This is a very important chart to raise awarement across schools, districts, and the state; however, I think it needs to be corrected that these are students who don’t pass these college-prep courses with a C or higher. It sends the wrong message to say that these “students don’t take courses needed to apply to CSU or UC” as I know that most students in many schools/districts do take these courses — they just … Read More
This is a very important chart to raise awarement across schools, districts, and the state; however, I think it needs to be corrected that these are students who don’t pass these college-prep courses with a C or higher. It sends the wrong message to say that these “students don’t take courses needed to apply to CSU or UC” as I know that most students in many schools/districts do take these courses — they just don’t get a passing grade, which is another systemic issue that needs to be tackled.
Christian Robinson always planned to go to college, but when she graduated from Adelanto High School in California’s High Desert, she felt aimless. Without a plan or preparation for higher education, she decided to go to work instead.
She regrets that now.
“I wish I would have gone straight into college because I would have had everything done, finished and over with,” said Robinson, who at 20 is now enrolling at Victor Valley College.
Currently, Robinson juggles two jobs, working for a security company and serving fast food. She wishes she had received more guidance about attending college from her school.
Robinson’s story was typical for Black students at Adelanto High School, where over 8 out of 10 Black students graduated in 2020 without the college prep courses — known as A-G — required for admission to California’s public universities.
The path has been different for her younger brother MarQuan Thornton, currently a high school senior at Adelanto. Months away from graduation, Thornton is one of a small group of students deciding not whether he will go to college, but which one.
MarQuan Thornton is a senior at Adelanto High in California’s High Desert. He credits the Heritage Program at his school, aimed at Black students, for helping to keep him on track for attending college.Emma Gallegos/EdSource
Thornton has worked hard but recognizes that the key difference between his trajectory and his sister’s is the support he’s getting from school that did not exist during his sister’s time there.
Three years after his sister graduated, his high school began the Heritage Program, which is aimed at ensuring that Black students, like him, are on track to complete their A-G requirements.
Thornton knows he’s on track to meet the requirements that will make him eligible to attend a state university.
“If she (Christian Robinson) had this type of chance when she was in high school, she probably would have been where I am at,” Thornton said. “I can see the difference.”
While the vast majority of students in California — 86% of seniors in 2023 — graduate from high school, most — 56% in 2023 — do not complete their A-G requirements, according to an EdSource analysis of data from the California Department of Education. EdSource’s analysis found that Black and Latino students are the hardest hit.
In 2023, 68% of Black students and 64% of Latino students did not meet A-G requirements, compared with 26% of Asian students and 48% of white students, according to EdSource’s analysis.
The highest non-completion group is foster students at 88%, followed by disabled students at 85% and English learners at 82%.
“These kinds of numbers should be treated as a five-alarm fire,” said Melissa Valenzuela-Stookey, director of P-16 research for Ed Trust-West, a nonprofit that advocates for justice in education.
Valenzuela-Stookey said high school graduates are being shut out of affordable four-year public college options, because they are not getting the support they need to complete the A-G coursework.
“Our education systems urgently need to invest more in our students of color,” Valenzuela-Stookey said.
As Robinson neared graduation in the early days of the pandemic, she said everyone, even teachers, seemed to lose track of how to prepare students for college and life after high school.
But long before the pandemic, the district was struggling to prepare Black students to meet their A-G requirements and be ready for higher education, according to Ratmony Yee, assistant superintendent of educational services for Victor Valley Union High.
Robinson’s mother, Crystal Francisco, says that she is proud of how hard her daughter works to earn her own money. But she concurs that if Heritage had been around, Robinson might have gone straight to college.
“She probably would have gone a different way,” said Francisco.
Snapshot of California
Of 1,766 high schools in California, about half graduated more than 56% of students lacking the required college preparatory courses.
Fewer than 2 out of 10 students met A-G rates in 2023 in many northern counties, such as Lake, Del Norte, Plumas, Lassen, Nevada, Tehama, Trinity. Just 3 out of 10 students in Kern, Merced, Tulare and Kings counties met the requirements. That compares to the Bay Area in San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda and Marin counties where more than 5 out of 10 students met A-G requirements.
Improving low A-G completion rates has been a longtime goal of both educators and state policymakers, but it’s a problem that resists easy answers or quick fixes, said Sherrie Reed, executive director of the California Education Lab at UC Davis and a researcher with Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), an independent research nonprofit affiliated with several California universities.
The idea of simply aligning the state’s minimum high school requirements with A-G requirements hasn’t gained steam because of the concern that it would result in fewer students graduating, said Mayra Lara, the director of Southern California partnerships and engagement with Ed Trust-West.
What are A-G requirements?
The details of A-G requirements can be arcane, especially for students and parents who are not familiar with the college admissions process. The state requires students to complete a minimum of 13 courses to receive a high school diploma.
But to attend a UC or CSU requires that a student takes 15 courses in seven areas: history, English, math, science, foreign language, arts and an elective. Each category has its own letter, A-G, which is where the requirements get their name.
These courses overlap with high school requirements, but they are also more rigorous. For instance, three years of English are required to graduate from high school, while A-G eligibility requires four years. Only one of those years can include English as a Second Language or English Language Development — courses that English learners are often enrolled in.
Low grades are a common way students fall off the A-G track. A “D” is considered a passing grade for a high school diploma, but A-G classes require at least a “C” to count as eligible.
The state, instead, has offered carrots for districts working on improving poor A-G rates, especially those that have a large marginalized student population, such as those who are low-income, English learners, homeless or have a disability. In 2021-22, the state set aside over $547 million for the A-G Completion Improvement Grant Program. The state has also pushed dual enrollment and career technical education to the high school curriculum, both of which can help students meet their A-G requirements.
Progress has been slow. The number of students who have met A-G requirements statewide has ticked up just shy of four points over the last six years.
Understanding why any given student may or may not meet A-G requirements requires examining what is happening in a particular region or district, as well as disparities within schools.
“The answer is that it is all of that,” said Reed. “No one factor accounts for it.”
Some students said that graduating without meeting A-G requirements sent them the message that they were not college material.
Brock Wooster-Mills, 20, said he felt “doomed to fail” as a student with a disability attending Liberty High School in Bakersfield, where 49% of students do not meet A-G requirements.
Partial hearing loss had affected Wooster-Mills’ ability to speak and follow lessons in elementary school. But even when his hearing improved, his counselors in the Kern High School District wouldn’t allow him to transfer into required A-G courses such as French and geometry.
He remembers one special education teacher telling his class that they likely wouldn’t even attend a community college, but Wooster-Mills said he always knew he was capable of more. He enrolled in Bakersfield College in 2021, the fall after he graduated.
He’s now in his sixth semester, but his lack of academic confidence and inadequate preparation continue to dog him. In high school, he had never been taught how to write an essay. He had never studied a foreign language, which made Spanish daunting. He failed the first time he took it.
“I feel like I’m still behind,” he said. “I wasn’t taught what I was supposed to be taught.”
Most high schools in the state — 91.4% of traditional district schools, according to PACE — do offer a full slate of A-G coursework that put them on track for college. But the degree of access students get to those courses or support, once they have enrolled, varies greatly, resulting in wide disparities between groups of students.
Interactive Map
View the map to see the percentage of students in each high school who graduate without A-G required courses.
PACE released a series of briefs and reports on the A-G completion rates in summer 2023, noting that access to rigorous coursework — whether dual enrollment, Advanced Placement or other college preparatory courses — can profoundly change the trajectory of a student’s life. These courses not only set students up for admission to college, but make it more likely that a student will pursue college in the first place.
Researchers found that some high schools do not offer the full range of A-G courses. In 2018-19, 2.5% of schools offered no A-G courses, and another 6% only offered some A-G courses. The list also includes small and rural schools that struggle to hire teachers who are qualified to teach A-G required classes in fields such as math, science or foreign language.
But 84% of schools that do not offer a full range of A-G courses are charter schools focused primarily on credit recovery for students at risk of not graduating from high school. Charter schools tend to be outliers in both directions; schools with the highest and lowest A-G rates — where fewer than 40% or greater than 80% of students meet A-G requirement — tend to be charters.
Changes in high school can help
Adelanto High is a part of Victor Valley Union High School District, which serves communities in the High Desert, including Victorville. Cheap, abundant land attracts residents priced out of the Southern California housing market, but there is little economic opportunity. Unemployment is high, and so is the poverty rate.
“The kids get stuck here, because there’s a cycle of poverty,” said Aleka Jackson-Jarrell, the coordinator of the Heritage program at Adelanto High.
Educators in Victor Valley Union High say that beyond ensuring that students have all of their options open to them upon graduation, it is not their role to choose a path for students. Military or trade school are options celebrated at the school, but educators tell students that a bachelor’s degree will be key for most students who aim to earn better wages and escape the cycle of poverty.
“Money talks,” said Yee, assistant superintendent of instructional services for Victor Valley Union High.
District leaders say ensuring that students meet their A-G requirements opens up two key options for students: being eligible to apply for a CSU or UC school, and also having the preparation to succeed at a community college.
Like much of inland California, the rate of students completing their A-G is low in Victor Valley Union High. In 2016-17, 13% of students in the district completed their A-G coursework, but it has been improving: that number rose to 29% last year.
Victor Valley Union High has been making districtwide changes that administrators say are key to putting more students on track for A-G completion.
Scheduling is important, Yee said. Creating a master schedule that prioritizes disabled students or English learners ensures these students aren’t missing A-G coursework because of a scheduling conflict. Some schools also build tutoring into daily schedules for struggling students.
The district studied students’ transcripts to figure out how to improve their chances of meeting A-G requirements. For instance, they found that students who took foreign language classes as freshmen or sophomores were more likely to fulfill this requirement, because they had time to retake classes to make up for any poor grades. Students are now required to begin their foreign language courses by sophomore year.
Victor Valley Union High also rolled out two programs aimed specifically at groups of students that were struggling the most: Black students and long-term English learners.
Homing in on groups who need the most help
The Heritage program, aimed at Black students like MarQuan Thornton, was piloted in 2022-23 at Adelanto High. Beginning sophomore year, every Black student in this High Desert school is automatically enrolled in this program that ensures students are prepared for graduation as well as college and a career.
Thornton said the program has helped him, even ensuring that he made up classes he struggled with his sophomore year. He now boasts a 3.7 GPA.
A-G completion rates for Black students at his high school improved. In 2021-22, 6% of Black students met their A-G. The following year, when Heritage began, that number jumped to 26%.
Because of its early success, the program is not only being rolled out at other campuses in the district, but is being used as a model for Legacy, a program aimed at long-term English learners.
Students in both Heritage and Legacy are sorted in four groups. Level 1 students are on track to graduate from high school with A-G requirements, while Level 4 students may be in danger of not graduating from high school at all. The coordinators hold monthly sessions with each group on topics ranging from how to fill out the FAFSA form or make up failed classes to basic life skills that students approaching adulthood need. Students also visit college campuses.
Parents are invited for workshops to school so that they can understand the importance of A-G classes and learn how to support — and perhaps badger — their children into staying on track.
Heritage coordinator Jackson-Jarrell said that having a background similar to her students’ helps her connect with them. She dropped out of high school when she was younger. She tells students that earning degrees — starting with an associate degree and ultimately obtaining a doctorate — helped her go from making $4.25 an hour to making six figures.
Her counterpart at Silverado High, Jose Velasco, teaches Spanish and runs the Legacy program. Like many of his students, Velasco is a child of immigrants whose first language was Spanish. He checks in to make sure students have access to bilingual aides so that they can understand the content in their college preparatory classes, such as geometry or history.
When Heritage first began, Jackson-Jarrell experienced pushback from non-Black teachers, parents and students questioning the need for a program focused solely on one group of students and pointing to other programs such as AVID, that focused on college and career readiness.
“We were hit with questions like, ‘Why is this program just for Black students? It’s not fair,’” she said.
Jackson-Jarrell would tell them that the data was showing that overwhelmingly, Black students need the most support meeting A-G requirements and that they have unique needs and challenges that Heritage addresses. When students visit college campuses, they try to imagine themselves fitting in. Not seeing Black students on campus can reinforce the idea that they don’t belong on a college campus.
“They’re looking for themselves,” said Jackson-Jarrell. “They feel like they don’t belong.”
So, Heritage will often ensure that when they visit campuses, they can meet directly with students from the Black student resource centers. This upcoming spring, Heritage students are invited on a tour through the American South, visiting historically Black colleges and universities. Legacy makes a point of visiting with Latino student groups on campus for similar purposes.
Jackson-Jarrell said that programs like Heritage and Legacy are important for the economic development of the community and hopes to see more programs like them in other districts in the High Desert.
Superintendent Carl Coles concurs. Increasing the rigor of students’ coursework and preparing them for higher education doesn’t just set students up for success, it improves the prospects of their families and the larger community. The district’s renewed focus on A-G requirements, he said, goes right to the core of why education is so important.
Coles said, “It really is so that every kid can live a life of purpose.”
This post has been updated to clarify a source’s statement
California’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing approved long-awaited revised Standards for the Teaching Profession on Thursday that emphasize culturally responsive teaching, social-emotional learning and family engagement.
The standards, which guide teachers’ professional development and evaluation statewide, broadly describe the knowledge, skills and abilities expected of effective experienced teachers. State law requires that they are updated regularly.
During the meeting Thursday, the overwhelming sentiment — from commissioners members, speakers from the public, and the letters received — supported the new standards; however, some asked the commission to push back the 2025-26 rollout of the new standards to allow university teacher preparation programs, school districts and commission staff more time to implement changes.
“The revised CSTP aims to rehumanize our system by focusing on the whole student, their identities and what’s meaningful in this world to them, not us,” said Leigh Dela Victoria, an instructional coach in the Fontana Unified School District in San Bernardino County.
“They havethe potential to transform all of our classrooms into culturally and linguistically responsive and sustaining communities,” she said. “As a coach, I can tell you firsthand the impact this type of teaching has on students when their identities, assets and agency are valued.”
She told commission members that the current standards, approved in 2009, are out of touch with what needs to be taught in classrooms.
The six overarching domains of teaching in the new document are similar to the previous standards, and are parallel to other state standards, according to the commission. The elements within the domains include definitions and examples. The six domains are also used in the Teaching Performance Expectations, which outline what beginning teachers should know.
Going Deeper
Domain 1: Engaging and supporting all students in learning – Teachers apply knowledge about each student to activate an approach to learning that strengthens and reinforces each student’s participation, engagement, connection and sense of belonging.
Domain 2: Creating and maintaining effective environments for student learning – Teachers create and uphold a safe, caring and intellectually stimulating learning environment that affirms student agency, voice, identity and development, and promotes equity and inclusivity.
Domain 3: Understanding and organizing subject matter for student learning – Teachers integrate content, processes, materials and resources into a coherent, culturally relevant and equitable curriculum that engages and challenges learners to develop the academic and social–emotional knowledge and skills required to become competent and resourceful learners.
Domain 4: Planning instruction and designing learning experiences for all students – Teachers set a purposeful direction for instruction and learning activities, intentionally planning and enacting challenging and relevant learning experiences that foster each student’s academic and social–emotional development.
Domain 5: Assessing students for learning – Teachers employ equitable assessment practices to help identify students’ interests and abilities, to reveal what students know and can do and to determine what they need to learn. Teachers use that information to advance and monitor student progress as well as to guide teachers’ and students’ actions to improve learning experiences and outcomes.
Domain 6: Developing as a professional educator – Teachers develop as effective and caring professional educators by engaging in relevant and high-quality professional learning experiences that increase their teaching capacity, leadership development and personal well-being. Doing so enables teachers to support each student to learn and thrive.
“The revised CSTP features several key shifts from the 2009 version, chief among them a more holistic approach to teaching and learning,” said Sarah Lillis, executive director for Teach Plus California, in a letter. “For example, the move from goal setting to designing learning experiences shifts the focus from results to students’ learning. Another notable shift is recognizing that all teachers, regardless of subject-specific credential areas, are teachers of literacy skills.”
Family engagement is a key element of new standards
The new standards also focus on family and community engagement, requiring teachers to find effective strategies for communicating and creating relationships with families.
“These standards provide an invaluable road map that will undoubtedly strengthen how teachers, schools and communities partner with families,” said Bryan Becker, of the Parent Organization Network.
Also new to the standards are two sections, one asking teachers to examine their personal attitudes and biases, and how these impact student learning, and the other asking them to reflect on their personal code of ethics.
After speakers expressed concern about the few references to English learners and students with disabilities in the document, Chair Marquita Grenot-Scheyer made a motion to approve the standards with amendments that would “shine a brighter spotlight” on those students.
She also asked that the amendment include direction to ensure teachers attend individualized education plan meetings. School staff and parents attend these meetings to review the education plan of students with special needs.
Revision put on hold for two years
According to the commission, the revision was a long time in coming. Originally adopted in the 1990s, the standards were most recently updated in 2009. An expert group of educators, administrators, researchers and state education staff came together in 2020 to update the standards. The group met online five times between June 2020 and May 2021, but work was paused a few months later “as Covid and other critical world events demanded pause and reflection.”
Over the past two years, the commission has been focused on other state initiatives that would impact the new standards, including the new PK-3 Early Childhood Specialist Instruction Credential and the implementation of revised literacy standards and literacy-related teaching performance expectations mandated by legislation. Members of the expert group returned in 2023 to review and finalize the document.
Board denies pleas for delay
The commission voted for the newly revised standards to go into effect in the 2025-26 school year, despite numerous requests by speakers to extend the rollout to give teacher preparation and induction programs and the commission staff more time to prepare for them.
Grenot-Scheyer also directed commission staff to develop an implementation plan that will support school districts and teacher preparation programs during the transition.
Audry Wiens, induction coordinator for Fontana Unified, was among those who asked the commission to delay the implementation of the standards for a year. She said programs would need to come to a common understanding of the shifts that need to take place, revise relevant documents, train mentors in induction programs and update accreditation websites.
Some wanted the standards implemented as soon as possible.
“I am not an induction program provider, but it really causes me pause to extend any sort of timelines, because we have got things to do here,” said Commissioner Megan Gross. “… I want us to capitalize on this sense of urgency that we have to do better for our kids.”
A student uses a drill press to work on an engineering project.
Credit: Allison Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for EDUimages
The design of California’s higher education system has been influential for its twin goals of high-quality undergraduate education and broad access to college. Though our public universities are renowned for their research prowess, the focal point for access has been our extensive network of community colleges — now comprising 116 — offering students first- and second-year courses with the opportunity to transfer and earn a four-year degree at a university.
But for students seeking to transfer in STEM fields, that opportunity borders on illusory: While 16% of community college students nationally complete a bachelor’s degree, only 2% earn a degree in a STEM field. Misaligned math policies play a role in unnecessarily narrowing that path. Absent a coordinated statewide approach, that is unlikely to change.
It’s not just that a student seeking to transfer in, say, computer science has to take three to six semesters of math, depending on the transfer destination. Before even taking those courses, many community college students must first complete two or three math prerequisites. And, because the actual requirements may vary from campus to campus, some have to take extra courses to ensure they are eligible for junior status at more than one university.
To make matters worse, there are inconsistencies in whether four-year campuses articulate — or recognize — a given community college course. Plus, the tools available to students to navigate their options tend to be clunky and outdated. Some students have been forced to enroll at a different college to repeat an already completed math course when one of their prospective transfer campuses doesn’t accept the first college’s course.
This maze of inconsistent and opaque math requirements is among the barriers to STEM transfer identified in our recent report, “A Complex Equation: Confronting Math Barriers on the Path to STEM Transfer.” Because these barriers are often out of students’ control, it is up to institutions to fix them. But, under current state policies, the state’s higher ed systems have little apparent incentive to alleviate them and increase transfer access to some of the state’s most popular STEM majors.
In fact, it appears that at some campuses, it is not a priority to admit even those students who do clear the math hurdles and other STEM requirements, according to the California State Auditor. The education code requires universities to provide “adequate” space for transfer students — generally interpreted as meaning at least one-third of upper-division enrollments — in all “colleges or schools.” But some high-demand majors at some campuses are balanced heavily against transfer students.
In biology, for example, for academic years 2018-19 through 2022-23, only 14% of Cal State LA’s juniors and seniors were transfer students, with Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo enrolling just 12% and UC Santa Barbara 14%, the auditor found. UC Berkeley’s transfer enrollment in two highly ranked departments was even lower: 11% of enrollments in computer science and 9% in environmental science are transfer students. Many of these campuses appear to be turning away eligible students, the auditor found: For example, in 2022, Berkeley denied 95 transfer computer science applicants whose preparation was considered “best prepared” or “strongly prepared.”
Added oversight is currently the only mechanism for shifting such patterns. A legislated pilot program requires UC campuses, beginning with UCLA, to create paths to STEM transfer. But UCLA chose to focus the program on relatively low-enrollment majors — atmospheric sciences, geology, math, and environmental science — not popular ones such as biology, computer science or engineering that are already at capacity.
Barriers in articulation also prevent community college students from benefiting from pioneering instructional approaches. Take, for example, a redesigned math sequence at UCLA. The new course, which has been offered to UCLA undergraduates since 2013, covers some traditional calculus topics in the context of modeling dynamical biological systems. Students taking the innovative course earned “significantly” higher grades in subsequent STEM courses than students who took the traditional course, and their interest in the topic doubled.
The two-course sequence is the primary math requirement for UCLA’s biology undergrads. But community colleges have not been able to offer the course. Since it is not available within the CSU system or at other UC campuses, if a community college were to offer it, only students who successfully transfer to UCLA could apply it toward a life sciences degree. UCLA allows students to transfer with a traditional calculus course, but this means that transfer students are deprived of the benefits of the modernized curriculum.
Both UC and CSU can take steps to better prioritize transfer students in high-demand STEM majors, as the auditor recommends. But to set and achieve statewide goals for transfer participation and completion — including STEM-specific goals — and improve success for historically underrepresented groups requires a greater degree of coordination across all three higher education systems.
One step toward achieving that is establishing a coordinating body in line with a proposal currently circulating in Sacramento. Another is ensuring that students have up-to-date, accurate and actionable information about transfer and course articulation through modernized transfer planning tools. A third is supporting innovation in STEM education through the California Education Learning Lab.
These would be minor investments toward ensuring more efficient, transparent, and evidence-based use not only of the billions of dollars our state invests in education, but also of another precious resource: our students’ time.
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Pamela Burdman, Alexis Robin Hale, and Jenn BeVard work for Just Equations, a policy institute dedicated to enhancing the role of math in education equity.
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.
Parents of young kids starting to learn to read in California should consider moving to Mississippi. No doubt, this advice is jarring. Decades ago, Southern families migrated to California in search of better opportunities. Mississippi’s child poverty rate today is nearly twice that of California.
Yet, when it comes to teaching children to read, Mississippi is a bright spot, one of three states whose gains in reading achievement put their schools ahead of where they were before the pandemic. California is one of ten states where reading scores continue to fall.
Data shown above from Stanford and Harvard universities’ Education Recovery Scorecard reveals the stark contrast. Mississippi’s students were below California’s in 2016, and half a year behind the national average in reading. Mississippi made steady progress until 2019, but both states suffered similar-sized learning losses during the pandemic.
Their paths to recovery have diverged sharply: Mississippi students now read above average while California students are worse off than those in 2016. A student in Jackson now reads a quarter of a school year ahead of a similar student in Sacramento. This is the result not of a short-term fix but from a decade of intensive focus on reading throughout the state.
California policymakers may be angered by the comparison, but they can’t ignore or dismiss the data. There are three things they could learn from Mississippi’s progress:
First, Mississippi’s leaders, from governors to district superintendents, have articulated a common mission to improve reading achievement. A decade ago, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant set a reading improvement goal for the state, in support of legislation passed by his predecessor. Then in 2015, he said, “If we confront dyslexia aggressively, we can see a dramatic decrease in our state’s dropout rate and help turn around our reading scores.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has dyslexia, has not mentioned reading once in his State of the State speeches, nor did his predecessor Jerry Brown. To be fair, Newsom has talked about reading in his budget remarks, and the state has approved a new screening tool for dyslexia, but leaders across California lack a common goal to improve reading.
Second, Mississippi has placed reading curriculum at the center of its reform efforts. Like California, Mississippi has an approved textbook list, with the difference being that the choices in Mississippi are all highly rated for alignment to college and career-ready standards by EdReports. One of those curricula, Wit and Wisdom, is also well-regarded for its knowledge-building features. Students read whole texts of fiction and non-fiction that showcase diverse perspectives and topics.
California last released a textbook adoption list in 2015. Districts aren’t required to pick from California’s current list, nor does the state keep track of which curricula are being used. The California Reading Coalition has carried out the most comprehensive review to date and finds that one of the more popular series used in California districts is poorly rated and negatively correlated with student achievement.
In the last nine years, publishers have created high-quality English language arts curricula that are well aligned with college-ready standards. Now, there are also well-regarded curricula such as Bookworms and EL Education, whose publisher has made them openly accessible to districts and schools. This helps districts save on costs and frees up resources to support teachers’ implementation.
Third, Mississippi has worked to strengthen the professional expertise of teachers.
Mississippi added literacy coaches in its 75 lowest-performing schools to help teachers learn how to implement new curriculum and offer feedback to improve instruction. California added the exact same number as part of the settlement in the civil rights lawsuit. Research from Stanford found the coaches had a positive effect on early reading achievement. But California’s coaches only reached 1% of schools. If the policy had operated at the same scale as Mississippi’s, the state would have added 800 coaches, not 75.
Historically, most university teacher preparation programs have had a high amount of autonomy, with tenured faculty highly resistant to change. Mississippi redesigned its teacher prep program requirements so universities must offer three common courses for all aspiring early literacy teachers. Last year, the National Council of Teacher Quality gave high ratings to two-thirds of Mississippi’s nine colleges training teachers, as their courses now address all five components of scientifically based reading instruction. In California, 60% of university programs scored an “F” for not addressing any of the five components.
California has taken some important steps on teaching quality. It has created a new PK-3 teaching credential based on new literacy standards and is developing a performance-based reading licensure test for new teachers. But a world of minimal oversight of teacher preparation programs, which are allowed to teach anything they want, fails to ensure all students have expert teachers.
Some policymakers and journalists dismiss Mississippi’s progress because the state has a third-grade promotion gate. Students have three attempts to pass the state test but are retained a year if they score below the state’s threshold. But those students don’t receive more of the same the next year. Instead, they are provided with an extra 90 minutes a day of intensive reading instruction, an individualized plan, and are guaranteed a high-quality teacher. A recent Boston University study found that students who repeated third grade scored higher on the state reading exams by sixth grade than fellow students who barely passed the third-grade test.
Assembly Bill 2222, recently proposed by Assemblymember Blanca Rubio, would initiate important changes in how reading is taught in California. A new textbook cycle would adhere to research-based methods for teaching reading. All current teachers, specialists and literacy coaches would have nearly a week of training to bring them up to speed on the latest research-based teaching. Most importantly, the bill borrows ideas from Colorado — a state whose policies are also rated highly by the National Council on Teacher Quality — on how to strengthen accountability for teacher prep programs that have not taught effective reading strategies.
Some policymakers have expressed concern that the proposed legislation infringes on local control of schools. Look at where local control has gotten California: only 43% of third graders read proficiently, while other states taking a stronger role show dynamic growth. It’s worth remembering that the responsibility for ensuring educational equity and excellence resides not in the Covina Valley or Chula Vista school districts but in California’s state constitution and the plenary power of the Legislature.
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David Scarlett Wakelyn is a consultant at Upswing Labs, a nonprofit that works with school districts and charter schools to improve instruction. He previously was on the team at the National Governors Association that developed Common Core State Standards.
The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
“I don’t really like asynchronous or online classes. Yes, it’s convenient for me, but it’s not convenient for my learning,” Chase said. “It’s not conducive to any learning.”
Chase is currently taking a statistics class asynchronously with recorded lectures from Zoom and optional lab sections with a graduate student instructor. He feels these lab sections are helpful, but ultimately wished that his statistics lectures could also be in-person.
Chase doesn’t seek out online classes because he feels the opportunity to ask his professor questions is lost. He said although online lectures have benefits, including being able to rewind, edit and speed up lectures, he ultimately feels that interaction with classmates during lectures is more valuable for his learning.
“Sometimes a few things might slip that I can’t hear the teacher saying that I can’t get back, but I’m willing to sacrifice like a sentence or two for just a general overall interaction,” Chase said.
Despite the downsides of asynchronous learning, Chase does enjoy completing homework and exams online because he feels less pressure and is more comfortable. The flexibility in completing assignments on his own time and in a place of preference is an aspect of online class that Chase appreciates.
Ultimately, he doesn’t prefer online classes because he learns best in an in-person environment. Chase expressed the value in talking to and collaborating with a variety of classmates on problems.
“I get better understanding, especially when I’m mixing with my peers to ask for help. When everyone is separated, there’s no creativity, there’s no new ideas,” Chase said. “When everyone’s together mingling, that’s the spark of new ideas, new creations.”
Throughout the discussion on Tuesday, the panelists explored why a majority of high school students fail to complete A-G requirements — courses they need to qualify for admission to the University of California or California State University systems — and offered ways that schools can help change that.
“I think we have a responsibility to raise the expectations and then lean in to making sure that we have the support in place for students to be successful in those expectations,” said Sherrie Reed Bennett, executive director of the California Education Lab at the UC Davis School of Education.
Panelists agreed that the more options students have, the better their situation after graduation and that increasing access to college prep courses is crucial.
Michael R. McCormick, superintendent of Val Verde Unified, said that awareness should start well before students enter high school and that schools should create a college and career culture with events such as College Days or elementary school lessons on A-G courses.
But beyond awareness, high school students are not getting the support they need to complete the A-G coursework, and parents and students, who often know little or nothing about these requirements, are left to figure it out on their own, panelists said.
“To expect people to go out and figure it out on their own is really difficult,” Delilah Brumer, a student at Los Angeles Pierce College, said about high school students not having the resources to learn about A-G requirements.
Some schools also struggle with offering the A-G coursework or doing so in a way that supports students. In 2018-19, 2.5% of schools offered no A-G courses, and another 6% only offered some A-G courses.
Although Brumer met her A-G requirements at a Los Angeles Unified school, she said the process was stressful and confusing. Her Career Technical Education courses often conflicted with her A-G courses, and she could only take some courses online.
Taking A-G and CTE courses shouldn’t be a matter of “either or,” Reed said, adding that districts should work to prevent those conflicts. For example, Val Verde Unified offered 42 career pathways and ensured that every course within each pathway was also A–G approved, according to Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) research in which Reed co-authored and cited during the roundtable.
Whether college or career, the A-G courses are important for all students, no matter what their plans are after high school, panelists said.
Systemic changes needed
Students planning to attend UC or CSU must complete the college preparatory courses known as A-G requirements — 15 courses in seven areas that overlap with the requirements for a high school diploma but are more rigorous.
More than half, 56%, of high school seniors failed to meet these requirements in 2023, meaning they were ineligible to apply to a California public university and may struggle at a community college.
Research indicates that enrollment and completion rates on A-G courses vary across student groups and schools. In 2023, 68% of Black students and 64% of Latino students did not meet A-G requirements, compared with 26% of Asian students and 48% of white students, according to EdSource’s analysis. The highest non-completion group was foster students at 88%, followed by disabled students at 85% and English learners at 82%.
It’s a multifaceted problem that requires systemic changes at a district, and possibly, statewide level, panelists said.
Aleka Jackson-Jarrell, program coordinator for the Heritage program at Victor Valley Union High School District, said schools must evaluate support through an equity lens because there are systemic barriers keeping African American and Latino students from qualifying for four-year universities.
With just 6% of Black students graduating with A-G courses at Adelanto High, Victor Valley started Heritage, an equity program that helps place students in A-G courses. The program also educates families about college applications, financial aid and housing, spearheading school and districtwide changes, such as career advisers helping all students with UC and CSU applications.
“So many system changes needed to be made in order for all of our students, not just the African American students, to benefit,” Jackson-Jarrell said. “So a lot of things have changed because of this one equity program; they’re mirroring and changing the systems.”
PACE research found that at the school or district level, routine data analysis, such as comprehensive A-G course audits, can also help inform school and course-level changes to support students with meeting the requirements.
McCormick suggested that a default enrollment process in the A-G courses would guarantee all students have access and the opportunity to reach their dreams.
“If we can, through a policy solution or the stroke of the governor’s pen, decide that we need to teach cursive writing, why can we not do some sort of a policy solution for A-G?” he said. “It seems like a viable path is there.”
Assemblymember Phil Ting introduced a bill Wednesday to ban legacy admissions in California’s private colleges and universities.
A California assemblymember wants the state to join others in forcing private universities to stop legacy admissions.
The bill would prohibit the state’s private colleges and universities from receiving state funding through the Cal Grant program if they give preferential treatment to applicants with donor or alumni connections.
The bill makes California one of a handful of states considering curbing legacy admissions at both public and private colleges. Nationally, Sens. Todd Young, R-Ind., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., have also introduced legislation to ban public and private colleges from considering legacy connections in admissions decisions.
“Unfortunately, we saw last year that the Supreme Court disallowed the consideration of race in college admissions, but what they didn’t do was disallow the knowledge of income or class in college admissions,” said Assemblymember Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, who authored the bill, Assembly Bill 1780. “For the “1% of Americans, they have complete access, they have a back door, they have a side door, they have an express lane into our most elite institutions.”
Ting cited a study by Harvard University economists that found that children from families earning more than $611,000 a year are more than twice as likely to receive admission to a university when compared with low- and middle-income families with comparable standardized test scores.
Although the vast majority of private institutions in California say they don’t use donor or alumni connections to admit students, and none of the public institutions use legacy status for admission, six universities do, basedon their admissions reports to the Legislature.
Stanford, the University of Southern California and Santa Clara University, in particular, all admitted more than 13% of their students based on connections to alumni and donors, based on their fall 2022 enrollment.
“This is a fairly limited practice within our sector,” said Kristen Soares, president of the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities. “We have indicated to Assemblymember Ting’s office and others that we welcome the conversation and look forward to reviewing the details of the proposal once it is in print.”
Officials from Stanford and USC did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.
Sophie Callott, a senior at Stanford University, said her parents met as law students at the university, and so she’s a legacy student. Despite that, she’s in favor of ending the practice.
“I do not want my achievements to be overshadowed or questioned by the possibility that I only got into Stanford because my parents went there,” she said, during a news conference hosted by Ting on Wednesday about the bill. “People who go to schools like Stanford have an unparalleled advantage in the job market that allows them to disproportionately occupy high-paying leadership positions. If their children are further given a leg up in the admissions process, then this cycle of wealth and privileges continues.”
What is not known about legacy admissions?
The move to ban legacy admissions has taken off following the conservative-majority decision by the Supreme Court to effectively end race-conscious admission programs at colleges and universities. California law has banned the use of affirmative action in public institutions since 1996, and a recent effort to reverse that decision failed in 2020. The state’s private institutions did not have to follow California’s affirmative action ban, but in order to accept federal dollars, they did have to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision.
Alyssa Murray, a Stanford student and co-president of the Stanford Black Student Union, said during the news conferencethat legacy admissions is a form of racial preference and economic discrimination, and ending it would be one step toward creating true equity in higher education.
“For nearly a century, California private schools have predominantly admitted white students, creating an insurmountable racial imbalance,” she said. “That means legacy admissions will always favor white and wealthy applicants at the expense of low-income students of color who often do not have alumni relations.”
Ting attempted a similar bill in 2019 following Operation Varsity Blues, the national college admissions scandal that exposed a scheme through which the children of rich parents were able to get into top-tier schools using fake athletic credentials and bogus entrance exam scores. That bill ultimately failed and was opposed by the state’s private colleges because the system of legacy admissions was unrelated to the scandal and there were concerns that disallowing private schools that use legacy admissions from participating in the Cal Grant program would only hurt low-income students also attending those institutions.
Ting said the 2019 bill failed because Varsity Blues was too anecdotal and there wasn’t enough hard data, but now the numbers show where legacy admissions are prevalent. That data is now available because of a separate 2019 bill, AB 697, that Ting authored in the aftermath of the scandal, forcing private universities to send admissions and enrollment reports to the Legislature.
A June report by the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities, which did not include data from Stanford or USC, found that only five of 70 private institutions allowed legacy admissions — Santa Clara, Pepperdine, Vanguard, Claremont McKenna and Harvey Mudd.
“It is a fact that legacy admissions perpetuates a cycle of privilege that fortifies inequity in higher education,” said Murray, co-president of the Stanford Black Student Union. “Legacy admissions perpetuates the racism of decades past when colleges and universities were closed to Latinx, Black, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native people.”
Middle school students eagerly swiping paintbrushes across canvases, a group of fifth graders rehearsing lines from their upcoming play, and a first-time high school cello player thrilled to be part of the orchestra — all beaming with confidence, excited to attend school, and developing critical life and career skills.
These are scenes that California voters, who overwhelmingly passed Proposition 28 in 2022, expect in every school. Ensuring every student benefits from the power of the arts is why I joined Create CA, the arts education advocacy organization, as executive director six months ago. I firmly believe, and research has shown, that the arts are critical for a well-rounded education and student success.
Unfortunately, student access to the arts is inequitable and often depends on the unpredictability of local fundraising, community advocacy and school districts prioritizing the arts. Voters passed Proposition 28 to address these challenges.
The promise of Proposition 28 is increased access to the arts for all California public school students by providing dedicated, ongoing funding to expand the number of arts education teachers. Regrettably, we’ve heard that some districts are not complying with the law and the voters’ mandate to use the new funds to supplement (i.e., expand), not supplant (i.e., replace), their existing arts education funding.
Californians voted for more arts education for all students, not the status quo. Create CA has been in touch with school leaders, teachers, parents and students who have shared examples of success, which we celebrate. In contrast, others have disclosed suspected violations in their respective school districts.
Districts meeting the promise of Proposition 28 have several things in common: a dedicated district arts education coordinator, an arts education strategic plan developed with community input, and a Proposition 28 report (mandated by the law) that clearly describes how their school district used the new funds to expand arts education. A great example is San Gabriel Unified, which outlines in its Proposition 28 report the hiring of two new art teachers, more dance and theater instruction at its elementary schools, and other investments that further its arts strategic plan.
Another exemplary model is the Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD). The district formed a committee and implemented a plan that included creating job descriptions, arts curriculum planning, coaching and a Proposition 28 communication strategy. The result is that Long Beach hired itinerant teachers from all arts disciplines across its 35 elementary schools and added nine middle school positions and six high school positions. Because of these measures, every student will have access to the arts from K-12th grades, as the proposition intended.
On the other hand, some communities suspect their districts are willfully violating Proposition 28’s intention. Parents, unions and the author of the proposition are suing the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) for eliminating existing funding for the arts and replacing it with Proposition 28 funds. We’ve spoken with teachers at Chula Vista Elementary School District who allege that the district intended to fire arts education teachers with the plan of rehiring them with Proposition 28 funds, skirting the law’s intention. In Hayward Unified, one teacher noted that “5.8 positions currently funded from Proposition 28 are being cut.” One of Create CA’s student advocates wrote a story on South Pasadena Unified’s plan to move funding for their elementary visual arts and music teachers from a “temporary funding source to this Prop 28 restricted permanent resource.” These examples demonstrate that school districts statewide may be denying students the right to more arts education as voters demanded.
We know schools face multiple challenges, but students deserve better. Arts education can help schools meet many of their challenges and help save money by reducing dropout rates, increasing attendance, attracting more community support and improving academics and mental health. All school districts should follow the law of Proposition 28 to ensure all their students have access to all the arts, all year. It’s every student’s right.
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Veronica Alvarez, EdD, is Executive director of Create CA, a nonprofit that advocates for high quality arts education for all students.
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.
A mixed class of students, some with special needs, learn music in the Coronado Unified School District.
Credit: Jane Meredith Adams/EdSource
In response to California’s long-standing teacher shortage, the state has been investing in recruitment efforts such as internships, apprenticeships and residencies, all designed to attract new teachers to the profession. Now, in light of the thousands of jobs being generated by Proposition 28, many arts education advocates are aspiring to lean into the same strategies, looking to create more alternate pathways into arts education at the TK-12 level..
Teacher residencies are one such route. Part of the “earn-and-learn” model, these positions offer on-the-job training as well as mentorship that often appeals to candidates who may not be able to afford to enter a conventional teacher-preparation program. That may help diversify the ranks.
Merryl Goldberg, a veteran music and arts professor at Cal State San Marcos, is helping develop a residency program that would meet the needs of her arts education students, most of whom are the first in their families to go to college. Without paid learning opportunities, becoming an arts teacher can be a hard path to walk, she says, because it means giving up much-needed income for years.
“This can be a game changer for many students,” said Goldberg, who has plans to partner with several North County San Diego schools in the next school year. “Many of our students have to work while in school to support themselves and contribute to their family. … Imagine that their work is their school, how much more time and energy they can put into becoming an amazing teacher.”
Jacquelyn Ollison, program director of the California Teacher Residency Lab, points out that residency programs can help boost diversity, recruiting teachers who reflect the students they serve. Residents often teach alongside a mentor teacher for a year of clinical training even as they complete required coursework in a teacher preparation program.
“From an equity perspective, residency programs are just so amazing,” Ollison said. “You have funding to diversify the workforce, to recruit and retain candidates of color, who reflect what our student population is. Then, when you think about art and who has access to amazing art teachers and who doesn’t, this is a way to ensure that we’re having these art teachers come in really prepared, reflecting local diversity and kids getting the opportunity to benefit from it.”
Eric Engdahl, professor emeritus at CSU East Bay and past president of the California Council on Teacher Education, is among those working on plans for how best to extend these programs into the arts ed space, but he cautions that institutional change is rarely swift.
“I think it will be a very important venue to expand Prop. 28 and get teachers in the pipeline, but it is complicated, as are all things in education,” said Engdahl, who spearheaded an online credential program in theater and dance at Cal State East Bay in 2021, making it the first CSU to offer those credentials amid the implementation of Proposition 28, “and may take time to make any real impact.”
However, a sense of urgency is part of this vision for nurturing a generation of teachers who better connect with the students they teach in this deeply diverse state.
“This impacts not only the students by giving them the time to really engage with learning, but benefits their future students as their time is really focused on their studies to become a reflective, thoughtful and engaged teacher,” Goldberg said. “The population of the students we reach, no doubt, is the very population of students who have less opportunities and privileges. The students we are targeting mirror the population of the students they will go on to educate.”
Research has long shown that the benefits of the arts are rich and nuanced, from boosting social-emotional learning to supporting literacy and numeracy. And yet, until Proposition 28, it’s been the least privileged students, the ones most hurt by school closures and learning loss during the pandemic, who have also been the least likely to have access to the arts.
“We know that the arts are powerful for students and self-expression, and they have tremendous benefits at school,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond. “Arts is something that everyone should have, regardless of your neighborhood or your ZIP code. And Prop. 28 guarantees that with equity, all students have access to arts.”
In an era of chronic absenteeism, student disengagement and a youth mental health crisis, many are hopeful that arts education may be a key way to bring magic back into the classroom at a time when many children have zoned out.
“From my perspective, we are all dealing with trauma at some level in our schools today,” said Peggy Burt, a statewide arts education consultant based in Los Angeles. “The pandemic created this new era of ‘learning loss’ that is driving both teachers and students to make up for lost time. As students hurry to catch up, they are experiencing a sense of overwhelm and disconnection. The arts, coupled with social-emotional learning, can be a path back to integration and belonging. … The arts create a culture and environment where students can thrive.”
The arts can be a powerful way to let students explore their darker feelings and turn those emotions into something beautiful.
“While so many of our students are struggling with anxiety and depression, theater, in my opinion, is one of the best forms of therapy,” said Catherine Borek, AP English literature and drama teacher at Dominguez High School in the Compton Unified School District. “We expose them to good stress, and we help them strengthen their wings so that they can fly. That is the power of the arts.”
