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  • Report finds Chico State followed existing policies in investigating embattled professor

    Report finds Chico State followed existing policies in investigating embattled professor


    Chico State University followed proper procedures in how it handled the sex investigation of suspended professor David Stachura and its lengthy aftermath, including not informing faculty and students that Stachura allegedly threatened gun violence on campus, an independent investigation has found.

    The 20-page report by San Diego lawyer Nancy Aeling was released late Monday afternoon by the university, nearly a year after EdSource first reported on findings that Stachura had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a student and allegedly threatened to shoot two colleagues who cooperated in an investigation of the matter, and was later named the university’s Outstanding Professor of the 2020-21 school year.

    “The university acted consistently with policy by not notifying the Chico State community of Stachura’s alleged threats of violence,” Aeling wrote. Stachura, according to court testimony by his estranged wife, had told her of his intent to kill two professors who cooperated in the 2021 investigation that found he had an inappropriate relationship, which included sex in his office, with a student. Separately, a biology lecturer revealed — and later testified — that Stachura spoke to her about committing a shooting in the biology department.

    Aeling did not respond to a phone message left at her office on Monday.

    The report was also not critical of the university’s Campus Violence Consultation Team, which recommended that Stachura be allowed to return to campus after investigating the alleged threats against his colleagues and “did not find that he posed a threat of violence.”

    A member of that team, Chico State Police Chief Christopher Nicodemus, testified in a court proceeding earlier this year that he did not agree with the team’s findings.

    “There were concerns” about Stachura, Nicodemus said on the stand in a legal proceeding that resulted in a judge issuing a three-year workplace violence restraining order against Stachura that bars him from going on campus or near the people he threatened.

    Nicodemus said on the stand that he believed “it’s safer to err on the side of caution” when making a threat assessment. He added that it would have been better to have mistakenly fired Stachura than live with the aftermath of a violent event.

    Aeling wrote in the report that she did not consider “the appropriateness of Stachura’s actions or communications with his colleagues nor his colleagues’ responses to Stachura and his continued presence on campus, or the overall effectiveness of the procedures or policies in place to address the situation presented by (his) actions or communications.” Rather, the report was limited to “whether (the) responses were reasonable given the information available at the time and were consistent with the policies and procedures governing them.” The report makes no policy recommendations.

    A faculty union officer ripped the report Monday night.

    “It’s absolutely demoralizing and heartbreaking that no one has taken any accountability for what has happened,’’ Lindsay Briggs, a public health professor and a California Faculty Association Chico Campus Executive Board member, wrote in an email to EdSource.

    “This is why survivors of violence don’t speak out and why we don’t feel safe at our jobs; because we’re not. No one cares to do anything other than offer empty platitudes.” Eleven “months of hand wringing and we’re no better off than we were before,” she said. 

    Gordon Wolfe, a professor who turned over court records about Stachura’s alleged threat to kill witnesses, said in a phone interview Monday evening that he received an email from Chico State saying that Aeling wanted to interview him, but that “she never followed up.”

    Stachura remains on administrative leave as the university finishes an investigation of his alleged threat to kill witnesses in the sex case. He was recently ordered by a judge to pay more than $64,000 for the legal fees of a lecturer he unsuccessfully sued for libel. His lawyer did not respond to a request to comment on Aeling’s report.

    In a prepared statement that accompanied the report’s release, Chico State President Stephen Perez said, “I appreciate the thorough review and the opportunity to consider our practices moving forward.” 

    Without mentioning her by name, the report found that former Chico State President Gayle Hutchinson considered the sex case against Stachura as well as the alleged threats he made when approving “Stachura’s promotion to” full professor in 2021. Hutchinson found him “to be a highly productive citizen of the academy, with a strong record of teaching, service and research,” the report states.

    Hutchinson retired in June. She could not be immediately reached Monday night.





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  • Popular textbook evaluation organization hasn’t followed the science

    Popular textbook evaluation organization hasn’t followed the science


    An elementary student reads a book to himself during class.

    Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education

    California’s recent NAEP report card showing our fourth- and eighth-grade students performing below pre-pandemic levels in reading is an urgent wake-up call. 

    As California considers how best to support literacy improvement, one area we need to get right is approving curriculum materials based on evidence, not convenience.

    Unfortunately, one of the main resources states rely on for this is EdReports, an independent nonprofit whose evaluations many states and districts turn to when choosing a commercial curriculum.

    On the surface, this may seem like an efficient and convenient solution.

    However, EdReports, which was launched in 2015 to help districts identify instructional materials aligned to the then-newly adopted Common Core State Standards (CCSS), has long been out of sync with the body of scientific research about effective reading instruction, particularly in the earliest grades. Instead, it has used as its framework the Common Core Standards, which do not robustly address the importance of early foundational reading skills.

    In 2024, journalist Linda Jacobson of The 74 Million published the article “Critics Call ‘Consumer Reports’ of School Curriculum Slow to Adapt to the Science of Reading,” and Natalie Wexler highlighted flawed rubrics, lack of rater reliability and overstuffed textbooks that contain “a lot of time-wasting fluff” in her Forbes article “Literacy Experts Say Some EdReports Ratings Are Misleading.” These articles illuminate the underlying problems with EdReports’ methodologies. To date, EdReports has evaluated curricula against a subset of the Common Core State Standards and its own internally developed criteria — not against scientific research and not including any focus on English learners.

    Concerns about this misalignment are not new. More than four years ago, Louisa Moats, a nationally recognized expert on reading instruction, warned about flaws in the Common Core standards for young students:

    “There is so much in the Common Core State Standards that just doesn’t square with how the majority of children learn to read. For instance, there are incorrect assumptions made about pacing, some of which are simply wrong and others that reflect the needs of only a fraction of students in any given classroom.

    “Unfortunately, some of the people who led the development of the CCSS were more well-versed in research pertaining to middle and high school and didn’t have a strong grasp of beginning reading instruction. They didn’t understand the complexities of teaching young children to read. They didn’t know all the data about the pace of learning, the individual differences kids bring, and the sheer volume of practice that most children need to consolidate reading skills.”

    As a result, reviews on EdReports frequently promote curricula that experts have widely criticized for not being effective at teaching reading, while giving lower ratings to some that have been shown to improve literacy.

    Despite these underlying flaws in its methodology, many state education agencies continue to rely heavily on the convenience of EdReports reviews to create “approved lists” of curricula. EdReports’ sphere of influence has grown to include other websites, such as the California Curriculum Collaborative (CalCurriculum), which provides guidance to California school districts on adopting and implementing instructional materials based on EdReports and using the same problematic and outdated evaluation criteria.

    Notably, many of the states that have shown the most improvement in reading — including Louisiana and Tennessee — did not rely on EdReports and instead used their own process for selecting curricula.

    On Jan. 28, EdReports announced an update to its English language arts (ELA) evaluation criteria, claiming a shift toward alignment with the science of reading. However, given EdReports’ influence, this change is too little too late. For years, EdReports did not prioritize this research, meaning all its previous reviews — still available on its website — are based on criteria not centered on evidence-based research.

    This raises a crucial concern for California as we may be on the precipice of recommending new English language arts/English language development materials along with a new comprehensive state literacy plan and literacy road map. If we rely on EdReports’ past recommendations, we risk adopting materials that do not align with the best available research on how children learn to read and how to ensure their learning sticks.

    Fortunately, there is a strong, evidence-based alternative: The Curriculum Navigation Reports created by The Reading League, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the awareness, understanding and use of evidence-aligned reading instruction.

    These reports, using criteria reviewed by experts for reliability and validity (the consistency and accuracy of a measure), evaluate curricula through the lens of scientifically based research, not the Common Core standards. These reports serve as informational educational resources for curriculum decision-makers to identify aligned practices within their curricula as well as opportunities to strengthen reading instruction. The Reading League also provides Curriculum Evaluation Guidelines and a Review Workbook that schools and districts can use if they wish to review materials on their own. Finally, literacy leaders can seek guidance and support from their state chapters of The Reading League (of which California has one), which are composed of researchers, educators, parents, and other stakeholders committed to using research to guide literacy instruction.

    Curriculum providers are invited and encouraged to submit their programs for evaluation in a Curriculum Navigation Report; it is noteworthy that several companies that fared well on their EdReports reviews declined to submit their programs to The Reading League.

    Good policy is only as effective as the tools used to implement it. As California determines its next steps in literacy policy, we should follow the example of those states that have developed comprehensive plans and vetted curriculum lists based on rigorous, evidence-based criteria. We must also heed the cautionary tale from other states’ experiences and avoid making decisions driven by convenience or influenced by outdated, inaccurate standards. The quick adoption of materials reviewed by EdReports or its derivatives, such as CalCurriculum, may seem like an attractive shortcut, but the result would shortchange California students.

    We urge California’s education leaders to do the necessary work: Vet curriculum materials based on the established scientific research on reading instruction. The future of our students’ literacy — and their lifelong learning — depends on it.

    •••

    Linda Diamond is author of the Teaching Reading Sourcebook and executive director of the Evidence Advocacy Center, a clearinghouse to connect states, districts, schools, higher education institutions, and parent advocates to trustworthy resources that are proven to have an impact.

    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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