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  • How more Hispanic teachers could change the face of California education

    How more Hispanic teachers could change the face of California education


    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

    California has had a racial imbalance between its teacher workforce and its student population for years, with a majority Hispanic student population being taught by teachers who are mostly white. That could be changing, as more people of Hispanic heritage enroll in college teacher preparation programs in the state.

    Overall enrollment in teacher preparation programs in California has decreased in recent years, but the biggest declines have been among white teacher candidates. The result has been a higher percentage of people of color entering teacher preparation programs, according to the state’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

    In the 2022-23 school year — the most recent year state data is available — more than half of the new teacher candidates identified themselves as a race other than white. Nearly 40% of the 17,337 newly enrolled teacher candidates that year were Hispanic, and just over 33% were white, according to CTC data.

    That was a stark contrast to the racial makeup of the state’s teacher workforce that same year, when 55% of the state’s 312,124 teachers were white, and Hispanic teachers made up 25% of the workforce from transitional kindergarten (TK) through high school.

    “Over half of our TK-12 student population identifies, and the majority of our English language learners also are Latino,” said José Magaña, executive director of Bay Area Latinos for Education. “The research is pretty clear that not just Latino students and English language learners, but all students, benefit from having a more diverse educator.”

    Latinos for Education offers fellowships to support Latinos in the education system. The Bay Area branch of the organization also has a Latinx Teacher Fellowship program to support beginning teachers and paraprofessionals.

    Research shows that when students are taught by educators who reflect their cultural backgrounds and understand their lived experiences, it results in stronger academic outcomes, greater social-emotional growth, and a profound sense of belonging, said Kai Mathews, executive director of the Urban Ed Academy in San Francisco, which recruits and supports Black male teachers.

    “Increasing the number of Latinx educators is about more than representation — it’s about creating classrooms where every student feels seen, valued and is liberated to be their authentic self,” Mathews said.

    Changing California demographics

    The change in the racial makeup of teacher candidates coincides with the evolving population of the state, where 56% of the K-12 student population was Hispanic last school year, according to the California Department of Education. The number increases to over 60% for children younger than age 5, said Shireen Pavri, assistant vice chancellor of California State University’s educator and leadership programs.

    In the years between 2018 and 2023, the percentage of Hispanic teacher candidates has slowly increased from 31.4% to 39.7%, while the number of white teacher candidates dropped by 10 percentage points, according to CTC data. The number of Hispanic teacher candidates also has been increasing, although it dropped from 7,154 in 2021-22 to 6,934 in 2022-23, when the overall number of teacher candidates declined for a second consecutive year.

    California State University, which prepares the majority of the state’s teachers, had the largest percentage of Hispanic students in its teacher preparation programs in 2022-23 — nearly 50%, according to the CTC’s  “Annual Report Card on California teacher preparation programs.” The number is currently 55%, Pavri said.

    During that same time, the percentage of white candidates in CSU teacher preparation programs decreased, and the percentage of teacher candidates of other races remained flat.

    CSU is leading the way

    “Anecdotally, a lot of our Latinx population, who come into our teacher preparation programs, come in because they want to make a difference,” Pavri said. “They didn’t necessarily see people who looked like them when they were going through school. Many of them came in as English learners. They want to make an impact now on their communities and give back.”

    Some of the recent success at diversifying the pool of teacher candidates at California State University can be attributed to the Center for Transformational Educator Preparation Programs, which has helped to recruit, prepare and retain teachers of color, according to the university.

    Its Transformation Lab, a four-year program that recently ended, increased the retention rate of teacher candidates at some campuses and improved teacher placement numbers at others, Pavri said. At CSU Bakersfield and CSU Northridge, for example, the completion rates for Black candidates increased by 17% and 31% respectively between 2020 and 2023, and Stanislaus State doubled its student teaching placements for historically underserved teacher candidates at Modesto City Schools over a two-year period. 

    The center’s leadership is seeking additional funding to support similar programs in the future.

    The university also operates CalStateTEACH, an online multiple-subject teaching credential program that focuses on recruiting male teachers of color from throughout California.

    In University of California teacher preparation programs, 35% of the teacher candidates are Hispanic, 29% are white, 20% are Asian and 2.8% are Black. There are still slightly more white teacher candidates than Hispanic, 38% and 32.6% respectively, in teacher preparation programs at private universities and colleges.

    State programs bearing fruit

    The increase in the number of Hispanic teacher candidates in teacher preparation programs could be attributed, in part, to efforts by state lawmakers to ease the teacher shortage and diversify the teacher workforce by making earning a credential easier and more affordable. The state has offered degree and coursework alternatives to several tests, established residency and apprenticeship programs and paid for school staff to become teachers.

    District grow-your-own programs and the state’s Classified School Employee Credentialing program and apprenticeship programs are meant to diversify the educator workforce because school staff recruited from the community more closely match the demographics of the student body than traditionally trained and recruited teachers, according to research.

    “All of those state investments, particularly around affordability, have helped incredibly with bringing more Black and brown students into our teaching field,” Pavri said.

    CSU teacher residency programs outpace even the traditional teacher preparation programs in terms of the number of teachers of color enrolled, she said.

    Numbers for other ethnic groups flat

    Despite the efforts, California State University continues to struggle to attract Black teacher candidates, hovering around 3% for years, despite several initiatives to improve their numbers, Pavri said. 

    “While we celebrate this progress, we must confront the persistent underrepresentation of Black, Asian and Pacific Islander educators,” Mathews said. “Our classrooms deserve to reflect the fullness of California’s diversity. Ensuring this kind of equity in the teaching workforce isn’t just good for students—it’s essential to building the inclusive, transformative and liberating system our communities deserve.” 

    Statewide, Black teacher candidates made up 4%, and Asian teacher candidates about 9.5% of total enrollment in California teacher preparation programs between 2018 and 2023, according to CTC data.

    There are fewer Black teachers because of obstacles they encounter on the way to completing their education, including an unwelcoming school environment, disproportionate discipline and overrepresentation in special education, Pavri said. 

    Pursuing a teaching credential, where traditionally student teaching is unpaid, is not affordable for some. Teacher salaries, which are generally lower than the pay for other jobs with the same qualifications, and working conditions also are a deterrent for students from families with limited generational wealth, Pavri said.

    More needs to be done to keep teachers

    The increase in the percentage of Hispanic teacher candidates is positive, but not significant enough, Magaña said. In order to reflect student demographics, the state will need to make significant investments to recruit and retain educators.

    “The numbers are staggering around the number of educators that are leaving the profession, especially our Latino educators,” he said.

    Magaña, who was a classroom teacher for 15 years, said Latino educators often have to take on extra work on campus, whether it is supporting translations or family engagement.

    “It can be a lonely role,” he said. “Sometimes there may be just one Latino educator on campus, and without mentorship and community, and network building, it makes it easier for folks to not feel supported.”





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  • Why Texas is ahead of California on bilingual education

    Why Texas is ahead of California on bilingual education


    Wendell Norris Marquez teaches pre-AP Spanish to seventh graders at Lively Middle School in Austin, Texas.

    Credit: Zaidee Stavely/EdSource

    On a recent Monday morning in Wendell Norris Marquez’s classroom in Austin, Texas, students were getting ready to read a story in Spanish by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. But first, they discussed the differences between a story and a novel, and between a story and a legend.

    “Los cuentos son ficción (Stories are fiction),” said one student. “But are legends real?” asked Norris Marquez.

    No, the students decided. They may have started based on something real, but then they changed over time as they were told and retold.

    This is a sophisticated literature class. But these students aren’t in high school. They’re in seventh grade. And they’ll be taking the AP Spanish exam before they graduate from middle school. 

    “When I describe this class, I tell people it’s not really what you think in the back of your head as a language course, because in elementary, the kids already learned Spanish, so by the time they get to us, they’re already fully bilingual,” Norris Marquez said. “So it is about taking them to the next level. We learn literary genres, we talk about metaphors, we analyze poems, and we write essays.”

    This kind of advanced Spanish class is only possible at the middle school level because most of Norris Marquez’s students have been attending dual-language programs with instruction in both Spanish and English since preschool or kindergarten.

    It turns out that bilingual education is much more common in Texas than in California.

    “Anybody who studies bilingual education, English learners, dual-language students, eventually stumbles across this reality that Texas has this long and linguistically rich, multilingual, multicultural K-12 history, and California doesn’t,” said Conor P. Williams, senior fellow at The Century Foundation and author of a report called “Making California Public Schools Better for English Learners: Lessons from Texas.”

    According to the report, Texas enrolls 38% of English learners in bilingual education programs — more than double the 18% California enrolls.

    Williams also found that Texas’ English learners have consistently done better than California’s on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in both reading and math. 

    “On every single administration of the test, Texas is better, over and over and over,” he said. 

    It’s not clear whether Texas’ English learners are doing better because of bilingual education. Multiple other factors could influence scores. Still, Williams points out that the findings are consistent with research that shows that bilingual education helps students achieve fluency in English and do better on academic tests over time.

    “The research suggests that English learners in bilingual schools will score a little lower in English acquisition and in academics for a couple of years, but by roughly fourth grade, they should be outperforming English learners in English-only,” Williams said. “So you would expect to see that by about fourth grade, Texas, with its large number of bilingual programs, would start to really outperform California. You would expect that to be especially true by eighth grade. And that’s sort of what we see.”

    Money and a mandate

    Texas requires school districts to offer bilingual education if at least 20 children in the same grade speak the same language other than English at home, a mandate that dates back to 1973.

    By contrast, California voters passed a law in 1998, Proposition 227, that required English learners to be taught in English-only classrooms unless their parents signed a waiver. That law remained in place for 18 years, until voters overturned it in 2016. The almost two decades of English-only instruction set the state back, officials say.

    “The passage of Proposition 227 deeply impacted bilingual teacher education programs, resulting in fewer teachers earning bilingual certification over the past two and a half decades. Bilingual teacher education programs are still recovering,” wrote Alesha Moreno-Ramirez, director of multilingual support at the California Department of Education, in an email.

    After Proposition 227 was overturned, California published two documents that set out a vision and goals for expanding bilingual education, the English Learner Roadmap and Global California 2030. But Williams says these documents have no teeth.

    “There hasn’t been commensurate investment, accountability and oversight to make sure that these goals and vision documents matter,” Williams said. “Neither can make any school district do anything. It’s all voluntary.”

    Texas passed a law in 2019 that sends additional funds to schools for all students enrolled in dual language immersion, and even more for English learners enrolled. By one calculation, Texas schools receive $924 more per year for every English learner in dual-language immersion. The state also has a long history of bipartisan support for bilingual education, and the top education official reportedly sends his own children to a bilingual school. 

    In Austin alone, there are 57 elementary schools offering dual-language programs, in Spanish, Mandarin and Vietnamese. More than half of the district’s English learners, referred to as “emergent bilingual” students, attend these programs.

    At Perez Elementary, Spanish and English can be heard in classrooms, hallways, and out on the playground. One corner of the school library is dedicated entirely to books the students wrote themselves in both languages. Alongside a book that one child wrote about Roblox, a game creation platform, is a poignant story about a family’s journey to the U.S. from Honduras.

    Yadi Landaverde teaches fourth grade at Perez Elementary School in Austin.
    Credit: Zaidee Stavely/EdSource

    In a fourth grade classroom, as students prepared for a math lesson in English, teacher Yadi Landaverde walked them through how to say some terms in English and Spanish — right angle, obtuse angle and protractor, for example.

    Landaverde, who has been teaching for 10 years, said that explicitly teaching the differences and similarities between languages is especially important for students who recently immigrated to the U.S. and are not as familiar with English. This year, she said, she has eight recent immigrants in her class. Landaverde was born in Mexico and grew up in South Texas. Growing up, she only had English instruction in school. But she’s seen the benefits of dual-language immersion with her students.

    “As long as the first language is strong, students do tend to score higher on state tests,” Landaverde said. “I’ve seen that.”

    Her students were eager to share why they love bilingual education.

    “Being in a dual-language program is just the best thing you could do in school because you are learning two languages, and that feels like a superpower for everybody,” said Emil, 10. Austin Independent School District officials asked EdSource not to publish students’ last names to protect their privacy.

    His classmate Luis, also 10, emigrated from Venezuela two years ago, but first attended an English-only school in New York, where he didn’t feel like he could communicate with anyone.

    A fourth grade dual-language classroom at Perez Elementary in Austin, Texas.
    Credit: Zaidee Stavely/EdSource

    “I couldn’t understand nobody and I couldn’t talk to nobody. One time I got home, and I was crying because nobody talked to me,” he said. When he moved to Texas and began attending Perez, he said, he was immediately welcomed.

    “Now in class, I can speak Spanish normally without nobody saying that they don’t understand me,” he said. “And when I don’t know … something in English, I can just ask my friend that speaks more English than me and say, ‘What does this word mean?’”

    Mathilda, who has been in the dual-language program at Perez since pre-kindergarten and speaks Spanish at home, said it has helped her keep both languages strong. 

    “My cousins in California cannot speak Spanish, so I need to teach them to learn Spanish ’cause they don’t go to a program for bilingual,” she said.

    Middle and high school classes

    In Austin, 13 middle schools and five high schools have bilingual programs in which students take at least two classes a semester in Spanish. One is a language or literature course, and the other is a content class, like science or math. Many schools also have electives available in Spanish, like film history or web design.

    Down the hall from Norris Marquez’ class at Lively Middle School, Antonia Vincent teaches AP Spanish to eighth graders.

    “At the beginning, they don’t even believe that they can do an AP class, and they don’t understand, most of them, what is an AP class,” Vincent said. “But at the end, we have good results, and they are very proud of themselves.”

    Antonia Vincent teaches AP Spanish to eighth graders at Lively Middle School in Austin.
    Credit: Zaidee Stavely/EdSource

    The majority of students in the dual-language classes in middle and high school in Austin are students who have been enrolled in bilingual education since elementary school. But some are also recent immigrants.

    Advanced classes in Spanish can be empowering for recent immigrant students, Vincent said.

    “Some of them, in the beginning, they are very shy,” Vincent said. “And this class empowers them because they feel that we listen to them, so they are building their confidence.”

    One immigrant student wrote Vincent a letter saying, “Thanks to your class, I know that I can express myself, and that is empowering me to continue and to take this opportunity in my other classes.”

    The classes also have benefits for students who are not English learners. Caroline Sweet, the dual-language instructional coach at Perez Elementary School, sent both her children to dual immersion programs. Her oldest son, now in 10th grade, attended Perez and then continued in dual immersion at Lively Middle School and Travis High School. 

    “His advanced Spanish courses in high school are so hard that when I look at those texts, I’m like, I do not know what that medieval poem means,” Sweet said. “But I think it’s just kept him pretty astute and paying attention to language and then just kind of really flexible in his brain.”

    Patchy progress in California

    Dual-language immersion programs like the ones at Perez Elementary and Lively Middle School do exist in California. Los Angeles Unified, for example, has more than 230 dual-language programs that span transitional kindergarten through 12th grade. But advocates for English learners say the investment of resources by the state has been piecemeal.

    “Access to bilingual programs varies wildly depending on the district, the community, and available resources,” said Martha Hernandez, executive director of Californians Together, a nonprofit organization that advocates for English learners statewide.

    Advocates and state officials agree that the biggest challenge is a lack of teachers with bilingual credentials. 

    Moreno-Ramirez, from the California Department of Education, pointed to recent investments to show that the state is supporting school districts to expand bilingual education. 

    In 2021, California invested $10 million for grants to expand dual-language immersion programs. In 2022, the state put another $10 million toward grants for helping train teachers in “effective language acquisition programs” for English learners, including bilingual proficiency. Most recently, the state invested $20 million in a program to help more teachers get bilingual credentials.

    These investments have been helpful, but insufficient, said Anya Hurwitz, executive director of SEAL (Sobrato Early Academic Language), a nonprofit organization that promotes bilingual education.

    “If we want to see multilingual education scaled in California, it’s got to be invested in,” Hurwitz said. “Money alone is not the answer ever to almost anything in life, yet we can’t pretend that it’s not an important ingredient.”

    Williams agreed.

     “227 is a real thing, no question. But 227 ended almost a decade ago,” said Williams. “At some level, if you’re going to be a progressive leader on this, it’s been a decade, it’s time, you can’t blame that anymore.”





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  • At LA’s Homeboy Art Academy, arts education saves lives

    At LA’s Homeboy Art Academy, arts education saves lives


    Fabian Debora uses art as a tool for gang prevention at Homeboy Art Academy in LA.

    Credit: Courtesy of Fabian Debora

    As a restless eighth grader at Dolores Mission Catholic School in Los Angeles, Fabian Debora often drew pictures at his desk. One day the teacher confiscated his artwork and ripped it up in front of the whole class. Debora, who cherishes his drawing, felt betrayed. He lost his temper, threw a desk at the teacher and got expelled.

    The incident led to an epiphany. Debora was summoned before Father Greg Boyle, the beloved parish priest who runs Homeboy Industries, a renowned gang intervention program in East Los Angeles. Instead of chastising him, Boyle asked Debora to draw him something and later persuaded his probation officer to let him work as an apprentice to Wayne Healy, a pioneer in the city’s Chicano mural movement. Art became his lifeline.

    “I realized that I’m an artist,” said the soft spoken Debora, 49. “I discovered it young enough to know that this is something that belonged to me, and no one’s gonna take that from me. And I held onto it.”

    That drive led him to co-found Homeboy Art Academy, a group that uses arts education to empower formerly gang-involved and incarcerated youth.

    “Man, as a formerly incarcerated, gang-involved individual, there aren’t many spaces for me,” he said. “I don’t have the means to go join an art school of some sort. So I’ll have to create a space where these kids can come and all services are free.” 

    A mural titled “The Power of the Woman,” by Fabian Debora.
    Credit: Courtesy of Fabian Debora

    Part sanctuary, part vocational training center and part studio, the academy resists the notion that art is a precious and rarified pursuit for the elite. Here art is raw and real. You learn to paint your truth, to be unblinking about what you see, but also to feel the freedom of a blank canvas.

    “They are the absolute best, completely authentic, devoted to helping people,” said Diane Luby Lane, founder of the poetry education group, Get Lit. “Fabian teaches people to be artists. He respects and utilizes real life experiences and perspectives.”

    The recipient of the prestigious National Endowment of the Arts Heritage Fellowship, Debora believes art has the power to change lives. In addition to working as an artist, he is also a teacher and mentor to others seeking to find purpose through art.

    “Let’s flip arts education on its head,” said Debora, as he walked around his studio at the art academy. “Let’s take the language and the vocabulary of the arts and tailor it to the lived experiences of this population while introducing relevant information such as in hip hop and street art.” 

    Born in El Paso, Texas, Debora first discovered art as a little boy weathering a tumultuous childhood in Boyle Heights, which he describes as  “one of the roughest projects east of the Mississippi.” The tension bled into his family life, he said. He remembers hiding when his parents fought. 

    “I used to blame myself,” he recalled wistfully. “I would go and hide under a coffee table, and I would start to sketch, and I would just create my own world to escape my reality. That’s when I found art to be more than just a gift. It was almost like a big brother who held me.”

    Violence was embedded in the ecosystem he grew up in, with eight gangs jostling for supremacy and few safe spaces from crime and addiction. By 12, he joined a gang, began to deal drugs and got addicted to them.  He wrestled with substance abuse for years before trying to commit suicide at 30, by running across the freeway. That’s when he found his spiritual center and his salvation, his cause. 

    Now he tries to bring the succor of art to young people who feel hopeless to shape their own destiny. 

    Artist Fabian Debora teaches the art of painting, graffiti and street murals to students at LA’s Homeboy Academy.
    Credit: Courtesy of Homeboy Academy

    “Art is a vehicle for healing, art is motivating,” says Debora. “It gives you a sense of breathing room, you’re escaping from your realities, as you’re creating. You feel inspired when you realize what beautiful work of art has come out of this. It opens up senses in the brain that haven’t been tapped into.” ​​

    While Debora specializes in visual art, the academy also offers classes in everything from creative writing and photography, to coding and poetry. He takes on those who believe they have nothing to lose. That’s who he used to be.

    “I want the kids who are hanging out in the basketball court smoking weed all day, kids who are overlooked,” he says, lingering in front of the academy’s altar to indigenous gods. “If you’re gang related and struggling with a drug problem, if you’ve been incarcerated, that’s what qualifies you for this program.”

    The impact of Debora’s work resonates throughout the Los Angeles arts community. It’s been a formidable example of how creativity can transform the arc of a person’s life. 

    “It’s astounding what they do at Homeboy,” says Austin Beutner, former LAUSD Superintendent and author of the arts education mandate, Prop. 28. “It’s hard work but they save lives, one by one. It shows you the power of art. You can be 8 or 28 and the arts can change your life.” 

    As a young man in ‘80s Los Angeles, Debora responded to the siren song of hip-hop music and graffiti art, the vibrancy of youth culture. The murals became portals to often forgotten Chicano history and culture.

    A portrait of the Madonna by Fabian Debora.
    credit: Fabian Debora

    The ancient meets the now in this audacious body of work, from graffiti to fine art. Debora delights in juxtaposing the eye of the masters with a modern urban vibe. Some of his most well-known paintings are fashioned after the manner of Italian master Caravaggio but rooted in the grit of Boyle Heights, such as a portrait of a girl from the barrio striking the pose of the Madonna. He’s now working on a project that deconstructs the Sistine Chapel.

    “We are reclaiming the universal language of art,” he said.

    Troubled souls often find solace in the universality of dark feelings, the way a painting from the Renaissance can capture how we feel today. That is the power of art as activism.

    “Carravagio was also an outcast,” he said. “He was a thug, a killer, a murderer yet he found his spirituality through art.”

    Debora uses art like a scalpel to cut away the layers of posturing and pretense that many of his students protect themselves with. He uses art to get at the truths they try to hide, even from themselves.

    “The work of Homeboy Art Academy is transformational in providing youth a pathway, learning how to take ownership of their own stories, which are often negated by others who deem themselves more powerful,” says Merryl Goldberg, a veteran music and arts professor at Cal State San Marcos. “Lifting up voices at risk of being suppressed could not be more fundamental to a just and compassionate society.” 

    Art opens a window to another life, Deborah says. In addition to his work at the academy, he also teaches drawing to inmates at Tehachapi state prison. He cherishes his work with “the lifers,” because they need the solace of art the most. 

    “People need to be seen, they need to be heard,” he said. “It’s a sense of hope. When we come in, we paint windows on those ceiling walls so they can escape for the time being.”





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  • How Oakland Unified is helping immigrant students fill education gaps

    How Oakland Unified is helping immigrant students fill education gaps


    Teacher Shannon Darcey helps a student interpret a graph.

    Zaidee Stavely / EdSource

    Este artículo está disponible en Español. Léelo en español.

    In her home country of Guatemala, Maribel attended a one-room schoolhouse for two years, but the teacher was often absent, causing class to be canceled. She never learned how to read. The school closed during Covid, and she never returned to class until last year, when she moved to Oakland.

    Now 11 and enrolled in middle school, she is learning English and at the same time filling gaps in her education — how to read, interpret graphs and acquire other skills she never learned before.

    Maribel’s school, Urban Promise Academy, is one of four middle and high schools in Oakland trying out a new curriculum developed just for students who did not attend school for years in their home countries. School staff asked EdSource to only use middle names to identify students because they are recent immigrants. There is heightened fear among immigrant students and families because of the Trump administration’s promises to ramp up immigration enforcement.

    In Maribel’s classroom, though, no fear was palpable. Instead, there was joy.

    On one recent morning in her English class, Maribel and her peers were analyzing graphs showing favorite colors, favorite foods, favorite sports and home languages among students in a class. They were practicing marking the x-axis and y-axis, pronouncing numbers in English and talking about what the graphs meant.

    “How many students like pizza?” asked teacher Shannon Darcey.

    “Eight students like pizza,” responded a student.

    Teacher Shannon Darcey teaches new immigrant students skills like interpreting graphs at the same time as they learn English.
    Zaidee Stavely / EdSource

    About 3,300 students in Oakland Unified this school year — close to 10% of the total student population — immigrated from other countries in the last three years. Of those, at least 600 had more than two years in which they did not attend school in their home countries. These students are often referred to as students with interrupted formal education, or SIFE.

    The reasons students missed school vary. Some lived in rural communities far from schools, for example. For others, it was dangerous to attend school because of gang violence or war in their communities. Other students simply had to work.

    When students haven’t yet mastered academic reading, writing, or math in their home language, they have a lot more to learn in order to grasp middle or high-school level material, even as they are learning English. But if the materials or curriculum are designed for younger students, it can be boring or seem too childish for teenagers.

    Before this school year, Darcey taught English to recent immigrant students with a huge range of academic knowledge. Some students were reading at seventh or eighth grade level in Spanish, for example, while others could not read at all. She remembers some students being frustrated.

    “I had one kid … Every single day for six months, he was like, ‘I can’t read. Why are you giving me this?’” Darcey said. “He felt like, ‘Everyone else in here knows what is happening, and I have no idea what this is. Why are you telling me to have a book in my hands?’”

    For years, Darcey tried to access curriculum designed especially for students who have had big gaps in schooling. She had heard about a curriculum called Bridges, developed by researchers at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. But when she tried to get materials from them, she was told they were only available for teachers in New York.

    Julie Kessler, director of newcomer and English language learner programs in Oakland Unified, said many teachers she has worked with in Oakland Unified and San Francisco Unified were frustrated at not being able to access the Bridges curriculum.

    “And so it’s like, who’s got a bootleg copy of it?” Kessler said. “And it’s just been inaccessible to the field.”

    She said she has often seen students with big gaps in schooling disengaged in class.

    “They are experiencing sometimes an alternate assignment, sometimes sitting with like a Disney book or a children’s book, when even the scaffolded newcomer curriculum is inaccessible to them,” Kessler said. “We were seeing a lot of that because teachers didn’t have a way to connect them to what was happening.”

    Last year, though, Kessler was able to secure funding from the California Department of Social Services’ California Newcomer Education and Well-Being program, to develop a new curriculum considering the needs of Oakland’s newcomer population and aligned to the California English Language Development standards. She worked with some of the authors of the Bridges curriculum, who now have an organization called the SIFE Equity Project.

    The resulting Curriculum for SIFE Equity is open source, available to all teachers anywhere on the internet. And Kessler said there are teachers in San Rafael, Elk Grove, San Diego and Vista using it, in addition to Oakland. Outside of California, the curriculum is also being used in New York City and Prince William County, Virginia.

    “We’re hearing a lot of gratitude from teachers who are like, ‘Oh my God, finally something that I can use with this group of students that feels worthy of their time, that feels respectful of them and feels like it’s doing the skill building that we know that they need,’” Kessler said.

    The curriculum currently includes about 50 days of instruction — less than a third of a school year. Kessler said the district is now trying to get more funding from the Department of Social Services to develop a full 180 days, so it can be used for a full school year.

    Darcey said the curriculum has made a huge difference. She now has separate English classes just for students who have gaps in their education.

    A student’s “identity map,” used to organize information that will later be used in a slideshow.
    Zaidee Stavely / EdSource

    The class began the school year with a unit on identity. Studens learned how to say their names, how old they are, where they are from, what language they speak. They later put together “identity maps” with their name in the middle, and information about their hometowns, their ages, their responsibilities, families and what they like to eat and do for fun written in spokes all around. Then they created slideshows with the information and added photos.

    Fourteen-year-old Anallely’s map shows that she likes salad, fish and marimba music, that she speaks the indigenous language Mam in addition to Spanish, and her hometown is in the mountains and forest of Guatemala, where it is hot and rainy.

    Anallely only attended school in her hometown until third grade. After that, she stopped going so she could work with her father, planting and harvesting coffee on a farm. 

    She said she had never learned about graphs or maps to organize information before coming to school in Oakland. 

    “It’s very useful, because you can use them to define how many people like something or which is their favorite, or where they are from,” she said in Spanish.

    She hopes to someday become a doctor to help babies and people who are sick. She’d also like to travel the world.

    Most of Darcey’s students are new to reading in any language, so Darcey also works with them in small groups to teach them letter sounds, and how to sound out syllables and one-syllable words like tap, nap and sat, using a curriculum called UFLI Foundations, adapted for recent immigrant students by teachers at Oakland International High School.

    Teacher Shannon Darcey works with new immigrant students on sounding out syllables.
    Zaidee Stavely / EdSource

    Another student, Arturo, never attended school in his life until he enrolled at Urban Promise Academy at 14 years old.

    “In previous years, a kid like that in my class, I would’ve felt like, ‘Oh my God, they’re like totally lost, and it feels like they’re just sitting there 80% of the time,’” Darcey said. But she doesn’t feel that way about Arturo. “He is engaged, he’s trying. Can he read the words on the page yet? No. But he’s still able to follow what’s happening.”

    Darcey is grateful to work with these students.

    “They bring such an eagerness and excitement, a willingness to try new things that maybe other kids their age are not as enthusiastic about,” Darcey said. “They often bring a work ethic that I think can really help a lot of them be successful in school.”

    Giving these students skills to navigate the world is important, Darcey said, because they are already part of our society. 

    “We’re going to prepare them to be successful in their lives,” she said.

    Maribel, the student who only attended two years of school in Guatemala, said she was afraid to come to school in the U.S. at first, but now she looks forward to it.

    “The teacher speaks some Spanish and she always helps us if we need anything,” Maribel said. “I can write some words in English now, and I’m writing more in Spanish, too. And I’m learning to read.”

    A previous version of this article incorrectly named the literacy curriculum Darcey uses as SIPPS. She uses UFLI Foundations.





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  • Lawsuit charges misuse of arts education funding at LAUSD schools

    Lawsuit charges misuse of arts education funding at LAUSD schools


    EdSource file photo courtesy of Oakland School for the Arts

    Este artículo está disponible en Español. Léelo en español.

    Vicky Martinez feels cheated that her children haven’t had much exposure to the arts at their Los Angeles Unified (LAUSD) schools despite state funding through Proposition 28, the state’s landmark arts education mandate. She believes access to the arts could help them cope with their anxiety and ADHD, conditions that have spiked post-pandemic. 

    “I had more arts than my kids do,” said Martinez, mother of three LAUSD students in the Highland Park area. “That’s not right. It makes me angry that our kids are being denied the arts when there’s been so much research about how it keeps kids engaged in school. We should be making progress, and instead we are lagging behind.” 

    Many parents share her outrage. The families of eight students, including Martinez’s three sons, 12, 15 and 17, and the author of the arts proposition have joined forces to file a lawsuit against Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest school district, and its superintendent, Alberto Carvalho. The lawsuit, filed Monday afternoon in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleges misuse of funds as well as misleading the public in its rollout of Proposition 28 that sets aside roughly $1 billion a year statewide for arts education. 

    “LAUSD has willfully and knowingly violated the law,” said former LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner, who authored the proposition, “and as a consequence, is harming hundreds of thousands of students by depriving them of the arts education that they are entitled to under law.”

    The suit also claims that LAUSD’s mismanagement of Proposition 28 funds, particularly at low-income schools , has disproportionately impacted Black and Latino students, deepening inequity. The thrust of the law, says Beutner, is that all students, not just privileged ones, deserve access to the arts.

    “We have not received notice, nor have we been served with any lawsuit regarding Prop 28,” an LAUSD spokesperson said in a statement to EdSource. “That said, we have sought to clarify any misunderstandings regarding Prop 28, and we continue to follow implementation guidance as provided by the state of California to ensure that we are fully complying with the requirements of Prop 28.”

    The suit is the latest push for accountability on arts education funding. Beutner and a group of major unions, including UTLA, the local teachers union, SEIU Local 99 and Teamsters 572, wrote a letter to education officials last year demanding the state hold districts responsible for their spending. LAUSD was allotted roughly $77 million for arts education in the 2023-24 school year. 

    The unions are helping pay for the lawsuit, which comes at a time when the district is already facing mounting scrutiny over its handling of three large cyberattacks exposing sensitive student information and the appropriateness of its response to recent catastrophic fires.

    “LAUSD has done exactly what the law prohibits,” the suit argues; “it has eliminated existing funding sources for existing art teachers, and replaced those funds with Proposition 28 funds, thereby violating the requirement that the funds supplement rather than supplant existing sources.  Moreover, LAUSD has made no meaningful effort to recruit or hire new art teachers as required by the law.” 

    Given extensive research that arts education has key academic and social benefits, the law was designed to hire new arts teachers, and most schools are required to spend at least 80% of funds on staff. The plaintiffs allege that the district has been willfully misinterpreting the law and misleading families and teachers. 

    “Bottom line, there’s been rampant misuse of the funds,” Beutner said, “and the guidance and oversight has been insufficient.” 

    In an Aug. 15, 2024, memo to the board, Carvalho acknowledged spending new Proposition 28 money to pay for existing staff, which is not allowed. 

    “Given historic staffing challenges in filling Arts educator roles and because 80% of Prop 28 must be spent on labor, the District prioritized the use of Prop 28 funds to cover existing staff as well as hire new staff.” 

    The district argues that the law only requires an increase in arts funding for the district as a whole. 

    “The law requires that non-Prop. 28 arts expenditures at the district level are higher than previous years and does not factor in differences in spending at a school site level,” according to an LAUSD fact sheet.

    Beutner has long objected to this interpretation. The law requires that every school to increase its arts offerings, he maintains, so that all students have access.

    Cecily Myart-Cruz, the president of UTLA, the union representing about 35,000 LAUSD educators, claims the district has not been honest about its use of Prop 28 funds.

    “The superintendent pulling out a bulletin saying, ‘Oops, my bad,’ doesn’t work,” Myart-Cruz said. “If you have arts in school, you will change lives. … And so, I’m exasperated by the district’s lack of response and responsibility to providing arts educators for our babies and the communities in which we serve.”

    To be sure, similar issues have arisen across the state. Facing budget woes, some schools have used creative bookkeeping maneuvers to pay existing staff with the new funds, instead of actually adding arts teachers, experts warn. 

    “The temptation to redirect these funds can arise when schools face financial pressures in other areas,” said Allison Gamlen, visual and performing arts coordinator for the San Mateo County Office of Education. “This is a clear violation of the intent of the proposition and, unfortunately, not an isolated incident.”

    However, many other districts across the state, from Pacifica to Long Beach, have successfully used the proposition funds to build robust new arts ed programs, experts note.

    That disparity explains why many parents and teachers have been calling for greater transparency in how schools use the arts money, which landed in schools in February 2024. 

    “We want real support for the hiring of folks who can provide arts instruction, and I think that this is the righteous thing. This is the legal thing,” said Nicolle Fefferman, a veteran LAUSD teacher, who also co-founded the Parents Supporting Teachers advocacy group. “Who does this money serve sitting in a district bank account?”

    Families want a seat at the table. 

    “At many schools, there was no conversation about Prop. 28,” said Martinez. “Parents had no input.” 

    Make no mistake, the impact of any misspent funds on families can be severe. Martinez said that her 15-year-old son, going by the alias Julian in the suit, suffers from severe anxiety and feelings of despair, conditions she believes could be alleviated by the therapeutic influence of the arts. When her oldest son got his hands on a guitar, she says, he started to thrive. 

    “Arts improves learning, especially for low-income students,” said Martinez. “We are hurting them by not providing it.”

    Another plaintiff’s mother, going by the alias April T.,  says her son, going by Lucas, 9, only gets one hour a week of art class, the same as before Proposition 28. She says she pays for private music classes because none are available through LAUSD.

    Accountability is among the most critical issues facing the Proposition 28 rollout, according to a recent report by Arts for LA, a key arts advocacy organization. 

    “Teachers, parents and students should know whether, how, and when Prop 28 decisions are being made,” said Lindsey Kunisaki, who wrote the report. “They’ll be the ones to directly experience the impact of those Prop 28 decisions in practice, and moreover, they’re the experts in the realities of their own classrooms and communities.”

    Carvalho’s August memo also acknowledges that the district did not “consult with school communities specifically about Prop 28 Arts funding,” but will encourage principals to solicit feedback going forward.

    Many experts recommend an independent oversight committee of administrators, teachers, families and community partners to make sure that arts education funds are properly spent. Some may assume that county offices of education provide oversight, but that is not within their purview, experts say.

    Arts education advocates have long urged the California Department of Education (CDE), which is administering the new funding, to step up enforcement of the rules. Many have complained that the department has not provided enough guidance to schools already struggling with myriad post-pandemic issues.

    “The structure of the proposition did not include any provision to ensure adequate CDE staffing to address questions and the overall confusion that has been a common thread,” said Allison Cagley, executive director of Friends of Sacramento Arts, an advocacy group. “There was no one or two people at CDE that could adequately address the questions.”

    CDE officials could not be immediately reached for comment. 

    Amid the controversy, many parents are anxious to see Proposition 28 funds put to good use to spark engagement at a time of chronic absenteeism and widespread disaffection at schools. 

    “This is an investment in our kids,” Martinez said. “Our kids deserve this. We all agreed on this. The state of California voted for this. So why aren’t we doing it?”





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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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  • Education concerns remain high at LA County juvenile hall

    Education concerns remain high at LA County juvenile hall


    Minors detained at Los Padrinos juvenile hall in Los Angeles County.

    Credit: Richard Ross

    Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles County remains open a year after the state’s corrections oversight board deemed it “unsuitable for the confinement of minors” and four months after it ordered the center to shut down due to ongoing noncompliance with the state’s minimum standards for juvenile facilities.

    The problems plaguing the facility, located in the southeast LA city of Downey, include insufficient probation officers, students arriving to class late, abysmal performance on standardized education testing, and the center’s heavy reliance on substitute teachers.

    A court hearing that had been scheduled for Friday was to decide the hall’s fate, but L.A. County Superior Court Judge Miguel Espinoza deferred the decision until April, to allow for the completion of a re-inspection by the Bureau of State and Community Corrections, known as BSCC, the state agency that deemed it unsuitable after multiple inspections.

    Advocates say they are concerned that the situation could impact the quality of education the youth are receiving.

    “When we are thinking about young folks who are in these camps and halls, we want to make sure they’re having access to academic rigor that is deeper than just a packet, that they’re actually being challenged, and that they have the opportunity that when they leave these sites, to either return to their school of origin and be ready for the next thing — for trades, for college, for these things that allow them to be productive members of our community and society,” said Yasmine-Imani McMorrin, director of education equity at Children’s Defense Fund California.

    While the issues found at Los Padrinos appear to be improving according to reports from an ongoing inspection, advocates are skeptical because such moments of compliance in the past were short-lived.

    “We have a history of these independent bodies identifying issues with the education being provided, and then it might improve for a little bit, but then, once eyes are off or the settlement ends, we see those issues persist and get even worse,” said Vivian Wong, an education attorney and interim director of the Youth Justice Education Clinic at the Loyola Law Cchool, whose recent clients have included Los Padrinos students.

    This chaotic history has led to the formation of groups like the Education Justice Coalition, which started in 2020 to advocate for the release of as many youth as possible at the height of the pandemic and high-quality education for detained youth.

    Advocates like Wong insist that while conditions must improve inside the juvenile facilities, the priority should be to release youth back into their communities.

    “Our policy recommendation, and something we’ve been consistently advocating for, is keeping people in the community as much as possible,” Wong said of the education coalition. “If you don’t have the staff, we should really question why young people are in here.”

    In less than two years since its reopening, Los Padrinos has been plagued with accusations and findings of violence, allegedly incited by probation staff, and about the inadequacy of its programs, including the residents’ access to education. This site was to provide relief after two other juvenile halls, Central Juvenile Hall in Sylmar and the Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Boyle Heights, were shuttered and deemed unsuitable given their ongoing problems. Issues included insufficient staffing, lack of proper training on the use-of-force policy, as well as youth being confined to their rooms for too long.

    Los Padrinos itself was closed in 2019 amid allegations of abuse, with six officers charged with assault and child abuse the year of its closure, and a history of concerns about safety for both youth and probation officers. Then- California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, the county, and the county office of education entered into settlements in 2021 after problems were revealed with access to education for the youth. A 2010 settlement in a class action lawsuit showed inadequate education programs for the youth in the county’s largest juvenile detention facility. Reforms focused on 13 major areas, including literacy, instruction, transition, special education, and after care.

    School at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall

    Over 230 youth are at Los Padrinos and, as of Jan. 6, 190 of them were attending the hall’s court school, which is operated by the county’s office of education. They are all pre-disposition youth who are awaiting court action or transfer to another facility.

    The student population consists of 167 male students across 21 living units in the hall and 23 female students across two units. Students’ ages can range from 13 to 22 years old in grade levels from sixth to 12th. Some youth remain at Los Padrinos for months, up to a couple of years, but the average stay is about 22 days.

    A typical day at Los Padrinos is supposed to go as follows: School is scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m., and students remain for two class periods until 11:50 a.m. Then they return to their units for lunch for the next hour and a half, after which they return to class until 3 p.m. for their third and final period of the day. The only shortened day is Friday, which ends at 1 p.m. for teacher professional development.

    Probation staff are tasked both with taking students from their units to their classroom and remaining in the classroom while class is in session.

    But the BSCC’s inspection from December 2024 noted that inspections have found an “inability of facility staff to get youth to school on time due to lack of staff available for supervision within the classroom.”

    The issue seems to have subsided at least once in the last year and a half. During an annual inspection in June last year, both the county office of education and youth reported that students had not been late to class in months due to low staffing. That inspection was conducted by the county’s Probation Oversight Commission, a group created by the county Board of Supervisors in 2020 to monitor and advise the Probation Department and the Board of Supervisors as they implement justice system reforms.

    But that appears to be one of the few inspections since Los Padrinos reopened that found that students arrived at class on time. On-time arrival to class — of both students and teachers — has been listed as a problem during inspections more often than not.

    It is unclear how many instructional minutes students have missed due to low staffing, but the 2024 California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress showed that not a single 11th grader at Los Padrinos met the state standard for math, and just over 2% met the English standard.

    Students enrolled in LA County’s juvenile court schools take additional assessments referred to as STAR Reading and Star Math, which measure achievement and growth in the two subject areas.

    Assessment results for the fall of 2023 showed that 0% of students tested proficient in reading and less than 5% tested proficient in math.

    In the most recent STAR assessments from winter 2024-25, “urgent intervention” was needed for nearly half of all students in reading and about 44% in math. Just about 10% of students met or surpassed the benchmark for reading; 11.5% in math. The remainder were either bordering on needing intervention, or they needed it already, in both subjects.

    While the numbers indicate progress, they remain low for the students’ grade levels.

    At Los Padrinos, there are currently no reading specialists on staff, according to Erin Simon, associate superintendent at the county’s office of education. Reading intervention is provided by students’ teachers.

    Many students arrive with “very low reading levels,” she said, and the county education office has implemented intervention programs such as Read180 to increase reading levels.

    “They’re adjusting to their environment; there’s mental health and trauma,” said Simon, who was hired nearly 11 months ago to provide oversight over the county’s juvenile facilities, with an emphasis on Los Padrinos.

    “The complexity of it is knowing that many of those students only stay with us for a very short period of time, so we are always pushing to have more intervention and more instruction, but we also know that there are certain things that happen when a student gets here.”

    She added that more counselors are available now to help Los Padrinos students address mental health concerns, first addressing social-emotional learning and mental health challenges and then moving into academic intervention programming.

    On a typical day, students might be taught by their assigned and credentialed teacher, but it is not uncommon for a substitute to lead the class instead.

    While Los Padrinos, the county’s largest juvenile hall, has 33 permanent, credentialed teachers — up from 26 in October 2023 — they rely on nine to 14 substitute teachers on a daily basis, according to Simon. There are also seven vacancies at this time.

    “It does require a teacher who is really not afraid to work in those camps and halls; a teacher who can really build relationships with many of our students, knowing they have trauma and also some mental health issues, and so it does become a very difficult position to fill, especially at Los Padrinos,” Simon said.

    On the day of last year’s inspection by the county’s probation oversight commission, there were seven full-time teachers on the job and 16 substitute teachers.

    “It’s a huge problem, especially for this population, where they have adults come in and out of their lives, and, frequently, there is already so much instability in their education. They’re coming and going in and out of schools, transferring school districts,” said Wong about the reliance on substitutes. “If the teacher is not there, then they have to build up that trust again with the new person.”

    It can be especially difficult for a student who requires accommodation in the classroom, as is the case with Wong’s clients. She said a client, currently at a county juvenile camp, was doing well in school after having developed a relationship with a teacher. But when the teacher was out for a month, the student could no longer access his curriculum in a similar fashion, “because every teacher implements accommodations differently.”

    As the debate continues over whether Los Padrinos will close or remain open, in part depending on the result of the latest BSCC inspection that began last week, advocates are pushing to maintain the focus on the youth inside the hall.

    “We’re dealing with fires and fire recovery, climate change, housing, homelessness, all these things that overlap with our young folks and their needs,” McMorrin said. “But it’s such a priority to get it right, because there is no do-over for these critical years of youth and to do what we can to prepare them for this world.”





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  • How will changes in federal policy impact California education? Stay up to date here

    How will changes in federal policy impact California education? Stay up to date here


    Despite Congress working through a spending deal to maintain federal grant funding for Head Start over the next six months, staff members at Head Start are starting to fear for the program’s future and the potential impacts on the Bay Area’s preschoolers from disadvantaged backgrounds, the East Bay Times reported. 

    So far, there aren’t any signs that Head Start will face cuts. But Melanee Cottrill, the executive director of Head Start California told the East Bay Times that “the broad, overarching challenge is all the uncertainty.” 

    “Even in areas as relatively close-knit and compact as the Bay Area, every program is a little different to meet the needs of the community — whatever those are — in the places where they are,” Cottrill told the Times. “Regardless of what kind of organization you are, losing any chunk of your funding would be a challenge.”

    Funding approved on March 14 isn’t enough to help Head Start employees keep up with cost of living increases. And earlier this month, a Head Start program run by the Santa Clara County’s Office of Education had to hand out pink slips. 

    Meanwhile, in February alone, roughly 3,650 children in Contra Costa County received subsidized preschool. 

    Contra Costa County’s Employment and Human Services Department director, Marla Stuart, told the Times said several actions taken by the federal government — including threats to reject grants that support Diversity, Equity and Inclusion — have already impacted the program. 

    She also pointed to Project 2025 and claims that Head Start’s federal office is “fraught with scandal and abuse” and should be cut. 

    “I don’t take the ‘see no evil, hear no evil’ approach,” said Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia at a board meeting, according to the Times. “We’re not going to know until the end, but if we want to advocate to say, ‘here’s the impact of these cuts,’ no one is stopping me from talking about that.”

    Several legal experts, according to the Times, have said that grant money for Head Start isn’t in jeopardy, unless the program is specifically cut. 

    “I’ve got lists of where possible funding impacts can occur, and I think we have a responsibility to talk about that,” Gioia said, according to the Times. “We’re not creating fear, we’re talking about reality.”

    —EdSource staff





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  • Moments that defined Covid-19’s impact on education in California

    Moments that defined Covid-19’s impact on education in California





  • California Department of Education and California Department of Public
    Health issue

    joint guidance
    on the coronavirus to school districts.



  • Colleges in California and nationally

    move to
    online instruction in response to the coronavirus. The California
    Department of Education

    receives
    a USDA waiver that enables districts to feed students during
    coronavirus-related closures.



  • Newsom signs

    executive order
    assuring closed schools remain funded as schools throughout the state

    announce     closures and distance learning

    begins    .



  • State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond

    advises districts
    to plan for providing distance learning through the end of the school
    year.







  • Colleges

    begin to announce
    plans not to resume classes in person. CSU, UC later
    announce
    decision to keep most fall classes online.



  • EdSource analysis
    shows wide disparities in how much school districts will receive
    through federal CARES Act.





  • Newsom projects a $54 billion deficit and $19 billion less in
    Proposition 98 funding over two years for schools and community
    colleges. Proposed budget

    slashes     funding for preschool and child care plans, teacher development
    programs.





  • Superintendents of urban California districts pen
    open letter to lawmakers saying proposed budget cuts will
    set back restarting school.



  • In historic action, UC

    moves to drop
    SAT/ACT and develop a replacement exam for admissions.





  • College graduates forced to abandon the traditional celebrations and
    ceremonies associated with graduation
    turn to
    families or even video games to mark their accomplishments.



  • In Los Angeles,
    Oakland, West Contra Costa County
    , Sacramento and San Francisco, K-12 officials
    reconsider
    whether police should be in schools and activists urge for their
    removal in the wake of the George Floyd killing.







  • A spike in Covid-19 cases
    prompts
    more districts to plan for online education for the beginning of the
    2020-2021 school year.



  • State
    imposes
    strict regulations for school opening and closing based on counties on
    state’s monitoring list. Establishes
    waiver process
    to allow some elementary schools to reopen.



  • In response to new regulations, many school districts
    abandon plans
    for fall hybrid learning and in-person classes.



  • Los Angeles Unified
    reaches deal
    with teachers over distance learning while other districts struggle to
    finalize plans.



  • State health officials release first health and safety
    guidance
    for how colleges and universities can reopen, but most classes must be
    offered remotely and have other restrictions in place.



  • State-issued
    guidance
    permitting limited openings will apply to districts in counties on the
    coronavirus watch list, where schools are shut down, followed by
    guidance
    allowing small cohorts of 14 students and two adults for special
    education, homeless and foster students.



  • Los Angeles Unified announces
    plan
    to offer coronavirus testing to all students, staff.
    Power outages
    due to a heat wave hit California as school resumes virtually across
    the state.



  • Almost all colleges and universities
    open
    with few in-person classes, but dorms still house students and some
    campuses plan for testing and contact tracing.



  • Newsom
    introduces
    four-tiered color coded county tracking system to replace the previous
    monitoring list for counties. The “Blueprint for a Safer Economy”
    tracks counties by the number of Covid-19 cases recorded each day and
    the percentage of positive cases out of the total number of tests
    administered, both averaged over seven days. The system has had a
    major impact on a school’s ability to reopen for in-person
    instruction.



  • The U.S. Department of Agriculture

    reverses

    earlier plans, allows schools to continue offering free grab-and-go
    meals to any student, regardless of eligibility, as they did over the
    summer.



  • Lucerne Valley Elementary in San Bernardino County is one of the first
    public schools in the state to get approval to

    reopen

    under state’s waiver program.



  • California community colleges see

    drops

    in fall enrollment with some showing double-digit losses.



  • UCLA researchers announce

    research

    showing big jump in homeless students.



  • “Leading school superintendents

    call on Newsom

    to impose a “common standard” for reopening schools in California.”



  • Joe Biden is elected 46th president of the United States, with
    arguably the most ambitious education agenda of any president.
    California voters

    reject

    Proposition 16 to restore affirmative action as well as

    Proposition 15

    to raise commercial property taxes denying schools more revenue from
    this source in the future.



  • As Newsom “sounds the alarm,”

    pandemic surge

    puts 28 more counties in the “purple” tier, putting opening of regular
    classrooms on hold for millions of California students.




  • Impatient with Newsom’s policies on school reopening, California
    Assembly leaders

    press

    for all districts to resume in-school teaching in the spring.



  • Congress

    approves

    $900 billion Covid-19 relief package, including $82 billion for K-12
    and colleges, plus $22 billion for Covid-19 testing that could help to
    reopen schools. Of the $82 billion, $6.5 billion went to California
    for K-12 schools.



  • Newsom announces

    “Safe Schools For All” plan

    , which allowed in-person instruction in counties in “purple” tier
    with daily case rate of less than 25, and a $2 billion

    incentive program

    to bring back in-person instruction for elementary grades and students
    with special needs in prioritized categories by mid-February.



  • Supporters of former President Donald Trump storm the United States
    Capitol in a riot. California educators

    condemn and reflect

    on what many call an “insurrection.”



  • Gov. Gavin Newsom proposes a new state budget increasing funding to
    California colleges to stabilize tuition rates, provide emergency aid,
    and “re-engage” students who have dropped out due to the Covid-19
    pandemic. The budget also proposes $4.6 billion for summer school
    programs.



  • Teachers and other school employees in Mariposa County are among the
    first in the state to be vaccinated against Covid-19.


  • West Contra Costa Unified

    announces plans

    to create a permanent, virtual K-12 academy, citing concerns about the
    pandemic’s impact.



  • Newsom announces the creation of Safe Schools for All Hub, a site
    providing resources to school districts regarding California’s Covid-19
    strategies.


  • Covid-19 death toll passes 400,000 in the U.S., CDC announces.



  • In a news conference, Newsom announces streamlined vaccination efforts,
    including an age-based eligibility system and putting teachers high on
    the state’s priority vaccination list.



  • The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing extends a waiver
    allowing those in preparation programs to continue teaching as they
    finish their credentials, the latest move to combat a teacher shortage
    during the pandemic.



  • Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. surpasses 500,000, CDC announces.



  • The Biden administration confirms all schools must resume annual
    standardized testing, with modifications to protect against Covid. The
    requirement had been suspended in March 2020.



  • The California Department of Public Health reports that infection rates
    have fallen significantly, allowing many elementary schools to begin
    reopening.



  • The California Legislature approves a plan providing $2 billion in
    incentives for districts that reopen for in-person learning beginning
    April 1, starting with the earliest grades first.



  • President Joe Biden signs the $2 trillion

    American Rescue Plan

    allocating about $15 billion to K-12 schools in California to combat the
    pandemic and related recession.



  • One-year anniversary of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaring
    Covid-19 a global pandemic.



  • The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updates
    guidelines on distancing in schools in elementary schools. Elementary
    schoolers can safely distance from 3 feet, while middle and high schools
    should maintain a distance of 6 feet.



  • U.S. Department of Education announces California is behind on returning
    to in-person instruction.



  • CDC announces that about 80% of K-12 staff, teachers, staff and child
    care workers have received at least their first dose of the Covid
    vaccine.



  • Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second-largest school
    district in the nation,

    reopens for in-person learning

    after facing lawsuits and criticism from a group of parents for not
    reopening sooner.



  • The U.S. Department of Agriculture announces that it will continue
    reimbursing schools and child care centers for free meals, a move
    serving food insecure families during the pandemic.



  • The University of California system announces it will no longer consider
    SAT or ACT scores in scholarship or admissions decisions.



  • California announces a plan to spend $6 billion to expand broadband
    internet access to thousands of students underserved by private internet
    service providers during distance learning.



  • State rescinds mandate requiring schools to send home children who
    refuse to wear a mask, announcing that it will allow schools to decide
    what to do.



  • The University of California system announces that it will require
    students, faculty and staff to show proof of vaccination against Covid.



  • The California State University System announces that all faculty,
    students and staff will be required to show proof of vaccination.



  • CDC updates masking guidance, recommending masking indoors and in high
    transmission areas, amid a surge in the Covid virus’s new delta variant.



  • Several California community colleges, including ones in the Los Angeles
    Community College District and Los Rios Community College District,
    implement vaccine mandates amid surging cases.



  • California becomes the first state in the nation to

    require school staff

    to be vaccinated against Covid or undergo weekly testing.



  • Culver City Unified, in west Los Angeles, announces that it will require
    all students to be vaccinated against and undergo weekly testing,
    becoming the first school district in California to do so.



  • Several rural districts in California close schools, following an
    increase in cases of the delta variant of Covid-19.



  • The Los Angeles Unified school board votes to require all students 12
    and older to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19, becoming the largest
    public school district to do so.



  • The chancellor of the California Community College system announces
    student enrollment has dropped below 2 million students for the first
    time in over 30 years due to the pandemic.



  • A judge rules that California students with disabilities can resume
    independent study after Assembly Bill 130 was passed, requiring all
    schools to provide in-person classes. The bill made an exception for
    those who qualified for independent study, but shut out several students
    who had various disabilities preventing them from wearing a mask or
    making them susceptible to Covid.



  • The UC system announces it will stick with test-free admissions and will
    not replace the SAT and ACT with a new exam.


  • CDC announces the death toll in the U.S. has surpassed 800,000.



  • Several school districts, including Los Angeles Unified and West Contra
    Costa Unified, announce plans to delay vaccine mandate deadlines.



  • CDC updates quarantine and isolation guidelines, and California
    announces the state will follow them.



  • CDC reports 1 million active Covid cases in the U.S, the highest daily
    total of any country.



  • About 900 teachers and aides stage a “sickout” to protest the lack of
    Covid-19 protections in San Francisco public schools in the midst of a
    surge of cases.



  • Gov. Gavin Newsom announces that funding for schools and community
    colleges will increase to over $100 million in the midst of a pandemic
    affecting state revenue.



  • Newsom signs an executive order loosening state regulations for
    substitute teachers to combat staffing shortages.


  • Following a

    “sickout”

    protest by several teachers at a West Contra Costa Unified middle
    school, over half of Stege Elementary school’s teachers call out to
    protest Covid-19 policies.



  • Oakland-based research group Children Now releases report card detailing
    the effects of the pandemic, wildfires and racial injustice on
    children’s education and mental health.



  • Several CSU and UC campuses suspend in-person classes following a surge
    of cases.



  • San Diego State University sees a record number of fall 2022 applicants,
    indicating a bounce back to pre-pandemic levels.



  • The chancellor of the CSU system announces tuition will not increase for
    the 2022-23 school year as many students continue to face financial
    struggles due to the pandemic.



  • A panel for the CSU system recommends eliminating SAT and ACT exams for
    admission, following several colleges across the nation during the
    pandemic.



  • EdSource reports that graduation rates held steady during the pandemic.



  • CDC issues new rating system allowing most students in K-12 schools to
    remove masks indoors.




  • Covid-19 deaths worldwide surpass 6 million.



  • Two year anniversary of when the World Health Organization declared the
    coronavirus a global pandemic.



  • California ends school mask mandate.



  • President Joe Biden proposes $88.3 billion dollars in new discretionary
    funds for American colleges, a 16% increase from the previous year.


  • Almost 1 million Covid deaths have been reported in the U.S.



  • The National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers announces
    state-based preschool programs suffered from massive pandemic-related
    losses, including enrollment decline and loss of state funding.



  • Biden and the Department of Education announce an extension of the
    student loan payment pause until Aug. 31. The pandemic-era policy
    assisted millions of borrowers nationwide.



  • College students introduce a bill to add a 24-hour mental health hotline
    number on student ID cards due to the growing mental health crisis
    associated with the pandemic and other social justice issues.


  • U.S. Covid deaths top 1 million.



  • Newsom announces a revised state budget allocating $128 billion to
    schools and community colleges in the state, $20 billion more than
    initially proposed. The new budget is slated to provide $3.3 billion for
    districts affected by inconsistent attendance due to new Covid variants.



  • The Public Policy Institute of California reveals that science
    instruction decreased in K-12 schools across the state during the
    pandemic. More than 200 districts were surveyed, citing teacher burnout
    related to the pandemic and a lack of funding for science, technology,
    engineering and math programs.



  • California to provide free lunch to all K-12 students, expanding on the
    USDA’s pandemic-era universal meal program.



  • Several public universities and colleges begin in-person instructions
    with few Covid restrictions.





  • As educators worry about the pandemic’s effect on students, the state
    Department of Education announces it will delay release of standardized
    test scores from the previous year, prompting a public outcry.



  • California Department of Education

    announces it will release

    standardized test scores projected to show declines related to global
    pandemic. This is a contrast from the initial announcement indicating a
    delay.



  • EdSource reports that California students have performed significantly
    worse on state standardized states, highlighting another one of the
    pandemic’s impacts on education.



  • CSU board of trustees abandons a plan to require a fourth year of math
    for admission, citing pandemic-related concerns.





  • Gov. Gavin Newsom proposes a budget decrease for California Community
    Colleges and K-12 schools, while continuing to allocate funding for
    “learning recovery from Covid.”



  • Officials from the Department of Public Health announce plans to end the
    Covid vaccine mandate for school children.



  • Several elementary schools in Marin County institute a temporary mask
    mandate following an uptick in cases.



  • CDC adds Covid-19 vaccine to recommended immunization schedule for
    children ages 6-17.



  • CalFresh announces it will end two temporary exceptions allowing more
    students to qualify for CalFresh during the pandemic.



  • Despite hopes of return to a “pre-pandemic normalcy,” state data reports
    a decline in TK-12 enrollment.



  • Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers,
    testifies in front of Congress regarding Covid-related closures at
    schools.



  • World Health Organization announces that Covid-19 is no longer
    considered a global pandemic.



  • CalMatters reports that the Golden State Education and Training Grant
    Program, which allows those affected by job loss due to Covid to enroll
    in a college program, is set to end by June 15 in order to combat
    ongoing budget deficit.



  • School officials and union leaders for Los Angeles Unified reach
    agreement to extend winter breaks. If ratified, the measure will extend
    the school year in hopes of combating Covid-related learning loss.



  • State Legislature mandates a change in literacy standards, hoping to
    combat reading loss.



  • In a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court rules President Joe Biden
    lacked the authority to implement a plan erasing $400 billion in college
    student debt, leaving millions of people affected by financial woes
    during the pandemic in a limbo.



  • The Legislature announces two bills to combat a teacher shortage
    exacerbated by the pandemic, including one set to pay student teachers
    for their required 600 hours of instruction.


  • The state Department of Education

    plans to sue Stanford researchers

    to prevent them from testifying in a suit alleging that the state failed
    to prevent learning loss for low-income and other high-risk groups. Some
    professors from the university planned to testify regarding the effects
    of the pandemic on chronic absenteeism and student engagement/enrollment
    measures.



  • Reversing course, the department announces it will not pursue a lawsuit
    against the Stanford researchers.



  • Chancellor for California Community Colleges announces enrollment has
    increased, bouncing back after years of pandemic-related declines.



  • Los Angeles Unified School District announces it will no longer require
    employees be vaccinated against the coronavirus. The mandate was under
    controversy as many claimed it was discriminatory.



  • CAASPP Smarter Balanced assessments reveal that districts have done
    little to reverse learning loss due to the pandemic. The learning loss
    disproportionately affected Black, Latino and economically disadvantaged
    students.



  • Gov. Gavin Newsom proposes a rainy day fund to protect California
    colleges from expected budget shortfalls.



  • Los Angeles Unified loosens Covid restrictions, allowing children and
    school to return to school if symptoms are mild.



  • A study published by the New England Journal of Medicine finds that long
    Covid will have lasting effects on IQ levels and cognitive ability of
    schoolchildren.



  • California Community Colleges reports that the system has lost more than
    $5 million due to fraudulent registrations, a trend that has seen an
    increase since the pandemic.



  • Trump-appointed judge in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules
    that Los Angeles Unified employees can sue the district over expired
    Covid policies. The suit had been thrown out by a lower court as the
    rules were no longer in effect.



  • The New York Times reports that $190 billion given to schools to help
    students recover from pandemic-related learning loss did little to
    improve test scores.



  • Toddlers and babies born during the pandemic suffered from significant
    developmental delays due to its effects, the New York Times reports.



  • Los Angeles Unified superintendent announces that the district has
    recovered from some learning loss during the pandemic, with reading
    scores showing English proficiency increasing from 41% to 43%. Math
    scores also rose by 2 percentage points.



  • Study by Northwest Evaluation Association reports that a significant
    number of eighth graders are approximately a year behind in learning
    progress due to the pandemic.



  • EdWeek reports that district administrators have until Sept. 30 to claim
    share of Covid-related federal aid set aside to assist homeless
    students.



  • CSU system announces 461,000 enrolled students, the largest number since
    the beginning of the pandemic.



  • State data indicates improving scores on standardized tests, but not to
    pre-pandemic levels. Government officials say the scores show that
    districts are making up for learning loss.



  • The Center on Reinventing Public Education gives California a D grade on
    its reporting of the effects of Covid on students.



  • EdSource reports that several schools and colleges around California
    will receive over $45 billion in bonds for construction in a “post-Covid
    vote of confidence.”



  • West Contra Costa district announces it will cut several administrative
    and staff positions due to a budget deficit, citing declining enrollment
    and expiration of Covid-relief grants as causes.





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  • Trump signs executive order to dismantle Department of Education

    Trump signs executive order to dismantle Department of Education


    President Donald Trump, left, holds up a signed executive order as young people hold up copies of the executive order they signed at an education event in the East Room of the White House in Washington on March 20, 2025.

    Credit: Ben Curtis/AP Photo

    President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday directing U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to work toward eliminating the Department of Education, pushing forward a campaign promise to dismantle an agency that has long been maligned by conservatives.

    With a group of students as a prop busily working on school desks behind him, Trump said, “My administration will take all lawful steps to shut down the department.” 

    The order instructs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.” 

    The federal government funds less than 10% of public school budgets, though much of that money supports especially vulnerable students. The department also oversees programs that help students pay college tuition, including Pell grants for low-income students.

    The White House has already taken steps to gut the Education Department by roughly halving its workforce of 4,100, but officially eliminating the Cabinet-level agency would require congressional action.

    The administration has also vowed to ship other critical functions to other federal departments — services for students with disabilities and low-income students to the Department of Health and Human Services and student loans to the Treasury Department. 

    “Closing the Department does not mean cutting off funds from those who depend on them — we will continue to support K-12 students, students with special needs, college student borrowers, and others who rely on essential programs,” McMahon said in a statement. “We’re going to follow the law and eliminate the bureaucracy responsibly by working through Congress to ensure a lawful and orderly transition.”

    Children’s advocates were skeptical. The executive order “could result in a catastrophic impact on the country’s most vulnerable students and cutting much-needed funding will specifically impact students of color, students with disabilities and students in low-income communities,” the Association of California School Administrators said in a statement.

    Over the decades, Republicans have repeatedly called for shutting down the department, although doing so would require 60 votes in the Senate — unlikely because Republicans now hold only 53 seats.

    Nonetheless, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, chairman of the Senate education committee, said in a statement, “Since the Department can only be shut down with congressional approval, I will support the President’s goals by submitting legislation to accomplish this as soon as possible.”

    House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, praised the order in a post on X “President Trump is keeping his promise and returning education to the states,” but didn’t pledge to bring the issue to a vote. David Cleary, who worked on education issues on Capitol Hill for two decades, indicated he wouldn’t be surprised if Johnson didn’t.  

    “Leaders don’t like to spend time on things they know can’t get over the finish line,” he told the Washington Post.

    California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who has sued the administration over the wholesale firing of federal employees and abrupt cancelation of research contracts, said he would monitor how the executive order is carried out. 

    While acknowledging the obligation to go through Congress, “the Administration continues to do everything it can to destroy the department’s ability to carry out its most vital, congressionally mandated functions — with the clearly stated ‘final mission’ of shuttering the Department for good,” he said in a statement. “My office will be looking at what this executive order actually does — not what the President says it will do.”

    Trump used the executive order to continue his attack on equity-focused education programs. The Secretary of Education will ensure that Department of Education funds will follow federal law and administration policy, it states, “including the requirement that any program or activity receiving Federal assistance terminate illegal discrimination obscured under the label ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ or similar terms and programs promoting gender ideology.”

    In response, Jessie Ryan, president of the Campaign for College Opportunity, said the continued attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion and dismantling of the department “will leave millions of students and their families vulnerable to discrimination and deny them the opportunity to succeed in school, achieve their individual potential, and prepare for the future workforce. We cannot allow this administration to steamroll students and communities to achieve its agenda.”

    Guillermo Mayer, President and CEO of the nonprofit Public Advocates, attributed the executive order to the Administration’s larger aim.

    “Nobody should be fooled,” he said. “While this order purports to reduce federal bureaucracy, it’s part of a longer-term plan to eliminate federal oversight in education and give states free rein to redirect billions of dollars away from public schools and towards private school vouchers. The ultimate goal is to erode the public’s trust in our system of public education.” 





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