Students in Rebecca Pariso’s seventh-grade math class designed and created piñatas with specific volume and surface area constraints.
Courtesy: Rebecca Pariso
Last year, my seventh-grade class created at-scale drawings of cost-efficient cabins for an outdoor education camp. Using three-dimensional figures and proportional reasoning, my students designed and created piñatas with specific volume and surface area constraints. We completed many challenging test questions, such as: If eight and a half cups of flour are needed for five and three-quarter cups of sugar, how much sugar is needed for one cup of flour?
Such problems require higher-level thinking skills and a lot of grit. The number of students in my classroom who did not meet the standard on the state test was the lowest in nine years. The number of proficient students doubled compared with last year’s seventh-grade class.
Contrary to what you might expect, I was not teaching an honors math class. Instead, my students were a diverse group wholly representative of our student population. In my district, 89% of students are Hispanic or Latino, 24% are multilingual learners, and 81% are socioeconomically disadvantaged students. The accomplishments of the students in my class are a testament to what happens when our educational system becomes inclusive.
Take Luciana, for example. She walked into my classroom with bangs covering her eyes and an oversize sweatshirt covering the rest of her face. She was used to not being seen by people, but I saw her potential in mathematics. At first, Luciana talked to no one and hid in the back of the classroom while she did the math. By the end of the year, her bangs were parted down the middle and her hands were outside her oversize sweatshirt. It was incredible to see Luciana’s transformation. She had raised her score two band levels and was considered proficient in seventh-grade mathematics.
Math is the most tracked subject in the United States. (Tracking is the practice of placing students in different classes or levels based on perceived ability.) Historically, specific student groups, predominantly Black, Latino, and low-income students, have been underrepresented in advanced math courses like honors classes. On the other hand, students from more affluent backgrounds, mainly white and Asian students, tend to be overrepresented in these programs. This can be attributed to many educational inequities, including school funding disparities, which affect the availability and quality of advanced math courses in schools serving low-income communities. Research shows that these schools often need more resources, experienced teachers and challenging curricula that promote success in these advanced courses.
This setup doesn’t serve anyone. My students are just as capable as any other students, honors or otherwise, of succeeding in a math class rich in project-based learning and rigorous problem-solving. Furthermore, multiple studies have shown that separating students based on skills and abilities widens the achievement gap between minority students like Luciana, low-performing students, and students of low socioeconomic status. Luciana and every other student in California deserve to be in a class rich in high-quality math instruction, where they can connect their learning to their school and community, conduct open-ended inquiry, and engage in reflective learning.
In 2020, I was one of 20 educators to serve on a committee with the California Department of Education to help with the revision of the math framework. As a result, I have come to see that a paradigm shift must occur in how we define an inclusive math classroom. California Common Core State Standards challenge us to go deeper than just recall and procedural fluency, and my students’ achievements reflect a broader truth: All children, regardless of background, can excel when given the opportunity to engage in meaningful, high-quality math instruction.
By creating a learning environment emphasizing problem-solving, collaboration, and high expectations, I enabled my students to rise to the challenge — proving that diversity and background is not a barrier but an asset. Our educational system must stop limiting students based on preconceived notions and instead embrace inclusive teaching methods that unlock every student’s potential. Every child deserves the chance to succeed, and my class proves that they can do so with the right approach.
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Rebecca Pariso is a seventh-grade math teacher at EO Green Junior High School in Oxnard and a Teach Plus California Senior Policy Fellow.
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.
Thom Hartmann sees the pattern on the rug. Trump and Musk are stifling democratic institutions and rushing headlong towards the tyranny they both admire. Trump thinks that he can make himself dictator for life, Like his buddies in Russia and North Korea. Will the public defend the Constitution?
When Harvard, one of America’s oldest and most revered institutions of higher learning, stands defiant as the federal government freezes billions in funding simply because it refuses to knuckle under to authoritarian demands — like gutting DEI programs and turning faculty into immigration informants — we’re no longer playing the usual game of politics.
This is the open throttling of academic freedom, part of a larger, deliberate campaign to silence dissent, centralize power, and erase democratic norms.
We’ve seen this playbook before in other countries — but now it’s being run right here, in the land that once proudly called itself the world’s beacon of liberty.
Democracy doesn’t die in darkness, as the saying goes; it suffocates in broad daylight.
Americans are witnessing an unprecedented assault on the very foundations of our democratic experiment, orchestrated with a precision that would make authoritarian strongmen worldwide nod in approval.
Senator Chris Murphy has raised alarm bells about what he describes as a methodical attack on American institutions that are supposed to keep government accountable to its citizens. By his account, the strategy isn’t dramatic coups or burning parliaments; that’s not how modern democracies perish. Instead, they’re slowly dismantled through the calculated erosion of accountability mechanisms.
History provides a disturbing playbook, and we’re watching it unfold right now here in America. Putin, Orbán, and Erdoğan didn’t need tanks in the streets. They understood that the process is multi-part but straightforward:
— Legitimize political violence, — Capture the media, — Intimidate lawyers, — Install corrupt leaders within regulatory and police agencies, — Disappear first minorities and later opposition leaders, — Silence universities, and — Starve opposition movements by denying their nonprofit status and funding.
Consider what we’re seeing unfold. The recent January 6 pardons sent an unmistakable message about the acceptability of political violence. When legislators openly express fears of “retaliation” — as Senator Lisa Murkowski just did — we’re already several steps down a dangerous path.
Meanwhile, the concentration of media power in the hands of billionaires who increasingly bend to political pressure isn’t accidental. Whether through ownership, lawsuits, or regulatory threats, the ability to speak truth to power is being systematically constrained.
Universities, traditionally bastions of free thought and youth activism, face unprecedented pressure to conform or lose federal support.
Legal professionals, our front-line defenders of constitutional rights, are being asked to choose between principles and practice.
The economic dimension of this strategy can’t be ignored. Targeted tariffs and funding cuts effectively create a corporate compliance regime where business survival depends on political loyalty. When small-dollar online giving platforms become targets, it’s clear this is about drying up resources for political opposition.
Senator Murphy’s warning carries particular weight: “I still believe we can stop it,” he says. His prescription includes institutional solidarity, mass mobilization, and political courage. These steps aren’t just wishful thinking: history shows they work when deployed with determination.
The challenges are clear, but so is the path forward. Democrats and defenders of democracy must recognize this isn’t politics as usual. The systematic undermining of accountability mechanisms isn’t merely partisan: it’s anti-democratic in the most fundamental sense.
It’s the first stages of outright tyranny, the first American dictatorship.
If conventional resistance proves insufficient, Murphy suggests civil disobedience may become necessary. That’s not a suggestion to be taken lightly, especially from a sitting US senator.
The coming months will test America’s democratic resolve. The institutions being targeted aren’t merely political; they’re the scaffolding of self-governance itself. As Murphy warns, “We still have the power, but we probably have less time than most think.”
For those wondering where the line exists between alarmism and appropriate warning, consider this: When elected officials speak openly about fear of retaliation, when media owners preemptively capitulate, when universities face unprecedented political pressure, and when legal professionals must toe ideological lines, we’re no longer discussing hypotheticals.
The American experiment has faced threats before, but, outside of the Confederacy, rarely have they been so comprehensively designed or so methodically executed.
Recognition of this reality isn’t partisan, it’s patriotic. The future of American democracy depends on understanding what’s at stake and acting accordingly.
The assault on Harvard is just one chapter in a larger story — one where the villains aren’t hiding in shadows, but are operating in full view with chilling precision.
The question isn’t whether this is happening. It’s whether enough Americans will recognize the danger in time to stop it.
Children learn conflict resolution and social-emotional learning through theater.
credit: NorCal Arts
Michele Hillen-Noufer describes herself at 13 as “the shyest kid in the world.” She always loved ballet but hated public speaking until her father persuaded her to try out for “Godspell.” She wanted to dance in the show, not sing. She was so scared out of her wits that she cried throughout the audition. But she made a breakthrough that day that shaped the course of her life.
“I didn’t start speaking up until I started doing theater,” said Hillen-Noufer, who now teaches children’s theater at Sacramento State University. “It broke me out of my shyness. As I say to the students, this is not just about projecting your voice on stage, it’s also about asserting your voice in the world.”
When she raised the curtain on NorCal Arts, a Sacramento-based arts education organization in 2020, Hillen-Noufer was hoping to bring that kind of transformative emotional power to young people, to enrich students’ lives with the magic of theater. The organization works with roughly 10,400 students in the Sacramento region, including the Sacramento City Unified School District, Folsom Cordova Unified School District, the Elk Grove Unified School District and the Washington Unified School District.
“We think arts is important for all students, not just those that can afford it,” said Hillen-Noufer, executive director of NorCal Arts.
She never had an inkling that those acting classes might also help prevent acts of violence in our bruising age of school shootings and CEO assassinations. Then she landed a $600,000 grant from the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, to teach the kind of conflict resolution skills that can de-escalate a violent atmosphere. Now her theater arts program goes beyond song and dance to teach social-emotional learning at a time when student misbehavior has skyrocketed in schools and what are sometimes called deaths of despair are rising among young adults.
Michele Hillen-Noufer founded NorCal arts, a youth theater program.Credit: NorCal Arts
“Though it may seem surprising to consider theater education as a means of preventing violence,” said William Braniff, director of the Department of Homeland Security Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships, in a statement, “this creative, multidisciplinary strategy utilizing theater arts to teach conflict resolution skills effectively tackles the underlying systemic issues that contribute to violence, all while enhancing the safety and resilience of local communities.”
Many sociologists have argued that fraying social connections, often spurred by rapid technological change, have undermined civic participation and community bonding. Robert D. Putnam’s influential 2000 book “Bowling Alone” traces the decline of social connectedness in America, from unions to bowling leagues, and how this trend might breed polarization and undermine the workings of participatory democracy. Trusting in your neighbors, experts say, may be key to building back trust in the electoral process.
“Theater is a profound tool for violence prevention because it fosters empathy, emotional literacy and healing,” said Allison Gamlen, visual and performing arts coordinator for the San Mateo County Office of Education. “Through storytelling and role-playing, students activate their mirror neurons, the part of the brain that helps us feel what others feel, allowing them to truly step into another person’s shoes. Theater gives young people a safe space to explore challenging situations, process emotions, and even experiment with different outcomes. By embodying characters and committing to their circumstances, students learn to understand and navigate complex emotions — both their own and others’.”
Drama can be an antidote to alienation, some say. At its core, theater is about baring your soul and making connections with others. It’s about being vulnerable and tapping into a sense of shared humanity. Creating a sense of community is one way to combat hostility before it hardens into hate and violence.
“You’ll never know if somehow the work we’re doing prevented a school shooter, but to do theater you have to collaborate, to express emotions,” said Hillen-Noufer. “You have to step into someone else’s shoes, connect with your peers, make eye contact.”
Combating the sense of disaffection that has pervaded much of American society is key to teaching theater as a form of conflict resolution. Hillen-Noufer’s group has brought this program to roughly 400 classrooms across the Sacramento region. Students tap into theater skills to build empathy and manage disagreements, something many adults struggle with in our polarized world.
“Think about a student in the classroom who feels rejected,” said Hillen-Noufer. “They don’t feel a sense of belonging. And they go online, and then they start to feel more isolated. And then they get radicalized to violence. The next thing you know, you’ve got your school shooter.”
Dramatic arts exercises create a safe space to explore dark feelings, what triggers them, and how to disarm them, without fear of judgment.
Sparking a sense of calm also defuses tension before it builds. Sometimes children just need to slow their roll, experts say, and take a deep breath.
Children gain SEL and conflict resolution skills through a theater class.Credit: NorCal Arts
Learning how to control their emotions through mindfulness techniques can help children avoid the brain fog built into our innate fight or flight response, experts say. Critical thinking skills often abandon us when emotions run high.
“We are all boiling kettles right now, so it’s easy to fly off the handle,” said Hillen-Noufer. “Theater can help give kids tools to calm down and look inward.”
Like sports, the arts can also create a focal point that students can rally around, inoculating them from alienation. Buoyed by the exhilaration of social interaction, something anxious children all too often miss out on, experts say, bonding becomes easier. Classmates begin to feel more like they are all on the same team.
“The dopamine released during the creative play of theater also plays a critical role in healing trauma, as it creates a sense of joy, safety and reward, rewiring the brain toward resilience,” said Gamlen. “This process not only supports individual healing but also strengthens the capacity for compassion and connection, building a foundation for healthier, more empathetic communities.”
In 2016, 21 special education teachers from the Philippines were hired at a school district in the Bay Area. I was among the Filipino newcomers. The orientation took place in an oversize room, where echoes of Visayan and Tagalog dialects filled the space. As the session neared its end, the administrator asked, “Are there any questions?” The room fell silent, suggesting a collective no. Once he left, we eagerly exchanged queries and sought clarification from one another — in our native language.
What just happened?
There’s much to consider in that scenario. While no single explanation suffices, cultural norms likely played a significant role. Filipinos, often indirect communicators, favor subtlety over directness. In the Philippines, questioning authority can be seen as disrespectful. This potentially explains our reluctance to respond to the administrator. Additionally, the fear of speaking, driven by concerns about grammatical errors, mispronunciations and accents, can inhibit us from speaking up.
While communication is integral to our roles as educators, navigating the nuances of language and cultural expectations has presented unforeseen challenges. For instance, during one of my initial meetings with the principal, I described my class as “an amalgam of different abilities.” He asked me to repeat myself, highlighting the cultural gap in our communication styles.
After I administered a spelling test to a student who was about to exit special education, the student remarked, “Oh, I got a low score because you were saying each word differently,” referring to my accent. I explained that each word was used in a sentence, so understanding the context was key. Feeling self-conscious, I consulted the school speech-language pathologist about my accent potentially affecting the student’s test score. She responded, “I don’t think so, Jenine. You don’t have a strong accent. What you have, though, is pronoun confusion.” I laughed since I knew exactly what she was talking about. The English use of “he,” “she” and “him,” “her,” in place of the catchall “siya” in Filipino, often confuses me.
In another class, a student laughed at me when I put the stress on the first syllable instead of the second — the word was “adult.”
Clearly, there is a language barrier, and Filipinos are well aware of it. Despite English being a medium of instruction in the Philippines, we rarely use it in daily conversations. Vocabulary training encompassed terms like “amalgam” without addressing conversational nuances. Pronunciation differences, such as using the British /a.dult/ instead of the American /uh.dult/, went unclarified. Moreover, mastering gender pronouns demands continuous effort, contrasting with our natural usage in Filipino.
The following year, the recruitment agency that hired Filipino teachers in another district required English language classes for new hires. While teaching grammar rules enhances understanding of the language according to studies, applying these rules during spontaneous speech is much more challenging. It has less to do with understanding grammar and more to do with the process of language acquisition. For many years, recruiting teachers from the Philippines has been an answer to the worsening teacher shortage in California, resulting in a more diverse teaching workforce.
Reflecting on my journey, I realize that the benefits of speaking up outweigh my culturally rooted fears. As an educator in an underserved community in California, I needed my voice to advocate for my students. I realized that my colleagues didn’t mind my accent or minor grammar mistakes. It was encouraging. Although it took time, I eventually discovered a newfound confidence in expressing myself authentically. I learned that as long as I could get my point across, the specifics didn’t matter.
Does this imply that we are not holding Filipino teachers to the same standard as our students? Absolutely not. However, it’s crucial to remember that language proficiency does not correlate with overall cognitive abilities and intelligence. This understanding applies equally to our students.
Filipinos, as English learners themselves, can empathize deeply with minority students facing similar challenges. Drawing from these shared cultural experiences, they can offer invaluable contributions to culturally responsive classrooms. When students ask why I speak a certain way, I take the chance to share insights about my culture and heritage. It’s important to recognize our perceived weaknesses while harnessing our strengths to our students’ advantage. Rooted in our collective experiences of hardships, our heightened cultural sensitivity cultivates inclusivity and mutual understanding within the classroom. We understand firsthand the challenges, whether in language or culture, and use this empathy to create a culturally responsive learning environment.
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Jenine Catudio is a special education teacher and autism advocate from the Philippines who taught students with mild to moderate disabilities in West Contra Costa Unified in Richmond.
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.
Paradise Elementary in Butte County was one of nearly 19,000 structures destroyed in the November 2018 Camp fire.
Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource
Diann Kitamura was superintendent of Santa Rosa City Schools in 2017 when the Tubbs fire became the most destructive fire in state history, burning through nearly 37,000 acres and destroying two school structures, plus the homes of about 800 students and 100 staff.
That record was broken the following year, when the Camp fire tore through Butte County, including the town of Paradise, where eight of nine school structures were damaged or destroyed; more than 50,000 people were displaced, and 85 people were killed. Meagan Meloy heads the homeless and foster youth services department at the Butte County Office of Education, which stepped in to support the thousands of students who were suddenly homeless from one day to the next.
Now, more than seven years for Kitamura and six years for Meloy after leading their Northern California school districts through the fire recovery efforts, they discuss lessons they learned and offer tips to the districts dealing with the aftermath of the Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles County on how they could ease the suffering of their communities.
At the time of the Tubbs fire, there had been no recent fires impacting schools on that scale, and Kitamura had no model to guide her and her team. She now extends support to other districts going through their own recovery process.
Both Kitamura and Meloy say they believe their experiences can help school leaders across Los Angeles County as they deal with the widespread devastation of the Palisades and Eaton fires.
Former State Superintendent Tom Torlakson, center, and former Santa Rosa City Schools Superintendent Diann Kitamura, right, at the Hidden Valley Satellite school, Santa Rosa, after the school was destroyed in the Tubbs fire in 2017.Credit: Diann Kitamura
Kitamura said it’s important to understand that the impact of fires goes beyond the people whose homes burned down: “Even if their school didn’t burn, their home might have burned; even if their home might not have burned, their school had burned.”
She added that despite the complex tasks involved, leaders should stay focused on what most matters. “It was really my own common sense and my deep, deep, deep care and love for my students, my staff and my families that guided the decisions every step of the way of how I was going to operate,” Kitamura said.
To ensure the physical and emotional well-being of their school communities, Kitamura said, leaders must think of a wide range of tasks, including making sure the business department is creating budget codes specific to disaster-related expenses, determining what instructional materials were destroyed and need replacing, identifying what resources the Federal Emergency Management Agency can offer, beefing up air quality monitoring across the areas that burned, figuring out if the insurance policies are adequate, and more.
“It’s going to be a long process, and it’ll come in waves,” said Meloy of fire recovery efforts in Butte County.
‘Create some kind of normality for students as soon as possible’
Meloy said the immediate need after a fire is to ensure the safety of all students and staff, and she highlighted the importance of finding a place and time for the greater school community to gather, given the impact of such a crisis.
“It maybe can’t happen immediately, but as soon as possible, when it’s safe and feasible, provide opportunities for the school community to just come together, support one another socially, emotionally,” she said. “Create some kind of normality for students as soon as possible.”
Meagan Meloy working at the Local Assistance Center after the Park fire in Butte County during the summer of 2024.Credit: Meagan Meloy
Use systems that are already in place to help as many families as possible. For instance, students whose families lose their homes to fires are likely to qualify for resources available to students experiencing homelessness. That’s because homelessness among children and youth is defined broadly under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, which mandates that every school district, county office of education and charter school hire a local liaison to ensure that homeless youth are identified and education services are coordinated to increase these students’ chances of succeeding academically.
This federal law defines homeless students, in part, as “children and youths who are sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason; are living in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camping grounds due to the lack of alternative adequate accommodations; are living in emergency or transitional shelters; or are abandoned in hospitals.”
Districts typically already have systems in place for this student group to ensure students have stability across three basic needs: shelter, food, and gas — the same needs that Kitamura noted are most urgent for students displaced by fires.
But Meloy, who has worked with the county education office for 21 years, offers a warning about the language used when communicating with families about their children’s education rights while they search for stable, permanent housing.
“A lot of the families that lost their homes in the Camp fire had never experienced homelessness before and weren’t comfortable with self-identifying. (Consider) using terms like ‘displaced,’ ‘temporary,’ ‘not stable’ rather than that label of homeless or homelessness that can be kind of off-putting to people. They may not want to even think of themselves as fitting under that category,” Meloy said.
While students displaced by fires may be eligible for student homelessness resources, schools and districts are often limited in the amount of funding available for this student group and in how funding can be used.
For example, homeless liaisons cannot typically purchase gas gift cards to hand out to families who need help transporting their children to school.
To meet some of the needs that education funding typically cannot be applied to, Meloy and her team relied on funding from a local foundation, North Valley Community Foundation, which received donations from a wide range of sources.
“Without that, I don’t know how we would have met the need for transportation,” she said.
Schools in Los Angeles County can also tap into the network of partners that liaisons and other school staff often work with. Both Meloy and Kitamura noted that their schools faced difficulties managing an influx of physical donations after fires.
Meloy said while some donations such as school supplies were helpful for her team of liaisons, they were not “really best equipped to” sort through donations like food and clothing.
It’s best for liaisons to work with “partner agencies who already have storage and systems for disbursing other items” so that they and other school staff can “stay focused on the school stuff,” she said.
It can also be helpful to communicate to the public that cash donations are most helpful in recovery efforts.
“I know that sounds maybe not appropriate … but in Santa Rosa City Schools, I had to haul out nine truck and trailer loads of stuff, and people who are displaced, they have no place to hold stuff,” said Kitamura, who is now the deputy superintendent of equitable education services with the Sonoma County Office of Education. “What they need is food, shelter and gasoline in most cases right now.”
Meloy also underscored what she called “secondary homelessness.”
For example, a family with sufficient home insurance might be able to purchase another home that had previously been a rental, which might then cause a group of renters to go on the search for housing.
“It’s families who maybe were not directly impacted in the sense that they lost their home in the fire, but it ripples out into the housing market and pushes people out,” Meloy said.
Addressing both physical and emotional needs
With the majority of Paradise Unified schools destroyed, enrolling students at neighboring schools became a primary task for Meloy and her staff.
To streamline the process, Meloy’s department asked every school district to identify an enrollment point of contact for families displaced by the Camp fire. Families were asked to text or call 211, the state’s local community services number, to be connected with a district point of contact, who worked with each family to help them decide where to enroll their children.
As student enrollment was handled in Butte County, Meloy noticed that the trauma that students had experienced became clearer and that the wide range of support, from mental health counseling to transportation to tutoring, might become difficult to track over time.
Meloy’s recommendation to L.A. County education staff is to create a filter in the district’s student information system that can be applied to students who were affected by fires. With this filter, school staff can have “some kind of a system where those students can then be flagged for extra support” over several years.
That filter can become particularly helpful when students’ trauma around fires is triggered by conditions similar to those that can spark fires. For example, Kitamura’s students dealt with power shut-offs during strong winds, poor air quality, and smoke traveling from other regional fires for years following the Tubbs fire. “The trauma from the fires is exacerbated” each time, said Kitamura.
Meloy said staff should be “prepared to see behaviors that would be consistent with someone who has experienced trauma.” In her case, she saw some students begin acting out in class by fighting or throwing things, while some other students became more shut down, dissociating while in class, and being extra quiet.
“Understand that it’s a trauma response,” said Meloy. “If it’s a windy day, it’s probably going to be, years from now, a tough day at school.”
To support Los Angeles County schools with mental health counseling, Kitamura is currently recruiting a group of counselors from across several Northern California schools who are prepared to offer counseling for students.
“I only learned after experience with the fire to do these kinds of things for other districts,” said Kitamura, who is in contact with the LA County Office of Education regarding this effort.
Meloy offered a reminder to not underestimate the trauma that staff membrs have also experienced: “In a classroom with students who have experienced this trauma, when you’ve experienced it yourself, it can be really overwhelming, so don’t forget about the staff and the support they need.”
Kitamura also recommended that the LA education office “beef up” on air quality monitoring; “make sure they are ready to go; make sure they are accurate, and make sure that the places you’re measuring are close to the places where the most burn happens.”
Lessons in preparation
Kitamura and Meloy also noted that once the emergency was over, they moved to planning for future fires.
Kitamura’s district, for example, established a redundant server in a separate location so officials could still communicate with their school community in the event that their primary servers went down or were burned.
Meloy noted the lack of dedicated, ongoing funding for the work that homeless liaisons do — and how it undermines all planning. Both Kitamura and Meloy called on legislators to provide funding support for students displaced by fires, given that the issue now surges regularly across the state.
“It is no longer, sadly, an isolated, once-in-a-decade event. It is continuing to happen. I had been thinking about, from the homeless liaison perspective, wildfires being a rural issue,” Meloy said. “But it’s really everywhere. I would love to see some dedicated funding for that.”
As Kitamura put it: “There will be more wildfires. There will be more crises. So … we better plan accordingly.”
Travon Reed is currently a housing navigator in South Los Angeles who helps those who live on the street to find housing through the Homeless Outreach Program Integrated Care System (HOPICS). He credits the classes he took at East Los Angeles College for preparing him for his career in social work.
He described his classes at East L.A. as “the gifts that keep on giving.”
But when he was job hunting after graduating in 2022, employers didn’t seem to value what he had learned in his college courses. He settled for an entry-level social work position, repeating most of the training he had already received in college.
“I had to get here, and then kind of prove that I wasn’t brand-spanking new to the concept of social work,” Reed said. “I could have been given a little more recognition.”
Career education is something that happens in school, college, in an apprenticeship, on the job, through the military or even volunteering. But this valuable experience isn’t always reflected in the records of prospective employees like Reed.
That’s why California is embarking on a years-long effort to build infrastructure for a new virtual platform called the Career Passport. Its goal is to bring all these experiences into a digital portfolio — somewhat like a resume — called a “learning employment record.” This record, available to every Californian, would automatically update as a person gains skills and credentials with information validated by schools and employers.
Gov. Gavin Newsom described his vision for the Career Passport in a news conference in December.
“They take all your life experiences, take all of those skills you developed and create a passport where those skills can be utilized in the private sector and advance your opportunities as it relates to your career and your future,” Newsom said.
The concept of a learning employment record can sound deceptively simple, even obvious, but advocates for these records say that actually making this work isn’t easy.
“If this was easy to do, people would’ve done it a long time ago,” said Wilson Finch, vice president of initiatives at the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL), a national nonprofit that supports the creation of education-to-career pathways.
The idea of learning and employment records has been embraced by employers, colleges, workforce boards and political leaders around the country to resolve deep frustration among both job seekers and employers. The idea could have powerful ramifications for local and state economies, its backers contend, as long as potential issues such as fraud and fair representation of skills are solved.
“Any employer will tell you they’re not happy with the candidates they’re getting. They’re getting too many people, many of whom are not anywhere aligned to what they need,” Finch said. “And then you talk to the job seekers, and they’re applying for jobs all over the place and not hearing anything back.”
California won’t have to ‘figure out the potholes’
California’s Career Passport embodies many of the goals of the state’s Master Plan for Career Education, which aims to ease Californians’ sometimes fraught transitions between school, college, vocational training and, ultimately, a career.
Newsom’s proposed 2025-26 budget earmarks $100 million in one-time funding to begin building the infrastructure for the Career Passport and to expand Credit for Prior Learning, which allows students to receive college credit for training they get in the workplace, military service, a hobby or even volunteering.
The California Community Colleges system is leading the effort to build out the Career Passport. It will be a multiyear process, according to Chris Ferguson, executive vice chancellor of finance and strategic initiatives.
He said the effort is “focused on colleges to start, but designed in a way that allows for other entities to ultimately use it and participate as well.”
Finch said he’s excited to see that the Career Passport’s scope is the entire state, not just one group, like unemployed Californians.
“I’ve been working in this space long enough to know that when you only target a specific area, the impact is very limited,” Finch said.
There is a big push for learning and employment records all around the country. Some are happening in metro areas, like Pittsburgh or Dallas-Fort Worth. In Colorado, community colleges have taken the lead. Alabama piloted its version, called Talent Triad, in specific industries, such as health and advanced manufacturing, where the need was particularly great. California could learn from other states’ efforts.
“California shouldn’t have to figure out the potholes, so to speak,” said Mike Simmons, the associate executive director of business development and strategic partnerships for the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.
What could be tricky is the sheer size and diversity of the state, whose workforce in Fresno looks really different from Silicon Valley, Simmons said.
Over the last year, the state’s Office of Cradle to Career Data hosted wide-ranging conversations about what its Career Passport will look like through a specialtask force. That group included employers, the California Department of Education, teachers, all three state higher education systems and many state agencies, including the Labor & Workforce Development, Rehabilitation and California Volunteers.
Reed represented the student perspective on the task force.
“I was so stoked to hear that there would be some linkage between schools and employers, and that everything would be cohesive,” he said.
Credit: California Cradle2Career Data System
The problem goes beyond technology
To apply for a job, an applicant may need to request school transcripts, submit copies of professional licenses and put together a resume that distills their work experience and training. This requires time, fees and energy to ensure that a lot of different organizations are swiftly communicating with each other.
“We heard from students that it’s really hard to request transcripts from different institutions,” said Mary Ann Bates, executive director for the Office of Cradle to Career Data.
That’s why the task force is focused on a related effort to improve and expand the state’s eTranscript system, making sharing student transcripts seamless and free.
But the problem goes beyond technology. Those promoting learning and employment records — or career education, in general — say that K-12 schools, colleges, state agencies, community organizations and employers aren’t working together the way they should.
It can feel like educators and employers are speaking different languages. There’s an emphasis on grades and credit for college transcripts, while employers are more interested in whether a prospective employee has certain skills, Finch said.
One problem is that employers don’t always accept that the training and experience are authentic, because anyone can exaggerate or outright lie on their resume. Reed believes that if his colleges had vouched for classes that provided specific skills, such as trauma-informed care and motivational interviewing, it might have saved him from unnecessary training.
The current employment system favors those who have a college degree. Some human resources departments will simply filter out applicants without a bachelor’s degree. A student who is only a few credits short of a degree looks the same on paper as someone with no college experience.
“It’s an all-or-nothing system,” Finch said.
Those who attended college but never received a degree — which describes roughly 1 out of 5 Californians over 25 years old — would benefit from a new system. A learning and employment record could demonstrate that an applicant has the skills needed for a job through specific college courses, job training and maybe a boot camp, Finch said.
Ultimately, the success of the Career Passport depends on buy-in. Employers will go wherever they can find potential employees, and job seekers will go wherever they can find jobs. Making it work requires a critical mass of both.
Reed said his biggest worry about the Career Passport is: “In the land of the free, will we get everyone to uniformly accept it?”
Our state has established high standards for English, math, science and history that lay out what students must know and be able to do. But, as I have argued before, California has failed to adequately ensure even a majority of local educators are trained on — and equipped to teach to the level expected by — these standards.
There are many reasons for this failure, but the state can provide more coherent and effective leadership.
Here’s the improvement I propose:
Currently, the state has one entity responsible for preparing and licensing teachers, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC). But once teachers receive their credential, responsibility for professional development and educator support falls to the districts and county offices of education where they work. With nearly 1,000 local school districts and county offices of education, there is no oversight of whether experienced teachers are prepared to implement state standards.
Some state entity needs to take charge, and overcome the current situation: no large-scale vision, too many small-scale, one-time initiatives, and fragmented programs and governance.
We need legislation that would empower the current California Commission on Teacher Credentialing to provide the needed overall leadership. Currently, the commission, whose members are appointed by the governor, sets teacher preparation standards and approves postsecondary teacher preparation programs that meet the standards. Also, the commission provides teacher performance assessments that prospective teachers must pass to attain a credential.
California is one of 10 states that has a state Department of Education and a separate agency — the Commission on Teacher Credentialing — overseeing teacher preparation and licenses. But we can take advantage of this division by increasing the CTC’s role. It makes no sense, given the conditions of education today, to force the commission to stop working with teachers and principals once they have their credential. Rather, it should also be responsible for a career continuum and a long-term educator learning system.
Legislation should specify that the commission will encompass the entire career of a principal, teacher and early childhood permit holder. It might make sense to start with early career teachers and scale up from there, because this would be a continuation of what it does now. The legislation should empower the commission to support professional development across the spectrum, from candidates working toward a credential to experienced senior teachers, principals, instructional coaches, and other leaders.
Of course, this needs to be done carefully and deliberately. The kinds of things we want to get right require the teacher commission to work closely with school districts and county offices of education.
CTC should start with a strategic plan and road map reaching teachers statewide to signal that building educators’ skills is a major state role and responsibility. The road map would include the many moving parts that must be integrated into subject matter teaching. This includes key suppliers of products, curriculum developers, textbook publishers, universities, county offices and much more. The role of school districts must be rethought, including how to develop teaching capacity within districts and rely less on vendors that come and go.
The plan would create micro-credentials or other forms of state recognition of teaching competence in current state subject matter frameworks, such as the new math framework. Some districts in California have already been experimenting with micro-credentials. Other states such as Mississippi and New York have used micro-credentials to enhance pupil outcomes. The plan should include integration of current fragmented state-funded capacity grants. The commission would lead a project to estimate the costs of implementing the proposed state and local capacity-building role, including analyses of cost-effectiveness, such as using digital professional development delivery.
California has high academic standards and a talented teaching force. With effective statewide leadership and oversight, we can address persistent achievement gaps and help our students succeed.
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.
Coming up with solutions to the transportation problems of homeless students would go a long way toward reducing chronic absenteeism, advocates say.
Credit: KATE SEQUEIRA/EDSOURCE
A quiet place to complete homework, free and stable transportation options, and not immediately being penalized for missed work are among the things that Te’yana Brown said could have helped her as she faced homelessness at different points between elementary and high school.
Instead, Brown spent most mornings trying to figure out how to get to her high school. Sometimes, a family member could drive her the 45 minutes to an hour to school, while on other days she took the bus. She missed so much school at one point that she was deemed chronically absent, meaning she’d missed at least 10% of the school year.
“I think they knew periodically because I would always have absences or I would always be tardy, but I don’t think they were really concerned because, either way, I usually got my work done,” Brown responded in a recent interview to a question about whether her school knew she was experiencing homelessness. “I guess they didn’t really want to make me feel bad about it, but I wish they would have provided a little bit more resources.”
Te’yana Brown was awarded a scholarship from SchoolHouse Connection, a national homeless advocacy organization that addresses how schools can increase attendance among students experiencing homelessness.
Brown was far from the only one finding it difficult to get to school as a student experiencing homelessness: Of the more than 246,000 homeless students in California during the 2022-23 school year, 40% were chronically absent, according to data analysis by SchoolHouse Connection and Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan.
To prevent experiences like Brown’s is the reason for a new partnership between Attendance Works, a nonprofit aimed at boosting school attendance, and SchoolHouse Connection, a national homeless advocacy organization, to address how schools can increase attendance among students experiencing homelessness.
A federal law, the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, was implemented decades ago to ensure homeless students are identified and supported. If a homeless student falls through the cracks, they miss out on services that could help them stay in school, even if their housing situation remains tenuous.
The two organizations spent months analyzing data and interviewing districts nationwide to understand how to bring homeless students back to school.
“There’s a way in which all of McKinney-Vento is about attendance. The entire effort is about increasing attendance, as well as supporting success,” said Barbara Duffield, executive director of SchoolHouse Connection.
Among the top strategies they gathered are training school staff to identify whether a student might be homeless, working together across school departments to avoid penalizing students for challenges arising from homelessness, and focusing on transportation access.
Some specific examples of districts taking homeless students’ needs into account include a county in Virginia that coordinated bus routes to motels where homeless students were living. Students admitted to being embarrassed when their classmates would see where they lived, so the bus schedule was changed to make the motels the first stop each morning and the last stop after school.
In Fresno, a team of school officials at Coalinga-Huron Unified School District meets weekly to review academics, attendance and other factors related to homeless students’ education and then take steps to support those students through that week.
While identification of homelessness is required under the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, the people doing this work at schools are often understaffed and underfunded. Usually, they have to gather funding from sources unrelated to McKinney-Vento to comply with the law.
The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act’s Education for Homeless Children and Youth grant is a steady stream of funding targeted at this student population, but at $129 million nationwide, it does not reach all schools that enroll students experiencing homelessness. During the 2022-23 school year, for example, California received $14.6 million to support the educational needs of homeless students, but it reached only 127 of the state’s more than 2,000 districts. The year prior, California received $13.2 million in competitive grants that went to 136 districts.
A significant amount of federal pandemic recovery funds set aside for homeless students was also available starting in March 2021 — over $98 million that went to 92% of California’s school districts, though that was one-time funding.
A federal Department of Education study published this year found that local educational agencies that received those pandemic recovery funds saw a decrease of 5 percentage points in homeless students’ chronic absenteeism rate.
The study attributed this national trend to schools’ access to increased funding. Duffield pointed out that these decreases occurred even as student homelessness rose over the same period.
Brown was eventually able to get to school consistently and is now in her second year at Pitzer College, a private institution that is part of the Claremont Colleges in Southern California, studying management engineering on a full-ride scholarship.
Her path there, however, required transferring to a high school that offered her flexibility in managing her schoolwork and provided resources that helped her focus on school even as she looked for stable housing.
Brown’s story is not uncommon
Te’yana Brown speaks at her high school graduation.
Brown was never identified as homeless in high school despite showing signs that her basic needs were not being met, including being chronically absent and missing school assignments despite generally maintaining good grades.
She struggled academically in the first two years of high school, a time in which she and her family were doubling up with other families, eventually moving between motels. She said she didn’t receive resources outside of what all other students were offered, such as referring families to social services programs like CalWorks.
But her educational experience and her college aspirations changed when she transferred to a school that offered her more flexibility and support. Brown had started working part time at a Goodwill store at age 15, but she stayed on top of her academics because her new school was a hybrid program that required in-person classes only twice a week.
“Not all students have the flexibility to go to school eight hours a day,” Brown said. ”That can be really challenging when it comes to students from underserved communities.”
At her new school in the Pasadena area of Los Angeles, Brown had 24-hour access to tutoring platforms, regular check-ins with her teachers and academic counselor, and a college preparatory program that included university tours.
“I had a lot of other tasks that I needed to do, whether it be research for my family or working to actually support myself,” she said.
The research that Brown referred to was the time she spent searching for affordable housing for herself, her mother, and her sister.
Once Brown got into college and moved to on-campus housing, she turned to figuring out how her mother and sister could remain stable.
“It was really stressful because I had a lot of worry about how my family was going to survive. It really hurt my heart if I was able to go to college and have a roof over my head but they didn’t have a place of their own,” said Brown.
Brown’s sense of responsibility has permeated her academic life, her college application process, and her decisions now as a college student. For example, when she got an Amazon scholarship that included a housing stipend and a monthly salary, she saved most of her pay for a down payment on a home for her family.
Advocates say efforts to increase attendance will continue to fail if homeless students are not the central focus. Just last week, Fresno Unified’s school board voted to provide rental subsidies to 10 unhoused families with kids who were were chronically absent. This is the type of strategy that the partnership between Attendance Works and SchoolHouse Connection aims to highlight and help expand.
“If we’re devising strategies but we’re not paying attention to the specific circumstances of the youth who have the highest chronic absence rates and some really unique barriers,” Duffield said, “then those overall attendance efforts aren’t going to be successful.”
Collaboration between districts and community organizations, including to mentor teachers, is the key to expanding the pool of educators to teach computer science.
Educational leaders must prioritize including computer science classes in course offerings.
Parents can play an important role in getting their children to take computer science classes and in pressuring administrators to offer the classes at their schools.
In spite of statewide initiatives to increase access to and participation in computer science classes, California lags behind the national average of 60% and trails about three dozen other states in the percentage of high schools offering at least one computer science course.
52% of high schools across California offered computer science in the 2023-24 school year.
Students who are female, belong to a racial or ethnic minority group, live in rural areas and small towns or attend schools serving predominantly low-income students are less likely to attend schools offering computer science classes.
Policies in other states have expanded student access to computing skills and closed racial, gender, geographic and socioeconomic gaps.
What is computer science?
Computer science, as described in the computer science academic content standards adopted by the State Board of Education, is “the study of computers and algorithmic processes, including their principles … implementation and impact on society.” The course teaches and prepares students to “meaningfully engage” in a digitally driven world, according to Computer Science for California (CSforCA), a group of educators, nonprofit organizations and industry leaders that has worked to improve equity in computer science access.
Advocates say that in addition to legislative action, districts and communities can and should take the following steps to increase access to and enrollment in computer science.
Start with teachers
Julie Flapan, co-director for Computer Science for California (CSforCA), said proper teacher preparation is the first step in computer science education.
“Part of that means sending a teacher to professional learning. Not only do they learn the curriculum and pedagogy, but they’re part of an ongoing community of practice to feel supported in teaching computer science,” Flapan said.
Local, regional or statewide collaborative spaces where educators can learn from and support one another are crucial for teachers who are the only computer science instructors in their schools.
Teacher collaboration is key in small, rural districts or schools, where there may only be one educator trying to integrate computer science, said Tracey Allen, who has worked with rural districts across Northern California for Seasons of CS, California’s year-round computer science professional learning and training program.
“They might be the only science teacher that’s trying to integrate computer science, or they’re the only math teacher on site,” Allen said. “It’s kind of hard to have a robust conversation with yourself if you’re the only one in that content area.”
How do schools or districts find interested teachers?
Karen Mix, co-director for the federal CS4NorCal grant under the Small School Districts’ Association, said recruiting teachers requires developing relationships.
“I pop into schools and meet teachers,” she said. “Answer questions that they may have, show them the benefits and the values of computer science and how they can use it and encourage them to go to the training. One of our teachers — I had to pop into their school and talk to him and their principal maybe four or five times before we got them on board.”
Do teachers need to have a background in computer science?
In 2016, the state passed legislation allowing educators in other disciplines to pursue computer science certification with required coursework.
Though a leader in computer science advocacy, Allen in Northern California was a multiple-subject credentialed teacher with no background in the subject.
“You don’t need a background in computer science to begin learning about computer science and find easy entry points to start implementing or integrating it into your classroom for the benefit of your students,” she said.
Beyond professional development, how can schools and districts support teachers?
State and federal grant funding for computer science initiatives created ongoing professional learning. For that to continue after grant funding expires, Allen said, districts and schools can connect with county offices or other districts that are already doing the work.
“We are strapped for time,” she said. “Don’t feel like you have to create the wheel or that you have to be the one to put a resource bank together for your teachers. Reach out to other colleagues and tap into professional learning that’s already happening.
“I think sharing resources, sharing professional learning opportunities, will be key.”
CS4NorCal has even created and regularly updates an implementation dashboard — an interactive online tool — that will allow educators and school leaders to explore ways to implement computer science through the different approaches being used elsewhere.
And advocates emphasize the importance of connecting with local community partners.
Collaboration with community groups is vital, too
In the 2018-19 school year, Modoc County high schoolers had no access to any computer science courses, but nonprofits and community organizations participated in training opportunities to better collaborate in the development of computer science. The nonprofit Advancing Modoc, which eventually began leading course implementation, recruited staff to support the initiative.
Partnerships can broaden access and participation not just in computer science concepts but in basic digital and technological skills.
“Partnerships where you actually bring in subject matter experts like ourselves into classrooms can augment and help,” said Damon Thomas, co-founder of Quiq Labs, a tech education company that teaches students science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics (STEAM) through enrichment programs.
‘Be creative with your master schedule’
“You have to really have that administrator in your building or in your district being a support for you,” Mix, the co-director for the CS4NorCal grant, said.
It’s school and district leaders who determine what classes are offered on a school’s master schedule.
So, no matter how much professional development teachers receive, it goes nowhere if computer science isn’t prioritized in schools, said Rudy Escobar who has provided professional development and offered family engagement in his roles in Stanislaus County, the Central Valley and statewide.
School and district leaders must balance the availability of courses required to graduate with non-mandatory but needed classes that can, undoubtedly, prepare students for life after high school. But many administrators are reluctant or unable to prioritize a subject that isn’t explicitly a part of the state’s dashboard, the requirements that are used to measure and hold districts accountable for student progress toward college and career readiness.
“We have to really change the mindsets of site and district administrators, and even superintendents, to be able to see this as a priority,” Escobar said.
To increase access, Turlock Unified in Stanislaus County will start by offering an Advanced Placement (AP) computer science course in its high schools, Escobar said.
The College Board, which administers the AP program, offers resources to California educators teaching or planning to teach AP. According to Holly Stepp, a spokesperson with College Board, those include:
Free professional learning for educators planning to teach AP Computer Science in the 2025-26 school year
A grant is available for the four-day online or in-person training in June, July or August that will provide teaching strategies, instructional materials and a supportive teacher community
Online workshops led by veteran AP instructors
Mentoring
A teacher collaborative
Innovative curriculum with pre-approved syllabi, lesson plans and other instructional materials
Professional learning is also available to prepare teachers to use the curriculum
Free, online resources that can be tailored to meet the needs of students
Computer science advocates urge leaders to be creative with their master schedules and balance what courses they offer.
For example, in rural Siskiyou county in far Northern California, a kindergarten teacher on a half-day schedule teaches computer science as an afternoon elective in other elementary grades, Mix said.
Likewise, the small, rural Modoc County created a middle school coding class in the 40 minutes between 2:40 p.m. (when classes end) and 3:30 p.m. (when buses arrive).
“Just be creative with your master schedule,” Mix said.
How can administrators justify adding a class?
Kathy Hamilton with the Small School Districts’ Association acknowledged that small, rural schools and districts lack resources and credentialed teachers to offer computer science courses, and students may have no interest or awareness of the value of such classes.
“It’s a long-term strategy, but you have to build up the interest, build up the pressure, in grades K-8 so that by the time the kids get to high school, there’s a demand for the course, and then the principal can justify providing the assignment in the master schedule to offer a course,” Hamilton said.
Escobar recommends that administrators open up opportunities for teachers to integrate, or merge computer science into another subject area, to expose students to computer science in middle and elementary grades.
“Start early,” he said. “Make it a consistent thing that the students are seeing every year, so that way, when they get to high school, students are seeking to take those courses.”
What resources are available to school and district administrators?
Administrators remain concerned about how to implement computer science courses, especially if it becomes a requirement.
According to Flapan, the co-director for CSforCA, several organizations, many of which have received grant funding, have provided resources, including learning guides on how to implement computer science.
“There’s a lot of statewide resources and a lot of momentum and expertise in computer science in the state of California,” she said. “All of these folks are interested in helping to guide and support other administrators that are looking for ways to implement computer science in their schools.”
Resources for administrators and others
Some of those include:
How parents can help
“Parents want computer science when they hear what we talk to them about,” Escobar said, and they can advocate for computer science to be a priority in their school district.
“Statewide, we’re seeing that even though there are more computer science classes being offered, that the classes themselves aren’t always representative of the student body in the schools they serve,” Flapan said.
“How do we make sure that students of color and girls are taking advantage of those opportunities? We think that parents can play a strong role in encouraging their students to take it if they have a better understanding of why it’s important and how it could help them in their post-high school plans — whether it’s college or careers or just engaging in their communities.”
