برچسب: Family

  • New California teaching standards increase focus on family engagement, social-emotional learning

    New California teaching standards increase focus on family engagement, social-emotional learning


    Students at Edison High School in Fresno.

    Credit: Fresno Unified / Flickr

    California’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing approved long-awaited revised Standards for the Teaching Profession on Thursday that emphasize culturally responsive teaching, social-emotional learning and family engagement. 

    The standards, which guide teachers’ professional development and evaluation statewide, broadly describe the knowledge, skills and abilities expected of effective experienced teachers. State law requires that they are updated regularly.

    During the meeting Thursday, the overwhelming sentiment — from commissioners members, speakers from the public, and the letters received — supported the new standards; however, some asked the commission to push back the 2025-26 rollout of the new standards to allow university teacher preparation programs, school districts and commission staff more time to implement changes.

    “The revised CSTP aims to rehumanize our system by focusing on the whole student, their identities and what’s meaningful in this world to them, not us,” said Leigh Dela Victoria, an instructional coach in the Fontana Unified School District in San Bernardino County.

    “They have the potential to transform all of our classrooms into culturally and linguistically responsive and sustaining communities,” she said. “As a coach, I can tell you firsthand the impact this type of teaching has on students when their identities, assets and agency are valued.”

    She told commission members that the current standards, approved in 2009, are out of touch with what needs to be taught in classrooms.

    The six overarching domains of teaching in the new document are similar to the previous standards, and are parallel to other state standards, according to the commission. The elements within the domains include definitions and examples. The six domains are also used in the Teaching Performance Expectations, which outline what beginning teachers should know.

    Going Deeper

    Domain 1: Engaging and supporting all students in learning – Teachers apply knowledge about each student to activate an approach to learning that strengthens and reinforces each student’s participation, engagement, connection and sense of belonging.

    Domain 2: Creating and maintaining effective environments for student learning – Teachers create and uphold a safe, caring and intellectually stimulating learning environment that affirms student agency, voice, identity and development, and promotes equity and inclusivity.

    Domain 3: Understanding and organizing subject matter for student learning –  Teachers integrate content, processes, materials and resources into a coherent, culturally relevant and equitable curriculum that engages and challenges learners to develop the academic and social–emotional knowledge and skills required to become competent and resourceful learners.

    Domain 4: Planning instruction and designing learning experiences for all students – Teachers set a purposeful direction for instruction and learning activities, intentionally planning and enacting challenging and relevant learning experiences that foster each student’s academic and social–emotional development.

    Domain 5: Assessing students for learning – Teachers employ equitable assessment practices to help identify students’ interests and abilities, to reveal what students know and can do and to determine what they need to learn. Teachers use that information to advance and monitor student progress as well as to guide teachers’ and students’ actions to improve learning experiences and outcomes.

    Domain 6: Developing as a professional educator – Teachers develop as effective and caring professional educators by engaging in relevant and high-quality professional learning experiences that increase their teaching capacity, leadership development and personal well-being. Doing so enables teachers to support each student to learn and thrive.

    “The revised CSTP features several key shifts from the 2009 version, chief among them a more holistic approach to teaching and learning,” said Sarah Lillis, executive director for Teach Plus California, in a letter. “For example, the move from goal setting to designing learning experiences shifts the focus from results to students’ learning. Another notable shift is recognizing that all teachers, regardless of subject-specific credential areas, are teachers of literacy skills.” 

    Family engagement is a key element of new standards

    The new standards also focus on family and community engagement, requiring teachers to find effective strategies for communicating and creating relationships with families. 

    “These standards provide an invaluable road map that will undoubtedly strengthen how teachers, schools and communities partner with families,” said Bryan Becker, of the Parent Organization Network. 

    Also new to the standards are two sections, one asking teachers to examine their personal attitudes and biases, and how these impact student learning, and the other asking them to reflect on their personal code of ethics. 

    After speakers expressed concern about the few references to English learners and students with disabilities in the document, Chair Marquita Grenot-Scheyer made a motion to approve the standards with amendments that would “shine a brighter spotlight” on those students.

     She also asked that the amendment include direction to ensure teachers attend individualized education plan meetings. School staff and parents attend these meetings to review the education plan of students with special needs.

    Revision put on hold for two years

    According to the commission, the revision was a long time in coming. Originally adopted in the 1990s, the standards were most recently updated in 2009. An expert group of educators, administrators, researchers and state education staff came together in 2020 to update the standards. The group met online five times between June 2020 and May 2021, but work was paused a few months later “as Covid and other critical world events demanded pause and reflection.”

    Over the past two years, the commission has been focused on other state initiatives that would impact the new standards, including the new PK-3 Early Childhood Specialist Instruction Credential and the implementation of revised literacy standards and literacy-related teaching performance expectations mandated by legislation. Members of the expert group returned in 2023 to review and finalize the document.

    Board denies pleas for delay

    The commission voted for the newly revised standards to go into effect in the 2025-26 school year, despite numerous requests by speakers to extend the rollout to give teacher preparation and induction programs and the commission staff more time to prepare for them. 

    Grenot-Scheyer also directed commission staff to develop an implementation plan that will support school districts and teacher preparation programs during the transition.

    Audry Wiens, induction coordinator for Fontana Unified, was among those who asked the commission to delay the implementation of the standards for a year. She said programs would need to come to a common understanding of the shifts that need to take place, revise relevant documents, train mentors in induction programs and update accreditation websites.

    Some wanted the standards implemented as soon as possible.

    “I am not an induction program provider, but it really causes me pause to extend any sort of timelines, because we have got things to do here,” said Commissioner Megan Gross. “… I want us to capitalize on this sense of urgency that we have to do better for our kids.” 





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  • California’s public universities come through – at least for one family

    California’s public universities come through – at least for one family


    UC Santa Barbara bids farewell to the class of 2024 across eight ceremonies on June 15.

    Credit: Rebecca Caraway / Noozhawk.com

    Last weekend I had the moving experience of attending one of the last of dozens of commencement ceremonies held on various campuses of California’s massive system of public higher education this academic year.

    The one I went to took place at a scenic site at the University of California, Santa Barbara next to the landmark UCSB Lagoon and the glittering Pacific Ocean beyond.

    Over 6,000 undergraduates received their bachelor’s degrees over the weekend — requiring the commencement to be staged in multiple ceremonies over two days to accommodate all of them. 

    The sight of thousands of students walking — or ambling or skipping — across the stage offered a graphic representation of what California has been able to accomplish on a scale not seen anywhere else in the United States, or perhaps the world.

    I was moved not only by the sheer numbers, but also when I reflected that almost all of them had missed out on their high school graduation because of the pandemic, and then had to start their college education by studying remotely from home.  And then this year, until just a few days earlier, even the location of the event had been in doubt against the backdrop of possible protests triggered by the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

    I was also moved because my daughter was among the graduates. 

    She was just one of the over 60,000 undergraduates who received their degrees from the 10-campus University of California system over the last few weeks — and the more than 100,000 who received similar honors at the 23-campus California State University system.

    As the graduates filed by, with names reflecting a dazzling kaleidoscope of different ethnicities and backgrounds, I thought about the great effort it took to get each one of them to the finish line — effort on the part of the students themselves, of their families and of the institutions they attended. 

    I confess that when my daughter enrolled as a freshman four years ago, I worried about the quality of the education she would receive — simply because of the huge numbers of students most UC and CSU campuses have had to take on. I had the same concerns when my son enrolled at UC Irvine a few years earlier. 

    I need not have worried.

    At a celebratory dinner a few hours after her graduation ceremony, I asked my daughter to name the worst class she had taken — and the best.  She easily remembered the worst one, but then, with equal facility, named four courses — psychopharmacology, psychopathology, population health, and the history of architecture in the U.S. — she said were outstanding ones. She enthusiastically described each of them, including the professors who taught them. It was exhilarating to see a young person, and my daughter no less, so excited about learning and scholarship.

    My son had a similar experience at UC Irvine, where he majored in data science, and then, partially as a result of the pandemic, stayed for an extra year to get his master’s degree in statistics. He now has a job at Google.

    Both of them say they got a high-quality education on their campuses. This was achieved despite the huge increases in enrollment in recent decades.

    UC Santa Barbara this year, for example, awarded about 50% more undergraduate degrees than two decades ago. 

    I could easily see the impact these increases had on my daughter and her friends. Before moving to an off-campus apartment, she lived in a three-bedroom campus apartment with six other students, with two students in each of two tiny bedrooms, and three in the small room my daughter was in.  It was tough to get into all the classes she wanted to take.

    But she made it through, pandemic and all.

    Unbeknownst to them, what she and my son benefited from were the fruits of California’s ambitious Master Plan for Higher Education, drawn up in 1960, which aimed to provide postsecondary opportunities to “anyone who could benefit.”

    At the time, only 11% of adults of prime working age had bachelor’s degrees. As researchers from the Public Policy Institute of California point out in a just-issued paper, by 2021, that number had risen to 37%.  The state has now set a goal of 40%, which according to the authors, should be much higher.

    So enrollments are likely to increase, and there obviously is still work to be done to make sure all students are able to take full advantage of what our public universities have to offer. That includes making sure they graduate not only within a reasonable amount of time, but graduate at all.

    The overall four-year graduation rate for UC is 73%, a respectable number, but California can do better — especially among low-income students and those from underrepresented groups who graduate in significantly lower numbers. At the California State University system, which serves an older student body, many of whom are working, graduation rates are even lower.

    But California is at least on the right track. Rather than simply creating degree-granting factories, the state appears to be able to offer a high-quality academic experience to its students — one that they, and California, will benefit from for many decades.

    Louis Freedberg is Interim CEO of EdSource.

    •••

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • RFK Jr. Takes the Family Swimming on Mother’s Day—in a Toxic Creek

    RFK Jr. Takes the Family Swimming on Mother’s Day—in a Toxic Creek


    The New York Daily News reported on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s unusual Mother’s Day outing.

    Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. celebrated Mother’s Day with his family by swimming in a contaminated Washington, D.C. creekused for sewer runoff.

    “Mother’s Day hike in Dumbarton Oaks Park with Amaryllis, Bobby, Kick, and Jackson, and a swim with my grandchildren, Bobcat and Cassius in Rock Creek,” Kennedy captioned an online photo putting him at the scene of the grime.

    The National Park Service explicitly warns that Rock Creek is not safe for humans or animals.

    “Rock Creek has high levels of bacteria and other infectious pathogens that make swimming, wading and other contact with the water a hazard to human (and pet) health,” the park’s department states on its website.

    Swimming in D.C.’s rivers and streams has been banned since 1971 due to “high amounts of fecal bacteria from combined sewer overflows.” Signs at Rock Creek Park specifically tell visitors to stay out of the water to prevent illness.

    Kennedy’s decision-making skills have been called into question, even by members of his own family.

    “When RFK Jr decided to run [for president in 2024], he didn’t call me to ask for help because he knew I would oppose his candidacy due to his misguided stands on issues, his poor judgement and tenuous relationship with the truth,” said his nephew Stephen Kennedy Smith, according to NBC News.

    RFK Jr. quickly dropped out of the race and teamed up with Trump, who then tapped him to lead the Department of Health and Human Services in November.

    Dozens of Nobel Prize winners and thousands of medical professionals warned that the political scion, who has no medical training, wasn’t fit to run the nation’s health programs. His conspiracy theory-based skepticism on vaccines has repeatedly raised red flags.

    Kennedy’s own health has also raised concerns.

    In April 2024, the New York Times reported that he once testified a parasitic worm ate part of his brainand died inside his head. He also said he’s been diagnosed with mercury poisoning, likely caused by eating fish carrying the dangerous metal.

    Doctors with experience treating such ailments reportedly said patients can suffer permanent damage from those afflictions. Kennedy told the Times that wasn’t his experience.

    He has not addressed his decision to swim in Rock Creek.

    This guy is in charge of public health?



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  • Conflict of Interest? No Problem. Trump Family Will Collect Hundreds of Millions

    Conflict of Interest? No Problem. Trump Family Will Collect Hundreds of Millions


    David Yaffe-Bellany of The New York Times reported on a startling development in Dubai that will enrich the Trump family by hundreds of millions of dollars. Is it a conflict of interest? Of course. Will it matter to the Republican leaders in Congress? No. Has there ever been a President who used his office for financial gain so brazenly? No. Trump is #1.

    Gaffe-Bellamy writes:

    Sitting in front of a packed auditorium in Dubai, a founder of the Trump family cryptocurrency business made a brief but monumental announcement on Thursday. A fund backed by Abu Dhabi, he said, would be making a $2 billion business deal using the Trump firm’s digital coins.

    That transaction would be a major contribution by a foreign government to President Trump’s private venture — one that stands to generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the Trump family. And it is a public and vivid illustration of the ethical conflicts swirling around Mr. Trump’s cryptofirm, which has blurred the boundary between business and government.

    Zach Witkoff, a founder of the Trump family crypto firm, World Liberty Financial, revealed that a so-called stable coin developed by the firm, would be used to complete the transaction between the state-backed Emirati investment firm MGX and Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world.

    Virtually every detail of Mr. Witkoff’s announcement, made during a conference panel with Mr. Trump’s second-eldest son, contained a conflict of interest.

    MGX’s use of the World Liberty stablecoin, USD1, brings a Trump family company into business with a venture firm backed by a foreign government. The deal creates a formal link between World Liberty and Binance — a company that has been under U.S. government oversight since 2023, when it admitted to violating federal money-laundering laws.

    And the splashy announcement served as an advertisement to crypto investors worldwide about the potential for forming a partnership with a company tied to President Trump, who is listed as World Liberty’s chief crypto advocate.

    “We thank MGX and Binance for their trust in us,” said Mr. Witkoff, who is the son of the White House envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff. “It’s only the beginning.”

    Mr. Witkoff and Eric Trump were speaking on a panel at Token2049, a major crypto conference in the United Arab Emirates, where more than 10,000 digital currency enthusiasts have gathered for a week of networking. It was the latest stop in an international tour by Mr. Witkoff, who visited Pakistan last month with his business partners to meet the prime minister and other government officials. Eric Trump, who runs the family business, has spent the week in Dubai, where he announced plans to back a Trump-branded hotel and tower.

    There is more.

    This is a gift article so you should be able to read it in full even without a subscription.



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