Third grade students in California’s lowest performing schools aredoing better at reading, thanks to the Elementary Literacy Support Block Grant funding and a new focus on curriculum materials based on the science of reading.
That funding focused on improving education for students primarily in the youngest classrooms (K-2), with a stated goal of having all students reading by third grade.
While many California districts that received grants have been praised for providing student support such as tutoring or after-school programming, they are still focused on K-3. None of them have developed a comprehensive plan to address illiteracy among the older grades.
The most recent National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) stated that 68% of fourth graders lack key literacy skills. In California, the latest assessment of student performance shows fewer than half of eighth graders are proficient in English language arts. Many of these tweens and teens still have reading skills between a first and fourth grade level.
With literacy instruction traditionally focused in elementary school, middle and high school teachers are unequipped to support more than half of the students in their class who don’t yet have the literacy skills to access grade level text. The core problem is twofold: Educators are not trained to teach structured literacy in secondary school, and they do not have the right content for their older students reading far below grade level.
As one eighth grade teacher said, “I came here expecting to teach literature, but I soon realized I had to learn how to teach literacy first.”
Today’s middle and high school curricula assume that students beyond the fourth grade no longer need to learn how to read — instead, they should be able to read to learn. The reality is that many cannot.
Without the phonics and fluency skills, or background knowledge to make meaning from text, how can students analyze things like the author’s purpose and point of view, or use primary sources to write historical essays, or lab reports?
Students who struggle with reading end up falling behind across all subjects — from social studies to science to math — contributing to increased dropout rates.
The second problem is a deep lack of age-appropriate “learn-to-read” books for tweens and teens.
We cannot support and empower adolescent readers when their only choices for practice are stories like Dr. Seuss’s “Hop on Pop.” While these books are on their reading level, they are misaligned entirely with their interests. The content is boring and juvenile, even embarrassing, to a sixth or 10th grader, and the characters are not representative of students’ range of diverse backgrounds and identities. As a result, these students become disengaged and often stop reading altogether. For effective literacy instruction, we need to provide students with engaging opportunities for meaningful practice.
So how do we extend literacy instruction beyond the third grade, systematically?
Equip teachers in higher grades with the skills and knowledge to support literacy growth. With additional training on literacy instruction, and access to resources to empower student reading practice, we can equip today’s middle and high school ELA teachers with the tools they need to drive growth for students, beginning wherever they are.
Rethink the choices students have for reading practice. Until just a few months ago, there were no suitable or effective “learn-to-read” books written for older students. As more age-appropriate content becomes available, we need to create a new shelf in the library filled with books that are culturally inclusive, intriguing and accessible for students at any intersection of age and reading level.
We can transform literacy and access if we apply the science of reading in a relevant way to older students. They can catch up, but to help them do so, we must meet them where they are: reengaging reluctant readers with texts they can read and wantto read — books that reflect their identities and experiences — and help them discover the joy of reading.
Instead of holding students back in grade three, as some districts have proposed, let’s think about how to propel them forward, starting wherever they are.
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Louise Baigelman is a former literacy teacher and CEO of Storyshares, a literacy organization dedicated to inspiring a love of reading across the globe.
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.
The Dunamis House in Boyle Heights is owned and operated by Los Angeles Room & Board.
Credit: Los Angeles County Homeless Initiative
A home in the middle of Los Angeles has become an oasis for young adults brought together by one particular experience: homelessness.
The Dunamis House, located on Evergreen Avenue and two blocks away from Cesar Chavez Boulevard, offers a multitude of free services: a furnished room, freshly prepared meals, haircuts, workshops on topics like financial literacy, workout classes and more. Residents can also earn an income by working at the on-site café.
“There is no place like this. This is one of one,” said Sherbert Diaz, a Dunamis resident who moved into the home in December. “It gave me the opportunity to understand who I am and to leave the survival mode.”
Providing young adults with respite from the instability of homelessness is central to the mission of Los Angeles Room & Board, known as LAR&B, the nonprofit that owns and operates Dunamis House and three other homes in East Hollywood, West Adams and Westwood that serve the same purpose.
The organization was founded in 2020 by Sam Prater, who credits his 14 years of working in university student housing, plus his own experience of homelessness as a young adult, as the inspiration behind LAR&B.
“Offering someone a safe place to sleep is only one part of our mission,” Prater said. “The real work is trying to transform lives, and through the services that we provide and our incredible team, that’s where the real work happens.”
Homelessness has skyrocketed in Los Angeles in recent years. More than 6,000 children ages 0 to 17 and almost 4,000 young adults ages 18 to 24 were counted in last year’s annual survey, aimed at understanding how many people are experiencing homelessness, according to the county’s Homeless Services Authority. Such counts are typically considered estimates; advocates agree that homelessness is undercounted.
Homelessness is also most often part of a larger cycle of systemic challenges, such as high housing costs, financial instability, mental health illness and more. Exiting that cycle is far from clear-cut, and while a network of resources may often be available to someone experiencing homelessness, it can be difficult to figure out which they may qualify for and how to neatly combine them all together.
This is where LAR&B comes in. It does not expect the youth to figure out what resources they might need. Dunamis offers each resident all the resources they can. With this approach, residents have a more traditional homelike environment where, rather than trying to figure out where they will sleep every night, they can focus on attending school or earning an income.
‘You’re allowed to be who you want to be here’
Diaz had just turned 21 late last year, had no safe place to sleep, and was ineligible for a housing voucher for foster youth. Not knowing where to turn, he reached out to the Los Angeles LGBT Center, which in turn referred him to Dunamis.
As it turns out, the center is one of the places that refer young adults to LAR&B. This is because one of LAR&B’s main referral pipelines is through the county, Prater said. The LGBT Center is the lead agency for L.A. County’s coordinated entry system for youth, a network that connects people to housing.
LAR&B also receives referrals directly from colleges, including Santa Monica College and the Los Angeles Community College District, plus other partner agencies that work with foster youth, which have the organization on a list for students experiencing homelessness.
For Diaz, Dunamis was his “last hope,” he said. For years, he had been in the foster system, a system he said “never offered me peace of mind,” as Dunamis has. In the past, he was placed where he couldn’t be himself, he said, and was eventually kicked out of his last foster home for wearing makeup.
“My sexuality was always a problem,” Diaz said of the places he lived previously. “It’s a relief being (at Dunamis) because you don’t have the restrictions of anyone judging you. … You’re allowed to be who you want to be here.”
Many residents, like Josefina Sebastian, receive academic counseling while at Dunamis. She enrolled at Los Angeles City College when she arrived last April and has since transferred to California State University, Los Angeles, where she is majoring in social work.
With an active immigration case, Sebastian had found it difficult to access resources for people in her situation and was surprised to be accepted into Dunamis.
“Being here has helped me to focus more on school,” said Sebastian, 23, who also works at the Dunamis café.
Mimi Konadu, another resident, also enrolled in college after she moved into Dunamis last year, around the same time as Sebastian.
“I like that they want everybody to go to school,” she said, referring to LAR&B. She’d tried attending classes in the past, while living in the city of Palmdale in Los Angeles County, but couldn’t focus. Konadu, who is now 21, was also experiencing depression and anxiety, and being enrolled in online courses did not work for her.
“I just didn’t feel like doing anything at that time, until I got here,” said Konadu, who is attending East Los Angeles Community College. “I’m more productive every day.” The Dunamis staff’s presence and support made a significant difference, she added.
Some residents, like Dream Harris, have experienced homelessness their entire lives. He lived in Covenant House, a youth shelter in Los Angeles, right before moving to Dunamis.
While there, a friend mentioned LAR&B, but Harris said he wasn’t convinced. “It was too good to be true ‘cause I saw the pictures. I was like, ‘no, they’re going to ask for, like, money or something,” said Harris, his fellow Dunamis residents chiming in, agreeing that they too were taken aback by the beauty of the home.
“This place gives me an opportunity to really sit down and think about my decisions and what I want to do in life,” Harris said, echoing Diaz’s sentiment about finally living in a home that provided a sense of stability, so he could set aside the mindset of focusing solely on survival.
Dunamis is the first place where Harris, at 25 years old, has experienced this level of safety and stability. “I was raised in the worst of the worst. I lived on the streets at one point. I was on drugs at one point,” he said. “Now I have a nice bed to sleep in every night. I have a job now. I have opportunities, so many opportunities.”
That relief — of receiving new opportunities after extreme hardship and instability — is one that is shared by Prater, LAR&B’s founder, and it’s why Dunamis is designed and operated as it is.
As a young adult in Detroit, Prater had couch-surfed and was evicted twice. The 12th of 14 children, he was entering his teenage years when his mother died, catapulting the family into instability. His dad, he said, tried his best to offer his children as normal a childhood as possible, given their economic status, but it was tough with so many siblings.
Then, a local couple, whose church ministry was called Dunamis Outreach Ministries, learned of his family’s plight and took in three of his siblings. Prater wasn’t one of those, but he was at the Dunamis home often, and it was there that he learned there was “something more, something bigger” than the few options he had seen in front of him at that point.
That’s because in the Dunamis home, “everything is pretty, and it’s beautiful,” he said. “I felt like a weight lifted off me, and I’ll never forget that feeling of what that meant for me, what I aspired to, and then seeing them do it.”
Being exposed to such a beautiful home and generous family during those formative years provided Prater with a vision of a different life — one that he went on to pursue. He enrolled in community college at 23 and stayed in higher education, ultimately enrolling in a doctorate degree program.
“There wasn’t a way for me to repay them for the sacrifice they made for our family,” Prater said about why he named the Dunamis house after the couple that helped shape his purpose in life. “They just showed us a life in a world that we didn’t have access to in that way.”
That access to a beautiful, safe, supportive home seems to be the Dunamis way — both in Detroit where Prater lived and now in Los Angeles.
A 5-star version of student housing
In many ways, the Dunamis home’s operation is reminiscent of a college dorm.
The beds, for example, were purchased from a vendor that manufactures the extra-long twin beds typically found in dorm rooms. There is a communal kitchen that includes a fridge where, just as in a dorm, a meal might be eaten by someone other than the person it belongs to.
There are also meal times, as in a dorm’s dining hall. At Dunamis, lunch is served between noon and 2 p.m., dinner between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m., and residents who plan to be around can submit requests to be fed on the weekends. On a recent Tuesday in April, the meal option was a freshly cooked spread of chicken, beef, rice, beans and vegetables, so each person could build their own bowl.
Dunamis House is large enough to include a backyard with a couple of grills and a garden that provides the produce for the meals cooked on-site, two kitchens — one that residents can use as needed, and the other where staff cooks the free meals — a lobby, and a courtyard in the middle of the building where residents gather to study or hang out.
The courtyard prior to LAR&B’s purchase of the home. Photo Credit: ZillowA design mock-up of the courtyard.Credit: Los Angeles Room & Board
What the Dunamis courtyard looks like today.Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource
Surrounding the patio are a hair salon, a podcast room, a café and at least four staff offices. The home also includes 64 beds, several study room, a sun room, a living room with a large TV for movie nights.
Lining the hallways of the multistory building are posters advertising upcoming events, like a garden club that is hosted once a month on Saturdays and a support group for male-identifying residents set to begin in April. Other hallways have bulletin boards with informational posters — one showing that April is Autism Awareness Month; others offer affirmations: “I am proud of my progress. I love my place in life.”
The Dunamis home.Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource
The home’s second kitchen, where residents can store their food. Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource
There is always an extra bedroom available in case of a last-minute addition to the home or if there is a disagreement among roommates.Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource
A typical bathroom found in each bedroom.Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource
A hairstylist and barber provide free haircuts in this room every other week.Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource
One of the home’s many sitting nooks.Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource
In the lobby, residents can pick up Covid-19 tests and Narcan.Photo Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales
In the backyard, residents can grill and hang out underneath pergolas.Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource
Other aspects of the home are dictated by the unique needs of the residents. A team of social workers, for example, is on site to meet weekly with each resident, to discuss everything from their mental health, to career coaching, to basic resources needed for their families. A barber and hairstylist visit the home every other Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to offer free haircuts.
The home does not permit social drinking, which is typically associated with college students, but it addresses incidents of substance abuse by residents. At least five residents have been referred to outpatient care for such treatment, but their place at Dunamis remains available and ready for them as soon they once again “get grounded and get well,” Prater said.
Residents can live at Dunamis for up to 36 months, after which they have the option of moving to one of LAR&B’s other homes. At that point, they begin to pay a subsidized rent of $800 monthly. The idea, said Prater, is to slowly guide the young adults so they remain housed and stable long after leaving LAR&B.
In its design, Dunamis stands in sharp contrast to many of the places where residents lived previously, such as a group home or juvenile hall, where design is rarely a top priority.
“We’re trying to be the antithesis of that,” said Prater.
The home features walls painted in warm hues, ambient lighting, modern furniture and cushioned cozy seating nooks.
“Colors and fabrics and light and airflow — all those things impact people’s experience in housing,” said Prater. “I wanted to kind of create a space that felt aspirational, inspirational, that felt like, ‘Oh wow, I’m proud to come home here.’”
The lobby prior to LAR & B’s purchase of the home.Credit: Zillow
A design mock-up of the lobby.Credit: Los Angeles Room & Board
What the lobby looks like today.Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource
His vision for Dunamis was shaped in part by his years working in university student housing, a career he left in February 2020 to grow LAR&B.
While working there, he’d hear stories from students who were trying to stay in school while struggling to meet their basic needs. He was limited in what he could offer those students — mostly short-term solutions, like a 14-day free stay in a dorm room and a $500 grant.
“If you got somebody who doesn’t have a place to live, you know how wildly disruptive it is to their life to say, ‘Alright, we can look out for you but only for 14 days’?” Prater said. “I formed L.A. Room & Board really in response to me working in that space and feeling powerless to help.”
The new Dunamis house is tucked between residential homes, an auto repair shop that hands out free meals on holidays, and a corner neighborhood market that features a mural by a locally renowned artist.
The building was originally built in 1914 but was vacant for years before LAR&B purchased it in 2022 for $11.6 million. That funding came from the California’s Homekey Program, which develops housing for the state’s homeless population. The Homekey grant requires that the county cover 45% of LAR&B’s operating costs for several years. The remaining $3 million to $3.5 million needed to cover ongoing operating costs each year is raised by Prater via private donations.
The land the building sits on measures over an acre, leaving sufficient space for large front and back yards. It’s in Boyle Heights, a neighborhood known for its deep history of social and political activism, most recently in its ongoing push against gentrification, and surrounded by downtown Los Angeles, Dodger Stadium and East Los Angeles.
And quite importantly for the LAR&B mission, the home is situated near multiple universities and colleges: University of Southern California, Cal State Los Angeles, and East Los Angeles Community College, to name a few.
But beyond the beauty of the space and its location, several residents said what most stood out to them is that they felt welcomed from day one.
“I think that’s what the difference is,” said Diaz with Konadu finishing his sentence, as Harris nodded in agreement: “It feels like a home.”
This story has been updated to correct Palmdale’s location. It is in Los Angeles County, not San Bernardino County.
Eight-foot gates surround Del Sol High School in Oxnard in 2023.
Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource
The shooting in September at Apalachee High School in Georgia, which left two students and two teachers dead and nine people wounded, was the latest in a line of multiple-casualty shootings at schools in the United States.
Given the incredible suffering and loss of life resulting from these tragic events, they understandably generate considerable media attention and public concern over the safety of students and staff. Schools should be safe places for children and adults to come to each day without the threat of violence.
But, despite the attention generated by high-casualty school shootings, the data indicate something very surprising. For nearly 30 years — approximately 98-99% of all homicides of school-aged youth (generally youth between the ages of 5 and 18) have occurred outside of schools.
It’s important for California policymakers and school leaders to understand the data so that they can best protect our youth. One injury or death caused by violence in the school setting is already too much, but let’s dig into the data a bit more to get a better sense of what’s going on.
The graph below shows the total homicides on school grounds using the School-Associated Violent Death Surveillance System (SAVD-SS) and the total number of homicides of school aged youth using the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) from academic year 1992-93 to 2019-20, in four year increments.
As we can see in the graph, school-related homicides have hovered between 1% and 2% of the total number of homicides of school-aged youth for these four-year increments.
How we got the data
We examined data routinely compiled by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) for their periodic reports on school safety. Homicides and suicides that occur on school grounds are tracked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) School-Associated Violent Death Surveillance System (SAVD-SS).
The CDC’s survey tracks homicides and suicides that that occur on school grounds during normal operating hours, as well as those that might have taken place on the bus to and from school or at school events after hours (e.g., football games). The CDC’s National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) shows the total number of homicides of school-aged youth. Comparing the two datasets enables us to determine the proportion of homicides that occur on school grounds versus total homicides for school-aged youth (which would include those at school and those outside of schools).
Even for periods in which high casualty events in schools are included (such as the tragedies in Colorado, Connecticut and Florida in 1999, 2012 and 2018 respectively), the proportion of school-related homicides did not reach 2% of all homicides of school-aged youth.
An additional year, 2020-21, is now available from the U.S. Department of Education. Those data indicate there were 11 homicides of school-aged youth at school in 2020-21. This was a period in which many schools moved to a virtual learning environment due to Covid-19.
However, 2020-21 was one of the worst years ever for total homicides of school-aged youth: 2,436 young people were murdered. For this single year, homicides of school-aged youth at school represented less than one-half of one percent (0.45%) of total homicides of school-aged youth.
These data do not give us the full picture. For example, they do not reveal anything about preceding factors that may have led to the homicide: An altercation that occurred in school may have spilled over to a homicide that occurred later on the street. In such cases, although the homicide would not be captured by the school homicide survey, the school was very much related to what happened.
What should these data inspire us to do?
Yes, we absolutely must protect children— and staff — in school. Parents entrust their children to educators. In no way do we want to minimize the pain and suffering caused by a shooting such as what occurred at Apalachee High School, or other communities around the nation.
However, given that the vast majority of homicides of school-aged children do not occur in school — but in the home, on the streets and at other venues — a comprehensive approach to protecting children from violence is needed. If we truly care about children, we’ve got to do a lot more.
School and Community Strategies for Youth Violence Prevention
What about our educators and school leaders in California? We recommend that they advocate for evidence-based approaches in the community to help address factors contributing to youth violence in the home and neighborhoods where the majority of homicides of school-aged youth occur.
And given that the average child spends about 18,000 hours in school, they are often the most likely place for prevention and intervention programs. These need to be comprehensive and evidence-based to provide our youth with the skills they need to cope in and out of school environments.
For California state policymakers, we recommend that they balance the policy focus on evidence-based school safety measures with appropriate investments in evidence-based social services, mental health support, and violence prevention programs that reach into the heart of our communities.
At all levels, we need to inform policies with comprehensive data to guide policy use and evaluation to understand how such investments are faring in reality compared with their design and initial promise.
It is the rare educator, policymaker, parent or police officer who doesn’t care about children. But while caring is necessary, it is insufficient. These data should provoke us to do more to protect children everywhere. Yes, that means in school. But just as importantly, we need to do more to protect them in their homes and the communities in which they live.
A version of this article was previously published by the University of Oregon’s HEDCO Institute on Oct. 3, 2024.
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Anthony Petrosino serves as director of the WestEd Justice and Prevention Research Center. He is also an Affiliated Faculty and Senior Research Fellow at George Mason University’s Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy.
Ericka Muñoz is a research associate at WestEd’s Justice and Prevention Research Center and is currently pursuing graduate studies in the Criminology, Law & Society program at the University of California Irvine.
The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the authors. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
EdSource file photo courtesy of Oakland School for the Arts
Raising the curtain on California’s landmark arts education initiative, funded by voter approval of Proposition 28 two years ago, has been a highly complex endeavor marked by a lack of arts educators, classroom space and free time in school schedules, according to a new report.
These challenges are among the key issues schools must address to make Proposition 28’s ambitious vision of arts education a reality, according to a new report studying the impact of the groundbreaking statewide initiative on schools in the Los Angeles area. Passed by voters in 2022 by a wide margin, the measure sets aside roughly $1 billion a year toward TK-12 arts education programs statewide.
“Given the historic nature of this investment in arts education, all eyes are on California and our schools, and so we want to make sure that we get it right,” said Ricky Abilez, director of policy and advocacy at Arts for LA, the arts advocacy organization that commissioned the report. “I also know that there are a lot of really tough challenges that schools are facing on the ground.”
Accountability is among the most critical issues in building trust with families, according to this analysis, which focuses on 10 Los Angeles school districts. The report recommends creating a statewide oversight and advisory committee of administrators, teachers, families and community partnersto make sure that arts education funds are properly spent. It also calls for subsidizing teacher credential programs to combat the teacher shortage.
“We hear these resounding calls for transparency from our community members, but many district arts leaders also share those same interests and concerns,” said Lindsey Kunisaki, the Laura Zucker fellow for policy and research, who wrote the report. “They wanted to make sure that they’re putting their best foot forward with Prop 28 implementation, but they also had questions about their peers and neighboring districts and wanted to make sure that ultimately everyone is doing their best work and using these funds responsibly.”
The need to build bridges between schools, communities and families is part of what drives that recommendation. Roughly 66% of respondents to the survey were uncertain whether Proposition 28 was being implemented in their school, according to the report.
“One of the central insights of the report is the link between confidence in Prop 28’s success and public involvement,” said Kunisaki, a research and evaluation specialist at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture’s visual and performing arts education program. “Respondents expressed less skepticism when they believed their communities were actively involved.”
Arts education in schools can help foster a sense of social connection that has frayed in the wake of the pandemic, many experts suggest. The rub is that many community members express passion for arts education (89%) but have not yet gotten involved with their schools for a variety of reasons. Only 20% of respondents have been actively involved.
Districts with vibrant arts advisory councils make it easy to participate, Kunisaki notes, but other paths also exist.
“If it isn’t clear how to get involved,” said Kunisaki, “then even just showing up at a school board meeting, getting to know the school site leaders, principals, that could be a great way to start the conversation.”
Proposition 28 represents an attempt to bring arts education back into California schools after many decades of budget cuts eliminated many such programs. Before this influx of funding, only 11% of California schools offered comprehensive arts education, research suggests. Wealthier schools were far more likely to be able to fundraise enough to foot the bill for arts education.
Spearheaded by former Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Superintendent Austin Beutner, the measure is an attempt to give all students access to the arts, which has long been associated with everything from higher test scores to greater social-emotional learning.
All the money must go to arts education, but that is very broadly defined. The disciplines include, but are not limited to, dance, media arts, music, theater and such visual arts as folk art, painting, sculpture, photography and animation. Film and video pursuits are also encouraged, from script writing to costume design. Each school community is invited to design the program to meet the needs of its students.
The report also notes that some districts are falling behind others. While some districts quickly launched new arts ed programs, from music to dance, others are still in the planning phase, according to the report. Districts with preexisting arts councils and strategic arts plans have the upper hand. Proposition 28 funds are allocated based on enrollment, so larger schools get more money. Also, schools with more low-income students receive extra money.
Uncertainty and confusion about the rules, heightened by a lack of clarity from the California Department of Education (CDE) on spending, have significantly complicated this process, the report suggests.
“One of the recommendations that I heard was basically for CDE to take more of a central leadership role,” said Kunisaki, “especially when it comes to oversight and accountability.”
The long-standing teacher shortage also remains a critical obstacle. In 2022-23, California schools employed about 11,113 full-time arts teachers, primarily teaching music and visual arts. Another new Proposition 28 report, commissioned by the Hewlett Foundation’s Performing Arts Program and conducted by SRI Education, concluded that California must increase the arts teacher workforce by roughly 5,457 teachers to meet the new demand. Many experts estimate a much higher number.
The need for greater transparency in the rollout of Proposition 28 is another key concern. At the core of Proposition 28 is the rule that funds are designed to supplement, and not supplant, existing funding, which means that you can’t use the new money to pay for old programs. Nevertheless, there have been reports of districts using the funds to pay for existing programs. Amid these allegations, State Superintendent Tony Thurmond issued a letterreminding superintendents of the law’s requirements.
One potential fix, the study suggests, would be a statewide oversight committee charged with monitoring the rollout and settling disputes on key issues.
“There’s a real need for CDE to step in here, to create a more formal advisory and oversight committee, and most importantly, to include practitioners,” said Kunisaki.
“That’s administrators at the district level, at the school site level, teachers, parents and guardians, families, students and community partners, because we know how important community involvement is.”
CDE has provided guidance in FAQs and webinars to help districts navigate the rules. Thurmond has also established a new task force to clarify the issues facing the field. It remains unclear whether the task force will provide the depth of oversight that many experts suggest is needed.
“The California Department of Education commends the districts represented in this report who have approached Prop 28 implementation with urgency, care, and a commitment to expanding all students’ access to arts education,” said Elizabeth Sanders, spokesperson for the department. “Especially as California’s local educational agencies are still in the beginning of this implementation process, CDE will continue to provide guidance and technical assistance to support effective and robust implementation.”
Beutner, the former LAUSD Superintendent who authored Proposition 28, is also calling on the department to hold districts accountable for how they spend the money.
“CDE needs to provide more leadership on the proper implementation of Prop 28,” said Beutner. “They’re understaffed to handle the implementation of a new law like this, but some of the confusion and misinterpretation that is happening is because CDE hasn’t been on top of this. CDE should be pursuing public enforcement action now against school districts that are alleged to have violated the law.”
