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  • Tom Ultican: Christian Nationalism Comes for the Schools

    Tom Ultican: Christian Nationalism Comes for the Schools


    In this post, Tom Ultican focuses on the advance of Christian nationalism. This is the belief that the U.S. is a Christian nation and that the Founders supported that idea.

    In response to Christian nationalists, states are passing laws to require the posting of The Ten Commandments in classrooms, to allow public money to be spent in religious schools, to eviscerate separation of church and state, and to hire religious leaders to act as guidance counselors in public schools.

    Separation of church and state has been an honored tradition in American life and law for generations. That separation protects the churches by freeing them from state oversight; it also protects the state by preventing religious zealots from interfering in the workings of government.

    We are a nation of many religions. Freedom of religion is best protected by keeping the hands of the state far from all religious groups and to prevent religious groups from exercising state power.

    Yet here come the Christian nationalists, eager to assert their control over the entire nation, over Catholic Churches, over Muslim mosques, over Jewish synagogues, over the many and diverse religions of our nation, as well as all those who are affiliated with no religion. .

    The Constitution does not say that the U.S. is a Christian nation. It says in the First Amendment that there must be freedom of religion for all and that Congress must pass no laws establishing a state religion. The Constitution also says that there must be no religious test for those who hold public office.

    If the Founders wanted the U.S. to be a Christian nation, they would have said so. They didn’t.

    But we live in a New Age, one where Christian Nationalists are front and center.

    Ultican writes:

    Since 2024, Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas have passed laws requiring ten commandment posters in all classrooms. These kinds of laws come to us courtesy of a single Christian “bill mill,” Project Blitz. Dozens of other state bills in fidelity with Project Blitz’s proposed legislation were also passed. In 2021, they distributed 74 pieces of model legislation of which 14 passed into law including “Parental Review and Consent for Sex Education” and “Religious Freedom Day” promoting Mark Keierleber, reporting for The 74, wrote, “Among the architects of Project Blitz is the Barton-founded influence machine, WallBuilders.”

    The WallBuilders home page claims to be, “Helping Americans Remember and Preserve the True History of Our Great Nation …” Unfortunately; it is in reality a propaganda site posting lies about American history in order to advance a Christian Nationalist agenda. Texas preacher and amateur historian, David Barton, founded WallBuilders and has become the most quoted man in the realm of Christian Nationalism. The organization’s name is an Old Testament reference to rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem.

    The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, told an audience at the ProFamily Legislators Conference, which was being hosted by WallBuilders, Barton’s teachings have had “a profound influence on me, and my work, and my life and everything I do.” It is widely held that the Speaker is a Christian Nationalist. President Trump has cultivated their support. In March, he hosted David Barton in the oval office.

    David Barton and Trump in the Oval Office this March

    David Barton

    Barton was born in Fort Worth, Texas. When he completed junior high, his family moved to the small Texas town of Aledo about 40 miles west of Fort Worth. After graduating third in his high school class, he attended Oral Roberts University, the evangelical Christian college in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Barton came to Oral Roberts on a math and science scholarship but ended up with a degree in religious education.

    His parents started a Bible study group in Aledo which became a fundamentalist church and a K-12 school. David taught math and science, coached basketball, and became the school’s principal.

    Barton became an amateur historian. In her first book, The Good News Club, Katherine Stewart claimed, “Pseudo-historian David Barton—a Texas-based darling of the Religious Right and founder of the Christian Nationalist organizations WallBuilders and the Black Robe Regiment—seems to have no problem fictionalizing the history.” (Page 67)

    H“In a broader sense, Barton’s work is reminiscent of nineteenth-century historians like Charles Coffin and Parson Weems, scholars who wrote from an unabashedly Christian perspective at a time when there was no culture of objectivity among historians. Weems was best known for his biography of George Washington, in which he did his best to claim Washington for the Christians, despite his well-known reputation as a Deist. In a brief, credulous treatise called The Bulletproof George Washington, Barton resurrected an old Weems-era tale about the supposed divine protection of Washington during the French and Indian War.”

    Nate Blakeslee in an article for the Texas Monthly observed:

    In her second book, The Power Worshippers, Stewart noted:

    “The historical errors and obfuscations tumbled out of Barton’s works fast and furious. Intent on demonstrating that the American republic was founded on ‘Judeo-Christian principles,’ Barton reproduced and alleged quote from James Madison to the effect that the Ten Commandments are the foundation of American civilization. Chuck Norris, Rush Limbaugh, Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson, and countless other luminaries of the right recycled the quote in so many iterations that it has become a fixture of Christian nationalist ideology. Yet there is no evidence that Madison ever said such a thing.” (Page 133)

    An NPR article from 2012 provides a good example of what Blakeslee and Stewart are writing about. While most of us learned that the Constitution was a secular document, Barton disagrees and says it is laced with biblical quotations:

    ‘“You look at Article 3, Section 1, the treason clause,’ he told James Robison on Trinity Broadcast Network. ‘Direct quote out of the Bible. You look at Article 2, the quote on the president has to be a native born? That is Deuteronomy 17:15, verbatim. I mean, it drives the secularists nuts because the Bible’s all over it! Now we as Christians don’t tend to recognize that. We think it’s a secular document; we’ve bought into their lies. It’s not.”

    “We looked up every citation Barton said was from the Bible, but not one of them checked out. Moreover, the Constitution as written in 1787 has no mention of God or religion except to prohibit a religious test for office.”

    In 2012, Barton’s bestselling book “The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson” was pulled by its Christian publisher, Thomas Nelson, because they “lost confidence” in the book. Senior Vice President Brian Hampton noted, “There were historical details — matters of fact, not matters of opinion, that were not supported at all.”

    The 1792 Aitken Bible was the first Bible ever printed in the USA. Barton claims it was published and paid for by Congress. This was another one of his proofs that the United States was founded on Christian principles. The bible was not published by congress; it was published and paid for by printer Robert Aitken. At the time, there was an embargo on biblesfrom England. Responding to Aitken’s request, Congress agreed to have its chaplains check the Bible for accuracy.

    From 1997 to 2006, Barton was vice chairman of the Texas Republican Party.

    Barton Speaking at a 2016 Cruz Rally in Henderson, Nevada

    The Henderson rally was hosted by Keep the Promise PAC which Barton was running. Besides Cruz, he was also joined on stage by Christian Nationalist pundit Glenn Beck. Barton maintains a relative low profile but his influence is massive.

    The Christian Nationalists have a level of power in the Republican Party that is shocking.



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  • Debate over parental rights vs. student rights to gender identity privacy comes to Clovis Unified

    Debate over parental rights vs. student rights to gender identity privacy comes to Clovis Unified


    Nearly 100 parents, former students and educators filled the Sept. 20 Clovis Unified school board meeting to voice their opinions on the prospect of a parental notification policy.

    Credit: Lasherica Thornton / EdSource

    Recent Clovis Unified school board meetings have been filled with posters bearing contrasting messages. “Support parental notification in schools. Stop keeping secrets from parents” as well as “Stop forced outing.”

    With those starkly different messages in the background, nearly 100 people spoke at the Sept. 20 board meeting, joining a debate that’s sweeping the state: parents’ right to know how their children identify at school versus students’ right to privacy about gender identity and expression.

    The contentious discourse came to Clovis Unified not because of a proposed school board policy — as has been the case in other school districts, including Chino, Temecula, Anderson Union High, Murrieta Valley and Rocklin — but because of a Student Site Plan, an optional form that, some say, could undermine students’ right to privacy by outing them to their parents. The district says it uses the form to gauge students’ needs for access to facilities such as restrooms and locker rooms.

    Under a 10-year-old law known as Assembly Bill 1266, students in California have the right to access school facilities that are consistent with their gender identity, regardless of what’s listed on their school record.

    The district spokesperson said that while the form could help facilitate a conversation with parents, students can opt out of completing it.

    “While there is no hard and fast ‘yes’ or ‘no’,” about whether parents must be notified for students to access facilities aligned with their gender identity, said Kelly Avants, spokesperson for the district, “in general, we would work with the student about parental notification.”

    Internal Clovis Unified guidance for administration details notifying parents if students want to access a facility aligned with their gender identity, but officials would not deny them access because of AB 1266.

    “Access will be provided while informing those with educational rights (typically parents/guardians for minors),” according to the district guidance documents.

    “They’re notified whether or not the SSP (Student Site Plan) is in place,” said Drew Harbaugh, chapter president for PFLAG Fresno, an organization that supports and advocates for LGBTQ+ people and their families, including many Clovis Unified parents.

    What’s on the Student Site Plan form?

    The Student Site Plan asks students for their legal and chosen names, pronouns, gender assigned at birth, gender identity and gender expression.

    Students provide information on their programs and activities and indicate whether they want to access restrooms and locker rooms by their gender at birth, gender identity or a gender-neutral space, such as the nurse’s office.

    Parents or guardians must consent to or participate in completing the form.

    “The SSP is our district’s process by which a student and parent have the opportunity to sit down with school staff and arrive at a plan to support the student,” the guidance documents say.

    Though the process for facility usage has changed over time to meet state laws and requirements, the Student Site Plan was first established in the school district last school year, Avants said.  According to the district’s internal document, the form replaced the Gender Acknowledgement Plan, which had involved parents, but only at the student’s discretion.

    Clovis Unified, Avants said, created the form in an attempt to address the “complexities of meeting the unique needs of individual students and families.”

    What’s the process for accessing facilities if students do not complete the form?

    For students who want to access different facilities but do not want to complete the form, they’d inform the school, Avants said. Trained school staff and the student then discuss how to accomplish that.

    Using a gender-neutral space doesn’t require parental notification. However, “parents must be informed,” district guidance says, if a student seeks the use of a facility that’s different from the gender assigned at the student’s birth or what’s listed on records. Such students are granted access in either event, the guidance states.

    “The student is allowed access in accordance with AB 1266 and California Education Code, but not at the expense of or superseding parents’/guardians’ educational rights to be informed,” the district guidance states.

    So, “the guidance still directs staff to out them,” even though students have the right to access their preferred facilities, Harbaugh said.

    If telling their parents causes students to be concerned about their safety, the district guidance spells out how staff should report suspected child abuse to Child Protective Services — if evidence exists. While the guidance directs staff not to complete the Student Site Plan in that scenario, it instructs staff to offer the student a meeting with the school’s psychologists or safety team about those concerns and to help the student communicate with their parents or guardians. The guidance also tells staff to attempt to facilitate the Student Site Plan with students and parents, if that’s appropriate.

    Legislation isn’t ‘well-established’

    AB 1266 is “silent” on practical application and implementation, Avants said, so the Student Site Plan attempts to balance facility access, parent rights to information, student needs and parental involvement.

    “We do look at every child individually and work to make sure they’re supported and safe at school,” said Clovis Unified Superintendent Corrine Folmer, emphasizing the “balance” of the site plan.

    “It’s not an area of law that’s well-established,” said Maiya Yang, Clovis Unified in-house counsel, adding that current lawsuits are proof of that.

    In July, a federal judge in Sacramento ruled that California is not violating parents’ rights by not informing them of students’ gender identities. The California attorney general filed a lawsuit in August against Chino Valley Unified in San Bernardino County, requesting a stop to its policy; a judge blocked the policy in early September.

    Proponents of notification have also had some success in court. In August, two Escondido Unified middle school teachers in San Diego sued the school district and the California Department of Education for a policy prohibiting teachers from discussing students’ gender identity with parents. In that case, a San Diego federal judge recently ruled that parents have the right to be told how students identify, conflicting the July ruling from the Sacramento federal judge.

    Avants said other districts’ policies seem to be “a black-and-white treatment of a nuanced topic.”

    And comparing Clovis Unified to those districts that have adopted parental notification policies is a “miscategorization of our process,” she said. “Our process is individualized, customized (and) looks at every child individually.”

    Even though Clovis Unified hasn’t proposed a policy, people are already advocating for or against the prospect of one.

    On one side of the issue, many Clovis Unified parents and other members of the school community urged the school board to adopt a parental notification policy to involve parents in the decision-making of their children’s education and to provide them access to all information that affects student well-being.

    “My rights matter,” said Ashley Williams, parent of two Clovis Unified students. “I’m a parent, and my rights to my children trump people’s concerns” about possible abuse by parents and self-harm of students who are outed.

    Many other parents, former students and educators say the school district should allow students to come out in their own way, when they’re ready, while protecting students who don’t feel safe to do so.

    “While I value the parent-child relationship and would hope children feel safe to share this part of themselves with their parents, it remains a reality that that is not the case for many CUSD students,” said Clovis Unified teacher Laramie Woolsey.

    According to the National Network for Youth, a lack of parental acceptance, causing family conflict, is a leading cause of homelessness for LGBTQ+ youth, who are disproportionately impacted. The LGBTQ mental health nonprofit Trevor Project also found that 41% of LGBTQ youth seriously considered killing themselves in the past year.

    Woolsey said many of her students told her about their sexuality and gender identity, rather than their parents.

    “Many of these students struggled with suicidal thoughts because they imagined that death would be easier than being someone other than who their parents wanted them to be,” Woolsey said. “Why did these students come to me and not to their parents? Because they knew I was a safe person to talk to who wouldn’t judge them, invalidate them or otherwise harm them.”

    “ I earned their trust.”

    In Clovis, there is no policy and won’t be one anytime soon

    At a Sept. 13 meeting, where two dozen people also spoke and the Sept. 20 meeting, neither the site plan form nor a proposed policy was on the agenda, so board members could not address community members on the topic.

    But Clovis Unified School District and its board do not and will not have a policy until there is legal clarity, Avants said.

    “They (the school board members) have said, publicly several times, they have no interest in putting on their agenda a policy that is under legal challenge,” Avants said. “We’ll visit this when there’s more legal clarity.”

    Concerned community members, such as Harbaugh, say that the district’s insistence that the Student Site Plan is not a board policy makes it impossible to address the subject.

    “By not making it a policy, they take away any options we have for recourse,” Harbaugh said. “But if they’re still putting it in place regarding these students … whether or not they’re calling it a policy, they’re implementing it as a policy.”

    Because legislation is developing and evolving, Yang, the district’s general counsel, said it will take several years for local, state and federal courts to give school districts guidance on handling situations where the rights of students and parents conflict.

    “Unfortunately, for school districts like us that are trying to navigate this very important issue,” Yang said, “we don’t have a lot of guidance.”





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  • Hope for West Fresno now comes in the form of a college campus

    Hope for West Fresno now comes in the form of a college campus


    A student walks past the “You Belong Here” sign at Fresno City College’s newest campus, West Fresno Center.

    Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource

    Brianna Knight can walk from her college campus down the street to her family’s home to check on her children when they need her, an option only recently available with the opening of Fresno City College’s latest campus in West Fresno.

    Her family, longtime residents of West Fresno, often takes care of her children while she’s in class or working as a tutor on campus. Knight, who is completing her associate degree in human biology, said that working toward her degree was more stressful before the new campus opened.

    She had planned to leave her hometown before the new West Fresno Center was built, she said, because she didn’t see a future there for her children. But her plans have changed now that the campus is open.

    “I’m big on: Where can I plant my seeds for my kids to grow? And if my kids can’t grow somewhere, why am I here? And so to be able to have this in the community I grew up in … if my kids don’t want to leave, they don’t have to,” Knight said about the new campus.

    For the West Fresno community that fought for this new campus, the college has come to symbolize hope for future generations like Knight’s children.

    Eric Payne, executive director of the nonprofit Central Valley Urban Institute, and Brianna Knight were both raised in West Fresno. Knight is currently a student at the new West Fresno Center campus of Fresno City College.
    Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource

    “West Fresno is a phoenix rising out of the ashes because we can fundamentally zero out a lot of the systemic issues that we’re experiencing if we center the voices of young people in our community,” said Eric Payne, executive director of the nonprofit Central Valley Urban Institute. “And what better place than a college campus?”

    West Fresno is home to over 25,000 people in a historically marginalized section of the Central Valley’s largest city. It’s a region with one of the highest levels of concentrated poverty in the nation, higher rates of incarceration, and a lower life expectancy rate by about 20 years than their neighbors in wealthier sections of Fresno.

    These statistics have solidified over decades with strategic redlining practices, documented in detail, since at least the 1930s, and have led to limited opportunities and resources for those raised in the area.

    “Before, it was … just all about survival. There was no space to really grow. You don’t see a future, you don’t see yourself being a nurse,” said Knight, 33. “You hear about it, but you don’t actually get to see it.”

    It’s an area so deeply understood by locals as being underserved that a high school graduate made the local news this year because she was valedictorian, despite growing up within 93706, West Fresno’s ZIP code.

    “I can graduate with the highest honors despite the lack of resources and violence we endure on the West Side,” said Uzueth “Uzi” Ramírez-Gallegos during her speech, as reported by the Fresno Bee.

    This history is why the newest Fresno City College location was thoughtfully chosen to be constructed within a 1- to 2-mile radius of more than 10 K-12 schools.

    “We operated from a place of intention,” said Payne, who grew up in West Fresno and was elected trustee of State Center Community College District’s governing board in 2012. “How do we pull the greatest number of students into this community college?”

    The answer to that question was twofold: Build the new college campus within walking distance of those K-12 schools, plus reach out to the students and staff at those very schools to draw them onto campus and eventually enroll in the courses.

    The long-term vision for the college, Payne and campus leaders emphasized, is to create a space that not only disrupts the school-to-prison pipeline in the area but also more deeply connects West Fresno to the rest of the city.

    “I think the location is perhaps the best decision that was made by the community members and administration to make sure that 93706 is no longer left behind,” said one such campus leader, Gurminder Sangha, dean of educational services at the West Fresno Center.

    The 39 acres on which the school stands today were empty before its construction.

    Gurminder Sangha is the dean of educational services and pathway effectiveness at the West Fresno Center.
    Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource

    The financial backing for the acquisition of the land and construction of the facility was secured in a combination of ways: partial funding from a $485 million facilities bond approved by voters in 2016, a $16.5 million grant awarded by the city of Fresno through its Transformative Climate Community program, and an additional $11 million directly from the city.

    Included in the mix was a donation of 6 acres from TFS Investments, a real estate investment firm that owned a portion of the land where the campus now stands.

    The land has since been transformed into an open campus, with an automotive technology center opening in the new year, where students will train for certifications in electric vehicle mechanics and in the field of alternative fuels such as diesel technology.

    The degrees and programs offered at the campus include access to medical assistant certifications, chemistry and biology laboratories, business administration courses, elementary teaching education training, and more.

    There is also a newly-established city bus stop at the front entrance of the school on the previously existing route 38, with service every 15 minutes between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays.

    Local community members have long expressed frustration over the unreliable public transit system. The new stop and the accompanying free bus passes available for students are meant to increase accessibility to and from the campus.

    Perhaps most clearly bridging the new campus to its local West Fresno community is the one-mile walking trail with exercise equipment circling the campus, which will be open to all once construction is finished.

    The amenities and services offered at the new campus are in contrast with the larger West Fresno community, where essentials like grocery stores, banks and even trees are uncommon. In light of this contrast, the school is becoming a haven for many. Knight, for example, noted that her children enjoy walking from their home up the street and onto the campus.

    Those who enter the campus’ main lobby are greeted by both staff and peers who are hired to work in the student services department housed on the first floor of the same building where many of the college’s academic courses are offered.

    From counseling to basic needs resources and financial aid to records, students can easily find the right person to speak with because those offices are one of the first things they see as they walk into the lobby. The clearest welcome might just be the large lettering above those offices, which reads: “You belong here.”

    George Alvarado is the Director of Counseling and Special Projects at the new West Fresno Center. He offered EdSource a tour of the campus during a recent visit.
    Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource

    Barring the sections of campus remaining under construction through the beginning of next year — the automotive center and the walking trail — it is difficult to believe that the school opened just this fall; the facility has the typical hum of a college campus. Some students take their mid-class breaks in the main lobby, which doubles as a student lounge area, complete with snacks available for purchase and soft classical music playing in the background.

    Others study in the academic support centers on the second floor, where they also have a clear view of the greater West Fresno community.

    Sangha expects the available resources will expand as the school community grows.

    Conversations around building the campus began nearly two decades ago, said Sangha, with the actual construction taking about two years to complete.

    Payne noted that he remembers hearing about a college being established in West Fresno when he was in high school over two decades ago, but “it never materialized,” so he left Fresno at the time to attend Alabama A&M University.

    When he returned to his hometown years later, he began organizing with his former neighbors and joined a movement to push for what eventually became West Fresno Center. If it had existed when he was in high school, he said he may have chosen to stay in the city where he grew up and that more of his peers might have had better life outcomes and opportunities.

    “There are a lot of people that I graduated with that are deceased, that are incarcerated, and a lot of folks who are barely making it financially,” he said. “There was a thirst for this facility; there was a thirst for better outcomes.”

    That thirst is slowly being reflected in the number of students enrolling from the West Fresno community. Out of the 800 enrolled during this first fall semester since its grand opening, 130 students are exclusively taking courses at this campus, about 125 live in the 93706 ZIP code, and about 160 live in 93722, the ZIP code just north of campus.

    With their doors now open, plans are in place to offer college credit to local high school students. At three nearby high schools — Edison, Washington Union, and Kerman — students are already in dual enrollment courses held at their high school campuses. Sometime next year, according to Sangha, West Fresno Center plans to offer courses for high school students at the college campus so they may earn additional credits.

    “It is truly an academic village in a way, in that students can envision themselves walking from one school to the other school, then coming to us and going to Fresno State or wherever they want to go,” said Sangha.

    Knight graduated from high school about 15 years ago and moved to Los Angeles to enroll in Santa Monica College, but her move coincided with the 2008 recession and she couldn’t afford to remain in L.A. She returned to Fresno and enrolled in Fresno City College, but left shortly after becoming pregnant.

    The campus walking trail, seen in the distance, will open to all in the community after construction is complete.
    Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource

    “My journey to school has been … it’s been very different,” she said. “I’ve tried to come back throughout the years, and I just don’t think I was ready.”

    During the pandemic, she enrolled in school once more. She said the support she has received at the center made a significant difference for her.

    “My professors actually care that I show up, whether I’m late or whether I have to leave and take care of my kids or come back — which doesn’t happen often, but the fact that I have that support is important,” she said.

    Knight, who is a Fresno Unified School District graduate and whose mother and grandmother worked at Fresno Unified schools, now plans to continue raising her children in West Fresno. She is completing her degrees in human biology, public health and pre-allied health this month and will be walking the graduation stage in May.

    “To live across the street and to see it being built from the ground up, that was everything to me,” said Knight, a mother of two who is pregnant with twins. “It changed my whole mindset on Fresno, to be honest with you.”





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  • State’s school awards dinner at Disneyland comes with hefty price tag

    State’s school awards dinner at Disneyland comes with hefty price tag


    State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, center, stands with Mickey and Minnie Mouse, alongside Lisette Estrella-Henderson, center right, the Solano County Superintendent of Schools, at Disneyland in Anaheim during the California School Recognition Program in 2019.

    Credit: Lisette Estrella-Henderson / X

    California schools that have significantly improved student achievement will be honored in a ceremony hosted by the California Department of Education at Disneyland on Friday, but the $500 per person ticket price has some superintendents fuming.

    Districts pay between $460 and $500 per person to attend the California School Recognition Program Awards Ceremony, depending on when they register. They also pay the cost of employee travel to Anaheim and for their lodging. The Disneyland Hotel is offering a conference rate of $324, plus taxes and fees. Parking is $60 per vehicle. 

    The price tag is leaving some superintendents conflicted. Do they send teachers and other staff to celebrate their school’s success, or do they use the money to pay for other needs, such as professional development, tutors or supplies?

    “The state understands that most districts, a majority of districts right now, are in budget constriction and deficit spending,” said Anne Hubbard, superintendent of the tiny 900-student TK-6 Hope Elementary School District in Santa Barbara. “And it seems just crazy that the CDE would be the host of this event, this honoring, this lifting up of education, with a price tag that just does not make sense to me.”

    The annual awards ceremony celebrates California Distinguished Schools, National Blue Ribbon Schools, Green Ribbon Schools Green Achievers and Civic Learning Awards Schools. It is expected to draw 1,300 people to the hotel, according to event organizers.

    The event, which has been held at the venue for decades, will cost more than half a million dollars. It is paid for with registration fees and sponsorships.

    School may have a nacho party instead 

    Hubbard was proud and excited when she learned that Vieja Valley Elementary — one of the district’s three schools — had been named a California Distinguished School. She quickly booked a few rooms at the Disneyland Hotel and proceeded to the registration page to see if there was a limit to the number of employees she could send.

    “I was completely floored when I got to the checkout and saw the price tag for attending the ceremony — $490, plus a $10 processing fee,” Hubbard said. 

    Hubbard asked event organizers if her staff could forgo the dinner and be in attendance to receive the award. She said she was told everyone must pay to attend. Hubbard decided it would be less expensive and more inclusive to celebrate with the entire staff and is considering a nacho bar.

    Demian Barnett, superintendent/principal of nearby Peabody Charter School, will pick up the award for Vieja Valley Elementary. He and another administrator plan to make the three-hour round trip to avoid room charges. Two teachers from the school will stay overnight.

    “We found a way to be able to support four people to go, but I would be using that money to do programming with kids here if I wasn’t doing this,” he said last week.

    Funding help available, CDE says

    The California Department of Education can not directly fund awards or recognition programs because the Legislature has not authorized it to spend taxpayer funds in this way, said Elizabeth Sanders, director of communications for the CDE.

    She says honorees should first look to their district foundation to cover the cost of attending the awards dinner, but can also contact the department for help obtaining a sponsor or a scholarship, if funds are available. Honorees who do not attend will receive their award by mail at no charge, she said.

    A check of the registration website last week found no mention of scholarships, and superintendents who spoke to EdSource were not aware that funding could be available.

    The only district team that directly requested financial assistance this year has been able to find local support and is registered for the event, Sanders said.

    Photos and giant mice

    The California School Recognition Program Awards Ceremony will start at 10 a.m. with group photos taken throughout the day, according to the California Department of Education registration webpage. 

    Guests can also wait in line to take photos with Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, passing sponsor and district booths as they move along. Mickey and Minnie Mouse are on hand for photos as well. 

    The awards dinner begins at 6 p.m. with entertainment usually provided by student musicians, according to past attendees. It is scheduled to last three hours.

    Distance can make travel costs prohibitive

    Ferndale Unified in Humboldt County will spend more than $10,000 from its general fund to send Principal/Superintendent Danielle Carmesin and two Ferndale Elementary School teachers to Anaheim.

    Because of the school’s distance from the event — 662 miles — the school’s staff will fly to Anaheim and stay two nights.

    The cost is steep for a district struggling with budget cuts, but district leaders decided it was important to celebrate the big improvements the school has made in math, English and science scores on the state’s California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress, or CAASPP tests.

    “It’s all just a publicity stunt, but if you don’t show up, then that’s not fair for my school,” Carmesin said. “So they have you kind of over a barrel, and it’s like, we haven’t won it in over 10 years; my face is going to be in that picture.”

    Live Oak Unified is sending half its teachers

    The cost of the event is prohibitive for rural schools, said Yuri Calderon, executive director of the Small Schools Districts’ Association. Calderon said many small districts are struggling to make ends meet, and have staffing shortages that take precedence.

    Live Oak Unified in rural Sutter County is sending the principal of Encinal Elementary School and two teachers to the dinner in Anaheim to collect a Distinguished School Award. The school won the award for the first time by improving test scores and suspension rates, said Superintendent Mathew Gulbrandsen.

     Gulbrandsen would have sent more staff to the awards ceremony, but the cost limits the number of people who can participate, he said. Additionally, the school would have to pay substitutes $120 each to cover classes because the event is on a Friday.

    “I mean that school itself is a small school — 120 students,” he said. “Five teachers, a principal, a secretary. There’s no way all of them could attend on a workday. You’d have to shut the school down. So we can’t do that.” 

    They want more for their money

    Sanders said that a $500 registration fee is pretty standard for a daylong conference, but superintendents interviewed by EdSource said they expected more for the money — possibly some workshops or a keynote speaker.

    “So, I thought, OK, is Taylor Swift playing? What’s going on? Hubbard said. “And really to find out that there is nothing, and you have to attend the banquet in order … to just pick up the award. I would have taken a team down there, taken them out to dinner for under $500 by the way.”

    Hubbard said she has attended many two- and three-day conferences that include multiple meals that cost less than the awards dinner at Disneyland. 

    When she previously attended the National Blue Ribbon School Award celebration in Washington, D.C., Hubbard paid for travel and rooms, but no registration fee. The event included three days of speakers and workshops. Every school receives a National Blue Ribbon School flag and plaque at the awards luncheon, according to the website. 

    The California School Boards Association offers one free ticket to the Golden Bell Awards Ceremony to each school district or county office that wins. Each additional ticket is $150. The event, which will take place at the Hyatt Regency in Sacramento on Dec. 4, includes appetizers and dessert. It honors outstanding programs and governance practices of California school boards.

    Conference breaks even 

    With 1,300 attending this year, the registration fees for the California School Recognition Program Awards Ceremony will bring in at least $600,000, plus contributions from corporate sponsors such as Pearson, Garner Holt Education Through Imagination, Smart School, the California State Lottery and the California Association of School Business Officials.

    “We’re not accumulating a big pile of money that we kick back to the department or anything like that,” said Ed Honowitz, chief executive officer of Californians Dedicated to Education Foundation, the CDE’s nonprofit foundation. “It really is kind of essentially a break-even kind of thing. Sometimes, there’s some carryover from one year to the other, but it’s kind of minimal.”

    Registration and sponsorship funds are collected, and bills for the awards event are paid by the Californians Dedication to Education Foundation, but the event is run by CDE staff, Honowitz said.

    Rising conference costs are causing challenges for organizations across the state, he said.

    The CDE has worked to make the conference as affordable as possible, even considering cutting the visits from Minnie and Mickey Mouse to save money, Sanders said. In the end, it was decided that the cost of the mice — a few hundred dollars, according to Sanders — was worthwhile.

    Suites for top CDE executives

    According to a former manager who has attended the event within the last five years, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and other high-level CDE staff stayed in suites with access to a VIP area with complimentary food and beverages.

    The former manager described the room as a corner suite with a kitchen, living room and bedroom, and large windows that allowed a view of the nightly fireworks at Disneyland. Similar rooms as the one described go for $1,252 at the regular rate, according to the website.

    Rooms, travel and meals for volunteers and staff are paid for by sponsors and do not come from registration costs, Sanders said. 

    Carmesin says the cost of the event shows that CDE leaders are disconnected from the work educators do.

    “You know, they think they’re celebrating us, but giving me an invoice didn’t make me feel very celebratory,” she said.





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  • Transitional kindergarten comes of age in California

    Transitional kindergarten comes of age in California


    Students listen to their teacher during a transitional kindergarten class in Long Beach.

    Credit: Lillian Mongeau/EdSource Today

    Top Takeaways
    • Transitional kindergarten, or TK, becomes available to all 4-year-olds in the fall. 
    • Smaller child-to-staff ratios, 10-to-1, are slated to start in the 2025-2026 school year. 
    • Early exposure to the basics of reading and math can kick-start academic achievement, experts say. 

    Paula Merrigan loves being a transitional kindergarten (TK) teacher so much she says she may never retire. She’d miss the wonder of a class filled with hugs, light bulb moments, and little ones who call her mom. She’d miss sitting cross-legged on the alphabet rug, hearing plans for a cat birthday party.

    In teaching, a field often beset by burnout and high turnover, TK stands out as a joyous and messy world of puzzles, finger painting and puppet theater, a world unique from the rest of the K-12 system. This fall, California’s long-awaited vision of universal pre-kindergarten finally comes to fruition as transitional kindergarten, or TK, becomes accessible to all 4-year-olds across the state. 

    “I love working with this age,” said Merrigan, 57, a veteran teacher holding court in a classroom jam-packed with construction paper butterflies, hearts and Dr. Seuss characters. Merrigan has spent 17 years teaching kindergarten and transitional kindergarten in the Castro Valley Unified School District. “They’re so happy to come to school. They take genuine pleasure in learning. They enjoy it. They want to be here. They have a really good time, and so do I.”

    Spearheaded by Gov. Gavin Newsom and Assemblymember Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, the roughly $3 billion program has been described by many experts as a game-changer for families in a state with about 2.6 million children under the age of 5. Many hope that increasing access to preschool may be one of the keys to closing the state’s ever-widening achievement gap. Given that about 90% of brain growth happens before kindergarten, perhaps it should come as little surprise that children who attend preschool are more likely to take honors classes and less likely to repeat a grade or drop out of school, research suggests.

    “We know that early childhood experience strongly influences cognitive development and that many of the problems that become evident later in life, including high rates of failure, are set in motion before children enter kindergarten,” said W. Steven Barnett, the senior co-director of the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER), which is based at Rutgers University. “We have strong causal evidence for links with educational attainment that has high payoffs over a lifetime.” 

    Four-year-old student, Alan, mimics the movements to a song about numbers during a kindergarten program at East Oakland Pride Elementary School.
    ASHLEY HOPKINSON/EDSOURCE TODAY

    Once lagging behind the rest of the country in preschool access, some say California may now be poised to lead the way. The state now ranks 13th in the nation in preschool enrollment for 4-year-olds. That’s up from ranking 18th for 4-year-old access in 2023, according to a national NIEER report that ranks state-funded preschool programs. 

    “California’s TK is huge for the early childhood education field,” said Barnett. “The state is getting closer each year to achieving its goal of universal preschool for 4-year-olds.”

    A stepping stone between preschool and kindergarten, TK began in 2012 as a program for “fall babies,” children who narrowly missed the cutoff date for kindergarten. Now it’s been expanded to function as a kind of universal pre-kindergarten initiative. Yet even as TK is set to become a real grade, just like any other K-12 grade, there are myriad challenges looming on the horizon, from finding qualified teachers amid a dire staffing shortage to how to ensure quality instruction and suitable facilities. Class size and specialized teacher training are among the major concerns.

    California will need roughly 12,000 extra teachers and about 16,000 aides to keep the TK rollout on schedule, research suggests.

    “More TK students means districts need more TK teachers,” said Gennie Gorback, an early childhood educator and president-elect of the California Kindergarten Association. “Because TK is a special grade that requires credentialed teachers to have additional early childhood education units, it’s more of a challenge to find qualified teachers.”

    Candidates need a bachelor’s degree, must complete courses in child development or early childhood education, take the state’s teacher performance exam and log 600 hours in the classroom. Without pay. Those requirements may be holding back preschool teachers, who already teach 4-year-olds, from taking better-paying TK jobs, experts say.

    “We feel from a position of equity and respect for the experience of preschool teachers that the current pathways are still inadequate,” said Anna Powell, senior research and policy associate at Berkeley’s Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE). “If 4-year-olds are moving into TK, some of their highly skilled teachers should have a streamlined pathway to go with them.” 

    Quality also remains a key issue. The NIEER report scored California’s TK program a mere 3 out of 10 criteria, largely for having a crowded class size of 24 children in a classroom and an average 12-to-1 student-to-staff ratio. Teacher training is also a factor.

    “Building quality is job one for the future,” said Barnett. “Providing guidance and continuous improvement so that TK develops as a program appropriate for 4-year-olds.”

    Newsom’s latest 2025-26 budget sets aside $1.2 billion to add new students and also help reduce TK staff ratios to 10-to-1, slated to start in the 2025-2026 school year. 

    “Low spending results in low quality,” according to the report. “While that may seem to save money, it is wasteful and costly in the long run to fund programs that do not adequately support long-term gains and may even harm long-term outcomes for some children.”

    Paula Merrigan

    Small class sizes are critical, experts say. For the record, the gold standard for the early education sphere is more like 8-to-1, like the state’s public preschool program, which met six out of 10 benchmarks. 

    “The real key is a small ratio,” said Gorback. “Having more adults in the room helps ensure that each child gets the attention and guidance they need.”

    Play is the heart of learning at this age. Merrigan’s classroom encourages guided play that enhances learning, such as math games students beg to play and a kinetic sandbox that sparks creativity and motor skills. 

    “I love to watch the aha moments,” said Merrigan, who tested out many activities on her own son to see if they were fun as well as edifying. “I love seeing kids who come in knowing no letters and no numbers, and they leave knowing every letter and every sound. It’s amazing. And we do it all through play.” 

    Another roadblock is that some school districts don’t have enough space and facilities for TK classrooms or the resources to add everything from potties to playground equipment sized for 4-year-olds. Some Oakland schools, for instance, don’t have any TK classrooms, which is why some children end up on wait lists for their preferred school. 

    “Space is an incredible challenge for schools,” said Gorback. “Most elementary schools were not built with TK classrooms in mind, so administrators are having to get creative in making sure that all of their young learners have the space they need.”

    After declining during the pandemic, TK growth has been accelerating. Enrollment jumped by more than 35,000 children from the previous school year, according to Bruce Fuller, professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley, now standing at roughly 151,000, but the rub is that the bump in TK enrollment may have come at the expense of other programs. Some families simply switched from one program to another.

    “Enrollments in center-based programs have stalled overall,” Fuller said. 

    Certainly, ushering in a new grade at a time of profound upheaval, from learning loss to chronic absenteeism in the school system, may be an unwieldy challenge, experts say, but it also should be noted that early education can have the greatest impact now, even as the youngest learners struggle to recover from the damage caused by pandemic-era school closures.

    “TK absolutely can help with pandemic recovery and with changes that we see in children’s development that persist,” added Barnett, “but this will require focused attention to ensure good practice, ensure children with the greatest needs enroll, and ensure high attendance rates when they do enroll.” 





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  • State bailout for California school districts comes with long strings attached

    State bailout for California school districts comes with long strings attached


    Credit: Andrew Reed/EdSource

    Top Takeaways
    •  Plumas Unified in northeast California, with an enrollment of about 2,000 students, will be the first district in over a dozen years to seek a state bailout.  
    • California’s system of financial oversight of school districts has mostly worked, having kept all but nine of them from seeking a state bailout loan to avert insolvency.  
    • The key to keeping school districts from financial disaster has been close oversight by county offices of education and monitoring by the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team. 

    Plumas Unified, a small school district in the Sierra Nevada in far northeast California, is on track to become the first district in over a dozen years to join nine others that have had to get a bailout loan from the state to avert bankruptcy.

    In the last week of April, its school board voted to request an emergency state loan of up to $20 million, explaining that it has “exhausted all of its sources of alternative liquidity and any external sources of short-term cash.”

    The district joins a select group of districts that no one wants to belong to.    

    A state bailout is accompanied by rigorous state and county oversight, loss of local control, extra expenses in paying off the loan, and other conditions that last for years. 

    “Manage your finances because you don’t want this,” said James Morris, the administrator appointed to oversee Inglewood Unified in Los Angeles County, which has been in state receivership for 13 years. 

    Carl Cohn, a leading educator who was superintendent in Long Beach Unified and San Diego Unified, and a former member of the State Board of Education, says getting a state bailout is a fate to be avoided at all costs.  

    “It’s really important to maintain that sense of an empowered community through locally elected officials,” he said. 

    From the state’s perspective, “There’s no way the state is itching to get its hands on these districts either,” said Richard Whitmore, the first state-appointed administrator at Compton Unified after it got an emergency bailout loan in 1993.  

    “It’s bad for public education to have these districts fall into what is essentially bankruptcy,” said Whitmore. “It costs the state a ton of money to intervene and do all this work, which they are not well-prepared to execute, so they have to go into crisis mode when it happens.”

    On the face of it, however, it is remarkable that fewer than 10 school districts, out of close to a thousand in California, have had to submit to state receivership in return for getting a bailout. 

    It suggests that the state’s system of oversight is mostly working as planned.   

    Districts Placed Under State Receivership

    West Contra Costa Unified, 1990* 
    Loan amount: $28.5 million.
    Low-income students:  63%**

    Coachella Valley Unified, 1992
    Loan amount: $7.3 million. 
    Low-income students:  92.4%

    Compton Unified, 1995  
    Loan amount: $19.9 million  
    Low-income students: 93% 

    Emery Unified, 2001
    Loan amount $1.3 million.  
    Low-income students: 52% 

    Oakland Unified, 2003 
    Loan amount: $100 million  
    Low-income students:  80%

    West Fresno Elementary:  2003***
    Loan amount: $1.3 million 
    Low-income students: 86%

    South Monterey County Joint Union High, 2009
    Loan Amount: $13 million 

    Low-income students:  85%

    Vallejo City Unified 2004
    Loan amount: $60 million 
    Low-income students: 85% 

    Inglewood Unified, 2012
    Loan amount: $29 million  
    Low-income students:  87 pct. 

    *Date refers to the year the loan was awarded.

    **Low-income refers to the percentage of students qualifying for free and reduced price meals.

    ***District merged with Washington Unified; low-income figure is for Washington Unified. 

    That system came into existence in response to West Contra Costa Unified’s insolvency in 1990, when it became the first district to get a bailout from the state. 

    Assembly Bill 1200 in 1991 decreed that, as a condition of receiving a loan, the state superintendent of public instruction must appoint an administrator to oversee the district. Under 2018 legislation (AB 1840), it is now the county superintendent of schools who appoints the administrator. 

    The 1991 legislation also established an independent fiscal oversight agency, the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, or FCMAT (universally pronounced “Fickmat” in education circles).

    One reason only a small number of districts have had to turn to the state for a bailout has been the effectiveness of FCMAT, and the stability of its leadership. Since its founding, it has had only two CEOs, Joel Montero and Michael Fine, its current leader. Both are highly regarded in education circles. 

    Another factor is that school districts must submit their budgets to county superintendents for review at least three times during the year, known as the first and second interim budgets, and the final budget, which must be approved by July 1. 

    “They’re the early warning system,” said Karen Stapf Walters, executive director of California County Superintendents, referring to the school superintendents in all 58 counties. “When they see a district going south, they jump in with body and soul and give a district whatever it needs to get back on track.” 

    Fine said FCMAT’s role is to steer school boards to the point that they ultimately sit down and do what they need to do when they need to do it.”

    But getting out of receivership is an arduous process. Districts have to meet over 150 standards set by FCMAT, in areas such as financial management, pupil achievement, personnel and facilities management, governance and community relations. 

    Even after it meets those standards, and the administrator leaves, the district is likely to be paying off its loan still. The county superintendent then appoints a trustee with fewer powers than the administrator, but who can still veto financial decisions made by the elected school board until the last loan payment is made.  

    Many school leaders say the funds and years that districts spent paying off a loan could have supported current education programs. “The children sitting in classrooms in Inglewood today are paying for mistakes made, many of them before they were even born, by folks who are not here any longer,” said Inglewood’s Morris. 

    In West Contra Costa’s case, it took 21 years to pay off its bailout loan of $28.5 million, plus $19 million in interest and fees. 

    When the district paid its final installment in 2012, then-board member Madeline Kronenberg called it “Independence Day” for the district. But she regretted that years of loan payments meant “thousands and thousands of children were unable to get what other districts provide.”

    And yet, enduring years of state receivership doesn’t necessarily translate into a district’s long-term financial health. 

    Just the opposite. Of the nine school districts that have been through state receivership — all serving mostly low-income students — at least five are still experiencing severe financial difficulties.  

    Coachella Valley Unified, which got a bailout loan in 1992, is cutting hundreds of jobs as it tries to close a $6 million shortfall. Inglewood Unified is about to close five schools, including its storied Morningside High School. 

    In what should be cause for celebration in Vallejo and Oakland, both will pay off their state loans next month and regain full control of their districts for the first time in 20 years. 

    But both districts still face major financial challenges. Vallejo City Unified, dealing with a budget shortfall of $36 million, is on the verge of closing two schools. Oakland is similarly struggling, with considerations of another insolvency not yet off the table.   

    West Contra Costa, whose budget just received a “positive certification” from the county office of education, is still operating with a structural deficit and will rely on reserves to get through the next two years. 

    At times, the underlying conditions that got districts into trouble persist, such as declining enrollments and the absence of strong fiscal leadership by subsequent school boards or superintendents. Too often, the lessons learned from earlier financial meltdowns are forgotten or ignored. 

    One district that has turned around is Compton Unified, which, under the leadership of Superintendent Darin Brawley, has made significant improvements not only on the academic front but also in achieving financial stability. 

    Brawley said he only calculates his budgets based on funds actually in district coffers, not on funds it is slated to receive. In addition, he made cuts gradually over the years as conditions warranted, and did not wait until the district was in crisis.   

    He says district officials are too often “conflict-averse,” and “rather than make the tough choices, and what may be the right decisions to remain fiscally stable, they will oftentimes not make decisions, and then the problem balloons into a much bigger issue.” 

    Now it’s Plumas Unified’s turn to cede control to the state. In late April, facing an $8 million deficit on its $42 million budget, Plumas Unified’s board called a special meeting to request a state bailout loan. 

    The district covers 2,600 square miles, a vast area in the Sierra Nevada, providing schooling for about 2,000 students with few other options. 

    How did it escape the oversight system that has, over the past dozen years, kept every other district but nine from having to turn to the state to bail them out? 

    “Plumas unfortunately came up on the radar too late for us to help them,” said FCMAT’s Fine. One reason, he said, is because “I don’t think they were being 100% honest about their numbers.”

    For example, the district awarded staff a 14% pay increase, without having a viable way to calculate its costs, he said. “Without reliable numbers, it is difficult to know the condition of a district and thus to get in early enough to assist.”

    Editor’s note: Richard Whitmore is a member of the EdSource board of directors.

    Next Week: Inglewood Unified’s unfinished journey to get out of state receivership





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  • Better writing instruction comes from studying student work more closely

    Better writing instruction comes from studying student work more closely


    Credit: Katie Schneider Gumiran and Rosa Gaia for Conway Elementary

    An instructional leader in a Bay Area school district told me last week that while they are a bright spot in improving reading for the last three years, they still haven’t recovered to pre-pandemic levels. “Our biggest pain point is writing. Our gaps start in ELA, but we see them in science and social studies too.”

    This district isn’t alone; schools throughout California are struggling to improve writing across the curriculum. What might we do differently?

    In their new book, Learning Together, Elham Kazemi and colleagues suggest school leaders work with teachers to analyze student writing more regularly. Reviewing a set of informational essays, or an extended project in biology, could be the center of more grade-level planning meetings or districtwide professional learning days.

    The pioneer in this approach has been Ron Berger, one of the co-founders of EL Education, a national non-profit that partners with K-12 educators to transform their schools. Berger has been a mainstay of High Tech High’s Deeper Learning conferences in San Diego and has taught more than 300 workshops around the country, all of them closely examining examples of student work.

    In Leaders of Their Own Learning, the instructional guide he co-authored, Berger tells the story of coaching a high school physics teacher who says, “The students’ lab reports are terribly written and it’s driving me crazy.”

    Ron asks if she’s ever shown her students a model of a good lab report and she replies that she has not.

    When given the chance to closely study an exemplary lab report, her students are surprised at the vocabulary and level of precision in it. A number laughed at how low their own standards had been.

    “For all the correcting we do, directions we give, and rubrics we create about what good work looks like,” writes Berger, “students are often unclear about what they are aiming for until they actually see and analyze strong models.”

    Ron Berger used to lug around a giant black bag of student essays, labs, and video presentations to discuss at workshops. Eventually, with support from the Hewlett Foundation, and collaborating with Steve Seidel at Harvard University, Berger built an online museum for displaying student work.

    Models of Excellence showcases 500 examples of great student writing and other projects from around the U.S. and the world. California students have contributed sixty pieces, including a Kids Guide to California National Parks created by 2nd graders from Big Pine, and an analysis by 6th graders on the water quality of Lake Merritt in Oakland. 

    Here are three ways districts and schools across California can improve writing by studying their own student work:

    First, form a study group. In grade-level meetings or working across the district, teachers and a coach can assemble their own models of excellent student writing. The group can link the models to criteria which guide students’ efforts; the more concrete, the better. The study group can use the rubrics and student checklists developed by the Vermont Writing Collaborative for all genres of writing at all grade levels.

    After teaching a lesson where third graders critiqued a fantasy story, Berger reflects, “It’s much more powerful to bring in models of great work. Then have the kids be detectives and have the excitement of discovering and naming the qualities of great writing — humor, powerful words, well-drawn character — in their own words.”

    Second, get the feedback right. Dylan William writes in Embedded Formative Assessment that most feedback in schools is accurate, but falls short of showing the learner how to move forward. He tells of a science student who reads he needs to be more systematic. “If I knew how,” the student tells his teacher, “I would have done it the first time.”

    Students can resist revising their work, so Berger suggests teachers and peers follow this mantra about feedback: “Be Kind, Be Specific, Be Helpful.” Keeping this in mind, writing three or four drafts of an essay becomes a part of the school culture.  

    Finally, make the writing visible. Tina Meglich, principal of Conway Elementary in Escondido, transformed her school by displaying curated student work throughout the library and hallways. “Kids will ask, ‘Who wrote that essay on Esperanza Rising?’ They’re fascinated by each other’s work, and they inspire one another to do better because of it.”

    Analyzing student writing in this way not only raises the quality of the work, but it also instills in students a vision of what’s possible.  “I believe that work of excellence is transformational,” Berger writes. “After students have had a taste of excellence, they’re never satisfied with less; they’re always hungry.”

    •••

    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.





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