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  • Florida Judge Strikes Down Part of Book Banning Law

    Florida Judge Strikes Down Part of Book Banning Law


    Since Governor Ron DeSantis got his “Don’t Say Gay” law in 2023, Florida has led the nation in book banning. That nefarious activity is currently on hold because a federal judge struck down DeSantis’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.

    Anytime a book banning law gets knocked down, we should celebrate a victory for the freedom to read. Another court, higher-up, may overturn the decision, but for now it’s good news.

    Stephany Matt of the Palm Beach Post reported:

    A federal judge has struck a blow against Florida’s book bans, ruling that part of a DeSantis-backed law used to sweep classics and modern novels off school shelves is so vague that it’s unconstitutional.

    U.S. District Judge Carlos Mendoza of the Middle District of Florida focused on the portion of the law that prevents books that “describes sexual conduct” in his Aug. 13 order, saying it’s “unclear what the statute actually prohibits” and to what detail of sexual conduct is prohibited.

    The statute (HB 1069) was signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2023, and it’s been used to remove thousands of books from Florida’s school library shelves.

    Mendoza drew concern with classical literature and more modern works such as “The Handmaid’s Tale,” among 23 books removed from Orange County and Volusia County schools.

    To defend book removals, DeSantis and state officials have pointed to “government speech,” a legal doctrine that the government has the right to promote its own views without being required to provide equal time or a platform for opposing views.

    Mendoza disagreed.

    “A blanket content-based prohibition on materials, rather than one based on individualized curation, hardly expresses any intentional government message at all,” he said. “Slapping the label of government speech on book removals only serves to stifle the disfavored viewpoints.”

    The judge’s order is a win for Penguin Random House and five other publishers, the Authors Guild, two parents and authors Julia Alvarez, John Green, Angie Thomas, Laurie Halse Anderson and Jodi Picoult. Green is famous for his books “Looking for Alaska” and “Paper Towns,” both of which were mentioned in the order.

    Penguin Random House is “elated” that the federal judge upheld First Amendment protections for students, educators, authors and publishers, and that books may only be removed if they lack “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value” when considered, said Dan Novack, vice president and associate general counsel of Penguin Random House.

    “This is a sweeping victory for the right to read, and for every student’s freedom to think, learn, and explore ideas,” Novack said in a statement…

    The judge’s order does not cast down all of the law, which restricts teachers from using preferred pronouns in schools outside their assigned sex at birth and expedites a process for people to object to reading materials and books in schools..



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  • North Valley Military Institute shuts down amid widespread controversy

    North Valley Military Institute shuts down amid widespread controversy


    Cadet medics simulate taking a patient into a helicopter during an NVMI Summer Camp.

    Credit: Courtesy of Mark Ryan

    The North Valley Military Institute — a grades six-12 charter school founded in 2013 — voluntarily surrendered its charter and closed its doors permanently on Aug. 25, leaving nearly 800 students and 180 employees in the Los Angeles area without a place to learn and work.

    Both NVMI officials and community activists who called for the school’s shutdown have said the closure was months in the making.

    Officials of the charter school blame the closing on accommodation problems as NVMI relied on space at several LAUSD campuses. They told EdSource that their decision to surrender the charter at the Aug. 25 meeting — where five of its 10 board members also resigned — resulted from the school’s inability to secure a single, permanent campus location.

    Community advocates, however, cited a long history of problems, including letters from the Los Angeles County Office of Education detailing alleged misappropriation of funds, unqualified teachers and insufficient services for students with disabilities. The advocates have also pointed to poor standardized test scores and academic performance plus widespread written complaints of bullying and sexual assaults in the school.

    Community advocates who have called for NVMI’s closure over several years have also blamed the Los Angeles County Office of Education for having permitted the charter to continue operating, despite all the allegations. But LACOE spokesperson Van Nguyen said in a statement to EdSource that the county office is “committed to upholding accountability, quality education and maintaining a high standard of financial responsibility among educational institutions within our community.”

    Nguyen also said in a later email that the North Valley Military Institute is one of 15 charter schools authorized by the county office of education since 1997 that has been “revoked, non-renewed, terminated and self-closed.” Only 25 of the 40 charter schools remain open.

    It was not until Aug. 17 — four days before the charter school was scheduled to start the new year — that parents were notified via email that the school would be closed, but only for the 2023-24 academic year.

    “As the captain of the NVMI ship, I am responsible for everything that happens or fails to happen here, and ultimately, I am singularly responsible for not being able to overcome the challenges that we have faced,” said NVMI’s superintendent, Mark Ryan, in the email to parents. “An apology is so inadequate, but I am sincerely sorry for not being able to get us over the finish line and operate this school year.”

    More than 95% of students enrolled at NVMI are from underrepresented minorities, the bulk of whom are Hispanic or Latino, according to state enrollment data.

    Ryan said most of the charter school’s students will not be able to attend other schools — including ones they may have previously attended — because they have been suspended, expelled or have been in juvenile hall.

    Many expressed concern about how the students would fare in a different school setting.

    “They pride themselves with serving students that are at risk,” said Carl Petersen, a community activist. “And … I’m afraid those kids are going to fall through the cracks.”

    Despite concerns that not every student will find a school that will take them, NVMI hosted an enrollment and deployment fair for students and their families to help them determine the next steps.

    More than 25 schools, as well as LAUSD representatives, attended the event, Ryan said. The previous Tuesday, Aug. 15, NVMI held a virtual version of the event for those who were unable to attend in person.

    “We want to help! Los Angeles Unified has reached out on multiple occasions to support all families and students,” according to a statement released by the district on Aug. 18.

    “Given the school year has started for many students, the district reiterates our readiness to collaborate with families to ensure their children are in school immediately, and we call upon NVMI to do the same.”

    On Aug. 22 — several days before NVMI surrendered its charter and five days after parents were notified — the Los Angeles County Office of Education, which issued NVMI’s charter, sent a “notice of concern” to Ryan, Daniel Villanueva, the board’s chairperson and the rest of the board about the charter school’s noncompliance with both its memorandum of understanding with the county office of education and state law.

    The letter specifically states that NVMI’s vote to shut down may have violated the memorandum of understanding between the LA County Office of Education and NVMI, which states the charter would remain effective even if the school becomes non-operational and until the school completes the mandated closure procedures.

    It also stated that the agenda for the Aug. 25 special meeting was not provided with adequate notice under the Brown Act — which requires school boards to publicly an agenda for special meetings 24 hours ahead of the meeting time — and claimed that the Spanish translations “may not have accurately conveyed the intended meaning.”

    “We feel it is important to update NVMI concerning future advanced appointments for its school,” the letter reads. “Based on the action taken by NVMI’s Board, NVMI will not receive any further advanced apportionments for the 2023-24 school year, pursuant to a directive provided by the California Department of Education.”

    Abysmal academic performance

    During the 2021-2022 academic year, based on the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments, only 15.81% of NVMI students across all grade levels met or exceeded state standards in English language arts, while only 3.22% met or exceeded math standards. In science, 4.17% of NVMI students met or exceeded state standards, based on the California Science Test.

    Previously, in the 2013-14 academic year, the year the school opened, NVMI did not have any reportable SAT scores because of the low number of students who completed the exam, according to staff findings on the North Valley Military Institute College Preparatory Academy.

    In 2015-16, the same staff findings revealed that the average SAT score for NVMI students was 1,235 on a 2,400 point scale — below LAUSD, county and state averages. Only 11.1% of NVMI students tested above the median score.

    No students at NVMI completed AP exams during the 2013-14 and 2014-15 academic years. In the 2015-16 academic year, 13 students took AP exams, but none passed with a 3, the staff findings show.

    Ryan said this is largely because the students who come to NVMI are already years behind their peers but that the school had a number of academic supports for students, resulting in about 90% of its students successfully completing a college course before graduating.

    “I would love to improve standardized test scores,” Ryan said. “But I do think that there are these other, you know, metrics that you can point to: the number of kids who are successfully completing A through G requirements, the number of kids who successfully graduate. You know, those are very, very important metrics that, ultimately, are much more important for a kid’s adult life than whether or not they did well on a standardized test.”

    Staffing concerns

    In a Dec. 1, 2022, letter from the LA County Office of Education to Ryan, Villanueva and the school board outlined a series of violations of the law and the Memorandum of Understanding under which the charter operates. Among the violations was an allegation that the school failed to provide evidence of 11 teachers’ credentials.

    “For 10 of these staff members, it could not be determined if they held any California teaching credential or English Language Authorization,” the letter continued.

    It also noted that seven teachers did not have the correct credentials; one had an expired credential, and six did not have the correct EL authorizations.

    The letter states that NVMI was notified of the concerns on Oct. 5 of the concerns, but that it failed to resolve them as of Dec.1.

    Ryan attributed the problem to a hardship in finding teachers. “Everybody, this most recent school year, struggled with finding fully credentialed teachers to teach in every single classroom, and NVMI was no exception.”

    But were the people the school hired qualified to teach? Ryan explained, “We absolutely struggled to find people that were fully credentialed. But … when we found somebody that we thought would be a good teacher — who had at least a bachelor’s degree, who had demonstrated basics … so that they would qualify for the equivalent of an emergency credential — we did hire multiple people in that situation.”

    Inadequate support for students with disabilities

    The Los Angeles County Office of Education also stated in the letter detailing a series of concerns about the school’s operations that 37 special education students at NVMI had overdue individualized education program meetings — and that there were “15 students with a total of 1,240 minutes of owed services.”

    Ryan said in response, that yes, NVMI occasionally had overdue IEPs or owed services, but not currently. “As of June 2023, when the most recent school year ended, there were no overdue IEPs and no owed service minutes.”

    Allegations of bullying and vandalism

    In a series of written complaints, community members alleged that there was widespread harassment and vandalism from NVMI students toward members of their host campuses, particularly the VOCES campus.

    NVMI “is a school that has subjected the communities in which it has tried to operate to chaos over the last year in particular,” alleged Hans Johnson, the president of East Area Progressive Democrats, which has called for action against the charter for years. “The pattern of misconduct … and neglect of its students … is extremely disturbing.”

    On Dec. 17, 2022, German Gurrola, the co-location coordinator at VOCES Magnet, wrote an email to county office of education officials detailing a series of incidents involving alleged harassment— a couple of which were against students with special needs.

    They ranged from verbal harassment to throwing trash to cases where NVMI allegedly threatened to take over shared spaces.

    “We tried really hard to not purposely, to not intermingle with the Valley Oaks Center for Enriched Studies’ community, not because we were trying to be separatist, but because we knew from co-location stories,” Ryan said in response, adding that students at both schools were “equally guilty.”

    “In every case where anything was ever reported to us, or we became aware of anything, even if it wasn’t reported to us, we [took] appropriate disciplinary action … and it’s not a fair statement to say that we somehow encouraged it.”

    Gurrola’s email said he was only aware of one incident where a VOCES student was involved, but that the student had been a previous NVMI student.

    “There is constant harassment by NVMI students towards our students and staff, including harassment by NVMI staff,” the email alleged. “This is creating a climate that affects our socio-emotional learning environment and places undue stress on our students, staff and families.”

    A separate 2017 lawsuit alleged that NVMI students were victims of sexual abuse perpetrated by the school, LAUSD and Brice Tschappat, an administrator hired to assist with the annual summer camp. The lawsuit also argued that LAUSD, which supervised and oversaw the charter at the time, allowed the sexual abuse of NVMI students.

    The sexual abuse accusations include alleged exposure to sexual language and pornographic images and a claim that an NVMI administrator “assaulted and battered at least one of the minor plaintiffs.”

    Alleged misappropriation of funds

    On March 7, the county office requested an audit of NVMI, which is still in progress, according to Nguyen. The county office did not, however, respond to questions about whether NVMI complied with the audit.

    “Based on our review of receipts and internal documents of NVMI’s recent leadership retreat, there is reason to believe that fraud, misappropriation of funds, or other illegal fiscal practices may have occurred,” the audit request reads, stating that the school “mismanaged and misappropriated” $90,000 of public funds to conduct a leadership retreat in Las Vegas.

    The letter also cites an internal staff bulletin that promises NVMI staff fully paid daytime family activities — ranging from bowling to trips to a water park — as well as group tickets to the “Tournament of Kings” show and “America’s Got Talent,” among others.

    A Dec. 8, 2022, email from Ryan to the county office of education admitted that NVMI “used one-time ESSER dollars for the staff well-being activities,” and that non-employees attended the events as well.

    The request letter further alleges that Local Control Funding Formula money was used to serve breakfast — with $2,300 being incurred by non-employees — and demanded that NVMI provide a complete list of its expenditures from the retreat.

    Ryan explained that the retreat was necessary for staff and that they spent most of the time at the retreat working.

    “This was a very sincere working retreat, where 100% of the people who were in attendance can attest … that this was not just some, you know, some junkets to Vegas for people to go gamble and enjoy themselves. This … was absolutely hard work.”

    Looking back

    Support for the charter has waxed and waned over the charter’s decade of existence, Ryan said, adding that several community members expressed apprehension about having a military academy in Los Angeles.

    “This school has served a very special niche,” Ryan said. “There is a population of kids who have simply not been successful in traditional public or private schools, kids who have been suspended, expelled, justice-involved youth, foster youth, homeless youth, kids with significant learning differences … for whom the traditional special education programs have not worked.”

    “This school was founded on the premise that military structure … and culture could really provide a place where students who haven’t necessarily been successful in other places, where they could be successful.”

    For eight years, NVMI administrators have relied on LAUSD campuses to house their school, Ryan said. And each year, they would have to go through a process outlined by Proposition 39, under which LAUSD would offer NVMI a space to locate the charter, usually within the campus of another school.

    Toward the end of the 2021-22 academic year, LAUSD made an offer that would place NVMI on two district campuses. NVMI filed a lawsuit against the district in response, alleging that the offer was illegal and that the charter school could have been housed on a single campus, Ryan said.

    The complaint accused LAUSD of “splitting our campus, upsetting the military culture of the school, causing us financial challenges, causing us operational challenges.”

    LAUSD declined to comment on the multisite offer or lawsuit.

    Ryan said he eventually convinced NVMI’s school board to accept LAUSD’s offer and do their best to operate on multiple campuses. During the split-campus operations, NVMI started each day with a gathering of all NVMI students at the VOCES campus in order to be able to engage in military formation, before busing students to the other locations for the rest of the school day.

    In the spring of 2022, Ryan said LASUD came back with their 2023-24 campus site offer that would require NVMI to operate its school from four different campuses, including three LAUSD campuses.

    NVMI’s board knew that a lawsuit would be costly, Ryan said, adding that they were “dipping significantly into our financial reserves” that had accumulated to nearly $3.8 million.

    “At that point, because we knew we had burned through so much of the reserve … I recommended to my board there’s just no way we can do this. We simply cannot operate another year the way that we operated in ’22-23,” Ryan said. “We went through way too much money, killed staff who were working terribly hard to be able to make this very complex operational plan come to fruition, and it was difficult on families. It was difficult on kids, and it was financially simply not sustainable.”

    As a result, the board made a decision this spring to suspend only the middle school for the 2023-24 academic year.

    Meanwhile, Ryan said the school board realized on July 5 that they didn’t have a campus site. In negotiations, they agreed to lease a five-story building from the Foursquare Church, costing the school $60,000 monthly. Rent at the LAUSD campuses, by comparison, was significantly lower, totaling more than $73,000, according to Ryan.

    Ryan said they submitted “a material revision” to the LA County Office of Education that would have amended the charter with the updated church location.

    “Almost immediately, there was more upheaval, and there was an outcry that, ‘Well, gee, you know, this is a public school … giving public money to a church,’” Ryan said.

    The city of Los Angeles said a public school could operate on the church site but that acquiring the necessary change of use permit could take years. These promises from the city, Ryan noted, were made verbally and not in writing.

    Ultimately, Villanueva, the school board’s chairperson, said deciding to close the school was the “biggest disappointment” of his life.

    “Our heart was always full,” Villanueva said. “{We thought): ‘Let’s give this one more try … to literally not only turn every stone but every pebble and every grain of sand in our house up until last week.’”





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  • On California funding formula’s 10th anniversary, celebrate progress but double down on fairness

    On California funding formula’s 10th anniversary, celebrate progress but double down on fairness


    Credit: Allison Shelley / EDUimages

    Former governor Jerry Brown headlines a party next week toasting the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), California’s ten-year-old reshaping of school finance, the nation’s most ambitious effort to target public investment toward narrowing disparities in student achievement.

    In 2013, Brown and the Legislature recast state funding to shift dollars toward districts that serve greater shares of low-income and non-English-speaking children. The logic remains compelling: educators labor to bring all children over proficiency hurdles in reading and math, so greater resources must go to students who have the farthest to climb.

    Party goers in Sacramento do have cause to celebrate. The extra funding has worked to lift performance among students living in areas of concentrated poverty. Test scores, graduation rates, and college readiness have all seen increases stemming from the extra funding, according to research from the Learning Policy Institute and the Public Policy Institute of California.

    Education funding also soared under both Brown and Gov. Gavin Newsom, fueled by a robust economy, the voter-approved Proposition 98 set aside for schools, and pandemic-era aid from Washington. State funding for K–12 education has grown more than 40% since 2017.

    But California’s schools still produce grossly unequal results among racial and economic groups. While reading proficiency among fourth graders climbed from 40% to 49% between 2014 and 2019, with slightly greater gains for low-income students, racial disparities failed to budge. White children in California have continued to achieve at three grade levels above Latino peers over the past quarter century, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress — gaps were even larger for Black children. The picture is similar for math.

    The good news: Brown’s funding formula helped sustain progress made by educators and kids since 2002, continuing to boost average test scores, especially in districts with concentrated poverty. The sobering news: inequalities among students remained unmoved despite gains for all demographic groups in reading and math.

    So, what have we learned over the past decade that could inform more potent school finance policies?

    First, only a small slice of local control funding — just 7% — is dedicated specifically to districts serving the largest concentrations of low-income families. For some, the impact was eye-popping: districts in which nearly all students are from impoverished families enjoyed a 13% gain in the share meeting grade-level standards. But most low-income students do not attend schools in these districts and so receive much less targeted funding. And schools with concentrated poverty in economically mixed districts lose out on this additional funding.

    Policy makers and researchers remain in the dark over whether local boards mirror the spirit of the formula when allocating dollars between schools, and this holds consequences for kids. If districts spend dollars equally across all students, then low-income kids only partially benefit, even as the formula targets districts with more high-need students.

    Newsom did target fresh funding to low-performing schools this year, dubbed the equity multiplier. The dollar augmentation is modest, but the new mechanism recognizes “that we have not sufficiently structured the reform to get dollars to highest-needs schools in a consistent way,” Jessenia Reyes, a policy analyst at Catalyst California in Los Angeles, told us.

    Second, how districts choose to deploy their funding matters. Local control funding operates like a dump truck, unloading extra dollars to the district — it’s not a backpack, where targeted dollars follow the child. Districts do not always target extra funds to the students who generate them: for each dollar a school generates due to its socioeconomic “need,” spending goes up only by 63 cents in the average district; the rest is spread more equally across all other schools in the district. Data suggest this targeting, or lack thereof, varies considerably across districts.  

    Los Angeles Unified — pressed by equity advocates — has pioneered a Student Needs Equity Index that pinpoints the most challenged schools, then distributes $700 million in flexible dollars to their principals and teacher leaders. Despite equaling less than 5% of the district’s yearly budget, this progressivity among schools has helped to boost reading scores for English learners.

    When local boards award extra funding to their most hard-pressed schools, contentious politics may come to light. Spreading new dollars across all schools holds broad appeal to labor leaders and parents. But “if we are really trying to implement equity, some kids may not need the [additional] resources,” said Ana Teresa Dahan, managing director of GPSN, the nonprofit formerly known as Great Public Schools Now.  

    Third, as we learn more about how spending varies among schools, we arrive at the effects of something quite sacred: teacher seniority. More experienced and highly qualified teachers tend to migrate to more affluent schools. So, serious efforts to equalize school budgets require incenting the best teachers to remain committed to poor communities.

    Even when districts focus extra resources on their most challenged schools, principals often assign more senior teachers to high-achieving kids, as we found in Los Angeles. More robust targeting of funds among schools may fail to narrow gaps within schools until principals are better coached to weigh strategic options.

    Yes, policy leaders deserve to pause and party on, celebrating a decade of high hopes and discernible progress in elevating disadvantaged students. But avoid the hangover. Fresh policy options and sober attention to school-level spending and staffing are urgently needed.

    •••

    Bruce Fuller, professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley, is the author of When Schools Work.
    Julien Lafortune, an education economist, is a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California.

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





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  • Cal Poly Humboldt President Tom Jackson Jr. to step down

    Cal Poly Humboldt President Tom Jackson Jr. to step down


    Cal Poly Humboldt President Tom Jackson, Jr.

    Resigning Cal Poly Humboldt President Tom Jackson Jr.

    California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt

    Cal Poly Humboldt President Tom Jackson Jr. will step down on Aug. 11 following a spring semester that saw calls for his resignation after the university responded to pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus by sending in police.

    The Northern California campus was among many this spring that experienced student-led protests calling for an end to Israel’s military operations in Gaza. Jackson faced criticism for the decision to use police to quash campus protests and to close the campus for the final weeks of the spring semester.

    The incidents of the spring overshadow the end of Jackson’s five years at the university, a period of transformation in which Humboldt was transformed into the state’s third polytechnic institution. During Jackson’s tenure, the university upgraded laboratory space, expanded broadband, renovated buildings and launched new majors focused on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), buoyed by a $458 million investment from the state.

    The polytechnic overhaul has been credited with boosting new student applications and turning around the university’s financial prospects at a time when many campuses have experienced declining student headcounts.

    In a written statement, Jackson called the university “an amazing place with special people” and urged colleagues to remember that their work “makes a positive difference for our students.”

    A Cal Poly Humboldt news release said Jackson “has been consulting with the CSU Chancellor’s Office to ensure an orderly transition since early spring semester.”

    The spring marked a pivot point in Jackson’s presidency. In April, hundreds of students occupied the university’s Siemens Hall, joining a wave of campus protests calling on universities to sever financial ties with Israel.

    The San Francisco Chronicle reported that protesters used “furniture, tents, chains and zip ties” to block the entrances to the buildings.

    The university responded by calling in law enforcement to remove protesters from the hall. The Appeal reported in June that police arrested 32 people. 

    The police response prompted Cal Poly Humboldt’s university senate to pass a vote of no confidence in Jackson, arguing that he and chief of staff Mark Johnson mishandled the protests by summoning “armed, non-university police officers.” The resolution said that action “created unnecessary escalation resulting in physical assault on students and faculty and injury of law enforcement personnel.”

    The university ultimately closed campus on April 26, citing protesters’ attempts “to break into multiple locked buildings with the intention of either locking themselves in, vandalizing or stealing equipment.”

    The university continued classes remotely through May 10, the end of the spring semester.

    The backlash to the university’s response to the protests continued. Subsequent university senate resolutions called on the Humboldt County district attorney, Stacey J. Eads, to drop charges against students and faculty and asked the university to drop the interim suspensions of 69 students. The senate also sought an investigation into the events and decision-making that followed the April 22 protest.

    A group of 320 faculty and staff ultimately signed a letter calling for both Jackson and chief of staff Johnson to be removed from their positions.

    Becoming president

    Jackson was appointed to the university presidency in May 2019, becoming not only the first Black president in Humboldt’s history, but also its first Filipino and Native American president, according to Cal State. Jackson previously served as president of Black Hills State University in South Dakota and vice president for student affairs at the University of Louisville and Texas A&M University-Kingsville.

    At the time of his appointment in 2019, undergraduate enrollment was falling steeply. Undergraduate enrollment peaked at 8,242 students in 2015 but had dwindled to 6,443 by fall 2019. With the Covid-19 pandemic, it hit a low of 5,199 in 2021.

    Declining enrollment threatened to have serious consequences for the university’s financial future. Under a multiyear agreement with Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature, campuses in the Cal State system are on the hook to increase enrollment in order to receive increases in state funding.

    A polytechnic future

    Becoming a polytechnic campus appeared to improve Humboldt’s outlook. Newsom set aside nearly $500 million to turn Humboldt into a STEM-focused campus with new majors like mechanical engineering, marine biology and fire science management. The university is about to start construction on a new engineering building, according to a news release.

    The name change from Humboldt State to Cal Poly Humboldt became official in January 2022. The rebranded university enjoyed a record-setting application season for fall 2023, fielding almost twice as many applications as the previous year.

    The transition was not without its growing pains.

    In early 2023, the university announced that many sophomores, juniors and seniors would be housed in hotels and other off-campus options rather than on-campus residence halls to make way for new students. Hundreds of students protested the change. An online petition demanding “fair student housing” got more than 5,000 signatures.

    New housing projects will help to meet the demand. EdSource reported in 2023 that a new 950-bed housing complex, the Craftsman Mall, was expected to open in 2025 and that a second, 650-bed project would open in 2026. Ultimately, campus leaders want to add about 4,000 more beds.

    In fall 2023, the university’s undergraduate enrollment ticked up 2.2% to 5,419 students.

    The news release announcing Jackson’s plans to step down promoted the university’s financial turnaround, saying Humboldt has balanced budgets after carrying a $25 million deficit. The university is also bringing in more than $67 million annually in research grants and contracts, according to the release, and attracted more than $50 million from a fundraising campaign. Budget data from the Chancellor’s Office shows the university’s revenues exceeded its expenses by $117 million as of 2022-23. It also touted the university’s work with the region’s Tribal Nations, cooperation with the two-year College of the Redwoods, expanded international programs and a bachelor’s degree program at Pelican Bay State Prison.

    Looking ahead

    Jackson will “retreat” to a tenured professorship at the College of Professional Studies and the College of Extended Education & Global Engagement.

    “We do the very best we can every day, trusting the faculty, staff and students to do the same,” Jackson said in the statement.

    Cal State Chancellor Mildred García praised Jackson’s leadership in establishing Humboldt as a polytechnic institution, saying in a statement that the transition “inspired significant state funding to expand academic offerings, facilities and campus services, and enrollment growth.” She also thanked him for “his lifelong dedication to student success and educational equity.”

    An interim president will be appointed shortly, according to the news release, followed by a national search for a replacement within the next year.





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  • California TK-12 enrollment ticks down, while number of homeless and poor students rises

    California TK-12 enrollment ticks down, while number of homeless and poor students rises


    Zaidee Stavely/EdSource

    Top Takeaways
    • The 0.54% decline was steeper than last year but not as dramatic as the plunge at the peak of the pandemic.
    • The drop in enrollment was somewhat offset by the expansion of transitional kindergarten.
    • The number of students identified as homeless jumped 9.3% from last year.

    New state data released Wednesday shows that California’s TK-12 enrollment has continued its steady post-pandemic decline. At the same time, the number of poor and homeless students has been increasing.

    For the 2024-25 school year, enrollment statewide declined by 31,469 students or 0.54%, compared to last year. California now has 5.8 million students in grades TK-12 compared to 6.2 million students in 2004-05. The new data from the state is based on enrollment counts for the first Wednesday in October, known as Census Day.

    This year’s decline is a little steeper than last year’s, which was 0.25%, but relatively flat compared to the enrollment plunge at the peak of the pandemic.

    “The overall slowing enrollment decline is encouraging and reflects the hard work of our LEAs across the state,” said state schools Superintendent Tony Thurmond in a statement.

    The drop in enrollment was somewhat offset by the state’s gradual rollout of transitional kindergarten. More students were eligible for the new grade than last year, and the numbers reflect that. An additional 26,079 students enrolled in transitional kindergarten — a 17.2% increase — while most other grade levels saw dips in enrollment.

    The new state data also reflect an increasing number of students who are experiencing economic hardship. An additional 32,179 students now qualify as socioeconomically disadvantaged, a 0.9% increase. This data show that 230,443 students were identified as homeless — a 9.3% increase from the last school year.

    The number of students identified as English learners decreased by 6.1%. This is largely in response to Assembly Bill 2268, which exempted transitional kindergarten students from taking the English Language Proficiency Assessment for California (ELPAC).

    Previously, schools tested transitional kindergarten students with a screener meant for kindergarten students, which was not appropriate for younger students and was therefore unreliable, according to Carolyne Crolotte, director of policy at Early Edge California, a nonprofit organization that advocates for early education. The state is in the process of creating a new screener, but in the interim, almost no English learners are being identified in this grade.

    State officials attribute much of the enrollment decline to demographic factors, such as a declining birth rate. 

    Enrollment saw its greatest decline in regions of the state with higher housing prices, notably Los Angeles County and Orange County. There is growth in more affordable areas of the state, such as the San Joaquin Valley and Northern California, including the Sacramento area.

    Enrollment in charter schools has steadily increased at the same time enrollment in traditional public school is decreasing. This year an additional 50,000 students attended a charter. Now 12.5% of students in California are enrolled in charter schools, which is up from 8.7% ten years ago.

    The California Department of Education characterized transitional kindergarten numbers, which went up 17.2%, as a “boom.” A release from the department stated that 85% of school districts are offering transitional kindergarten at all school sites. It also said that transitional kindergarten is creating more spaces in the state preschool for 3-year-olds. 

    However, the enrollment numbers for transitional kindergarten are well below early estimates advanced by the Learning Policy Institute in 2022 which had estimated that 60% to 75% of eligible students would enroll in transitional kindergarten. The just released numbers show closer to about 40% of eligible students are opting in for transitional kindergarten, which according to Bruce Fuller, professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley, is “not exactly universal preschool.” 

    The Governor’s recently released budget revision noted that lower daily attendance prompted him to reduce funds aimed at transitional kindergarten by $300 million. The state plans to lower the student to adult ratio in these classrooms from 12:1 to 10:1 next year, but will need less money to do so because of lower enrollment.

    Transitional kindergarten has been gradually expanding over a five-year period to include all 4-year-olds. This school year, all students who turn five years old between Sept. 2 and Jun. 2 were eligible. The expansion to all 4-year-olds will be complete in the 2025-26 school year.

    The expansion of transitional kindergarten doesn’t seem to be reaching more eligible four-year-olds than the previous system of private preschools, state preschools and Head Start, Fuller said. He notes that enrollment in those programs has been in decline at the same time that transitional kindergarten has been growing.

    Crolotte praised the state for its expansion of transitional kindergarten but said that some families may not know that their children are eligible for the program.

    “I think more work needs to be done about communication to families and knowing that this is available to them,” Crolotte said.





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  • Leader steps down from foster youth advocacy group

    Leader steps down from foster youth advocacy group


    Amy Lemley, right, at an April reception for John Burton Advocates for Youth.

    Photo Credit: John Burton Advocates for Youth

    Amy Lemley was still a graduate student at UC Berkeley in the late ’90s when she founded First Place for Youth, the first housing program for former foster youth in California.

    The daughter of a large-animal veterinarian and a hospice nurse, Lemley has long been a force in policy advocacy for system-impacted youth. After First Place, she joined John Burton Advocates for Youth, or JBAY, an influential nonprofit that advocates for California’s homeless and foster youth.

    Amy Lemley

    Lemley joined as JBAY’s policy director at its inception in 2006 and went on to become its executive director, a role she has held for the past eight years.

    A handful of the policy actions led by Lemley during her tenure as executive director include establishing the nation’s first tax credit for foster youth, the extension of foster care from age 18 to age 21, and increasing state funding for housing for former foster youth.

    Lemley, who will be leaving JBAY on Oct. 1, recently sat for an interview with EdSource about her work and what’s ahead. The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

    Early in your career, you worked at a group home in Massachusetts for pregnant and parenting youth. What led you to work at the group home?

    I did what I thought you were supposed to do when you left college, which is to go into management consulting. My parents had paid a lot for that degree, and I felt like I was supposed to go get a big, fancy job. I was miserable, and then I remember breaking down with my mom. She’s like, “Why are you doing this job, honey?” And I said, “Because you guys sacrificed so much for me to have this education.” And she said, “You don’t really get what parenthood is. We want you to be happy.” I just remember the weight of the world coming off my shoulders, and I knew what I wanted to do is what both of my parents had done, which is to try and help people.

    I really had to make a hard sell to this nonprofit where I worked because I, clearly on paper, was not qualified. Whether that was responsible to the young people in their care is another question, but it opened my eyes to a whole world of young people who have had this very unfortunate circumstance and kind of set me forth on my career.

    What was your role in the group home?

    I was a case manager, so I had 14 pregnant and parenting young people on my caseload. I remember thinking at the time, “This shouldn’t be hard. I just have to keep them enrolled in school, and make sure they know how to parent, and help them get a job, and help them navigate public benefits, and how hard could it be?” My eyes were opened very quickly about the complexity of their lives. I had young people who would run away from the group home because their younger siblings were at home and they were trying to protect them. There were so many young people who were victims of intimate partner violence, and their lives were extremely complex. I did my very best to help them make progress in these different domains.

    Why did you pursue the path of founding First Place for Youth as a student at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy versus a different path of support for this particular group of young people, foster youth?

    I definitely have an entrepreneurial temperament. I also really deeply believe, as many others do, that with safe, stable housing, anything is possible. It’s the foundation on which lives are built, and without it, very little is possible. And so seeing the young people who I worked with in the group home age out of care, become homeless and then tragically lose custody of their children, it was clear to me that it’s completely unreasonable for an 18-year-old to be independent. I certainly wasn’t.

    So the creation and opportunity to create something with my very dear friend Deanne Pearn, to do something right, to do it well, to meet the needs of these young people, was very appealing.

    At the time, there was this kind of story we told ourselves, that young people don’t want a program; they want to be free; they just want to do their own thing. But in my experience, when you give young people something of value, something that’s actually helping them meet their practical needs, they’re very receptive to it.

    I’m curious about the transition from First Place for Youth to John Burton Advocates for Youth. Why transition over to JBAY at the time that you did?

    We co-founded First Place and got it to a certain size, and you can really only scale a program so far with private funding. And then I happened to have been introduced to John Burton after he was termed out of office (as a state senator) and really pitched to him taking the First Place program and funding it with public funding. He’d done that a hundred times over. What to me seemed like an impossibility, he had 40 years of experience doing it. So that’s why I left.

    Once an organization gets to be a certain size, as the executive director, you’re not running around doing advocacy. Your whole job really is to manage and maintain the existing organization. I felt like First Place needed an executive director that wanted to do that, and that wasn’t me. I had a different mission. I had the good fortune of meeting John Burton and having the opportunity to kind of pursue that mission together.

    How do you maintain your policy focus when there is so much need and a constantly changing landscape?

    Whether it’s inflation, unemployment during the pandemic or the housing crisis, whatever larger kind of macroeconomic developments occur, these young people feel it the most deeply.

    I think a really important part of our success has been to not try to be experts in everything. We have a specific kind of set of policies that we’re deeply informed about, and that we keep revisiting. We try to be very disciplined in terms of really knowing the body of policy, the public agencies that administer it, the details about the implementation, the different actors that implement it, so that we can develop really smart, strategic approaches that are based not just in a conceptual knowledge, but in a deep practical knowledge of how these programs are implemented in communities.

    I always say we don’t want to be an inch deep and a mile wide. It really means saying no when it’s appropriate and continuing to dig deep into those issues and figure out what is the most pressing need of young people and then how to marry that very pressing need with what is practically possible in today’s economic and political environment.

    What does the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last month in the Johnson v. Grants Pass case, which upheld an Oregon city’s ban on homeless residents sleeping outdoors, mean for youth in California and nationwide?

    Unaccompanied homeless youth are less likely to be sheltered than the general population of homeless individuals. And we know that young people who are unsheltered, even for a very short amount of time, are more at risk of violence and exploitation because of the vulnerability of their age. And so every night that they are unsheltered, they’re in danger. The optimist in me hopes that the ruling can be a catalyst for a more coherent, statewide approach, assuming the federal government isn’t going to provide the level of coordination and funding we require.

    What comes next for you?

    I am going to kind of take a couple months off and then I’m going to raise my head and think about whether I want to try my hand at consulting, potentially working with those high-quality local nonprofits who are doing very high quality service to young people and helping them match that with public funding and public policy, and taking what can be a really wonderful intervention and broadening applicability to all young people.

    I’ve promised my husband I will not found another organization. I already had my wheels turning, and he’s just like, “No, Amy, no.” And I was like, “Well, I’ll try my best.”





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  • University of California President Drake to step down

    University of California President Drake to step down


    UC President Michael Drake listens to public speakers at the March 20, 2024 UC Regents meeting at the UCLA campus.

    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

    This story was changed to correct that new students were recently admitted for fall 2024, not 2025.

    University of California President Michael V. Drake will step down at the end of the upcoming academic year, closing out a five-year tenure in which he navigated the 10-campus system through the Covid-19 pandemic, enrollment growth, labor strife and campus protests.

    Drake, 74, announced his plan in a letter Wednesday to the UC community. 

    “I am immensely proud of what our students, faculty, and staff have accomplished these past several years. You have weathered a global pandemic and historic natural disasters, dealt with international conflict and domestic political uncertainty, navigated the stresses and opportunities of daily life, all while making our University stronger, more resilient, more impactful, and more inclusive than ever before,” he said. 

    Drake, who was UC’s first Black president, took over as president in August 2020 after previously serving as the president of Ohio State University. He also previously was the chancellor of UC Irvine and UC’s systemwide vice president of health affairs.

    Drake became UC’s president as campuses were preparing to enter their first full academic year during the Covid-19 pandemic. He helped guide the system through remote instruction and welcoming students back to campuses.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday praised Drake’s handling of the pandemic, saying in a statement that he “took the reins of the University of California during the height of the pandemic and has led with grace and vision in the years since.”

    Newsom worked directly with Drake to develop a five-year compact that Newsom’s office and UC agreed to in 2022. As part of the compact, Newsom pledged annual funding increases of 5% for UC in exchange for the system working toward a number of goals, including improving graduation rates and increasing enrollment of California residents.

    Getting more Californians enrolled has also been a priority of state lawmakers, who have frequently called on UC to do so. And recently, UC has started to make progress in that area. In fall 2023, the system’s freshman class had 42,058 Californians — 2,094 more than the previous fall, the largest year-over-year increase during Drake’s tenure.

    Further enrollment growth of California residents could be coming this fall. UC announced Wednesday that it admitted 93,290 California first-year students for fall 2024, a record number and a 4.3% increase from last year.

    Drake’s tenure leading UC, however, hasn’t been without challenges. 

    In 2022, 48,000 UC academic workers walked off the job in what was the largest-ever strike of higher education employees. UC eventually reached an agreement with the workers that increased their pay and gave them improved benefits.

    The union, however, authorized another strike this past spring amid pro-Palestinian protests, arguing that UC had violated workers’ rights by retaliating against them for participating in those protests. Workers ultimately went on strike at six campuses, though a judge later ordered them to halt their strike.

    The pro-Palestinian protests and encampments consumed several of UC’s campuses this past spring, with several UC chancellors calling in police to arrest students and disband encampments. Protesters demanded that UC divest from companies linked to Israel, but Drake’s office said in April that it “has consistently opposed calls for boycott against and divestment from Israel.” It’s not clear to what degree protests will resume when the fall term begins. 

    As he enters his final year on the job, Drake plans to “continue the work that we have focused on during my tenure,” he said in his letter to the UC community.

    “That includes expanding student support and creating paths to a debt-free UC education, ensuring that more California students can reap the benefits of a UC degree, building on the University’s academic and research excellence, and working to promote a safe and respectful community that fosters a free exchange of ideas,” he added.

    Janet Reilly, the chair of UC’s board of regents, plans to soon appoint a committee to begin a national search for the system’s next president.





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  • Maine Governor Mills Stands Up to Trump’s Bullying; He Backs Down

    Maine Governor Mills Stands Up to Trump’s Bullying; He Backs Down


    Last February, Trump met with the nation’s governors. He gave them a lecture about his agenda. When it came to his determination to ban transgender athletes, he called out Governor Janet Mills of Maine. He warned her that had “better comply” with his executive order. They exchanged words. She was unbowed. She said to Trump: “See you in court.”

    Trump told the Agriculture Department to hold back $3 million in food from Maine schools.

    Maine sued to get the money that was due.

    They settled. Maine got its $3 million. Governor Mills changed nothing.

    The New York Times reported:

    The state’s attorney general, Aaron M. Frey, said his office had withdrawn a lawsuit it filed in objection to the funding freeze, which had held up around $3 million, he estimated, and was initiated by the Agriculture Department last month. The federal dollars, Mr. Frey said in an interview, pay for food preparation in schools and child care centers, and also assist in feeding disabled adults in congregate settings…

    “The food doesn’t just buy itself, deliver itself, cook itself,” Mr. Frey said Friday, adding that the Trump administration had tried to “bully” Maine. “The message here is if you don’t follow the law and you try to target Maine without relying on any shred of law to support it, we’re going to have to take you to court.”

    The White House deferred comment to the Agriculture Department. 

    Ms. Mills said in a statement that the Trump administration had made an “unlawful attempt to freeze critical funding.” But the agreement, she said, will preserve healthy meals for about 170,000 schoolchildren across Maine.

    That’s the thing about bullies. If you stand up to them, they back off. They get their power by intimidation. At bottom, they are cowards. Take Trump. He dodged the draft. Five times. Don’t be afraid of him.



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  • California school districts are weighed down by new costs of old sexual assaults

    California school districts are weighed down by new costs of old sexual assaults


    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

    School districts’ costs for compensating students victimized by sexual assault are escalating by billions of dollars. Many cases date back decades and were revived by a 2019 state law that widely expanded liability exposure to schools and other public agencies for past child sexual assaults. 

    An independent analysis of that law indicates a severe impact. Litigation will siphon tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars from general funds. Adverse jury verdicts and settlements could cost districts millions, potentially forcing layoffs and program reductions. Most districts will face record assessments to sustain shared insurance risk pools they contribute to. 

    In the worst case, districts will seek costly emergency state loans or bankruptcy protection — unless, the study said, the overall liability burden is spread “to protect the stability” of school districts.

    California’s elementary and secondary school system “will survive the challenge presented by the claims of childhood sexual assault. But individual school districts, charter schools and other agencies may not,” concluded the sober assessment of the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT), a state agency charged with preventing districts’ financial meltdowns.

    Troy Flint, chief of communications for the California School Boards Association, said FCMAT’s report should prompt action. “We have called upon the state to develop a safety net to defray costs that threaten school districts with insolvency. The report is another opportunity to reiterate this request,” he said.

    The report doesn’t name districts or describe how they’re coping. But one district that might not survive is Carpinteria Unified, a 1,900-student district south of Santa Barbara with a $42 million budget. 

    Next year, it’s scheduled for trial for four claims of sexual assault from the 1970s. The district lacks historical records, and the insurance company at the time went out of business, leaving the district on the hook, said Superintendent Diana Rigby. The abuser, a principal convicted of sexual assaults, has died, as have potential witnesses and the then superintendent, she said. Legal costs over several years will force budget cuts, she said. 

    “We all believe that victims deserve their due justice and compensation. Of course we do,” said Rigby. But “an unfavorable verdict would be catastrophic.”

    Among its 22 recommendations, FCMAT proposes the state create a voluntary victims’ compensation fund like the one for victims of the Sept.11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Victims would generally be compensated in a nonjudicial setting based on the crime’s severity and victims’ experiences. Legislators would decide if the state would share the funding burden.

    The Legislature unanimously passed Assembly Bill 218, which precipitated the surge in lawsuits, in October 2019. The law:

    • Extended the statute of limitations to file a child sexual assault lawsuit from age 26 (eight years after turning 18) to age 40.  
    • Extended the statute of limitations for those over 40 to within five years of when victims reasonably should have discovered repressed memories of a sexual assault.
    • Enabled victims of assaults whose statutes of limitations had expired to file lawsuits by Dec. 31, 2022.

    In 2023, the Legislature took the next step and passed Assembly Bill 452, which eliminated any statute of limitation for new lawsuits for sexual assaults filed after Jan. 1, 2024.

    AB 218’s just intentions, unknown costs

    The Legislature acted after a decade of shocking revelations and massive settlements, including by the Boy Scouts of America and the Catholic Church, as well as the $169 million that Los Angeles Unified paid on 150 claims of sexual abuse by one teacher at Miramonte Elementary. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has acknowledged paying more than $1.5 billion from various settlements. 

    The Legislature signaled in AB 218 that schools, county offices of education, cities and public bodies with programs for children should be accountable for lifelong harm caused by sexual assaults under their watch.  The author, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzales, D-San Diego, said it would “confront the pervasive problem of cover-ups in institutions, from schools to sports leagues.”

    The Legislature’s fiscal analysis cited “unknown costs” but projected higher insurance premiums.

    Dave George, CEO of the Schools Excess Liability Fund (SELF), a public agency that provides school districts with catastrophic insurance coverage, added that districts had difficulty convincing legislators there would be “real money out of the pockets of districts” from rising costs of insurance and settlements. “The general response was, ‘Don’t worry about it — it’s just insurance,’” George said. 

    Hard information on claims is unavailable because there is no database on sexual assault outcomes. Creating a central repository is FCMAT’s first recommendation. The most recent data is from 2023.

    FCMAT’s best estimate of the dollar value of claims filed because of the law was $2 billion to $3 billion for school districts, including about $500 million facing Los Angeles Unified. Other public agencies’ costs will significantly exceed that value, the report said. 

    But with many claims still in the courts, the final damages are unknown. Mike Fine, FCMAT’s CEO and coauthor of the report, acknowledged they might be higher than estimated. The average claim is about $2.5 million per victim, Fine said.

    The estimate doesn’t include the cost of insurance, which has risen an estimated 700% — to about $255,000 for a 10,000-student district since the passage of AB 218, the report said, plus coverage now required of nonprofits and day care providers working in districts. It also doesn’t include new lawsuits being filed daily, said Fine. 

    George said SELF had two sexual assault claims open in 2020 and has received 400 claims for 600 plaintiffs since. SELF provides catastrophic insurance for claims up to $55 million for about 500 school districts. It notified them to expect $300 million to $400 million in supplementary assessments for ongoing and new AB 218 claims.

    George said that districts settled all but two recent lawsuits before going to trial. One that didn’t — and paid a stiff price — was Moreno Valley in Riverside County, the state’s 23rd largest district. A jury found it responsible for failing to protect two middle school students from a teacher’s sexual abuse in the 1990s. The jury levied $135 million in damages.

    Moreno Valley negotiated the price down to $45 million in order to pay a lump sum. SELF covered $15 million; Moreno Valley paid $30 million from its budget reserves.

    But the district isn’t out of the woods. The teacher remained on the payroll for two decades, and the district still faces four more potentially expensive lawsuits. The district declined to comment for this story.

    Adding to small districts’ financial vulnerability, said Fine, is that “a jury doesn’t distinguish between the size of the district and its ability to pay. Jurors can’t be told that information.” 

    Rising costs of ‘social inflation’

    The report said that the $100-plus million settlements contribute to “social inflation” — rising costs because of more lawsuits, plaintiff-friendly verdicts and larger jury awards.

    These factors also have created a “perilously unstable” commercial insurance market, which public agencies like SELF rely on for additional coverage, the report said.

    Fine said that districts are already issuing “judgment obligation bonds” to make restitution. No district has sought an emergency state bailout as a last resort, but Fine said that will happen.

    “Generally speaking, the smaller the district, the higher that risk,” Fine said. 

    The report suggests that the Legislature revise statutes to lengthen payoffs and settlement deadlines. It urges lawmakers to immediately study a victim compensation fund. But the focus is on creating “zero tolerance” of sexual assaults by mandating student training to promote awareness, expanding work history verification and increasing staff training.

    Fine will present the report at legislative hearings. Leilani Aguinaldo, senior director of government relations for School Services of California, which advises districts, welcomes that opportunity. “It’s an excellent report. Schools have no resources for claims from decades ago,” she said. 

    Flint added, “The fears of schools are real.”





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  • Trump’s nominee says she may break apart, not shut down Education Department

    Trump’s nominee says she may break apart, not shut down Education Department


    Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee for secretary of education, answers questions from senators during her confirmation hearing while surrounded by family members in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

    Credit: Allison Bailey/NurPhoto via AP

    The nominee to become the next and, President Donald Trump vows, last secretary of education assured U.S. senators on Thursday that there are no plans to shut down the Department of Education or to cut spending that Congress has already approved for the department.

    Linda McMahon, however, said she would be open to moving programs to other departments, such as sending the Office of Civil Rights to the Justice Department.

    Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La, who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, brought up funding early in the two-hour hearing on the nomination.

    “If the department is downsized, would the states and localities still receive the federal funding that they currently receive?” he asked.

    “Yes, it’s not the president’s goal to defund the programs. It’s only to have it operate more efficiently,” she said.

    Closing the department, a longtime goal of conservative Republicans, was one of Trump’s campaign promises. Calling the department a “con job” this week, he has said repeatedly that McMahon’s goal should be to shrink the department, to “put herself out of a job.”

    But Trump also acknowledged that only Congress can dismantle what it established in 1980 during the Carter administration. At the hearing, McMahon affirmed that she would work with Congress to follow the law.

    With husband Vince, McMahon, 76, founded a successful sports entertainment company that later became World Wrestling Entertainment, and served as its president, then its CEO for 30 years. McMahon served as Trump’s administrator of the Small Business Administration in his first administration. She also served for a year on the Connecticut State Board of Education in 2009 and is a longtime trustee of Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, but otherwise has had little involvement in education. 

    Democratic senators did not press her on her lack of education experience, although Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, did push her to name a requirement for schools to show improvement under the Every Student Succeeds Act, the principal law determining accountability for K-12 schools. She could not.

    Instead, they questioned her on Trump’s plan to ship federal funding to states as block grants without federal oversight, his intention to expand parental school choice, and his threats to cut funding for colleges that allow transgender athletes to participate in women’s sports and for schools that continue policies for diversity, equity and inclusion, known as DEI.

    ‘Invest in teachers, not bureaucrats’

    McMahon made clear in her opening statement she is in sync with the president’s assessment of education.

    Calling the nation’s schools a “system in decline,” she said, “we can do better for elementary and junior high school students by teaching basic reading and mathematics; for the college freshmen facing censorship or antisemitism on campus, and for parents and grandparents who worry that their children and grandchildren are no longer taught American values and true history.”

    “So what’s the remedy?” she asked. “Fund education freedom, not government-run systems. Invest in teachers, not Washington bureaucrats.”

    McMahon expressed support for continuing federal funding for Title I in support of low-income students, and for students with disabilities under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). However, she will investigate whether IDEA should remain in the department.

    “When IDEA was originally set up, it was under the Department of Health and Welfare. After the Department of Education was established, it shifted over there,” she said. “I’m not sure that it’s not better served in Health and Human Services, but I don’t know.  If I’m confirmed, it is of high priority to make sure that the students who are receiving disability funding (are) not impacted.”

    Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-New Hampshire, called her commitment to continued funding “gaslighting.”

    Even as the hearing was happening, Republicans in the House were working on “reconciliation” bills that called for possibly balancing massive continued personal income tax cuts with hundreds of billions in funding cuts for Medicaid and education. 

    This week, Elon Musk’s budget-cutting SWAT team known as DOGE, cut $881 million in research contracts without notice. Other education grants associated with DEI received termination notices, too.

    McMahon said DOGE’s “audit” of the department was appropriate. “I believe the American people spoke loudly in the election last November, to say that they want to look at waste, fraud and abuse in our government.” Trump recently fired the Department of Education’s independent inspector general, Sandra D. Bruce, whose job was to root out waste, fraud and abuse.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm9QfK8zDU0

    Watch: Linda McMahon said DOGE’s “audit” of the department was appropriate.

    “I understand an audit,” Murray said. “But when Congress appropriates money, it is the administration’s responsibility to put that out, as directed by Congress who has the power of the purse. So what will you do if the president or Elon Musk tells you not to spend money Congress has appropriated to you?”

    “We’ll certainly expend those dollars that Congress has passed,” McMahon responded. “But I do think it is worthwhile to take a look at the programs before the money goes out the door. It’s much easier to stop the money before it goes out the door than it is to claw it back.”

    Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said schools across the nation are “scrambling because they have no idea what DEI means” and are worried they will lose funding. He presented two scenarios that pointed to ambiguities in the executive order.

    If a school in Connecticut celebrates Martin Luther King Day events and programming teaching about Black history, does it violate or run afoul of DEI prohibitions? he asked.

    “Not, in my view, that is clearly not the case,” McMahon said. “That celebration of Martin Luther King Day and Black History Month should be celebrated throughout all of our schools.”

    Murphy continued, “What about educational programming centered around specific ethnic and racial experiences? My son is in a public school. He takes African American History. Could you perhaps be in violation of this executive order?”

    “I’m, I’m not quite certain,” McMahon said. “I would like to take a look at these programs and fully understand the breadth of the executive order and get back to you on that.”

    As with all of Trump’s nominees so far, McMahon is expected to win a majority vote in the Senate, possibly along party lines, later this month.  





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