Plenty of conversations in California have focused on recruiting teachers into the profession as a way to grapple with the state’s teacher shortage. This is important, and as a transitional kindergarten teacher, I am acutely aware of how quality teachers can impact our students and communities.
I pursued teaching largely because I want to be the representation I didn’t see growing up. I participated in a teacher residency program that built my confidence in the classroom and taught me to connect with my students by highlighting my own identity. It’s not only the way I was recruited to the profession, it’s also played a role in my retention.
To continue to tackle the teacher shortage, I believe California needs more strong teacher residency programs. Nearly 37% of U.S. public schools experienced at least one teacher vacancy, contributing to nearly half of public school students entering the 2023-24 school year behind grade level in at least one subject. Amid these shortages, California is still reeling from the repercussions of surpassing 10,000 vacancies during the 2021-22 school year. The effects are felt even more so in under-resourced, Latino or Black communities.
At Aspire Richmond Technology Academy, where I teach, I can see how we must prepare educators and then provide the tools for teachers to sustain themselves. It’s how we can prevent shortages and retain teachers down the road.
It was a winding road for me to realize that teaching was my calling. I never envisioned myself becoming an educator, largely because I rarely saw teachers who looked like me or who connected with me on a cultural level. While studies point to the importance of a demographic match between teachers and students, I experienced a real lack of Asian representation in education.
This changed when I went to college. With more exposure to Asian professors, I finally felt seen and represented. I felt empowered that education was a field I could pursue. And I put the puzzle pieces together — that all of my volunteer work and extracurricular activities centered around helping students. By the time I switched majors, I had some catching up to do.
When I learned about teacher residency programs in California, I jumped at the opportunity. I received a master’s degree and a California teaching credential in a single year. Even in my first year of teaching, I felt more prepared than other teacher friends.
While we can’t solve the teacher shortage overnight, here’s how we can ensure we’re training more young people to become highly effective educators and stay in the profession.
First, we need an intensive teacher residency program that builds confidence. ThroughAspire’s teacher residency program at Alder Graduate School of Education, I apprenticed four days a week and had a personal mentor in the classroom with me who provided me with critical one-on-one support. Toward the end of my time as an apprentice, one of the students in our classroom asked my mentor, “So, what’s your job?” This gave me the confidence to teach the following year on my own. I learn best through a hands-on approach, so four days a week in the classroom with one day for intensive seminars and subject-matter courses helped me gain more real life experience.
Second, this wouldn’t be possible without strategic financial supports. We know that systemic inequities, including the high cost of college, hold too many back from pursuing a career in education. Ensuring teacher residents receive a stipend while earning their degree and credential(s) can help. Through a partnership, the program I participated in is helping to support staff members in earning and paying for an undergraduate degree with teaching credentials. Given the importance of representation in the classroom, the partnership prioritizes aspiring teachers of color and those from the local communities.
Finally, we should expand teacher residency programs that are accessible for individuals of all backgrounds. While California has made big investments in teacher residency programs, we also need to focus on effective teacher training initiatives that reflect our school’s communities. When I participated, my teacher residency program focused on “head, heart and hands.” This meant that we integrated theory and research (head), with a culturally responsive equity lens (heart), and our coursework mirrored our field work (hands). Highlighting representation, multiculturalism and identity continues to be stressed throughout the program — and it’s something I hold dear to my heart.
Last week, I proudly watched a kindergarten promotion, which included many of my previous TK students from my student teaching year. Seeing their growth academically, and how much confidence they have gained in themselves and their identities, is another reason why I continue to pursue education. In many ways, their growth reflects my own. And knowing that I contributed a small part to my former and current scholars’ successes, as they flourish in their own ways, brings me a surge of pride.
The programs at Aspire are happening at scale, with more than 36 schools serving more than 15,400 students across California. Not only did my residency program get me into the classroom, it’s played a role in keeping me there. We need more effective residency programs, and this can serve as a model for retaining teachers in California.
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.
This story was updated to more accurately describe the data availability issues. Details.
Public data posted by the California Department of Education has been incomplete, often outdated and occasionally inaccurate, forcing legislators to pass laws based on old data, researchers to delay inquiries and journalists to grapple with inaccurate information.
Californians, living in a state known globally as a center of innovation and technology, have had to cope with a state education agency that has admittedly lacked the staffing and the policies to provide much-needed data, EdSource reporting has found.
As a result, there are gaps in the knowledge needed by lawmakers, researchers, journalists and others to evaluate state programs and policies, from teacher demographics, to how many English learners become fluent in English each year, to how districts have spent a $50 million court settlement to improve early literacy.
Obtaining data from the California Department of Education (CDE) has been difficult, said Christopher Nellum, executive director of The Education Trust-West, one of the state’s most prominent social justice and advocacy organizations. There have been delays in the public release of data and a lack of consistency when it comes to the annual publication of key data sets, he said.
“In an ideal world, we would have a legislature in a state that is making data-informed decisions about legislation, and then making data-informed decisions about assessing the efficacy or impact of investments, or the interventions, and this is difficult in the state of California right now,” Nellum said.
The CDE collects data about student achievement and demographics, enrollment, course information, discipline, graduation rates, staff assignments and other data, much of it mandated by legislation.
Some data have not been updated by the department for as long as five years. The most recent available data for teacher demographics, pupil-teacher ratios, course enrollment, and class size is from 2018-19.
“In an ideal world, we would have a legislature in a state that is making data-informed decisions about legislation, and then making data-informed decisions about assessing the efficacy or impact of investments, or the interventions, and this is difficult in the state of California right now.”
Christopher Nellum
The dashboard that tracks the annual progress of K-12 students on standardized tests, chronic absenteeism, suspensions and graduation was also suspended or only partially updated due to the pandemic-related school closures until Dec. 2023. The Legislature suspended the reporting of state and local indicators on the 2020 and 2021 dashboards and, because the state didn’t have prior-year data to measure growth in 2022, that year’s dashboard was published without the full-color display.
Cindy Kazanis, the director of the Analysis, Measurement and Accountability Reporting Division at CDE, said many of the delays in reporting data have resulted from “not having enough boots on the ground.” The department is in the process of recruiting and hiring 17 new staffers.
New state mandates and changes in the way data is collected also have impacted data collection, Kazanis said. The five-year delay in updating some data is because the department has a backlog of reports and data that must be reconfigured because the state changed course codes in 2018-19, she said.
Legislation based on old data
An EdSource examination of recent state education bills shows that legislative staff have sometimes had to rely on outdated CDE data to complete analysis meant to help legislators make decisions about whether to pass laws.
One example is an analysis of Assembly Bill 2097, which used department data from 2018-19, the most recent year it was available, to show computer science offerings in California high schools, and the number and gender of students enrolled in them. The bill, if passed, will require school districts to offer computer science courses to high school students, who will be required to complete a one-year course before graduating.
An analysis of Assembly Bill 2429 also relied on data from five years ago. The legislation mandates health education courses, required by some districts to graduate, including instruction on the dangers of fentanyl use. The legislation passed on June 13.
“The committee may wish to consider that course-taking data, which is important for policy analysis and evaluation, has not been updated by the CDE since the 2018-19 school year,” stated the analysis. “The CDE reports that this data will be updated in 2024.”
Since 2018, legislators also have required that several new datasets be added to the CDE website, including absenteeism by reason, a stability rate, restraint and seclusion, special education, college-going rates, teacher assignment monitoring outcomes, five-year graduation rates and homeless students by dwelling type, according to the CDE.
Assembly Bill 1340, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in October, mandates that the department post test scores, suspensions, rates of absenteeism, and graduate and college-going rates for students with disabilities, disaggregated by federal disability category, on its website.
The analysis of the bill for the Assembly Education Committee was terse. “When this committee is asked to evaluate the effect of a policy on a subset of students with disabilities — for example, students who are visually impaired — it requires data about this subgroup of students’ progress on academic and other measures. Under current CDE practice, a single number for all students with disabilities is shown, obscuring important information about students’ progress, which is needed for evidence-based policymaking and to provide transparent information for the public,” it read. Legislators could not be reached to comment.
Unreliable public information
EdSource journalists working on news stories have struggled in several cases to obtain accurate, up-to-date data from the California Department of Education. This year, EdSource had to twice remove data after publication because the analysis was based on incorrect data that the department had published on its website. In both cases, school district officials notified CDE that they had inadvertently submitted incorrect data to the department, but the agency did not correct the information online.
The timing of data releases has also been an issue. When CDE refused to publicly release state test scores after districts began releasing the information to parents, EdSource enlisted legal help to require CDE to comply with the California Public Records Act.
In September 2022, just months before the election that re-elected Tony Thurmond as state superintendent of public instruction, the CDE refused an EdSource request for Smarter Balanced test scores, saying they would not be released until sometime later in the year. EdSource wrote about the delay and enlisted an attorney to write a letter outlining why the data was public information. Within a week, the department announced the scores would be released in October, before the election. The Legislature subsequently required the department to release test scores annually by Oct. 15.
Nonprofits, schools share data
Because of the difficulty obtaining education data from the state, many nonprofits and collaboratives have started collecting their own data or creating online tools, so the public can more easily access CDE data.
The Education Trust-West, which has campaigned for clear and accessible data through its Data for the People initiative for over a decade, developed a data visualization tool that uses public data on California K-12 and higher education systems. Because much of the data comes from the CDE, information is limited to what the department has made available.
CORE Districts, a collaborative of nine California school districts serving more than a million students, collects data directly from districts for its Insights Dashboard. CORE collects data from its member districts, as well as 124 other school districts and charter schools, so that comparisons can be made. But the effort doesn’t come near reporting on all nearly 1,000 districts.
“We regularly get requests from researchers to look at our data,” said Rick Miller, CORE Districts’ chief executive officer. “Going through the CDE process is so cumbersome.”
Lack of data stymies researchers
Education data that is not being collected or made publicly available recently became the central topic of a gathering of California researchers discussing educator diversity, said Kai Mathews, project director for the California Educator Diversity Project at UCLA.
“What we realized is that some people had some information that’s not publicly available, and it largely depended on past relationships,” Mathews said. “So some data is actually probably collected, it’s just not publicly shared with all of us.”
Mathews and Nellum agree that a lack of updated teacher demographic data is particularly perplexing, given the teacher shortage and the number of workforce issues facing teachers. The Education Trust-West has had to delay some of its work because it hasn’t been able to obtain teacherdata, Nellum said.
“That is bad for students. It’s bad for schools. And, of course, it’s bad for any sort of hope we have of advancing equity,” Nellum said.
EdSource requested updated teacher demographic information from CDE earlier this year for a series of stories on recruiting and retaining Black teachers, an issue Superintendent of Public Instruction Thurmond had called a priority. The data was last updated in 2018-19, despite being submitted to the department annually by school districts. After sending five email requests over a month, the reporter never received the data from the CDE. Instead, the reporter used data from 2020-21, the most recent year available, from the National Center for Education Statistics.
Alix Gallagher, the director of strategic partnerships at Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), says the lack of data on universal transitional kindergarten makes it unclear whether the state is optimizing the annual investment it is making in the grade. California will spend an estimated $3 billion a year by 2025-26, when universal transitional kindergarten (TK) will be offered to all 4-year-olds, Gallagher wrote in a commentary on the PACE website.
The state should collect data on the features of transitional kindergarten programs and on student outcomes from transitional kindergarten through second grade, to better understand the effectiveness of transitional kindergarten, she wrote.
“Right now there isn’t publicly available data for roughly the first third of a kid’s career in the public schools,” Gallagher told EdSource. “We now have universal access to TK, kindergarten, first, second and third grades. And, at the end of third grade, kids take the SBAC (Smarter Balanced Assessment). And that’s the first time, as a system, we know anything about kids’ learning.”
In fact, this year’s test scores show 57% of third-graders reading below grade level and 55% doing mathematics below grade level.
CDE data division staffing up
An annual $3 million investment from the state will allow CDE to add 17 new employees to improve data reporting to the public, Kazanis said. Twelve of the new employees have been hired. The Analysis, Measurement and Accountability Reporting Division currently has 66 employees.
Some of those resources are headed to CDE as part of the state’s launchof the first phase of its Cradle-to-Career Data System sometime this year. The longitudinal data system will provide tools to help students achieve their goals and deliver information on education and workforce outcomes, according to the website. It may also give researchers the data they are seeking.
“I’m hopeful though, because the Cradle-to-Career data system is working on a teacher dashboard, which I know will have a lot of the data that we have been waiting for,” said Nellum, who also is a member of the Cradle-to-Career (C2C) Advisory Board. Nellum spoke to EdSource for this story as a representative of The Education-Trust West and not as a member of the C2C board.
Eight of the employees will make up the new Data Visualization and Insights Office. It will collect data at the request of state policymakers and the California State Board of Education and work to make publicly available data more user-friendly, Kazanis said.
The state funding includes $300,000 to move the release date of the California School Dashboard data up incrementally each year until the annual release date is Oct. 15. This is expected to happen in 2026. Last year, data which includes test scores, graduation rates and student demographics was released on Dec. 15. Two data teams work on the dashboard full-time all year, Kazanis said.
The influx of new staff is expected to allow the department to revamp DataQuest to make it more user-friendly, Kazanis said. The new teacher reports, for example, will allow the user to make comparisons among districts, she said.
Seven new positions will focus entirely on generating teacher data, Kazanis said.
“We’ve wanted to get out from under this backlog, but part of it was recognizing that we did need more resources, and we need dedicated resources to be focused on teacher data.”
Friday: California launches the Cradle-to-Career data system, a long-awaited project to track student progress
This story has been changed to correct the spelling for Tony Thurmond, California superintendent of public instruction and to reflect that some data sets have not been updated for the past five years, not seven years as originally stated. The paragraph about the California School Dashboard has been updated to make clear that the dashboard was suspended by the Legislature during the Covid pandemic.
After years of preparation inside and outside the state Capitol (shown), California has launched a website that gathers all sorts of education and career data in a single, searchable place.
Credit: Kirby Lee / AP
California has long lagged behind most other states when it comes to education data systems, choosing to focus on compliance rather than program improvement, but that could change later this year when the first phase of the Cradle-to-Career Data System is expected to go live.
The goal of the new statewide longitudinal data system, known as C2C, is ambitious. It will link data from multiple state departments and education institutions, from early learning through higher education, along with financial aid and social services. The data system is expected to provide resources for students planning for college and careers, as well as data to inform state leaders about effective educational strategies.
States have a responsibility to ensure that everyone has access to timely data to help them to understand how people are navigating education and career pathways, said Jennifer Bell-Ellwanger, president and chief executive officer of the Data Quality Campaign, a national education advocacy organization.
The first phase of the rollout later this year will be a student dashboard that will allow anyone to look at student information, including demographics; number of homeless youth, foster children and students with disabilities; English learner status; drop-out rates, parent education levels; and age of entry into school. The dashboard will not include information about individual students, but can be disaggregated by region, district and state, according to the Cradle-to-Career website.
Another dashboard will follow, reporting on teacher preparation, credentialing, hiring, retention and educator demographics. The data will be provided by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.
“This is an exciting moment because we are right on the cusp of seeing the value of connecting these data in one place,” said Christopher Nellum, executive director of The Education Trust-West, a social justice and advocacy organization. “We are going to see very soon the value in individual data providers sharing their data. And that will result in these two dashboards that are coming online very soon.”
Nellum was appointed to the C2C governing board by Gov. Gavin Newsom, but chose to be interviewed for this story as the director of EdTrust-West.
C2C could make state a data leader
When the Cradle-to-Career Data System is built out, there will be query builders, interactive tutorials and videos, and a library of tables, reports and research. Eventually, researchers will be able to request more comprehensive data from C2C staff.
The data system is housed and managed by the California Government Operations Agency, which was established in 2013 to improve management and accountability of government programs.
“I don’t have any doubt they can get this done,” said Paige Kowalski, executive vice president of the Data Quality Campaign. “They’re well staffed. They have been doing a great job.”
The Data Quality Campaign has been critical of California in the past for its siloed approach to data collection and reporting, but its leaders are optimistic about the new data system.
“I think the work that the state has done on Cradle-to-Career since 2019 has been absolutely flawless and phenomenal, and I just cannot say that about any other data effort I’ve ever seen in any state over the last 20 years,” Kowalski said.
C2C will not only allow the state to play catch-up with the rest of the nation, but could make it the leader in linking data from early education to employment, she said.
Cost of project unclear
It’s not entirely clear how much the Cradle-to-Career Data System will cost. The program has spent $21.4 million so far, with another $10.4 million committed to future work, but not yet spent, according to C2C staff.
During the planning process that began in 2019, the state allocated $2.5 million to plan the data system and another $100,000 each to 15 state departments, universities and other organizations participating in the effort. It’s not clear if all that money was spent, or if some was returned to the state.
The state also increased annual funding to some state departments that provide data and other services to the Cradle-to-Career Data System, including $1.7 million to increase staff at the California Department of Education. It’s unclear how many other departments have received budget increases tied to C2C.
Sixteen partners to share data
The state has gotten key players to sign data-sharing agreements with C2C: The California Department of Education, California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, University of California, California State University, California Community Colleges, Department of Social Services, Employment Development Department, Department of Industrial Relations, Department of Developmental Services and private universities.
The agreements are voluntary, with no penalty for departments or agencies that fail to provide data in a timely manner. So far, all the data has been submitted on time, according to board members.
“From 2022 to now, C2C has been working diligently with its data providers and its stakeholders to build a strong foundation to support a secure data linkage process given the scope of data C2C is bringing together,” said Angelique Palomar, deputy director of communications. “This includes establishing legal agreements across 16 entities, building the data infrastructure to securely receive and integrate the data across those partners, and the first submission of that data in October 2023.”
Data was submitted again in March, which will be the month partners will share annual data with C2C going forward, Palomar said.
The California Department of Education (CDE), which has fallen behind in providing up-to-date data on its website over the last seven years, will contribute about 70% of the data for C2C, according to CDE staff. It will use the additional state funding to hire more staff to help deliver the data for the project.
Bell-Ellwanger is hopeful all the partners will contribute data in a timely manner.
“These are data that belongs to taxpayers, not to one agency, or any person within the agencies,” she said. “And, so Californians, including researchers, journalists and the public, all deserve access to it.”
California is playing catch-up
C2C was a long time coming. California was one of only 11 states that did not have a data system with formal connections across two or more of the four core areas — early learning, K-12, post secondary and workforce — in 2021, according to the Education Commission of the States.
The Kentucky Center for Statistics is the nation’s gold standard when it comes to education-to-employment data systems, according to Kowalski. California looked to Kentucky when designing the California Cradle-to-Career data system, she said.
California has rolled out several education data systems over the last 30 years, but they have offered siloed information that couldn’t track whether students were successfully moving from school to the workforce.
In the late 1980s, California began to collect school-level data through the California Basic Educational Data System, known as CBEDS, a program still in use today.
In 1997, the state launched the California School Information Services (CSIS) system to streamline the collection and reporting of education data. But the system was obsolete less than five years later when No Child Left Behind became a federal law. CSIS lacked a unique identifier for each student, which the new law required to track student achievement.
In 2009, the state launched the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System, also known as CALPADS. It includes K-12 student-level demographics, enrollment, grade level, course enrollment and completion, program participation and discipline data, according to the California Department of Education. A 10-digit number is linked to each K-12 student in California, but individual information on students is not made public.
Its companion data system, the California Longitudinal Teacher Integrated Data Education System, or CALTIDES, never went live. The data system would have tracked educator data to facilitate assignment monitoring and to evaluate programs, according to the CDE website. In June 2011, Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed the $2.1 million the Legislature had put in the budget for CALTIDES, which forced the state to give back the $6 million federal grant it had received for the new database.
“He had a belief that Sacramento could not add much value to what districts were doing, and that data was definitely one of those things that was better left to locals,” Kowalski said of Brown.
Instead, CALPADS was built out to a basic level and put in maintenance mode, Kowalski said. But researchers kept beating the drum for data that was useful to people, she said. These are things other states have had for a decade.
Public included in planning
Gov. Newsom, having different views than his predecessor, made the Cradle-to-Career Data System part of his campaign for governor. In 2019, the Legislature passed the Cradle-to-Career Data System Act, which called for the creation of a data system to create support tools for teachers, parents and students; enable agencies to optimize educational, workplace and health and human services programs; streamline financial aid administration; and advance research on improving policies.
The state legislation included public engagement in the planning process and required that the 21-member advisory board include members of the public. The California law that mandated the data system also requires an annual survey of students and their families to ensure their voices and experiences guide the work, according to C2C.
This year, C2C officials are holding community meetings across the state to discuss what pieces of information should accompany the dashboards and how they should be displayed.
In Sacramento, community members asked for data disaggregated geographically, possibly by school district. Sacramento’s residents also want informational videos to help train people to use the dashboards. Oakland’s residents were interested in breaking the data down by demographic and educational factors.
“A few years ago, Gov. Newsom and the California Legislature really made it clear through their legislation around California Cradle-to-Career that they wanted this access that we’re talking about for students, families, educators, researchers and the public,” Bell-Ellwanger said. “So I do believe that they are aspiring for this type of transparency that we’re talking about that will also help to build trust in that data.”
California’s educators are drowning in a sea of well-intentioned but fragmented statewide initiatives. It’s time for a unified approach.
In California, we often hear that our education system is designed to “support the whole child.” This language is found in the California Department of Education’s organizing framework and sprinkled throughout the state’s many education initiatives, including Community Schools, Expanded Learning, and Multi-Tiered System of Support. This commitment to whole-child development ought to come as good news, but because the state and its agents haven’t been clear or consistent about what they mean by “whole child,” or what an educator needs to do to support the whole child, it often leads to confusion and frustration instead.
This lack of clarity means that educators in classrooms, schools and districts feel overwhelmed by all the new, seemingly separate programs and initiatives the state asks them to implement. They respond to different funding requests, fill out various program plans and reports, and attend and provide different trainings for all of these initiatives, each one feeling like “one more thing,” all while trying to manage their core teaching responsibilities and engage students effectively.
Mai Xi Lee, social and emotional learning (SEL) director at the Sacramento County Office of Education, captured this frustration well: “We’re doing bits and pieces of the same work, but calling them different things. We create these arbitrary structures defining what we do — this is SEL, PBIS, MTSS, etc. We get locked into language that we, unfortunately, as an educational system, have put in place.”
Here’s the missed opportunity: There actually are clear descriptions of whole-child education and whole-child practices already embedded within each of the initiatives. A recent report from the Center for Whole-Child Education details specifically how these practices show up in the initiatives. It uses the guiding principles for equitable whole-child design, created by the Learning Policy Institute and collaborating organizations as part of the Science of Learning and Development Alliance, to define whole-child practices that are based on research.
State leaders and administrators can increase alignment and reduce stress among already-stressed educators by communicating more clearly and intentionally about the existing alignment. The five Guiding Principles provide a simple way to define what is meant by whole-child education. Young people learn best when they experience the following in an integrated way:
Positive relationships with adults and peers
Environments filled with safety and belonging
Rich, engaging learning opportunities
Intentional development of skills, habits and mindsets
Additional integrated supports when needed
If state education leaders and administrators — who already reference “the whole child” throughout their efforts — would agree on and reference specific practices, such as these Guiding Principles, the increased clarity could cascade through the system. With consistent language from the state, then staff in county offices of education, district leaders and site administrators would better understand and be able to communicate specifically what a “whole-child” approach entails and how these principles are in fact shared across initiatives. For example, teachers would know that their work to develop positive relationships with students and create environments filled with safety and belonging is actually part of Social-Emotional Learning, Positive Behavioral Intervention Systems, Multi-Tiered System of Support, and Community Schools. In practice, these aren’t separate or siloed concepts or “one more thing” educators have to do — they are good teaching, creating the conditions in which students learn, grow and thrive.
The easy win here is for state leaders to agree on a short description of what they mean when they say “whole-child” and hew to that definition consistently and intentionally in guiding documents about different programs, strategies and initiatives. To reach consensus, a committee or task force of key leaders and staff who work on education initiatives could review the existing whole-child frameworks and their own guiding documents to define their shared language. This approach would clarify the state’s “whole-child” vision and provide consistent guidance about what educators should do to support young people, no matter what initiative they are working on.
Statewide clarity would be a huge relief to the thousands of educators who are doing their best every day to bring high quality teaching to their students, and who desperately need tools and systems that make their work easier, not more confusing.
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Katie Brackenridge is a consultant working with districts and county offices of education to plan and implement coherent whole-child practices.
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.
In his State of the State address, Newsom juxtaposed clips of his meetings with National Guard members charged with intercepting illegal drugs to contrast with Republican efforts to quash immigration reform.
Credit: YouTube / Office of the Governor
Gov. Gavin Newsom sharply contrasted California with red-state America during a pre-recorded State of the State address Tuesday, warning ominously that the state’s values and status as “a beacon of hope” are “under assault.”
“Forces are threatening the very foundation of California’s success — our pluralism, our innovative spirit, and our diversity,” he said. To underscore his claim, he liberally juxtaposed images during his 28-minute speech: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signing a ban on abortion with Newsom embracing an LGBTQ marcher at a Pride rally; headlines of congressional Republicans rejecting bipartisan immigration reform with National Guard members whom Newsom deployed to the border to intercept fentanyl.
The partisan, politically charged talk came two days before the first debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump and five months before a national election that Newsom called “another extraordinary moment in history.” Newsom, who has assumed the informal role as an articulate surrogate for Biden, underscored the importance of the president’s re-election for Californians.
“For generations, we’ve stood for progress: championing women’s rights and LGBTQ rights, protecting the environment, and expanding civil rights,” he said. “Conservatives and delusional California bashers want to roll back social progress, social justice, racial justice, economic justice, clean air, clean water and basic fundamental fairness.”
Primarily, though, Newsom’s talk both defended and lauded the “California way” and his administration’s accomplishments — in enhancing innovation and job creation, stopping drugs at the border, lowering crime, expanding environmental protections and providing shelter for the homeless.
He pointed to the elimination of 9,300 unsafe homeless encampments while turning former hotels and apartments into 15,300 units of housing and the progress with the Delta conveyance to protect water supplies, the “largest climate resilience project in the nation.” California is driving the electric vehicle industry and new industries to combat climate change, he said.
While critics portray California’s cities as lawless dystopias, the governor said the state’s violent crime rate has dropped to half of its peak in 1992; California has a lower homicide rate than 29 other states, including Florida and Texas, he said. He attributed California’s gun safety laws as a cause and asserted that 140,000 more Americans would be alive if the nation had California’s homicide rate.
Newsom devoted little of the address to education but pointed to the expansion of after-school and summer programs for low-income schools and the creation of community schools — a $4 billion initiative he protected from possible cuts — as accomplishments. At community schools, he said, students will receive family support, free meals and tutoring.
He also cited the state-funded hiring and training of literacy coaches in high-poverty schools, the creation of universal transitional kindergarten — a new grade for 4-year-olds — and, starting next year, the screening of all young students for possible learning challenges, including dyslexia, while introducing a new, state-funded multi-language screener.
Together, he boasted, these K-12 initiatives comprise “some of the most transformative policies in our state’s history, and most significant in our nation.”
In a vague reference to the state’s efforts to thwart censorship of social studies textbooks and novels from school libraries by conservative school boards, Newsom said California has acted “to protect a student’s right to learn, and a teacher’s right to teach.”
Diversity in demographics and in thought is California’s strength, he said. “Weird, wild, free-spirited California. A place that can elect Ronald Reagan and Jerry Brown — back to back,” he said.
Through revolutions in farmworker rights, free speech, love, computing and biotechnology, “we are building a state that transforms the world over and over again,” Newsom said.
In a news conference outside the Capitol an hour after the speech was released, Republican leaders laid out a vastly different counter-narrative.
“We have crime out of control, inflation out of control,” said state Sen. Brian Dahle, R-Bieber. “$24 billion for homeless, and we’ve actually increased homelessness. For the first time in the state’s history, we’ve deployed CHP (California Highway Patrol) to Oakland, San Francisco and Bakersfield to combat crime.”
“Republicans in California have not controlled a statewide office or the Legislature for decades, so (Gavin Newsom) needs to look in the mirror and understand that he’s running the state into the ground,” Dahle said.
Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher, R-Yuba City, called Newsom “unhinged” for diverting attention from his own performance by attacking Republicans in Congress.
“Let me tell you what the state of the state is right now. It’s a husband and wife sitting around that kitchen table, head in hands, trying to figure out how to pay the bills,” Gallagher said. “It’s parents who are afraid to send their kids to the local park because they’re afraid they might be attacked because it’s human devastation on our streets in every city. People lost in homelessness.
“And the problem has only gotten worse since Gavin Newsom has been governor,” he said.
Newsom had planned to give the State of the State address in March but delayed it while awaiting the outcome of Proposition 1 on the March primary ballot, which he had championed. The initiative, which passed narrowly, channeled $6.4 billion to assist Californians facing chronic homelessness and mental health or drug abuse problems.
Although the rise in transitional kindergarten (TK) enrollment in 2024–25 helped temper the overall decline, K–12 enrollment continues its downward trend.
Enrollment saw its greatest decline in regions of the state with higher housing prices, notably Los Angeles County and Orange County. There is growth in more affordable areas of the state, such as the San Joaquin Valley and Northern California, including the Sacramento area.
Even as TK is set to become a real grade, just like any other K-12 grade, there are myriad challenges looming on the horizon, from finding qualified teachers amid a dire staffing shortage to how to ensure quality instruction and suitable facilities.
Tim Ranzetta, sponsor of the personal finance initiative and proponent of legislation that Gov. Newsom says he will sign, presents signatures for the initiative at the Secretary of State’s office in March. With him are state Controller Malia Cohen, center, and personal finance teacher Crystal Rigley Janis.
Credit: Californians for Financial Education
Soon, all California high school students will learn about college grants and loans, how tax rates work, the benefits of insurance and how interest high rates can blow your budget when you miss a payment on a credit card.
This week, legislators rushed to pass legislation that would make California the 26th state to require a course in personal finance as a requirement for high school graduation as of 2030-31. A semester of personal finance must be offered in all high schools starting in 2026-27.
“It’s often the students who need financial literacy the most that receive it the least. Parents of low-income students are far less likely to be financially literate themselves, which means they can’t pass that knowledge down to their children,” Kayvon Banankhah, a high school junior from Modesto, said June 19 during testimony at a Senate Education Committee hearing on the bill. “I truly believe this bill is one of the most impactful and feasible ways we can combat wealth inequality in our state.”
Assembly Bill 2927 “will benefit countless future generations of Californians,” said Tim Ranzetta, a Palo Alto marketing and finance entrepreneur and crusader for personal finance instruction. As co-founder of the nonprofit Next Gen Personal Finance, which provides free curriculum and teacher training in personal finance education, he also financed a successful effort to place a nearly identical personal finance initiative on California’s November ballot.
With a written assurance from Gov. Gavin Newsom that he’d sign the bill, Ranzetta agreed to pull his initiative from the ballot Thursday, the deadline for final changes to initiatives.
The bill includes one significant difference, which was a response to arguments that imposing more graduation requirements, along with ethnic studies, another coming requirement, will further limit students’ course flexibility and schedules.
AB 2927 will allow students to substitute personal finance for economics, a semester-long graduation requirement that seniors usually take together with civics, another requirement. The bill also will permit a district to substitute personal finance for another local graduation requirement. The initiative would have added personal finance and left economics intact.
Economics teachers argued that they, too, support personal finance and often include it in their courses to personalize economic principles, but it should not be added at the expense of economics. They predicted that enrollment would plummet as a result.
“Economics encourages us to think about our systems and address factors too large for any single individual to address, such as poverty, income, inequality, innovation and generational wealth,” said Joshua Mitton, chief programs officer for the California Council for Economic Education, during testimony on the bill. “Economics prepares students with additional skills that improve all decisions, not simply those that pertain to finance. And it is an integral part of social studies helping prepare a literate and civically engaged electorate.”
Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas, D-Los Angeles, said she felt conflicted because she supports ensuring students are getting individual knowledge that they need as a necessary life skill while also understanding “economic policies and the impacts on communities on a more macro level.”
Assemblymember Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, compared the dilemma to adding another dish to an already full Thanksgiving table. “Sometimes you have to take something off the plate, right? There’s only so much time during the day, only so many electives. And so that’s one of the trade-offs that we made,” he said, adding that students will be able to take both economics and personal finance.
The economics teachers council indicated a willingness to revise the economics course framework to include more personal finance content to meet a new requirement. However, Ranzetta insisted on a stand-alone personal finance offering as a condition for pulling his initiative.
Under the bill, the Instruction Quality Commission, which reports to the State Board of Education, will create a curriculum guide and resources for a personal finance course by May 31, 2026.
The course will include these topics:
Fundamentals of personal banking, including savings and checking accounts
Budgeting for independent living
Financing college and other career options
Understanding taxes and factors that affect net income
Credit, including credit scores and the relation of debt to credit
Consumer protection skills like identifying scams and preventing identity theft
Charitable giving
Principles of investing and building wealth, including pensions and IRAs, stocks, bonds, and mutual funds
“For many of my peers, investing in stocks might as well be as complicated and convoluted as rocket science or calculus in our case,” said Banankhah. “The reality is they’re not being taught about this in school, and a lot of my peers don’t even know what they’re missing out on.”
The bill will allow several years to train teachers in the new curriculum. Teachers who hold credentials in social science, business, mathematics, or home economics will be authorized to teach personal finance. The Commission on Teacher Credentialing can also establish supplementary authorization to teach the course.
The bill and the initiative had widespread support in the business community, as well as from State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, the Association of California School Administrators, and the youth activism group GENup. The Legislature passed AB 2927 without opposition.
At the hearing last week on the bill, Sen. Dave Cortese, D-San Jose, said that economic conditions were the driving force behind homelessness annually for 15,000 high school graduates. Those conditions, he said, “can come rather suddenly,” and personal finance education will provide tools for survival.
“It almost seems like a high school student needs to be ready at any time to be fending for themselves these days,” he said.
Former State Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin.
Credit: John Joanino/Advancement Project California
Despite the office’s imposing title, California’s superintendent of public instruction has little actual power to do much about education.
The governor has far more influence, as does the State Board of Education. And then there are the local school boards, which, by law, are responsible for the nearly 1,000 school districts in the state.
That is why it was remarkable that at least 500 people packed into the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Sacramento last week to honor Delaine Eastin, who was superintendent of public instruction over two decades ago. She was the first, and so far, only, woman to occupy the post.
The state superintendent position is largely what you make of it — and Eastin, who died in April at the age of 76, made the most of it.
Part of her success had to do with her outsize personality. She regularly girded colleagues for any number of political battles with Shakespeare’s rallying cry, “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.”
Part of her impact was rooted in her sustained belief in public education, of which she herself was a product. A native of California, she attended public schools and earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of California.
“Children are the living messengers we are sending to a time we will never see,” she would say. To those who argued that public education costs the state too much, she would offer the rejoinder, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”
And to those who wondered why they should support children in districts other than their own with their taxes, she argued, “This country runs on other people’s children.”
Some of her success had something to do with her oratory, which was honed in her high school drama classes. As an assemblymember before becoming state superintendent, she was regarded as one of the best speakers in the Legislature. She regularly got standing ovations in the multiple speeches she made around the state. Former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, a legendary speaker himself who attended the memorial service, would often send her to speak in his place.
Her legacy includes her single-mindedness in promoting smaller class sizes in California’s K-3 grades. She was a force in creating California’s Academic Performance Index in 1999, the first statewide system for ranking schools based mostly on test scores.
She was also a leader in promoting California’s first efforts for universal preschool — a vision that is now coming to fruition with the expansion of transitional kindergarten to all 4-year-olds.
Less well known was her backing of Alice Water’s Edible Garden Project, which began at the Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkeley in the mid 1990s. “If it had not been for Delaine, we would not have had an Edible Garden Project,” said Waters, the founder of the renowned Chez Panisse restaurant just blocks from the school. On a video, Waters shared that there are now 6,500 edible school gardens around the world.
Above all, Eastin was a huge backer of California itself. Californians, she would often say, “are people who grew up somewhere else and came to their senses.”
Throughout her life, she was single-minded in promoting women for public office.
Eastin’s last appearance on the political stage was in 2018 when she “had the audacity to run for governor,” as Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis described the run. It was a quixotic effort at best — something Eastin was well-aware of, Kounalakis said. “She ran largely to talk about the importance of public education.”
As the two of them traveled together around the state during the campaign, Eastin would say, “This is what the future could look like” if they both were elected. But Eastin only got 4% of the vote. Kounalakis was more successful, becoming California’s first woman lieutenant governor.
While she did not make it to the governorship, there was something biblical in the arc of the life of a woman who did not have her own children, despite wanting them — but was nonetheless able to improve the lives of millions of them in her home state.
Her staff in the Department of Education recalled the many times they would set out early, half awake, on yet another trip to an outlying district.
“It’s going to be a great day,” Eastin, ever the motivator, would tell them. “We get to visit schools.”
•••
Louis Freedberg is interim CEO of EdSource.
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A family gets information at Fort Miller Middle School’s Health and Wellness Fair in Fresno.
Photo courtesy of Eric Calderon-Phangrath
Children’s health advocates are sounding alarm bells about Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to freeze public health insurance enrollment for undocumented adults.
They say the move will put those adults’ children at risk of poor health care and well-being.
California has gradually expanded Medi-Cal, the state’s health insurance for low-income people, to undocumented immigrants, including those with temporary status such as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. First, undocumented children were included in 2016, then young adults 19-25 in 2019, then seniors 50 and older in 2022, and finally those ages 26-49 in January 2024.
Before the expansion, undocumented immigrants only qualified for Medi-Cal in emergencies, during pregnancy, and for long-term care. California is paying for the expansion on its own, without federal dollars.
Now, faced with a deficit, Newsom is proposing to freeze new enrollment in Medi-Cal for undocumented immigrant adults and charge current undocumented enrollees a $100 monthly premium starting in 2027.
The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have been pressuring states like California to stop providing benefits to undocumented immigrants, saying tax dollars should not be used for people who are in the country without permission.
In announcing the proposed cuts, though, Newsom said they were to balance the budget. He said his beliefs have not changed. He touted his promises to expand health care to all, regardless of immigration status, both as mayor of San Francisco and governor of California.
“It’s my value. It’s what I believe, I hold dear. I believe it’s a universal right. And I have for six years championed that,” Newsom said. “This is a tough budget in that respect.”
He said there are now 1.6 million undocumented adults enrolled in Medi-Cal, about 5.3% of total enrollment.
“Our approach was not to kick people off and not to roll back the expansion, but to level set on what we can do and what we can’t do,” Newsom said.
Though undocumented children would not be affected directly by the changes, advocates say that restricting health insurance for undocumented adults will affect their children, the vast majority of whom are U.S. citizens. An estimated 1 in 10 California children have at least one parent who is “undocumented” or has temporary protections from deportation, according to the National Center for Children in Poverty.
“We are disheartened,” wrote Avo Makdessian, executive director of the First 5 Association of California, an organization that represents the state’s county commissions supporting children in the first five years of life, in a statement released after Newsom’s announcement of his revised budget. “When Medi-Cal coverage is scaled back for adults without legal status, children in those families suffer. Decades of research are clear: Healthy parents lead to healthy kids.”
Ted Lempert, president of the nonprofit organization Children Now, said, “Children Now is deeply concerned with the proposed cuts to Medi-Cal.”
“We urge the governor and Legislature to consider that when parents lose coverage, kids are less likely to get the health care they need, so the proposal to hurt parents hurts kids as well,” Lempert said.
Mayra Alvarez, president of The Children’s Partnership, an organization that advocates for children’s health equity, said studies show that when parents become eligible for Medi-Cal, they are more likely to learn about health insurance options available to their children and enroll them.
“This ‘welcome mat’ effect can lead to a noticeable increase in the number of children covered by Medi-Cal or similar programs, even without changes in their individual eligibility,” Alvarez said. “Conversely, when a parent or family member is sick and unable to work or provide care, kids suffer as a result.”
Dolores, 65, is a grandmother who enrolled in Medi-Cal under the expansion for undocumented immigrants. She said losing it would affect not only her but also her children and grandchildren. She did not share her last name because of fear of immigration enforcement.
Months after enrolling three years ago, Dolores suffered a stroke.
“If I hadn’t had Medi-Cal, I don’t know how I would have gotten health care,” she said in Spanish. “It helped me then, and it is still helping me so much.”
Her enrollment in Medi-Cal has also helped her family, including her grandchildren, who live with her, she said. At a health center in Victorville, she has been able to take nutrition classes and Zumba, and she has learned about healthy foods to cook for her family. She said her 4-year-old granddaughter follows her every move, exercises with her, and has benefited from her grandma’s improved health.
“You know children are like sponges — everything they see, they absorb,” she said.
Dolores said she could not afford to pay $100 a month for Medi-Cal, as proposed by Newsom. She has lived in the U.S. for more than 30 years, but after the stroke, she has not been able to return to work.
Alvarez added that when state residents are uninsured, that creates other costs in emergency health care.
“Cynically discriminating against our state’s immigrant communities by rolling back Medi-Cal eligibility is not only unconscionable, but doing so will only result in costs being shifted elsewhere,” she said.
Alvarez recommended that the governor and Legislature balance the budget in other ways, such as “closing corporate tax loopholes and making the wealthy pay their fair share, drawing down reserves that exist for times like this, and scaling back spending in more appropriate places, such as the state’s bloated prison budget.”
Students from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s Green Campus team promote the university’s graduation gown reuse program. Students who borrow regalia from the program can return it in bins after the ceremony or return it by mail.
. Cal Poly/Courtesy
As college students across the state prepare to graduate, they are sometimes surprised by the costs associated with this rite of passage.
Besides the cost of regalia, graduating at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo also requires a $120 commencement fee, charged for each Cal Poly degree or credential program. Students at California State University, Dominguez Hills, will pay a $90 graduation application fee.
The cost to apply to graduate at San Diego State University is $112, while students at California State University, Fullerton, pay $115.
CSU spokesperson Amy Bentley-Smith explained that each Cal State campus “sets its graduation fee. The fee covers the evaluation process to determine if the student has fulfilled the course requirements to earn a degree and graduate, as well as costs associated with the printing and mailing of the diploma.”
Added Bentley-Smith, “Portions of the fees can go to support putting on commencement, but it’s not the primary purpose of the fee.”
Beyond the fees, every student who wants to participate in the ceremony itself — commonly referred to as “walking” — is required to wear the campus’ approved regalia.
For example, at San Jose State University, where there is no graduation application fee, the SJSU university store sells its most basic regalia packs — cap, gown, degree-colored tassel, stole (also called a sash) and souvenir tassel — for $131.50.
The cost and one-time use for most students of this graduation attire — those with careers in academia often use regalia again — has spurred grassroots solutions to pop up across Cal State campuses.
With its simple all-black gown and cap requirement, CSU Dominguez Hills makes it easy for undergraduate students to opt out of purchasing their regalia from the student bookstore, with Amazon.com and third-party sellers a more popular option. It’s easy to find black caps and gowns online for $20.
Students also turn to Reddit and other social media platforms to find alumni and peers offering used caps and gowns at discounted prices or even for free.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” said Kenneth Lopez, a graduating senior majoring in business administration. “How is it that Amazon (is) selling it for cheaper and we’re getting maybe double or triple that (cost)?”
Lopez said that one way to defray these costs comes from the Latino Student Business Association, or LSBA, which is among several CSU Dominguez Hills organizations working to help students save money by partnering with local businesses such as Chick-fil-A, Panda Express and Shakey’s Pizza.
Lopez explained that the Latino Student Business Association, where he is the vice president of finance, reached out to local businesses all over Carson to set up fundraisers. The money, raised from a percentage of product sales, was put toward graduation stoles — a sash typically in the school’s colors with embroidery of the school’s name and year of graduation, costing about $50 — to give seniors a personal memento of their achievements.
Sonoma State University does not charge students a fee to graduate. The commencement gear, required for the ceremony, is sold through outside vendors, with a basic bachelor’s degree cap and gown set costing $95.
Aurelio Aguilar, a graduating senior at Sonoma State majoring in communications, found a more affordable alternative through the campus store: renting regalia. While it’s not well-advertised, he explained, he was able to rent the gear. “It came out to about $80 for the cap and gown, and the (tassel) they gave us for the top of the cap.”
At Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, one grassroots program aims to fight the problem head-on. The university’s Grad Gown Reuse program has gained in popularity, offering students a sustainable solution to the one-time-purchase model.
Started in 2022, the program allows students to donate their graduation gowns instead of having them hang in their closets collecting dust.
Carina Ballek is a senior environmental earth and soil science major at Cal Poly and is also an intern with the Green Campus team at Cal Poly. Ballek and her team worked with Cal Poly’s Educational Opportunity Program to kick-start the program, receiving a donation of 90 gowns.
“Our gowns are so popular that they are signed out in two days,” Ballek said, highlighting the need for more donations.
“There has been more demand than there is supply,” said Amy Unruh, a sustainability and waste specialist within Cal Poly’s energy utilities and sustainability department. She believes that getting the word out could help draw in more donations.
Since the program’s start, hundreds of students have benefited from reusing regalia. Logistically speaking, the Gown Reuse program sets up a table outside of commencement so graduates can easily drop off their gowns directly after the ceremony. Recent graduates can also drop off their gowns at the office of sustainability, or mail them in.
“It’s important because, on a sustainability level, we’re saving lots of gowns from going to landfills,” Ballek said. She also noted that “graduates don’t have their full-time jobs yet and would rather not spend $90-$100 on a gown.”
San Diego State University student Maren Hawkins, a journalism media studies major, estimated that regalia cost was “$135 or $145, and buying it (meant) not buy(ing) food for two weeks.”
Added Hawkins, “I’ve talked to other students about how … it’s unreasonable, the amount of money we have to put in to graduate.”
Instead, Hawkins turned to people whom she could rely on: alumni friends.
“I was embarrassed to ask my friends to borrow their (cap and gown),” Hawkins said. “We’d never talked about not being able to afford graduation. Now, I’m grateful that I’m not spending this money on it, because I know they’d sit in my closet for the rest of my life.”
The only item Hawkins purchased was her stole for $35.
Another San Diego State student, interdisciplinary studies major Lizeth Garcia, felt similarly. She and her housemate, Abigail Polack, found ways to avoid the costs.
Garcia and Polack worked at San Diego State’s Aztec Market since junior year, and both continued working there because students who work for Aztec Shops can apply to receive free regalia.
“Might as well keep working there so they can pay for my (regalia),” Garcia said. She said that free regalia was her primary reason for working, adding, “We already knew that we had to pay for graduation.”
At Cal State Fullerton, a program to help students with regalia costs comes from a partnership between Basic Needs Services and Titan Shops.
Created in 2022, Cal State Fullerton’s Academic Regalia Support provides regalia to students experiencing “recent unanticipated hardship,” according to Victoria Ajemian, director of Basic Needs Services..
The program offers 100 bachelor’s degree regalia sets that students register to reserve starting in April. Not all of the requests are filled due to high volume and limited supplies.
Business administration major Tiffany Lo’s friend, Azurine Chang, applied. “She barely got it last month,” Lo said.
Lo didn’t need the program herself — she’d gotten regalia from alumni. “There was no question when I asked,” Lo said. “They’re like, ‘Hey, you can have it — it’s collecting dust in my closet.’” Lo, who is saving money to study abroad, only purchased the CSUF stole.
Lo also directed friends to Facebook Marketplace, where she saw offers for regalia from past years for $35 — tassel and all.
“My friend didn’t buy the tassel for 2025,” Lo said. “She was like, ‘Hey, I’m gonna just use the 2024 tassel. No one’s gonna notice when we’re all gonna go walk.’”
Layla Bakhshandeh is a graduating senior at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, majoring in journalism and graphic communication; Marc Duran is a graduating senior at Sonoma State University, majoring in communications; Stephinie Phan is a graduating senior at California State University, Dominguez Hills, majoring in journalism; and Joshua Silla is a graduating senior at San Diego State University, majoring in journalism and media studies. All are members of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps.