the jump into cannabis courses after legalization, adding a cannabis studies major program in the fall of 2023. Concentrations under this major include environmental stewardship and equity and social justice.
What are colleges unable to do because of federal law?
Despite the major, neither Cal Poly Humboldt — nor any other plant science department in California colleges — can offer classes in which students handle the plant. Doing so may risk federal student aid, including Pell grants, which support primarily underserved groups like first-generation and minority students.
“Cannabis remains a federally controlled Schedule I substance,” said Dominic Corva, director of cannabis studies at Cal Poly Humboldt. “The lawyers in the Cal State and UC systems, as well as every other university, argue that it’s federally illegal, and students’ federal aid could be in danger if we allow this.”
Corva is the founder of the Interdisciplinary Institute for Marijuana Research at Cal Poly Humboldt; around the time of state legalization, Corva was working with his colleagues to develop a curriculum for a cannabis studies major. This major, explained Corva, falls within the university’s sociology department.
“The main reason I landed in sociology is because the College of Natural Sciences and College of Professional Studies didn’t want anything to do with it,” Corva said. “CNRS literally couldn’t wrap their heads around how to approach cannabis education without actually doing natural science with it. We were operating in an institutional framework where it was close to impossible for it to happen in any other kind of department.”
This raises the question of whether cannabis cultivation courses will ever fall within plant science and agricultural departments at universities.
UC Davis, which is ranked No. 1 in the nation for agriculture, doesn’t offer any related courses, Gail Taylor, department chair of plant sciences, said.
“We have run a seminar course on cannabis in the past with invited speakers but have nothing on the books at the moment. We have run a professional short course on hemp, too,” Taylor said.
However, general plant science courses may provide students interested in cannabis cultivation with knowledge they need for a future career in the industry.
“Most of the ‘plant sciences’ majors are relevant to cannabis production,” Taylor said. Courses offered may help by “providing generic knowledge that the graduating students can take into multiple industries.”
Scott Steinmaus is a professor and the department head of plant sciences at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. As a plant science professor, he said that his plant physiology courses are applicable to a range of plants, including cannabis.
“Plant growth is essentially determined by photosynthesis, and all plants photosynthesize with the same enzymes, with a few nuances that are quite easy to figure out,” Steinmaus said. “We provide our students the resources and experiences to understand how to best grow plants, no matter what those plants are; whether it’s tomatoes, strawberries, grapes, avocados or cannabis.”
In his plant physiology classes, Steinmaus sometimes uses cannabis in examples, although without physically handling the plant.
“The compliance requirements for cultivation and sales of cannabis products are very stringent,” Steinmaus said of state regulations. “We currently do not offer courses where cannabis plants are grown on campus because of the compliance restrictions and that it is not federally legal. That doesn’t mean we couldn’t do so in the future when it does become legal at the federal level.”
What about hemp?
Similar roadblocks exist for the cultivation of hemp, a closely related plant that is legal because it contains less than 3% tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive compound in cannabis.
Several public institutions of higher learning in the United States, including Santa Rosa Junior College, offer hemp-growing courses. However, these courses are touchy for universities to offer because of compliance regulations.
The 2018 federal farm bill clarified that while hemp and its derivatives are no longer considered Schedule I controlled substances, institutions that offer hemp courses must apply for a hemp research license through the state.
At Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Steinmaus said the university doesn’t offer hemp courses yet.
In the future, if universities were able to legally offer cannabis cultivation courses as well, these would look different depending on the school and where it is in the state, Corva said.
“I know that here at Cal Poly Humboldt, it will probably look a lot more like regenerative agricultural program, where students are learning about how to be sustainable with their cannabis,” Corva said. “That’s way off, even if we’re allowed to do it, because there continue to be a lot of firewalls between the industry, state and federal laws.”
Addressing and preventing sex discrimination and sexual harassment on college campuses continues to be one of the most foundational challenges to improving campus climate at higher education institutions in our country.
In the fall of 2021, as the Biden-Harris administration began its reexamination of Title IX, the federal regulation that prohibits discrimination based on sex in education, the Assembly Higher Education Committee also began its own reexamination of California’s policies to address and prevent sex discrimination and sexual harassment in higher education.
Three years later, the Higher Education Committee released a 30-plus page report that revealed we are not doing nearly enough to support our public higher education institutions to create an inclusive and safe campus culture for our students, faculty and staff.
While each public higher education institution does have a nondiscrimination policy in place, it is clear that our campus communities do not trust these institutions to prevent nor properly handle sex discrimination and sexual harassment on campus. According to interviews conducted by the committee and various surveys of students and faculty, campus communities feel that current policy focuses on protecting higher education institutions and not survivors of sexual discrimination and harassment.
It is the responsibility of campus leadership to provide our students with a safe and inclusive environment; however, the Legislature also has a responsibility to support our institutions in that mission, and to hold them accountable if they fall short.
My bills, Assembly Bill (AB) 2047 and AB 2048 are a necessary step that the Legislature must take in order to support California’s higher education institutions and its campus communities.
These two bills are a part of an ambitious, 12-bill legislative package, authored by myself and seven of my legislative colleagues, and predominantly based on recommendations from the committee’s report.
The package as a whole is imperative in order to foster cultural change, accountability and trust at our higher education institutions. AB 2047 and AB 2048 focus on shifting campus culture and renewing trust.
AB 2047 will establish an independent systemwide Title IX office to assist with monitoring compliance throughout all three of California’s higher education segments, and AB 2048 will establish an independent Title IX office on each California State University and University of California campus, and in each community college district.
These offices, both on campus and at the systemwide level, will provide supportive measures to survivors of sexual harassment and discrimination and adjudicate cases in a clear and transparent manner. Furthermore, these bills will work in tandem with the overall legislative package to provide reporting measures to ensure the higher education institutions are preventing and addressing cases of sex discrimination.
The importance of creating an identifiable authority that will properly adjudicate cases of sex discrimination and implement preventative measures cannot be minimized. These bills will renew community trust in our public institutions and establish a campus culture primed to detect, prevent and address all forms of sex discrimination and harassment with supportive measures and restorative justice.
AB 2047 and AB 2048 will provide substantial change for survivors of sexual harassment, but they will also result in substantial monetary cost from the state’s general fund, possibly costing millions of dollars, in order to establish and staff these offices.
As we are confronted with a significant budget deficit this year, difficult policy decisions will be made, but these bills should be a priority for the Legislature.
Fundamental change is costly, and as we assess the true costs of these bills and the impact they will have on our state, we must also not forget to consider the cost of doing nothing: the human cost of students who do not feel safe at these institutions and may not be able to experience all that higher education has to offer. The cost of those who carry invisible wounds and do not achieve their full educational potential.
I am a firm believer in the power and promise of higher education and its ability to transform lives and communities. No student should be deprived of that power and promise due to sex discrimination or sexual harassment.
We are falling short of our responsibility to these campus communities by further allowing this status quo of handling complaints through costly monetary settlements and lawsuits to remain.
We cannot let this continue.
•••
Mike Fong (D-Alhambra) represents California’s 49th Assembly District and serves as chair of the Assembly Higher Education Committee.
The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
Credit: Allison Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for EDUimages
This is the first in a series of stories on how inadequate staffing may be impeding California’s efforts tooffer high-quality instruction to all 4-year-olds by 2025.
Several California school districts and charter schools have been fined for violating state guidelines on average class size and/or staffing ratios in transitional kindergarten, a grade level that has been expanding to include all 4-year-olds by 2025.
Through its universal pre-kindergarten initiative, the state intends to offer high-quality instruction to all 4-year-olds through TK, an additional year of public education prior to kindergarten. To do so, California has implemented legislation placing requirements on transitional kindergarten and adding fiscal penalties for noncompliance. State-set TK guidelines require classes to maintain an average student enrollment of 24 kids and to use a 1:12 adult-to-student ratio.
Here are the highlights from audit reports from the 2022-23 school year, the first school year since the state added the fiscal penalties for TK requirements:
Ten school districts and 22 charter schools were not compliant with the required average class size of not more than 24 students, resulting in fines ranging from $1,706 to more than $6.9 million.
Seven school districts and 16 charter schools will pay between $2,813 and over $1.1 million for failure to meet the 1:12 adult-to-student ratio for TK classes.
Three school districts and 12 charter schools were out of compliance in both class size and adult-to-child ratio.
District audits review compliance with a sample of schools.
Based on the audit reports released to EdSource, the nationwide teacher shortage seems to be a leading reason for districts being out of compliance.
While most districts blame the national staffing shortage, some districts are critical of the California Department of Education for not clearly outlining TK requirements as well as for fining districts unfairly.
“It is not typical,” Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said in late January when the district released its audit findings at a board meeting. “It does not make sense.”
The following districts and charters have been named as noncompliant, and fiscal penalties they face:
For going over the 24-student average enrollment
Aspire Port City Academy, a charter and part of Aspire Public Schools: $20,146.42
A charter school under Big Picture Educational Academy: $2,116
Culver City Unified for two of its schools: $125,129
Equitas Academy Charter School for its first and third Equitas Academy schools: $38,504.90
Inglewood Unified for Bennett-Kew Elementary: $335,056
John Adams Academy, the El Dorado Hills campus, which is a charter school: $21,156.60
Seven charter schools in KIPP SoCal Public Schools – KIPP Iluminar Academy, KIPP Comienza Community Prep, KIPP Compton, KIPP Corazon Academy, KIPP Empower Academy, KIPP Ignite and KIPP Vida Preparatory Academy: $87,123.26, in all
Los Angeles Unified for two district schools: $6,963,151.68
Los Angeles Unified charter school, Hesby Oaks Leadership Center: $8,977.26
Los Olivos Unified, a one-school district: $4,488.63
Lowell Joint School District for Macy Elementary and Meadow Green Elementary: $81,051
Monroe Elementary School District, a one-school district: $1,706
A charter in Palm Springs Unified, Cielo Vista Charter School: $21,223
Four charter schools run by Rocketship Education – Rocketship Delta Prep, Rocketship Alma Academy, Rocketship Mateo Sheedy Elementary and Rocketship Spark Academy: $91,688.13, in all
Rowland Unified for Blandford Elementary: $217,351
Scholarship Prep Charter School – Oceanside: $22,833.88
Voices College-Bound Language Academies, charter school campuses in Morgan Hill, Mt. Pleasant and Stockton: $12,846.44
For not meeting 1:12 adult-student ratio
Aromas-San Juan Unified for two of its schools: $154,715
Culver City Unified for two of its schools: $61,886
The same seven charters in KIPP SoCal Public Schools: $167,080.05
Equitas Academy Charter School, Inc. for its first, third, fifth and sixth schools: $142,327.45
A school in Laton Joint Unified, which only has one elementary: $30,943
Los Angeles Unified for 20 district schools: $1,175,824
Los Angeles Unified charters Canyon Charter Elementary and Knollwood Preparatory Academy: $30,943 and $61,886, respectively.
Los Olivos Unified: $2,813
Pomona Unified for Kingsley Elementary, San Jose Elementary, Armstrong Elementary and Philadelphia Elementary: $123,772 with each being penalized $30,943
Two of the four charters fined for average enrollment under Rocketship Education, Rocketship Mateo Sheedy Elementary and Rocketship Spark Academy: $12,376.30, with both being penalized $6,188.15
Sacramento City Unified for Hubert Bancroft Elementary: $53,261
Scholarship Prep Charter School – Oceanside: $12,376.30
Not all the districts, such as Aromas-San Juan Unified, Culver City Unified and LAUSD, disclosed the names of the penalized schools in the audit reports. They are not required to do so.
The school districts and charters will lose funding from the Local Control Funding Formula in the amount of their penalties.
Unlike the other charter schools penalized, those in LAUSD and Palm Springs are operated by their respective school districts, rather than by charter management organizations. The fines received for the charter schools operated by LAUSD and Palm Springs Unified will be paid at the charter school level, not at the district level, according to the California Department of Education (CDE).
Why requirements on TK?
The state Education Department has outlined several benefits of implementing smaller TK class sizes and adult-to-student ratios.
According to the department’s September 2022 TK requirement presentation, more attention and feedback from adults creates more opportunities for student learning and engagement. With a smaller class size, teachers form better relationships with students, and parent participation improves.
The lower adult-to-student ratios, the CDE has said, allow staff to provide individualized instruction as well as supervision at all times. Additional adult support, the department says, leads to increased cognitive and social-emotional development, lower rates of students being placed in special education and teachers experiencing less stress. Plus, the 1:12 ratio is closely aligned with 1:8 staffing practices in early education at licensed child care centers, private preschools and state preschool programs and the 1:10 ratio at Head Start.
Noncompliance brings fiscal penalties
State compliance with TK requirements is verified in a district’s annual audit at the end of the school year. The TK class size requirement is based on the average number of students while the 1:12 staffing ratio is based on the number of district staff dedicated and available to all TK students in each class. The numbers are counted on the last teaching day of each school month before April 15. For most school districts, that is August to March.
How is the penalty determined?
Depending on whether the violation is for average student enrollment or the staffing ratio, penalty calculations consider areas such as base funding, the TK funding rate add-on, average daily attendance and the statewide absence rate.
For average student enrollment violations, the penalty equals the grade span base funding for TK/K-3 multiplied by the Second Principal Apportionment (P-2) for TK Average Daily Attendance (ADA).
For TK staffing ratio violations, the penalty equals the product of:
Additional adults needed
24 reduced by the prior year elementary statewide absence rate
TK add-on funding rate for the school year, which is available online; $2,813 was the funding rate for 2022-23
Some district audits miscalculated the class average or staffing ratio penalties, reducing the expected fines by hundreds of thousands of dollars for some.
Penalty amounts changed from $369,347 to $125,129 for the class average penalty in Culver City Unified; went from $641,561 to $217,351 for the class average penalty in Rowland Unified; changed from $239,133 to $81,051 for the class average penalty in Lowell Joint School District; and decreased from $10,483 to $2,813 for the staffing ratio penalty in Los Olivos School District.
A school district or charter school must maintain an average TK class enrollment of not more than 24 students for each campus. Because the audit considers the number of students each month, it is possible for a school to have a TK class that exceeds the limit for a time and still maintain an average of 24 or less.
For example, Marcella Gutierrez, a Mountain View School District TK teacher, told EdSource that she received her 25th student in February because her class enrollment average was under 24. Based on active enrollment at the end of each month, the number of students in her class was 24 in August and September, 23 in October when a student moved, 23 in November and December and 22 in early January when another student left the program but 24 by the end of the month when two new students joined her class.
With her class average at 23.5, not the 24-student classroom average for TK, the district accepted a 25th student for Gutierrez’s class. The district also added a third aide to meet the 1:12 student-staff ratio, she said.
According to the state Education Department, to be counted in the staffing ratio, the “assigned” adult must be an employee who is dedicated and available to all TK students the entire school day.
The audit selects a representative sample of schools to review compliance. If districts or charter schools are found to have violated the TK guidelines, they will face penalties for each sampled school in violation.
Legislation requires paraprofessionals to work alongside California teachers to lower class sizes and fulfill the 1:12 adult-to-student ratio requirement in TK classes.
According to the audit reports, districts and schools such as Scholarship Prep Charter School in Oceanside, Pomona Unified in eastern Los Angeles County and Culver City Unified, also in Los Angeles County, blame staffing shortages for their inability to comply with state guidelines.
But the staffing shortage isn’t limited to paraprofessionals. Based on state and regional hiring and vacancy data, state legislation has identified TK teachers as a high-need teaching position impacted by the teacher shortage.
Pomona Unified couldn’t maintain its staffing ratio at four schools that each needed the equivalent of 0.5 additional adults.
Culver City Unified was unable to hire enough teachers to stay within the class size enrollment or staffing ratio guidelines, resulting in noncompliance in two classes at two schools.
Even when staffing shortages played a role in noncompliance, some districts faulted the state Education Department.
The seven charter schools in KIPP SoCal Public Schools in Los Angeles that were penalized for being out of compliance for both class average and ratios said the state guidance about the TK program was not clear when their elementary schools planned their instruction and classroom models for the 2022-23 school year. Planning takes place before the school year starts.
Although July 2021 legislation introduced the TK requirements on average class size and staffing ratios, legislation in September 2022 added details to the requirements, at which time KIPP schools had already planned classroom instruction.
Historically, KIPP schools have created combination classes of TK and kindergarten students, with no more than five TK students in the class of 24, supervised by one teacher and an aide.
Because the students are educated in the same space, the TK adult-to-student ratio requirements must apply to all students in the combo class, according to the CDE. The class average has to be at or below 24 and the ratio at 1:12, even though only five TK students are in the class.
Similar to KIPP schools, Monroe Elementary School District in Fresno offered a combo class with TK and kindergarten students, resulting in an average enrollment of 29 kids.
The district acted under the incorrect assumption that the combo class would be considered two separate classes since the TK and kindergarten students had their own teachers. However, the class was considered one class and out of compliance.
KIPP schools have since implemented a monthly process to check student enrollment and ratios and will conduct more frequent audits.
Monroe Elementary School District also agreed to monitor enrollment numbers more closely; the school district will be annexed into Caruthers Unified by next school year.
District leaders called the penalties “egregious.” Los Angeles Unified incurred over $8.1 million in fines for being out of compliance with TK ratios and class size limits.
In the audit sampling of 88 schools, two exceeded the 24-student class size average and 20 did not maintain the 1:12 staffing ratio.
When the district’s audit results were released during a January LAUSD board meeting, district leaders, including Carvalho, said the district will work to ensure compliance but will push against schools incurring fines for lacking one additional adult.
The district received 20 fines, totaling $1,175,824, for not complying with the 1:12 ratio in its district schools, a fine they would have avoided if they had 19 additional adults in the TK classrooms.
“A small variance from the ratio brings about a significant fine,” Carvalho said, calling the penalties unfair and in need of fixing.
The district has already put mechanisms in place to track compliance this school year, including a TK toolkit for school and district administration, distributing specific revisions to TK legislation, and holding meetings with principals in the spring to review guidelines.
The school district will also host biweekly department meetings to monitor classes and have monthly meetings to identify schools that are not compliant with staffing ratios, according to its audit report.
Besides taking corrective action to address compliance with the transitional kindergarten requirement, penalized schools have two other options to respond to audit findings: an appeal or a payment plan. In March, the CDE issued letters to most of the penalized districts and charters asking them to choose what they plan to do.
Existing legislation does not allow districts to avoid penalties.
Under the appeals process, schools can challenge the finding based on “errors of fact or interpretation of law” including incorrect information in the audit findings or in the way the law is applied or interpreted.
They may also appeal on grounds that they were in substantial compliance with the law in which they can argue that, despite minor or unintentional noncompliance, they provided an educational benefit consistent with the purpose of the transitional kindergarten program.
According to CDE spokesperson Scott Roark via email, how soon the penalty is deducted from a district’s funding will depend on whether the school district or charter uses one of the options for resolving audit findings.
A kindergarten teacher helps a girl and boy with a class activity.
Photo by Allison Shelley for EDUimages
Learning the art and skill of effective instruction starts long before a teacher’s first job in the classroom. Aspiring educators begin honing their craft in preparation programs that tie clinical practice to coursework on best teaching methods, including how to teach students to read.
Since 2002, this process has been reinforced in California by an embedded teaching performance assessment (TPA) as a key measure of professional readiness. A TPA directs teacher preparation candidates to provide evidence of their teaching knowledge and skills. This is accomplished through classroom videos, lesson plans, student work, and analysis of teaching and learning for English learners, students with disabilities, and the full range of students they are teaching.
The tasks TPAs require are the core work of teaching. Studies over the last two decades show that TPAs are educative for candidates and predictive of future effectiveness. Furthermore, the feedback they provide focuses educator preparation programs on preparing teachers in ways that are formative and learner-centered.
Thus, it is deeply concerning to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) and many in the field that this rich measure of teacher preparation would be eliminated with the passage of Senate Bill 1263, which would repeal all requirements relating to teaching performance assessments, including that future teachers demonstrate their readiness to teach reading.
The TPA is California’s only remaining required measure of whether a prospective teacher is ready to teach prior to earning a credential. All other exam requirements for a teaching credential have been modified by the Legislature to allow multiple ways for future teachers to demonstrate basic skills and subject matter competence. These legislative actions have been supported in large part by the requirement that student teachers complete a TPA to earn a credential.
Elimination of the TPA would leave California with no consistent standard for ensuring that all teachers are ready to teach before entering our classrooms. We would join only a handful of states that have no capstone assessment for entry into teaching. Passage of SB 1263 would also result in the state losing a key indicator of how well educator preparation programs are preparing a diverse and effective teaching force.
In 2021, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 488, which revamped how teacher preparation programs will instruct candidates to teach reading. As a result, the Reading Instruction Competence Assessment (RICA) is slated to be replaced by a newly designed literacy performance assessment currently being piloted for incorporation into the TPA by July 1, 2025.
Participant feedback on the new literacy performance assessment (LPA) piloted this spring is optimistic. One teaching candidate shared that the LPA “was a vital learning experience when it comes to implementing foundational literacy instruction with young learners. I enjoyed that it’s a more hands-on experience for the students to be engaged and promotes full participation of the student and teacher.” A teacher said that the LPA “provided multiple opportunities for my candidate to reflect and observe exceptional moments as well as missed opportunities in the lesson. It encouraged conversations about how to implement direct, explicit instruction.” A university faculty member observed that the LPA pilot “has been a learning experience for the candidates and the program. … It shows what we are doing well and what other areas we need to create or enhance to support our candidates’ knowledge and skills in teaching literacy.”
If the TPA and RICA are eliminated, California will no longer have an assessment of new teachers’ capacity to teach reading, and we will have lost a valuable tool that can inform programs about how they can improve.
Recent Learning Policy Institute research demonstrates that TPA scores reflect the quality of teacher preparation candidates have received in terms of clinical support and preparation to teach reading and math (for elementary and special education candidates). Most programs support their candidates well. The study found that nearly two-thirds of teacher preparation programs had more than 90% of their candidates pass a TPA and showed no significant differences in passing rates by race and ethnicity.
As Aaron Davis, teacher induction director at William S. Hart Union High School District in Santa Clarita noted, “The TPA serves a very necessary purpose in creating a sound foundation for which a new teacher’s practice can grow with the mindset of having a positive impact on every student.” While the TPA requires time and effort to implement, it ensures that new teachers are prepared to start their career as an educator on day one, he said.
While the pandemic made it challenging to administer TPAs, most programs now ensure that more than 90% of candidates pass the TPA. The CTC is working with the small number of programs that struggle to adequately support their candidates.
The elimination of TPAs would unravel decades of progress to focus teacher education on clinical practice and ensure programs consistently meet standards for preparing teachers who are ready to teach.
Rather than eliminate the last common measure of an aspiring teacher’s preparedness, we recommend the Legislature uphold the future of a well-prepared teacher workforce by supporting the commission’s commitment to continuously review and update the TPA and to work to support program improvement. Doing so will maintain the quality and effectiveness of new teachers as they embark on their journey to provide the most effective and equitable learning experiences for all students.
•••
Marquita Grenot-Scheyer is chair of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing and professor emeritus in the College of Education at California State University, Long Beach.
Mary Vixie Sandy is executive director of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, an agency that awards over 250,000 credential documents per year and accredits more than 250 colleges, universities, and local education agencies offering educator preparation programs.
The opinions in this commentary are those of the authors. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
A student holds a flash card with the sight word ‘friend’ during a class at Nystrom Elementary in the West Contra Costa Unified School District in 2022.
Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource
The “science of reading” confuses and confounds many of us. It’s understandable. There is much misleading and outright false information floating around.
On one hand, too many science of reading advocates claim an unwarranted degree of certainty, for example, that we know from the science how to get 95% of all students on grade level. Vague and unhelpful definitions make matters worse. I’ve even heard advocates say we should treat all children as if they were dyslexic, a claim for which there is zero evidence.
On the other hand, science of reading skeptics spread mischaracterizations and outright fictions. An egregious example was a recent California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE) webinar intended to “debunk” the brain science behind the science of reading by claiming that a key tool used to study the brain (functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI) could not detect brain activity that involved meaning or comprehension. The world’s foremost reading neuroscientist debunked the would-be debunker by pointing out that 20 years of research have shown that writing and speaking “activate extremely similar brain circuits for meaning.“
How can we ever make progress when we’re locked in an eternal game of whack-a-false-mole?
We can all agree learning to read is complicated, and so is the teaching. But there are also a few straightforward and irrefutable findings from research that should constitute the foundations for reading policies. This is particularly important for the students who are most harmed when we fail to use the best knowledge available: low-income students and students who have difficulty learning to read.
Learning to speak and understand oral language is fundamentally different from learning to read and write. A first language is typically acquired effortlessly if we’re with people who speak it. Learning to read requires explicit teaching to one degree or another.
Oral language is foundational to reading, because reading requires visually accessing the oral language centers in our brains. Our brain is prepared from birth to make sense of what we hear when people talk, but to read we must learn how to see written language (print), connect it to oral language, and then make sense of it. Neuroscientists have identified the transformation of brain centers and the development of neural pathways that enable an individual to connect print to speech and speech to print.
Without those connections, literacy is difficult, if not impossible. Foundational literacy skills — usually called “phonics” or “decoding” — are essential for connecting spoken English to written English. Teaching these skills is “nonnegotiable,” and explicit, systematic instruction in how the sounds of the language (“phonemes”) are represented by letters is the approach most likely to lead to individuals’ learning to read.
In contrast, “balanced literacy” (sometimes called “3-cueing”) is far less effective and even counterproductive — particularly for students who benefit most from direct and clear instruction — because it does not clearly and systematically teach the necessary reading skills described above. (“Balanced literacy” is a misappropriation of the National Reading Panel’s use of “balanced” to mean phonics instruction balanced with language and comprehension-oriented instruction.)
After acquiring decoding skills, word recognition must become automatic. Decoding a word each time it’s encountered is an obstacle to comprehension. Individuals must know and apply spelling (orthographic) rules, including the exceptions, then practice and apply the rules to words they know orally as they encounter words in print. This creates a growing bank of words that are instantly recognizable once readers have connected each word’s sounds, spelling and meaning several times. This is very different from memorizing whole words. Connecting (“binding”) individual sounds to corresponding letters, then to the word’s meaning is critical. Once readers can read words they didn’t already know, reading becomes a way to learn new words.
The importance of language development, comprehension, knowledge and other skills is widely acknowledged by those who actually understand the research into how people learn to read. These skills and attributes must be a focus of attention even before reading instruction commences and should continue as children develop foundational literacy skills and throughout their school careers. (See Scarborough’s iconic “Reading Rope” depicting much more than phonics and decoding, and including background knowledge, vocabulary, language structures, verbal reasoning and literacy knowledge.)
Language, vocabulary, knowledge and other skills must merge with automatic word recognition skills to produce fluent reading and comprehension, which then must be continuously supported and improved as students progress through school. Continued practice and development of skilled fluent reading is particularly critical for students most dependent on schools for successful literacy development. Neither word recognition nor language comprehension alone is sufficient for successful reading development. Both are essential.
All of the above is true for students in general, and especially true for vulnerable populations. Some students require additional consideration. For example, English learners in all-English instruction must receive additional instruction in English language development, such as vocabulary, since they are learning to read in English as they simultaneously learn to speak and understand it.
English learners fortunate enough to be in long-term bilingual programs can become bilingual and biliterate. The processes involved in becoming biliterate are essentially the same in each language: Building on spoken language skills, foundational literacy skills link print to the sounds of the language, then to the oral language centers in the brain. Ongoing development of language, vocabulary, knowledge, and other skills and dispositions is essential for continued biliteracy development, as it is for literacy development in a single language or in any language.
California has a long way to go if we are to develop useful policies around reading education for every student. All relevant parties, including teachers and parents, must have a voice in formulating such policies.
But those voices must be well-informed. Misinformation and falsehoods must be eliminated from the conversation, replaced by clear understandings of the best knowledge we have.
Claude Goldenberg is Nomellini & Olivier Professor of Education, emeritus, in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University and a former first grade and junior high teacher.
The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
Across the 11 campuses of the Texas State Technical College system, the recruiting motto proclaims: “Life is hands-on. Your education should be too.”
The reality of that was evident during a recent visit to its sprawling flagship campus in Waco, where students were creating robots, repairing hybrid cars, welding pipelines, baking fancy cakes, flying airplanes and climbing utility poles.
That goal,administrators say, is to get students ready for the workforce as quickly as possible and then be hired into well-paying jobs in the growing Texas economy.
And it is done with extra — some would say unusual, even excessive — focus on what industry needs and what pays best.
As a result, some students choose Texas State Technical College’s Waco campus — which offers about 30 majors and campus housing — even if some similar programs are offered at traditional Texas community colleges closer to their home.
For example, Ethan Hernandez, 19, said he was not interested in a traditional, academic college education and wanted to learn more about the repairs he enjoyed helping his grandfather with on family cars. Now he is pursuing a two-year associate degree in automotive technology and probably will add an extra certificate in collision repairs.
“I want to know how to do the interiors of cars as well as the exteriors of cars”, said Hernandez, who went to high school in Keller, Texas, 100 miles north of Waco. He also may apply for a separate 16-week program on the Waco campus that Tesla runs to teach electric repairs for its electric vehicles.
Too many young people go to a four-year college to party, while their “parents waste a lot of money” on a degree that has nothing to do with future employment, Hernandez said during an interview at his Waco campus dorm. In contrast, he said, getting a certificate or degree from a school like Texas State Technical College (TCSC) “gives you a big jump” in the job market.
The Texas technical education system — which is separate from community colleges and their wider missions — last fall enrolled 11,400 full-time students, including about 3,100 at Waco, seeking certificates or diplomas that take between one semester and two years to complete.
On the surface, that may not sound that different from the many technical and career programs offered at California’s public community colleges or other trade schools around the country. But TSTC contrasts in several crucial ways.
Some experts say that California could look to Texas for career education ideas as families andstudents increasingly question the long-term value and costs of a traditional four-year college diploma.
The entrance to Texas State Technical College in Waco.
While higher education enrollments suffered pandemic-era drops nationally, community colleges that concentrate on vocational programs showed a 16% increase last fall.
That’s a sizable rise compared with two-year public schools that transfer students to universities — those saw an increase of less than 1%, federal statistics show.
More than anything, some experts say, TSTC’s focus almost entirely on job training and career preparation gives it a leg up and has boosted its enrollment much faster than regular community colleges since the pandemic losses.
Traditional two-year public colleges have a dual mission of both getting technical students to work, whether in medical technology or agribusiness, and to provide academic classes, such as political science, biology and music, for transfers.
‘A lesson for California’
Of California’s 116 community colleges, the only bricks-and-mortar one thoroughly devoted to technical and career education is Los Angeles Trade-Tech college, which offers more than 80 career tracks and certificates, significantly more than TSTC.
Yet, the L.A. school, which enrolls 13,500 full- and part-time students, also has transfer programs and is part of a nine-campus district with other missions. Adult workers needing skills can turn to the state’s online Calbright College, which opened in 2019 but had a slow start and now enrolls 3,700 students. Private, for-profit schools have a big footprint as well.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration is trying to bolster career and trade education and is drafting a new master plan for that type of learning. But, the Texas State Technical College’s “intentionality” gives it an advantage in job training and placement and could be “a lesson for California,” according to Eloy Ortiz Oakley, who was chancellor of the California Community Colleges system for six years until 2022 and now is president and CEO of the Oakland-based College Futures Foundation,which encourages more students to earn vocational certificates or college degrees.
At comprehensive community colleges, technical education is often at a disadvantage because “there’s a competition for resources” with traditional academics, Oakley told EdSource. Texas’ technical colleges allow “more time and attention paid to career advising, to bringing in faculty who are working in the field … and I think those students get a higher level of service.”
TSTC students, however, risk being in “dead end programs” since there are few courses with transferable credits if they decide to pursue a bachelor’s degree, Oakley said. That may particularly hurt Black and Latino students who were not on the college-going track in high school, he added.
Only about 6% of TSTC students complete university transfers, but school leaders emphasize that is not the mission. All TSTC academic classes — mainly in English and math — that its students take for associate degrees are online.
TSTC loudly and explicitly embraces industries.Some of that is philosophical, and some is caused by funding: For the past decade, much of TSTC’s state financing has been based on an unusual formula tied to graduates’ average job pay up to five years out. TSTC Waco has killed off programs — such as computer repair, dental hygiene, golf course maintenance — when graduates’ pay was not high enough.
TSTC has “a strong reputation for preparing students for jobs and really for being nimble and flexible in how they go about that,” explained Charlotte Cahill, an associate vice president for education at Jobs for the Future, a nonprofit that works to expand well-paid employment opportunities. Community colleges nationwide also start new programs and kill older ones, but TSTC is “faster than most community colleges are when it comes to that,” she said.
An instructor at a flight simulator for pilot training at Texas State Technical College in Waco.Credit: Larry Gordon/EdSource
Culinary arts student William Corujo in the kitchen at Texas State Technical College in Waco.Credit: Larry Gordon/EdSource
The precision machine shop at TSTC.Credit: Larry Gordon / EdSource
Students learning to be utility linemen at Texas State Technical College in Waco.Credit: Larry Gordon/EdSource
Auto shop at TSTC in Waco, Texas.Credit: Larry Gordon / EdSource
Student Cristian Ramirez,works in the precision machine shop at Texas State Technical College in Waco.Credit: Larry Gordon/EdSource
The airplane hangar at Texas State Technical College in Waco.
(Click the arrows above to view the slideshow.)Credit: Larry Gordon / EdSource
In another difference from many community colleges elsewhere, the Waco school offers a lot of on-campus housing. And, sharply contrasting to California, TSTC faculty are not unionized and can not receive job-protecting tenure.
“We don’t exist to serve faculty. We exist to serve Texas industry and the students who want to go to work and live lives of prosperity,” said Jonathan Hoekstra, the TSTC executive vice chancellor and chief operating officer.
“We have a talent line of production we are trying to develop for industry,” he added. We want to help students make good decisions about what are their passions, their skills and how they want to develop them and become part of a talented workforce.”
TSTC’s smaller scale may help it concentrate on well-paid jobs in such fields as computer programming, avionics, cybersecurity, plumbing, solar energy and diesel engines. About 40% of its full-time students seeking a credential obtain one after three years, which is slightly more than at peer schools, according to Texas state statistics.
At California community colleges, officials concede that progress and completion in career/vocational programs are much lower but attribute that tothe many students who dabble by taking only one or two classes a year.
California’s system of spreading vocational training around the state is more convenient for students and also allows them to take a variety of academic courses in case they decide to transfer to a university, said Paul Feist, the California community college system’s vice chancellor for communications. The system offers many successful examples, including Chaffey College’s InTech Center (in the Inland Empire) that trains students in welding, automation and robotics and Rio Hondo in Whittier and Evergreen Valley in San Jose which both offer Tesla electric car programs similar to TSTC’s.
An important difference is that many California students are limited to the vocational program close to their homes, since on-campus housing is rare and the cost of moving to another city for off-campus housing can be prohibitive. Only 13 of California’s 116 community colleges have housing althoughseveral more are trying to build them.
Housing magnet
In contrast, TSTC ranks high in national listings of two-year schools with housing. Four of its 11 campuses do, attracting students from around Texas and the nation. Waco has about 1,100 beds, some in a complex run by a private firm. The school requires students from outside the area to live on campus the first year. There are also 126 duplexes, renovated former Air Force barracks, catering to older students who have children.
Amanda King, who studies cybersecurity at TSTC, says campus housing is important.
Being able to rent a two-bedroom house on campus was a benefit for Amanda King, who is 27 and a single mother of two young children. She is expecting soon to finish more than two years of study for an associate degree in cybersecurity and an extra certificate in digital forensics.
“It’s easier for families here,” said King, who is from McGregor, about 30 miles away. “Having housing available here makes it a little bit more possible.”
Now she hopes to be hired by a police department and earn about $55,000 a year to start as a digital investigator, cracking into cellphone records and emails of criminal suspects. That grew out of her love of television mystery shows and her desire to deter bad guys.
“There is a lot of scamming going on, child predators, human trafficking. All kinds of cases and a lot of digital footprints,” she said.
Ready to work
About 20 of the 75 employees at Fallas Automation firm in Waco are TSTC graduates, mainly in robotics, according to company Vice President of Operations Daniel Maeyaert. The firm, which creates robotic equipment that packs food products, said the school does “a really good job of getting employees trained to be ready to work. That’s really their strength.” New hires from TSTC “understand the terms we are using and understand the industry.”
A new employee might start with a $60,000 annual salary with room to grow, he added.
However, while technical skills are strong, TSTC should teach more “soft skills,” such as showing up to work on time, conducting job interviews and presenting yourself in writing and speaking, Maeyaert said. “I think they need to focus on it a little bit more,” he added.
Texas State Technical College began in 1966 at the former 2,000-acre Air Force base 8 miles north of downtown Waco and across the Brazos River. Now at the outer edge of the suburbs, the school was at first part of Texas A & M university but later became independent and added locations around the state, some full campuses, some just a building.
The Waco campus still has an active air field and looks like an industrial park, so spread out it is difficult to walk between buildings. The amount of equipment, such as robots, welding machines, flight simulators, airplanes and cars, is impressive — sometimes funded by corporate donations.
Plain and practical, it’s nothing like the ritzier Baylor University a few miles away. TSTC has no big-time sports teams, no fraternities or sororities. The on-campus recreation center includes a gym, a weight room, ping pong tables and spots to socialize, but those are relatively modest.
Yoselin Merlo, a TSTC robotics student. working with equipment at the lab. Credit: Larry Gordon/EdSource
Tuition and fees for most TSTC students will average about $7,200 over two semesters for 2024-25 (much higher than California’s Community Colleges’ $1,200). A majority of students come from low-income families and receive substantial federal and state aid.
About 43% of Waco’s students are Latino, 38% white, 6% Black and 1% Asian/Pacific Islanders. The vast majority are traditional college age but some students are in their 40s and 50s. Women comprise only about 10% of the students. Other TSTC campuses have higher numbers of women drawn to nursing and education studies.
Yoselin Merlo, 19, who is among the few women studying robotics at Waco, said “it can definitely be challenging to be in a room full of guys who are thinking I don’t have the answers” and to keep proving herself. Merlo emigrated from Honduras to Houston in 2016 and became the first in her family to learn English and finish high school.
Helped with financial aid, she said that coming to TSTC Waco “was the best decision I ever made.” She plans for a career designing industrial robots, earning a strong wage to help her family and to donate school uniforms and shoes to poor kids in Honduras.
Most TSTC programs allow open enrollment with just a high school diploma or equivalency. Admission to the airplane pilot training and allied health programs are more competitive.
Kaleb Sanders, 20, is following a family tradition of lineman studies and work. With his safety belt attached, Sanders skillfully scaled to the high top of one of the many 35-foot-high practice poles on a campus field. The lines are not electrified, but students are supposed to treat them as if they are “hot.”
Student Kaleb Sanders practicing to become a utility linemen during training at Texas State Technical College in Waco.Credit: Larry Gordon/EdSource
Sanders has seen many classmates quit. “A lot of people come to (the lineman program) because they see the good pay, the high demand. They don’t realize there is a reason for that. It’s dangerous, it’s hard. You might not have the guts for it,” he said. Instructors say linemen can start out earning $80,000 a year with overtime and get much more with experience.
All about pay
TSTC graduates’ pay is crucial for the school’s health. Since 2013, the largest pot of state revenue relies on a so-called returned-value formula linked heavily to alumni earning levels — not to the usual enrollment. For the upcoming year, that is expected to provide about $95 million in state funds, 30% of its overall budget. Tuition payments rank next in size, at about $60 million or 19%.
The TSTC funding formula “is seen as a bellwether because of its boldness,” said a 2016 report by the Lumina Foundation. While the college’s revenues have remained solid since then, the model may not work for other colleges with broader missions, one of that report’s co-authors recently told EdSource.
It would be politically difficult to abandon older departments and fire tenured faculty to “chase the new hot major and industry,” said Martin Van Der Werf, who is director of education policy and partnerships at Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. And it would be hard to evaluate future earnings for community college graduates if they transfer to earn bachelor’s degrees, he added.
While Texas and California reforms now factor in some outcomes — such as degree completions, job placements and wages — in calculating the state revenue community colleges receive, California still relies mostly on enrollment.
TSTC’s strong emphasis on graduates’ pay “definitely helped drive expanded opportunities for students. And it’s also created powerful incentives for TSTC to focus their programs,” said Harrison Keller, who is commissioner of higher education and CEO of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, a state agency. TSTC competes with regular community colleges in Texas in some majors, but TSTC’s is “more readily positioned to provide opportunities for folks to reskill and upskill than many of the community colleges,” Keller added.
TSTC system enrollment declined slightly in the pandemic but now surpasses pre-Covid levels, while many Texas community colleges struggle with continuing enrollment drops.
Despite TSTC’s increased state funding, some faculty complain that there are shortages in instructors because pay is not enough to attract technical experts from industry who want to move to Waco. Students are divided on TSTC’s recent shift in some majors to what is called performance-based education, in which students can proceed at their own pace, mastering skill by skill. Some think it is great, but others contendthere is too much reliance on online material and not enough team spirit.
Still, in what can be viewed as a sign of confidence or a marketing stunt, TSTC offers a money-back guarantee in nine majors — including precision machining, heavy truck diesel equipment, robotics and welding — if a student does not find a job in that field within six months of graduation. So far, no one has asked for that refund, officials said.
