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برچسب: Covid

  • Covid cases rise as LAUSD tries to improve attendance

    Covid cases rise as LAUSD tries to improve attendance


    An elementary school student demonstrates using a swab for the rapid Covid antigen test.

    Credit: California Department of Public Health

    COVID-19 cases are on the rise throughout Los Angeles Unified and the county. Public health experts are urging caution while school officials are looking to keep children in the classroom for their academic progress and emotional well-being. 

    “We want kids in the classrooms learning,” said Sarah Van Orman, the University of Southern California’s vice president and chief campus health officer. “That’s what we’re all doing — whether that be in K-12 or in higher ed — balancing the need to prevent … respiratory illnesses within our communities with the need for people to … engage in the activities that they need to engage in, which includes learning at the K-12 levels.” 

    Despite the surge in cases, LAUSD has maintained a 95% attendance rate this school year as of Wednesday, according to the district’s attendance tracker. Over the past five days, that number was lower at 93%. And 94% of students went to school on Wednesday. 

    “Obviously, the unexcused absence student is going to take a higher level of priority, but in terms of impact, there’s really no difference,” LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said. “Kids who are absent are absent.” 

    Increased rates of COVID-19 

    In a weekly update issued Wednesday, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health reported an average of 569 daily Covid-19 infections and 559 daily hospitalizations excluding Long Beach and Pasadena — topping five weeks of steadily rising cases. 

    In schools, however, LA County has observed a 43% increase in cases and 33 new outbreaks in the past week — 23 more outbreaks than the previous week, according to an LA County Department of Public Health news release issued Thursday. 

    EG.5, a variant of Covid related to omicron already infecting more people than any other single strain in the country, remains dominant, accounting for nearly a third of current cases in the sector of the U.S. including California.  

    An Aug. 24 news release from the county public health department attributed the rise of Covid infections to higher rates of summer travel, the emergence of a new variant and a return to the classroom. 

    With increased Covid-19 transmission in the community, schools are another place where outbreaks are possible due to large groups of people being indoors together for extended periods of time, according to the release. And while many children may not experience severe illness associated with a Covid-19 infection, other family members and school staff may be at higher risk. 

    The county also urged parents and guardians to “keep children home if they are sick, including when they have a fever, bad cough, extreme fatigue, or a sore throat.”

    Students who are exposed to Covid or have respiratory symptoms should get tested, the department stated, noting that many districts were already distributing tests to their campus communities. 

    Positive test results, the department said, should be reported to the school, and the sick student should isolate for at least five days. 

    Keeping students healthy could also be critical in maintaining a healthier community. One study published earlier this year suggested that about 70% of U.S. cases begin with a school-age child being infected. 

    More than a year ago, the beginning of the 2022-23 school year also was associated with a surge in Covid infections. 

    For then-4-year-old Jackson Siegel and his older sister, that fall marked a return to in-person learning as both had been kept home the entire preceding year. It also marked the beginning of a wave of sickness. 

    During the first week of school, Covid made its way from Jackson’s sister’s third grade classroom to her and then to Jackson. 

    He missed 10 days of transitional kindergarten and was out again for another 10 days roughly every three weeks — sometimes sustaining a fever of over 104 degrees. 

    “To be honest, I think that I’ve been sick … more times in school than my friends,” Jackson said. “It makes me feel like I should be safer.” 

    That routine repeated itself another seven to eight times, according to his mom, Sabrina Siegel.

    “The fact that they caught it in the first week, I was devastated,” Siegel said. “To the school, [I] said, ‘Look, if you don’t care enough about my kids’ health to, you know, require masks or have kids [sent] home when they’re sick … I don’t care about the attendance.’” 

    Jackson said he looks forward to not being sick this year. 

    But as of Thursday, LAUSD alone had 828 positive tests over the past seven days, which comes amid changes to the district’s public health guidelines that contradict public health guidelines, where parents are now encouraged to send their child to school even if they are experiencing cold symptoms. 

    Current district guidelines require students to stay home if they sustain a fever of above 100.4 degrees — or if they vomit, have diarrhea, severe pain or labored breathing. 

    Keeping students in class 

    As Covid cases continue to rise, LAUSD and districts across the state have been working to recover from pandemic learning losses and keep students in school.  

    “The greatest effect from the pandemic that I have seen in children has been the emotional trauma from missing school,” LAUSD’s chief medical officer, Dr. Smita Malhotra, said in a message to the district community at the start of the academic year. 

    “Schools are foundations of resilience, and I look forward to ensuring that schools continue to be the safest places for children to be so that all students thrive academically, are engaged and are ready for the world.”

    LAUSD experienced a 40% absentee rate in the 2021-22 academic year. The following year, that number fell by 10 percentage points to roughly 30%. The district has largely attributed the decrease in chronic absenteeism to iAttend events, where school officials go door to door to encourage students, mainly with unexcused absences, to return. 

    “This new wave of Covid is coming in at such a difficult time,” said USC education professor Julie Marsh. “You know, schools have just started, and I think that’s also historically a time where you try to make up for summer learning loss.” 

    Keeping students in school is also critical because “for many kids, it’s their only place where they have access to regular food resources, health care, after school care,” Marsh said. 

    Part of LAUSD’s incentive to curb chronic absenteeism also could lie in its coffers, Marsh added, noting that school funding is linked to students’ attendance. 

    “If the financial implications are really what’s driving some of these decisions, then I think it’s calling for larger policy change,” Marsh said. “There’s been a long-standing debate about whether California should fund the schools based on enrollment versus attendance. Lots of states do it based on enrollment. But I just have to wonder, if a district felt a little less concerned about losing funding, whether … we’d be seeing different kinds of policies.” 

    A balancing act 

    Balancing students’ health with being in the classroom is critical, experts say. 

    Marsh said she and her colleagues conducted a study at the start of the pandemic that found clear communication with the community, mental health support for staff and partnerships with local organizations and public health departments were critical.

    She added that schools should continue to take advantage of technological tools popularized during the height of the pandemic, while parents should “trust [their] gut” when deciding whether to send their child to school.

    “You also don’t want to send your kid to school if they’re not well enough to learn. Is your kid impacted by the symptoms?” Marsh said. “You kind of have to understand where your child is at and whether they’re ready to learn.” 





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  • A learning recovery that wasn’t – missed opportunities and the ongoing costs of Covid

    A learning recovery that wasn’t – missed opportunities and the ongoing costs of Covid


    Credit: Alison Yin for EdSource

    Money is running low, and time is short to help America’s students fully regain the learning they lost since the pandemic. Based on their continued academic struggles and mental health challenges, a report released Wednesday concluded most probably won’t.

    The second yearly report by a national education research organization examining the impacts of Covid on K-12 education offered that sobering outlook while highlighting some notable state and local efforts nationwide. It also called for a shift in the mission of high school to make connections for students adrift in the wake of Covid. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis called it “blurring the lines between high school, higher education, and the workforce” in an essay in the report.

    “The State of the American Student: Fall 2023,” produced by the Center on Reinventing Public Education, which is affiliated with Arizona State University, focused on older students — recent graduates or those nearing graduation from high school.

    “We not only owe them restitution for extended school closures and missed proms — we owe them a special sense of urgency, given how little time they have left before transitioning to the next phase of their lives,” wrote Robin Lake, the center’s director.

    Data on younger students has been easier to collect. By some indicators — higher graduation rates and higher grades overall — older students may appear to have rebounded from Covid. But those measures are deceiving, said Morgan Polikoff, an associate professor of education at the USC Rossier School of Education. Nationwide ACT college admission scores, which are the lowest in 30 years, point to grade inflation, and assessments by the company Renaissance Learning point to a steady decline in 10th grade math and reading scores since before the pandemic. Disparities in scores between Latino and Black students and white and Asian students underscore “staggering” inequalities.

    Chronic absence rates are alarming, as are measures of mental health. The proportion of teenage girls reporting persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness rose from 36% to 57%; 30% seriously considered suicide, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2021 report on youth risk behavior.

    “The older the student, the more lingering the impact,” said Gene Kerns, chief academic officer of Renaissance. “The high school data is very alarming. If you’re a junior in high school, you only have one more year. There’s a time clock on this.”

    Source: CD survey cited in CRPE’s T”he State of the American Student: Fall 2023″

    According to the assessment publisher NWEA, it will take the average eighth grader 7.4 months to catch up to pre-pandemic levels in reading and 9.1 months in math. In the hardest-hit communities like Richmond, Virginia, and New Haven, Connecticut, students fell 18 months behind in math. Schools would have had to teach 150% of a typical year’s worth of material for three years in a row just to catch up. “It is magical thinking to expect they will make this happen without a major increase in instructional time,” wrote researchers Thomas Kane of Harvard and Sean Reardon of Stanford.

    Tutoring’s unfilled promise

    For whatever reasons — pandemic fatigue, a lack of state guidance, a labor shortage, the unwillingness of teachers to do after-school tutoring or summer school — districts have not achieved efforts at scale. Despite a consensus among researchers that high-quality, intensive tutoring is the most effective intervention, USC researchers found, based on a survey of 1,600 households, that less than 2% of students are “receiving tutoring that even meets a fairly moderate definition of ‘high-quality.’ And among those who likely need it most — students who receive grades C or lower — less than 4% are receiving high-quality tutoring.”

    The report credited Texas, Tennessee and Colorado for launching “admirable tutoring efforts.” California piloted a tutoring and mentoring program, led by 3,200 college students reaching students in 33 districts through College Corps, a volunteer program, but mainly it’s been every district for itself. Some, like Los Angeles Unified, relied on remote tutoring that was more like homework help, while Oakland turned to the nonprofit Children Rising and to Oakland REACH, a parent empowerment group, to train its own tutors.

    Having not heard crisis warnings from state or local leaders, many parents haven’t recognized the severity of the challenge, the report said. Good grades sent a contrary message; one USC survey found that only 23% of parents were interested in summer school, and 28% were interested in tutoring. Another survey cited in the report found that about 90% of parents, including those in Sacramento, believed their child was working at grade level or above.

    At first, there was no “voice in the back of my head” to raise doubt, said Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union. 

    Rodrigues and others in the report called for states to show more transparency for parents, with report cards that are candid about their children’s learning. It credited a half dozen states, such as Connecticut, for their candor.

    Source: 2023 survey by Learning Heroes cited in CPRE’s “The State of the American Student: Fall 2023”

    Money, labor troubles loom

    Lake called tutoring “a massive missed opportunity” and added, “What also concerned us is that the wind seems to be going out of academic recovery efforts just at a time when we think things are about to get much harder for schools and for teachers.”

    Those headwinds include, according to the report:

    • The Sept. 30, 2024, deadline to commit spending money from the American Rescue Plan, the final and largest chunk of nearly $200 billion in federal Covid relief, about $13.5 billion for California.
    • That, combined with declining enrollments in most states, including the majority of districts in California, will result in a drop in state attendance-based funding. The impact of the expected “fiscal cliff” will vary by district. But some districts, such as San Francisco and West Contra Costa, are already feeling the pinch.
    • A continued staff and teacher shortage in California. Last year was the first reduction in new credentials in eight years. The 16% drop — 3,130 fewer credentialed teachers ­— will compound the difficulty of meeting the demand for elementary and special education teachers.

    In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature’s allocation of $8 billion has the potential to expand mental and physical health programs for students and address academic inequalities — if used effectively. The money is split between creating thousands of community schools, funding six weeks of summer school and extending the day by three hours for low-income schools. 

    Since school budgets for the year are already set, there’s still time for districts to plan a major summer learning effort in 2024, Kane, the faculty director of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard, wrote in his contribution to the report. The Biden administration could be persuaded to extend spending for one more year, although he and Lake agreed it should be restricted to proven strategies, like tutoring, summer learning and salary increases for an extended year.

    “Part of the challenge has been the absence of political leadership,” Kane said. School district officials need the “political cover” to undertake significant reforms needed for students to catch up, he said.

    States and districts need to provide high school students with hope and innovation, the report said. It’s called for federal funds for a “gap year” as an immediate strategy for coming out of the pandemic. An idea usually associated with privileged students who take a year of enrichment before college, this would involve investing in community colleges “to help kids get back on track and help them prepare for their next steps in a really creative and positive way,” the report said. 

    The report also recommended putting more emphasis on adult-student relationships, rethinking high school school-to-career pathways and investing in a “New American High School,” which Lake argues “would connect students to meaningful work in their communities and expert knowledge around the globe.”

    It cited Purdue Polytech High School in Indiana, a public charter school network with higher ed and industry partnerships for careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math, and Seckinger High School, an artificial intelligence-themed high school in Gwinnett County, Georgia. It pointed to Colorado, where about 53% of high school graduates earn college credit or industry credentials through dual and concurrent enrollment; the vision is for every high school student to graduate with an associate degree and an industry-recognized credential.

    None of the examples pointed to California, although in the last several years, the state has funded nearly $1 billion in dual enrollment programs, apprenticeship opportunities and Golden State Pathways, for students to explore college and noncollegiate pathways by 10th grade. The executive order last month to establish a master plan for career education within 13 months should provide a wider vision pulling components together.

    The aim moving forward, the report said, should be “a new definition of student success that focuses more on fulfillment and long-term happiness in careers than college as an end unto itself.”





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  • Girls’ STEM skills slipped in California and the nation during Covid: What to do

    Girls’ STEM skills slipped in California and the nation during Covid: What to do


    Credit: Pexels

    For nearly 20 years, academic strategies, support and policies focused on closing long-standing achievement gaps in STEM between boys and girls. These efforts paid off, and by 2019, girls’ achievement in math and science equaled or exceeded boys’. Then the pandemic hit, and the gaps that took two decades to close were back.

    My colleagues and I at NWEA, an education assessment and research company, examined how the pandemic impacted achievement for boys and girls in math and science. We looked at scores from three large national assessments (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, the National Assessment of Educational Progress and NWEA’s MAP Growth). The data highlighted two main trends:

    • The achievement gap in math and science reemerged during the pandemic, once again favoring boys. However, an achievement gap did not resurface in reading, where girls continue to outperform boys.
    • Looking at high-achieving students, boys showed significantly higher scores across assessments than girls in both math and science. For low-achieving students, however, boys’ scores were lower than girls’.

    These trends are not limited to the U.S. Other English-speaking countries show similar gaps, pointing to a broader issue. A similar trend is seen more locally.  On the NAEP assessments, which provide California-specific data for eighth grade math, the results mirror the nation. In 2019, California boys and girls had an average math score that was not significantly different. By 2024, however, boys had an average score that was 6 points higher than girls’ in math.

    Our research also looked at enrollment by boys and girls in eighth grade algebra across 1,300 U.S. schools. Enrollment in this math course is often used as a predictor of future enrollment in higher-level math in high school, as well as a predictor of participation in college and career opportunities in STEM fields. In 2019, girls enrolled at higher levels than boys in eighth grade algebra (26% vs 24%). By 2022, enrollment had declined for both groups, with the drop-off for girls being slightly sharper than for boys. While the decline was experienced by both, enrollment for boys in algebra had bounced back to pre-pandemic levels by 2024.

    Taken together, the results of this research signal that the effects of the pandemic were not felt evenly by boys and girls. More significantly, this data does not provide the “why” for these setbacks and the reemergence of achievement gaps. One area to spotlight is the trend of girls reporting more emotional challenges, like depression and anxiety, during and after the pandemic that may have impacted their learning. Notably, the widening gender gap emerged after students returned to in-person school, pointing to factors in the school environment as potential contributors, like the reports of rising behavioral issues among boys, leading teachers to pay more attention to them in class.

    While many of the concerns in the last few years about gender differences in school have focused on the ways that boys are struggling more than girls, our research has illustrated an overlooked area where girls could use more support. As schools continue to focus on academic recovery and approaches that drive academic outcomes for all students, it’s crucial that those efforts are measured and evaluated effectively to ensure new inequities don’t arise or old ones don’t take permanent root. We have three primary recommendations to address these gaps:

    1. Monitoring participation in STEM milestones by boys and girls, over time, and not just within a single year to gain a better view of trends. For example, eighth grade algebra enrollment in 2024 appears to be balanced by gender, but it overlooks a critical trend that boys’ enrollment has returned to pre-pandemic levels while girls’ enrollment is still below 2019 levels. Analyzing longitudinal trends within each group is key to uncovering and addressing setbacks that may be hidden by a single-point-in-time snapshot.
    2. Providing specific academic and emotional support to students. Girls reported feeling more stress, anxiety and depression than boys, and noted it as an obstacle to their learning during the pandemic. Addressing both the academic needs and emotional needs of students may be critical in closing these emerging gaps in STEM skills.
    3. Evaluating classroom dynamics and instructional practices. If shifts in behavior and teacher attention during the pandemic disproportionately benefited boys in STEM subjects, understanding these shifts may help address the re-emerged achievement gap. Targeted professional learning that promotes equitable participation and inclusive teaching practices in STEM can help ensure all students have equal opportunities to succeed.

    As our schools continue to navigate this long path toward academic recovery, it’s important that those efforts don’t unintentionally grow existing inequities or create new ones. More and more evidence is emerging that the pandemic was not an equal opportunity hitter, and its disruptions affected students differently. For girls in math and science, moving forward will require renewed attention to addressing achievement gaps, targeted support and careful monitoring of progress. Reclosing STEM gaps will take time, but with the right focus, it is possible to not only recover, but to build a more equitable STEM education system that ensures both boys and girls have immense opportunities to succeed.

    •••

    Megan Kuhfeld is the director of growth modeling and analytics for NWEA, a division of the adaptive learning company HMH, which supports students and educators in more than 146 countries through research, assessment solutions, policy and advocacy, and professional learning. 

    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.





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  • The nightmare after federal Covid funding ends 

    The nightmare after federal Covid funding ends 


    Photo: Alison Yin/EdSource

    School districts around the nation are facing a terrible financial problem.

    During the pandemic, they received billions in federal funding under the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund (ESSER), which they are required to spend or commit by the fall of 2024. Meanwhile, many districts, especially ones in California, received massive increases in state funding. Recently, because of declining revenues, states are projecting deficits and education budget cuts. This means that districts, especially urban districts suffering from declining student enrollment, could be hit by the double whammy of the ESSER funding cliff and a state budget crisis.

    As I traveled the state visiting our urban districts, I listened to one budget presentation after another from finance officers talking about a post-ESSER Armageddon. In the last district I visited, I sat in a packed auditorium as the CFO showed how they’d spent their one-time money on ongoing costs and funded programs that couldn’t survive. As he droned on about all the horrible things that would happen, I drifted off to sleep.

    When I awoke, the auditorium was empty. I looked down at my watch and noticed it had stopped 28 days after the board presentation. I’d clearly been out for a while because my fingernails were long, and I’d grown a full beard. I’d been asleep until the Halloween day after the ESSER funding cliff. I assumed that I owed my life to the extra-large burrito I’d eaten before the board meeting. I walked out and entered the district offices, looking for signs of life. Everywhere I walked, there were overturned tables, candy wrappers and papers strewn about.  

    As I turned a corner, I noticed three people shambling toward me with the typical urgency of a central office manager. I was about to approach them when I realized they were zombies trying to eat me. Terrified, I ran to my car and drove away. Over the next few days, I visited schools and district offices that were filled with zombies. It was clear that something terrible had happened and that it was connected to the ESSER funding cliff, but I couldn’t fathom what.

    I knew there was only one place to find the answer — the state Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team. When I walked through their doors, I was relieved to find that they were still human. From the haggard looks on their faces, it was clear that they’d been working nonstop on a cure. “What the hell happened?” I asked.

    A crisis team leader pointed to flow charts taped on a nearby wall. “We knew that the ESSER cliff would be bad and that a state budget crisis would make it worse. We also knew that some of our more financially irresponsible urban districts were already deathly ill. We were especially worried about the declining enrollment ones whose school boards made politically popular decisions to increase salaries with one-time money and wouldn’t make difficult decisions to lower costs, like closing small schools and cutting staff. What we didn’t expect was that the people in these zombie districts would actually turn into zombies,” he sighed.

    “Is there anything we can do to fix this?” I entreated. He shrugged and motioned me toward another room.

    “Ask him,” he said, pointing to a shadowy figure on the other side of a thick plexiglass wall. I looked closer and cried out, “Oh my God, that’s a zombie.”

    “I prefer the term ‘differently human’,” said the zombie, who introduced himself as a local teacher’s union president. I asked him how he would cure the situation so kids could get back to school. He said, “There’s nothing to cure. We showed during the pandemic and in places like Oakland afterward that we don’t need kids to have schools. All we need are teachers. Now, we are proving it. Of course, if anyone wants to come back, we’ll welcome them with open arms.”   

    “But zombies eat children.” I gasped.

    “Yes. There will be accidents, but the class sizes are delightful,” he said, smiling widely.  

    I left and again wandered the state, looking for anyone with a cure. Thinking that one of the state’s tech billionaires might be helpful, I traveled to in Silicon Valley to meet a famous one who’d focused on education and pleaded for his assistance. He listened for a few minutes and then cut me off. “Why would we help?” he said. “They did this to themselves with the tax money they took from us. Now, we have much less money which means they have less money.”

    “But what about the kids?” I asked. “They can’t learn in zombie districts.”

    “It’s just like New Orleans after Katrina,” he said. “Sometimes you have to destroy something that is bad before you can create something better.”

    I threw up my hands, wondering what could possess people to think in this destructive way. At my wits’ end, I made one last journey to visit the Oracle at Georgetown University. She was sitting in her office nursing a cup of tea. She offered me a cup and told me I could ask two questions.

    “Oh Great Oracle,” I said. “What could we have done to prevent this, and what can we do now?”

    “The answer is one and the same,” she said. “School districts and their communities knew what was coming. They should have had the courage to say no to spending short-term dollars on future costs that would require ongoing funding. They must make hard choices on people and schools that they don’t have enough money for. They must have state and local leaders who will encourage them to do so, and when possible, give them cover. And those political leaders must be willing to make these choices even at the expense of their careers, knowing that they are doing the right thing. That will cure this apocalypse and prevent the next one.” 

    I thanked the Oracle and pledged to share her wisdom, hoping that others would listen too.   

    •••

    Arun Ramanathan is the former CEO of Pivot Learning and the Education Trust—West. 

    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.





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  • A year after Alberto Carvalho vows to curb Covid learning loss, LAUSD struggles to recover

    A year after Alberto Carvalho vows to curb Covid learning loss, LAUSD struggles to recover


    LAUSD Superintendent Albert Carvalho at the Aug. 30, 2022 school board meeting.

    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

    Last fall, LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said he would recover Covid-19 pandemic learning loss in two years. 

    One year later — and half way to that goal post — the 2023 California Smarter Balanced test scores revealed a small improvement in math scores, a minimal decline in English language arts scores and poor science scores in comparison to the previous year — and is still about 3 percentage points away from the pre-Covid-19 numbers, where roughly 44% of students met English language arts standards and about 33% met math standards in the 2018-2019 academic year, according to the CAASPP dashboard.

    With its scores remaining largely stagnant, Jia Wang, a professor at UCLA’s School of Education and Information Studies, said getting scores back to 2018-19 levels is a “very ambitious goal” — but not out of the question. 

    The district’s ability to make up the lost ground, she said, depends on how well it supports struggling students. 

    But more than a year after Carvalho’s lofty promise to the district, many teachers and parents remain skeptical, and say the diagnostic tools and expanded interventions the district relies on to boost academic achievement are poorly implemented. 

    LAUSD’s test scores 

    Carvalho said he believes LAUSD’s Smarter Balanced test scores across subject areas accurately reflect where the district’s students are academically — but he remains confident that the district will meet its goals and fully recover on time. 

    This year, LAUSD saw a 2.01% increase in the rate of LAUSD students who met or exceeded standards in mathematics. Overall, 30.5% of students either met or exceeded the standards, while 69.5% failed to do so. 

    “Math was our Achilles’ heel. That’s why we went really strongly into math, and results are compelling. But math is a subject area that requires foundational skills that build upon each other, right? So you don’t transition to … multiplication, division of fractions until you master addition, subtraction, and you really understand numerator and denominator,” Carvalho said in an Oct. 25  interview with EdSource. 

    “If you don’t master that, you cannot advance. So, there are a lot of students who are stuck in a loop. They lack certain basic concepts.” 

    The district’s English language arts scores, however, decreased; 41% of students either met or exceeded state requirements in the subject — marking a 0.53 percentage point across-the-board drop from the previous year. 

    Carvalho described Los Angeles Unified’s ELA scores as a “mixed bag,” with some elementary grades “moving in the right direction” and other upper elementary and middle school grades in need of improvement. 

    Middle school grades had some of the district’s lowest English scores, with 38.62% meeting or exceeding standards in sixth grade and 38.9% of students either meeting or exceeding standards in eighth grade. 

    Of the core subject areas, LAUSD students struggled the most in science — with only 22% of students either meeting or exceeding state standards. The state’s average, in comparison, was about 30%. 

    Because the district has focused on recovering learning losses in English and math, Carvalho said, subjects such as science and social studies have fallen by the wayside and emphasized a need for that to change. 

    “Science often becomes a stepchild. It cannot be,” Carvalho said. “There are four major core content subject areas, and science and social science should not be on the back burner.” 

    These scores across subject areas can help illustrate the district’s progress in relationship to previous years and the state as a whole, Wang said. 

    But she said they also oversimplify students’ performance, which is “compounded by race and ethnicity, by the language proficiency, by the disability, by your school environment, school resources, you know … whether the students are taught by certified teachers or not, how many years of experience.”

    Pressure to move students forward regardless of academic performance 

    Another reason some remain skeptical about Carvalho’s goals is the practice of promoting students to the next grade level even when they have not met standards in core disciplines. 

    Raquel Diaz wanted her now 13-year-old daughter Hailey — an English learner with dyslexia — to be held back and repeat fourth grade because she was struggling. 

    “It doesn’t matter if you can’t understand everything right now. Your goal should always be: I can, and yes I can achieve it,” Diaz said she tells her daughter, according to an interview with EdSource that was translated into English. “Even if you are slower like a turtle, it does not matter. We will achieve it.” 

    Diaz said the school refused to hold Hailey back, and now she is a seventh grader who cannot read.  

    “We have to fight for our children and make (the schools) listen to us, so we can move forward,” Diaz said. “I am a single mother … and sometimes I get tired. I get frustrated. But I say ‘Oh, God, give me strength.’ Come on, I have to do it for them.” 

    Hailey has plenty of company among students with disabilities and English learners. 

    In the 2022-23 academic year, students with disabilities had some of the lowest standardized test scores in LAUSD — with about 12% meeting or exceeding ELA standards and only 8% meeting or exceeding math standards. 

    English learners also had disproportionately low scores in all areas, with about 4% meeting or exceeding the state’s English standards and almost 7% meeting the standards in math. 

    Even in cases where students are not meeting state standards, teachers say they feel pressure to promote them to the next grade level. 

    Carvalho said the trend of moving unprepared students up a grade is an “uncomfortable truth” and represents a “disconnect between what students can do versus what is taught to them.” 

    An LAUSD teacher who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation told EdSource that in April 2021, her school’s principal had notified the teachers that “no student can be retained.” 

    “There is a lot of pressure … even more so as secondary teachers, to not give D’s and F’s … even if the student is doing no work,” the teacher said. 

    “The students’ needs aren’t being met, and they’re really going to struggle,” adding that many will drop out. “A lot of kids, especially older kids, are not coming to school because they’re struggling so much, and it’s so negative. … It just becomes worse and worse.” 

    Challenges in the classroom

    Part of Carvalho’s confidence in LAUSD’s ability to recover Covid learning losses is the 1,000 literacy interventionists hired to work with smaller groups of students on their specific needs as well as the district’s implementation of iReady, an online tool that teachers can use for diagnostic assessments and learning exercises. 

    Wang, the UCLA professor, said that while there is no perfect metric for students’ academic performance, learning support funneled into classrooms is just as important as student output.

    “Instead of just saying ‘here’s what the student produced,’ I also want to see information about what is being put into the classroom,” Wang said. “What kind of supports are being given to students (to) ensure they are given the opportunity to learn?” 

    Some teachers are claiming that the rollout of LAUSD’s intervention programs, where struggling students are pulled aside for additional support, has been challenging, starting with the diagnostic tool used to determine who is placed into intervention programs.

    Teachers who run the district’s intervention programs are supposed to rely on iReady to determine students’ levels of proficiency in reading and math and use the results to decide who needs additional support. 

    That diagnostic tool is available between August and October, according to a district spokesperson. 

    “Students continue to enroll throughout the first few weeks of school, and the window provides flexibility to schools,” the spokesperson said. “Schools were guided and supported to provide the best time to administer the assessment based on school needs. We aimed to ensure that teachers had ample time, support and training to successfully implement this assessment.”  

    That deadline, however, was too late, according to teachers, who stressed that the testing window takes up more than a month, causing interventions to start too late in the school year. 

    Once teachers determine who needs the extra help, elementary instructors carve out a schedule for different groups to be pulled out — a task some say has been challenging, given large blocks of “protected time.”

    “Trying to make a schedule at a school site is very difficult because there’s so many other things going on on campus, and so it really ended up taking students in the same class together. But that doesn’t mean … those are students who should be together based on their needs,” the teacher said. 

    In middle school, students are pulled aside for an intervention tutorial that takes the place of an elective, a district math teacher and interventionist who also wished to remain anonymous told EdSource. 

    “I don’t want them to hate math because they have math twice,” the teacher said. “I don’t give homework. I don’t give tests. … I tell them this class is to help your grade in the other classes, to get you better at math.” 

    During these tutorial sessions, the teacher uses iReady and other techniques that can also give students practice problems targeted at their individual levels. 

    iReady, according to an LAUSD spokesperson, has a participation rate above 95%, and technical difficulties have been “minimal to nonexistent.”  

    But the teacher said the tool is sometimes challenging because she can’t see the personalized programming created for each of her students and the problems they are assigned.  

    With other online tools, she can go through the problems herself, “pretending I’m them to see if it’s doable, and to see where spots might come up that might be difficult for them,” the teacher said. But with iReady, she “can’t find a way to figure out how I can do that. And that makes it difficult for me to know what they’re getting so I can support them.”

    While some teachers remain optimistic about LAUSD’s initiatives to boost achievement, several said they would like to see more support from higher up.

    “It just seems like … what we do is considered a very low priority on a school campus,” the elementary teacher said. “But the expectations on us are very high. And I kind of just feel like we’re being … set up to fail.” 





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  • Boosting student success after Covid is a team effort, panel says

    Boosting student success after Covid is a team effort, panel says


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyf4Q9kpjUs

    Two years after California schools reopened their classrooms to in-person instruction following the Covid-19 pandemic, students continue to struggle – both academically and emotionally. 

    Both of these factors are deeply connected and recovery requires a team effort, according to panelists at the EdSource round table Nov. 15 discussion, “Reenergizing learning: Strategies for getting beyond stagnant test scores.” 

    Getting California’s learners back on track, panel members agreed, involves the work of school administrators, teachers, parents and the students themselves. 

    “Students came back, not just with some of this delayed learning, but they lost a lot of opportunities for socialization, which has led to different kinds of behavior in school that make readiness to learn more difficult,” said Heather J. Hough, executive director of Policy Analysis for California Education. 

    Keeping students engaged 

    With chronic absenteeism soaring across the state from 12.1% in 2018-19 to  30% in 2021-22, the panelists said it is critical for schools to go beyond targeting specific causes for absenteeism – and create a culture where students feel excited to go to school. 

    “Kids need to feel a sense of belonging, a sense of being valued and cared about,” said Yolie Flores, president and CEO of Los Angeles-based Families in Schools.

    “…..But I don’t see as much of a focus on [social, emotional] side of the learning. And I wonder if it’s because we still don’t really understand how children learn and what sparks that fire to want to learn.”

    Members of the panel discussed programs that are used to gauge students’ concerns so they can be addressed. The San Ramon Valley Unified School District, for instance, holds more regular screenings to measure students’ sense of belonging through a partnership with UC Berkeley, in addition to the statewide California Healthy Kids Survey. 

    The district is also piloting a diagnostic tool that provides immediate feedback to teachers on students’ thoughts about belonging in their specific classrooms. 

    Further south, Adalberto Hernandez said ​​at George Washington Elementary School in Madera Unified School District, students recite affirmations: “I am loved; I am valued; I matter,” they declare each morning. 

    John Malloy, the superintendent of San Ramon Valley Unified, added that schools and educators need to do a better job of getting to know students’ needs as well as their “strengths, interests and passions.”

    A big part of why kids decide to come to school, Hough said, depends on answers to certain questions: “How does this fit into the future that I envisioned for myself? Am I getting the right kinds of training for my college or career goals, or the life that I want to live?” 

    Malloy added that the most impactful strategy “is listening to our students, creating the conditions for them to share their voice and their wisdom, whether it’s kindergarten or 12th grade.”

    Support for teachers

    Students aren’t the only ones affected by the pandemic: teachers need to be equally supported, because their jobs have gotten harder in the past couple years, panelists said.

    “Teachers have been tasked with the job of accelerating learning, but they’re facing much more difficult student needs and, maybe in some cases, students who aren’t in school,” Hough said, adding that there’s widespread vacancies because of problems in filling various school positions. 

    Parental involvement

    Parents, however, are not fully aware of the academic struggles their children may be going through – even though they can play a major role in their child’s achievement.

    Flores, the president and CEO of Families in Schools, said a nationwide Learning Heroes survey of families found that 92% of families believe their children are on track in reading and math.  

    “There’s confusion between what they see from the state. There’s confusion from the report cards that generally say that their kids are getting A’s and B’s, and yet they’re not reading at grade level,” Flores said. 

    “So what needs to happen is much more clarity and targeted information to families so that they can understand specifically how their children are doing.” 

    Some parents may want to be more present at their child’s school but may be limited by their work schedules, making involvement challenging. Even in cases where parents may take the time to visit their children’s classroom, they don’t always know what to look for in terms of effective instruction. 

    “It’s nice when parents are involved, but in a community like ours, we’re not depending on that for student success,” Hernandez said. “We communicate. We involve them. We invite them, and we do events like the Calenda traditional celebration in the state of Oaxaca in Mexico, and we had great parent involvement after hours. But during the school day, it’s on us.” 

    Classroom approach 

    Getting students to learn – and not just memorize material – is also vital, according to the panelists. 

    “I’ve been taught to take tests, but I’m not sure I know how to learn,” Malloy said a student told him during a Student Voice Circle, and that the statement has stuck with him, and that his district has since broadened their vision for success. 

    “If kids are thriving, it means that they are true, independent learners when they graduate from us,” Malloy said. “They have a confidence in their ability to think and to create.” 

    One strategy to help students really learn, panelists said, is to focus on teaching a few concepts thoroughly rather than covering a broader range of topics on a more cursory level. 

    If done properly, tutoring also helps, Hough said.

    “What makes tutoring effective,” Hough said, “is that those tutors are trained, that they’re being asked to do things that are aligned with the instructional strategies that the teacher is using, so that that’s….reinforcing what they’re learning in school.”





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  • LAUSD celebrates academic recovery, but a rough road lies ahead without Covid relief money 

    LAUSD celebrates academic recovery, but a rough road lies ahead without Covid relief money 


    LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho applauds the district’s improvement in state test scores.

    Credit: Mallika Seshadri

    This story has been updated to include more community voices.

    The Los Angeles Unified School District celebrated its students’ academic achievement in the 2024 California Smarter Balanced test scores during a press conference Friday. The district’s scores reflect a near realization of Superintendent Alberto Carvalho’s 2022 promise to overcome pandemic learning losses within two school years. 

    Across each grade level, most demographics and LAUSD’s Priority Schools, the district showed growth in both English Language Arts (ELA) and math. 

    Between the 2022-23 and 2023-24 academic years, scores in English Language Arts increased from roughly 41% of students meeting or exceeding standards to just over 43%. 

    Math scores also rose. In the 2022-23 academic year, 30.5% of LAUSD students met or exceeded state standards. This past year, that number grew to 32.83%. 

    “I made a prediction about two years ago that within two years, we would begin to see recovery at a level impacting some subgroups that would hit or exceed pre-pandemic levels,” Carvalho said.

    “I am heartened by the fact that the students who historically performed at the lowest levels are actually the ones that have already exceeded pre-pandemic achievement levels.”

    Carvalho added that LAUSD’s Black and Latino students outperformed their counterparts throughout the state. Meanwhile, both students with disabilities and English learners performed better than they did before the pandemic. 

    While district officials say they are prepared to maintain students’ level of performance, they are dealing with the end of the one-time Covid relief money that expired last month and pressing federal and state legislators for more support moving forward. 

    “I believe that to the bottom of my gut and my heart, that we have to provide the conditions where every child can learn. And that means smaller class sizes. It means more mental health support. It means a nurse at every school. It means [psychiatric social workers] at every school. It means things that right now we can no longer afford because the Covid money is gone,” said LAUSD’s school board president Jackie Goldberg during the event. 

    “This is remarkable, but if we’re to keep it forward, the state has got to find a way….to do something.”

    How did the district’s highest needs students perform?

    Students with disabilities showed a roughly 1% increase in scores compared to the previous year. Still, just over 13% of LAUSD students with disabilities met or exceeded California ELA standards, with nearly 11% meeting or exceeding math standards. 

    Homeless students’ performance remained roughly the same as the previous year — with marginal increases, less than 1% in both subject areas. Foster youth, meanwhile, experienced a slight decline in ELA scores — with just over 20% meeting or exceeding standards — and a slight increase to 13.08% in math. 

    Migrant students performed better on the 2023-24 tests, and English learners saw a significant jump in improvement. 

    Between the 2022-23 and 2023-24 academic years, the number of English learners who met or exceeded state ELA standards doubled from 4.44% to 8.88%. Meanwhile, the percentage of English learners who met or exceeded math standards rose from 6.80% to 10.65%. 

    “Los Angeles is not like the rest of the state of California. The challenges in our community are far greater. The level of poverty is higher. The percentage of students who are English language learners is significantly higher. The percentage of students with disabilities is higher. The percentage of students who are newly arrived international newcomers is significantly higher. The percentage of students experiencing homelessness is unparalleled,” Carvalho said Friday. 

    “That is why anytime that the unnatural, the almost impossible becomes the inevitable, we ought to come together and celebrate.” 

    Not everyone agrees. Evelyn Aleman, the organizer of the Facebook group Our Voice/Nuestra Voz, maintained that the district’s scores are still not adequate and that more investments need to be made to support student achievement. 

    “We cannot be satisfied with substandard scores,” she said, “…especially for vulnerable, high-need, student populations. There are no gains when most of our children aren’t meeting state standards in basic subjects.” 

    How much variation was there between non-charter and charter schools? 

    In both English Language Arts and mathematics, LAUSD’s charter schools outperformed non-charters. 

    Roughly 49% of students in district charters met or exceeded standards in English Language Arts and just above 35% met or exceeded standards in math compared to non-charters where just over 40% met or exceeded English Language Arts standards, and just over 30% met or exceeded standards in math. 

    How did students perform in science? 

    While LAUSD’s scores in science rose, they are still lagging behind other subject areas. 

    In the 2023-24 academic year, nearly 24% of LAUSD students met or exceeded state standards in science in comparison to 22.17% the previous year. 

    What strategies helped at the local level?

    While district officials emphasized that a lot of work is required to sustain and improve this year’s numbers, they also said their growth reflects the hard work of LAUSD’s teachers and employees at every level. 

    “We’ve [improved our scores] by intention,” said Elesia Watkins, the principal of 54th Street Elementary, “intentionally ignoring the stigma that Black and Brown children cannot achieve greatness.” 

    Principals from other LAUSD schools with increased scores chimed in, emphasizing the importance of tracking data and making sure students are also aware of where they stand and what they need to work on. 

    Others stressed the importance of students participating in both lab enrichment classes along with elective courses every day — and even after school hours, if possible.

    Student board member Anely Cortez Lopez also applauded the hard work and resilience of the student body. 

    “I believe it will be wrong with me not to highlight the immense resilience and dedication our students have shown,” she said. “We have seen an unprecedented event occur, many falls….not only academically, but emotionally, physically and spiritually for many of our students. ”

    “But [we] were dedicated to bounce back better.” 





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  • Covid recovery funds are gone; what now for California students?

    Covid recovery funds are gone; what now for California students?


    Credit: Pexels / Mikhail Nilov

    California’s most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores revealed troubling trends in student achievement. Despite significant financial investments, student performance continues to struggle to reach full academic recovery. Worse, achievement gaps between the highest- and lowest-performing students widened even further.

    The timing of these results couldn’t be worse. With California districts spending the last of their $23 billion in federal relief funds last year, schools are now facing a critical juncture. With declining enrollment reducing their budgets and only modest new state investments coming this year, it will be tough for districts to dramatically scale up promising initiatives like high-dosage tutoring or extensive summer programming.

    So, what levers do state and local policymakers have at their disposal? By looking at the data and learning from other successful low-cost interventions, the state has an opportunity to reverse its slide and drive student gains.

    First, kids have to be in school to learn. In California, chronic absenteeism rates have come down significantly from their pandemic levels, but they’re still nearly twice as high as they were five years ago. Black students, English learners, students with disabilities, and other marginalized groups are missing too much school. 

    Fortunately, there are low-cost, high-impact strategies that schools can adopt to ensure students are present and engaged. For example, a research study looking at a large California district found that missing a part of the school day — for referrals for in-school discipline or participation in extracurricular activities — predicted short- and long-run outcomes for students. Many school districts are already tracking these measures; the next step is using them to inform and implement interventions such as parent notifications or individualized support.

    Second, once kids are back in school, the next step is ensuring that classroom time is used well. This is especially critical in California, given that it ranks in the bottom 10 states in terms of total instructional hours per school year. Last year’s law to ban or limit the use of cell phones during school hours should help reduce digital distractions, but the research on attention is clear that humans are not good at multitasking and can take a long time to refocus when our thinking is interrupted.

    For schools, that means that every little interruption counts. Students being pulled out of class for special interventions or testing, outdoor noise and intercom announcements are all important in their own way, but they also add up. One study found that a typical classroom might be interrupted 2,000 times per year and that these disruptions can result in the loss of 10 to 20 days of instructional time. School district leaders could conduct attention audits to maximize and better understand how schools are using time and all of their technological tools.

    Last but not least is the question of what students are (and are not) learning. California’s test results suggest that reading is a particular problem area. Since 2019, California’s reading scores on NAEP are down 4 points in fourth grade and 5 points in eighth grade. But those are averages. Last year, just 7% of California’s Black students met the “Proficient” benchmark and 72% fell below “Basic” in fourth grade reading.

    When students lack foundational reading skills, the impact compounds across subjects. All students need and deserve evidence-based literacy instruction, with sustained focus on the relationships between sound and print, exposure to rich text, thought-provoking content, and both general and domain-specific vocabulary that builds knowledge of the world.

    Improving reading scores is hard work, and other states are dealing with similar challenges. But California — unlike many other states — has not yet passed a comprehensive reading bill.

    This is where California could stand to learn from some of the higher-performing states on NAEP, sometimes called “the nation’s report card.” Specifically, it might surprise some readers to learn that Mississippi made the largest reading gains over the last 10 years. Last year, Mississippi ranked seventh overall but third for Black students and first for low-income students. California, in contrast, came in 37th, 33rd and 28th, respectively.

    How did Mississippi make this turnaround? It took a long-term, systematic approach to its literacy efforts. It invested in teacher development and coaching, identified and supported struggling readers as early as possible and equipped teachers with high-quality instructional materials.

    This combination of high-quality instructional materials with diagnostic data and student supports has the potential to improve outcomes for California’s most vulnerable students, and to create a more equitable education system for all. By leveraging data it already tracks and focusing on the delivery of core instruction, California can build a stronger foundation for student success.

    •••

    Lindsay Dworkin is senior vice president of policy and government affairs at NWEA, a K-12 assessment and research organization.

    The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • Five years after Covid shuttered schools, parent empowerment lives on

    Five years after Covid shuttered schools, parent empowerment lives on


    Five years ago, when Esti Iturralde’s daughter was in the first grade, the little girl struggled with learning to read. The teacher told her mother not to worry, Winnie just wasn’t ready yet, but Iturralde knew in her heart something was wrong. 

    She blamed herself, until the pandemic hit, the schools shuttered, and remote learning gave her a chance to peek inside the classroom. What she saw opened her eyes and shocked her into action. 

    “It really wasn’t until the school closures that I began to understand what she was missing,” said the Piedmont mom of two. “I got to see up close what was wrong with the lessons.”

    Five years after Covid shuttered schools, the parent empowerment it sparked is going strong. While the pandemic inexorably disrupted everyone’s lives, parents faced a double whammy. Amid heated debates over masks, vaccines and school shutdowns, many parents found themselves on the front lines of hot-button issues on an almost daily basis. In that time of crisis, some families lost trust in the ability of the schools to meet the needs of their students. 

    Like Iturralde, some came to the conclusion that they had to fend for themselves. That’s one reason the pandemic became a watershed moment for a generation of parents. It shifted the dynamics between communities and schools, and, for some families, shook their faith in the school system in a lasting way.

    “When schools remained closed for far longer than any other institution or business,” said Scott Moore, head of Kidango, a nonprofit that runs many Bay Area child care centers, “this broke the social compact that schools are compulsory for children because it is a critical function of civil society. It left parents in the lurch.”

    That rude awakening spurred some parents to question all aspects of their child’s education, from the length of school closures to how reading is taught and how parental notification policies should work. Parents from all over the ideological spectrum, from people of color fighting for equity to conservative parents upholding traditional values, began to push for change. That surge of parental empowerment may be one of the lasting impacts of the pandemic.

    “Parent empowerment and engagement certainly reached a peak during Covid school closures,” said Megan Bacigalupi, co-founder of CA Parent Power, an advocacy group. “The academic, social and mental health harms done to kids by those lengthy closures kept many parents engaged in their districts long after they reopened. One of the silver linings is that parents got a window into the classroom.”

    All sorts of school governance issues that had long been taken for granted came under intense scrutiny, sparking a shift in thinking about public education. Some families got fed up. Instead of waiting for the system to adapt to their needs, they took matters into their own hands. 

    The dawning realization that Winnie was being taught to read by looking primarily at pictures, instead of words, was a red flag for Iturralde, who has a doctorate in behavioral science. 

    Esti Iturralde and her daughter Winnie read “Harry Potter” together at home in the living room while their dog Roscoe hangs out in August 2022.
    Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource

    She decided to teach her kiddo to read at home, to see if she would bloom with more phonics, which she did. Winnie was soon reading above grade level. That showed Iturralde that sometimes you have to take charge of your child’s learning. 

    “Before, I was content to just trust and trust, and now I’m less trusting,” said Iturralde, who shared some of her lessons on YouTube to help other parents. “It’s like the curtain gets pulled away, and you see, all of a sudden, there’s no wizard out there.” ​​

    To be sure, Lakisha Young had long walked the do-it-yourself path, but the Covid era gave her new fire. She believes the pandemic merely highlighted the ways public education has always failed to meet the needs of low-income children of color. Nearly 70% of Oakland students failed to meet the standard for reading on the state’s Smarter Balanced test in 2023.

    “Nobody is coming to save us,” said Young, the co-founder and CEO of Oakland REACH, a parent advocacy group. “The system is broken. Black and brown kids are typically already behind their white peers before they even get to kindergarten, and then those gaps just get bigger. The reality is, we keep seeing generation after generation failing. Somebody’s got to stop the bleeding.”

    Young has worked with families where illiteracy has been passed down from one generation to the next, like an heirloom. She has tried to empower parents, to put families in the driver’s seat.

    “We’re freeing our families from the system,” said Young. “We’re liberating them from the system. If a parent shows up, does her part or his part, their kid’s going to get what they need.”

    During lockdown, Young connected families to everything from laptops and cash assistance to a virtual academy. Now REACH is a hub for parent and caregiver tutors, which they call “liberators,” who go into classrooms, teaching reading and math in partnership with Oakland Unified.  

    “These babies have to learn how to read and do math,” she said. “We have to empower families to make sure their kids don’t get left behind.”

    Left to their own devices at the kitchen table, many in the dyslexia community also experienced the pandemic as a lightning rod. 

    “People were frustrated their children were not getting the services they deserved,” said Megan Potente, co-state director of Decoding Dyslexia CA, an advocacy group. “There was a lot of learning happening among parents, who may have left things up to school if it weren’t for the unprecedented times of the pandemic and heightened feelings of urgency associated with seeing your child struggle at home.”

    Many parents first organized out of frustration with extended school closures, she said, but then parlayed that momentum to push for education reforms, such as evidenced-based reading instruction, amid the state’s deepening literacy crisis.

    “California schools are failing at their core function: teaching,” said Moore. “How many decades of data — showing less than half of students achieving proficiency in language and math — are needed before big innovation occurs?”

    Lakisha Young
    Credit: Courtesy of Oakland Reach

    Emboldened by having to step up in a crisis, many parents began to demand a voice. Parents Supporting Teachers (PST) in Los Angeles began as a Facebook group during the LAUSD teachers strike in 2019 but gained momentum during the pandemic as parents began asking questions about how the district uses its funding.

    “It’s important that we parents have a seat at the table when it comes to our children’s education,” said Vicky Martinez, a mother of three Los Angeles Unified (LAUSD) students and member of PST. “We know our kids best. You empower yourself with knowledge and ask questions and do some research and don’t be afraid. We need to be a part of the process so we can support our kids.”

    Many hope that parental empowerment will remain robust even as the Covid years recede into memory. They are optimistic that families will continue to push for more transparency about academic standards and practices in the wake of falling test scores and widening achievement gaps. 

    “People want a fair shake, for themselves and their children,” said Moore. “Education is seen as the main vehicle for upward economic and social mobility. Yet the reality is, California’s education system only does well for those born into privilege, and it fails most everyone else.”

    Many parents will continue to play a more active role in the education of their children. Iturralde, like most parents, has “bad memories” of the pandemic years and struggling to get her daughter what she needed, but all that effort has paid off. 

    She used what she learned about the science of reading, from the need for phonics to the importance of background knowledge, to tutor her younger daughter, Lorea, as well. She now also coaches Winnie on math, a subject in which she is poised to skip ahead a year. 

    “What I try to advise parents to do is to take care of your kid and advocate for your kid, but also try to think about the community,” she said. “When I make a fuss about something, I’m doing it because I think there are other kids whose parents are not going to be able to help them. You’ve got to zoom out and think about the big picture.”





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  • How Covid changed teaching in California: fewer pencils, more technology

    How Covid changed teaching in California: fewer pencils, more technology


    The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly changed how students and teachers spend their time in the classroom. Now, instead of writing with paper and pencil, students use computers for most assignments.

    Teachers lecture less and spend more time on individualized instruction, social-emotional learning and relationship building.

    The last five years have not been easy. Students returned to campuses in the spring of 2021, after spending more than a year learning alone from home on computers. They had knowledge gaps, and many felt isolated and unsure, often resulting in chronic absenteeism and bad behavior. 

    Thousands of California teachers, discouraged by disciplinary problems, quit the profession.

    But others doubled down on individualized instruction and social-emotional support, spending a good portion of class time reacquainting their students with how to behave in the classroom and encouraging them to socialize with their peers.

    Now, five years after Covid closed schools, student scores on the state’s standardized Smarter Balanced tests have improved slightly, although achievement is still not back to pre-Covid levels. 

    California teachers interviewed by EdSource are optimistic, reporting that interventions are working and that student discipline is improving.

    “They don’t miss their houses,”  said Erika Cedeno, who teaches Spanish at Golden Valley High School in Santa Clarita. “They don’t miss anything related to Covid. They want to be at school, and they are enjoying sports. They are playing tennis and swimming. It’s very different. I think we are probably getting to the point that we were before Covid.”

    More personalized learning

    Teachers report placing a greater emphasis on small-group instruction and personalized learning to accommodate students who returned from school closures with diverse learning needs, according to “Rewiring the classroom: How the Covid-19 pandemic transformed K-12 education,” released in August by the Brookings Institution. 

    The spring 2023 survey of 1,000 K-12 teachers and administrators across the country revealed that students now spend less time in lectures and more time working on educational software tailored to their needs. The increased use of technology by students, teachers and parents is the biggest change in the classroom since Covid-19 closures, said Brian Jacob, who co-authored the Brookings report. 

    After months of working on educational software during pandemic school closures, teachers are now more likely to incorporate it into their classrooms, according to the report. In early 2023, 70% of all students and 80% of all middle and high school students in the United States had a personal computing device.

    “I use technology more freely in the classroom now, and it’s an expected part of the day,” Todd Shadbourne, a sixth grade teacher at Foulks Ranch Elementary School in Elk Grove, told EdSource. 

    “We used to do a research project and everybody had to go to the library and get a book, and hope they could get a book,” Shadbourne said. “And we couldn’t study biographies when my neighboring class was doing biographies because there’s only so many books. … Now you have other resources because you have a computer in front of you.”

    Too much technology isn’t good

    There are some drawbacks to the increased use of technology in schools, however. Research shows that reading comprehension is better when students read printed texts instead of online materials, Jacob said. Students also struggle with writing and spelling because all their school work is done on computers equipped with programs that correct spelling and grammar, he said.

    “School officials and researchers really need to look at that carefully and determine how much time students are spending on devices, and how is that going?” Jacob said.

    Some California teachers try to limit their students’ screen time and require them to spend more time reading text, writing with pencil and paper and collaborating with their classmates.

    San Diego special education teacher Carly Bresee says the use of technology by students outside the classroom has also increased, prompting her to use less technology in class than before the pandemic.

    “I know that general ed teachers are kind of facing that question,” Bresee said. “How much computer use is healthy and positive for the students? They are having difficulty with that balance, knowing what the best formula is for learning.”

    Back to classroom carts at some schools

    School officials at James Lick Middle School have decided to go back to classroom computer carts because the school, in financially strapped San Francisco Unified, could no longer afford to maintain and replace student computers that are broken, lost or outdated.

    “Kids have broken them on purpose,” said Keith Carames, who teaches theater arts and English at the school. “Kids have lost them. Kids have dropped them.”

    That move away from technology is a big disappointment to Carames, who became a convert after spending three months learning how to use Zoom, Google Classroom and other online education programs. 

    “I saw the light,” Carames said. “I can edit stuff online with them (the students). I can post videos. I have resources that are accessible. If they are absent, they can get work. There are letters that you can send to the family and newsletters and interactive things. It changed my practice as an educator. ”

    Carames calls the transition back to paper and pen “a nightmare.”

    “There are some kids who don’t even know how to spell their own first name,” he said.

    Changing views on school attendance

    The biggest change for Elk Grove’s Shadbourne since Covid is the perception among some students and parents that attending school is optional. Students go on vacation during the school year or decide to work from home on a given day because they think they can get assignments on Google Classroom and email them to the teacher.

    “And the social benefits of school, and the problem-solving that we do as a group, and the common culture we hope to create, it’s hard to do that when people are gone,” Shadbourne said. 

    The impact of absences is amplified in special education, where a student might make progress one day, miss a day of school, and lose that progress, Bresee said.

    Students need social-emotional support

    Since schools reopened in 2020, California teachers have been spending more time greeting their students at the door, sending them notes and planning activities that encourage communication and help build relationships. Making these connections helps students develop social-emotional skills and encourages them to come to school.

    “In special education, we saw a huge increase in maladaptive behaviors, and that was really difficult both for the students, the support staff and for teachers,” said Bresee, a TK-1 special education teacher at Perkins K-8 School. “… It was hard to maintain a regular routine because it felt like we were more frequently in crisis mode.”

    Students, especially younger ones, had to learn how to play and communicate effectively with others. That meant more time was set aside for adult-facilitated playtime than before the pandemic, Bresee said.

    “It became, in my eyes, an even more important part of the day, right up there with our literacy and math lessons,” Breese said.

    The effort seems to be paying off. This year, student behavior has improved, and the class routine is back on track, according to Bresee.

    Social-emotional support and building connections between students and their teachers and classmates are equally important for older students.

    Cedeno greets her Spanish students at the door every day and then spends roughly seven minutes at the beginning of each class asking questions to draw students into conversations meant to help them connect with her and their classmates.

    “Cuál es tu color favorito (What is your favorite color)?” she asks one day. “Cuál es tu dulce favorito (What is your favorite candy)?” she asks on another day.

    Cedeno also invites students to have lunch in her classroom if they need a safe space to relax and a microwave to heat their food.

    “We are trying to rebuild this step by step,” Cedeno said. “We are not there yet. But I think we are going to get there if we put in a lot of effort, a lot of compassion and empathy, because these kids, they need this.”





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