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  • California lags behind other states in bilingual education for English learners

    California lags behind other states in bilingual education for English learners


    Credit: Allison Shelley / EDUimages

    California enrolls a far lower percentage of English learners in bilingual education programs than other states, according to a report released in October from The Century Foundation.

    The authors also found that California is investing less than other states in bilingual education. They recommend the state significantly expand investment in multilingual instruction, particularly dual-language immersion programs; prioritize enrollment in those programs for English learners; and invest more in recruiting and preparing bilingual teachers. 

    Prioritizing enrollment for English learners in bilingual and dual-language immersion programs is important, the authors stated, because research has shown these programs help English learners.

    “New studies show every year that English learners, and especially young English learners, do best when they’re in some form of bilingual setting,” said Conor P. Williams, senior fellow at The Century Foundation and one of the authors of the report.  “They do best at everything, they do best at maintaining their home language, of course, they do best at learning English over time, and they do best in academic subjects.”

    The Century Foundation is a progressive public policy think tank based in New York City and Washington, D.C.

    California has more English learners than any other state. About 40% of students in California schools are now or were once English learners; about half of them are learning English currently while the other half have now mastered the language. 

    Yet, only 16.4% of English learners in the state were enrolled in bilingual or dual-language immersion programs in 2019-20. That percentage is more than three times lower than the percentage of English learners enrolled in those programs in Wisconsin (55.9%) and more than two times lower than in Texas (36.7%), Illinois (35.9%) and New Jersey (33.4%). 

    Williams recognized that California is still rebuilding its efforts to expand bilingual instruction, after a voter-approved measure, Proposition 227, significantly limited it from 1997 to 2016. Still, he said, “The efforts to rebuild have not been significant.”

    “California is not committing very significant resources for a state of its size,” Williams said. “The investment in new or expanded bilingual education programs is pretty modest. It’s $10 million in a one-time grants competition. Delaware puts in a couple million a year and has been doing it for the past 10 years. Utah spends $7 million a year on dual language.”

    The report finds that the funding invested in expanding bilingual education lags far behind the state’s stated goals. “Global California 2030,” written in 2018, for example, recommended expanding the number of dual-language immersion programs to 1,600 and enrolling half of California’s K–12 students by 2030, making at least 75% of graduating students proficient in two or more languages by 2040. There are currently about 750 dual-immersion programs in California, according to the California Basic Educational Data System.

    The report’s authors stated it is also crucial for California to expand bilingual education in transitional kindergarten classrooms, where English learners could benefit from it at a younger age. Transitional kindergarten is an extra year of school before kindergarten. The state is gradually expanding access to the grade each year until 2025, when all 4-year-olds will be eligible.

    The new report recommended changing credential requirements for transitional kindergarten in order to recruit more preschool teachers, since many more preschool teachers speak Spanish and other languages, compared with K-12 teachers.

    Anna Powell, senior research and policy associate at the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at UC Berkeley, said she and many other early education advocates agree that current preschool teachers face an “uphill battle” to become TK teachers.

    According to CSCCE, an estimated 17,000 workers in preschool and child care programs have a bachelor’s degree, a teacher’s child development permit and at least six years of teaching experience in early childhood settings. However, Powell said the new credential proposed for pre-K to third grade would only allow work as a preschool teacher to be counted toward part of the required hours.

    “Experienced educators would be required to go back to school and/or obtain additional qualifications first — likely while juggling a full-time teaching job,” Powell said. “Meanwhile, a public school teacher in a middle school could potentially teach TK without any new clinical hours or other time-consuming requirements, so long as they have taken 24 units of ECE or child development (or equivalent).” 

    “There is still time for California to right this wrong,” she added.

    Martha Hernandez, executive director of Californians Together, an organization that advocates for English learners statewide, praised the report.

    “Our state currently possesses an exemplary policy framework, but what’s lacking is a concrete, systemic plan, adequate, targeted funding for effective implementation and accountability for better educational opportunities and outcomes for English learners,” Hernandez said.

    Hernandez said the California Department of Education should lead a coordinated, statewide effort to implement the English Learner Roadmap, a guide approved by the State Board of Education in 2017 for school districts to support English learners better.

    One way to recruit more bilingual teachers both for TK and other grades would be to encourage high school graduates who were awarded the State Seal of Biliteracy to join teacher preparation programs, Hernandez said. To receive the State Seal of Biliteracy, graduates must show proficiency in both English and another language.

    “A modest target of 5% from the over 400,000 candidates could significantly reduce the shortage,” Hernandez said. “The time for translating vision into action is now.”

    Note: The research discussed in this article was supported by a grant from Sobrato Philanthropies. EdSource receives funding from many foundations, including Sobrato Philanthropies. EdSource maintains sole editorial control over the content of its coverage.





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  • CBS Sells Out, Capitulates to Trump’s Demand for Payoff

    CBS Sells Out, Capitulates to Trump’s Demand for Payoff


    During the 2024 Presidential campaign, “60 Minutes” invited both Trump and Harris to sit for an interview. Harris accepted, Trump declined. The interview took about an hour. As is customary, the editors cut the interview back to 20 minutes, the customary time slot.

    CBS used a short response from Harris about the war in Gaza to promote the show. In the show itself, the promotional clip was replaced by a different response. To the editors, it was a distinction without a difference, a routine editorial decision.

    Trump, however, saw the switch in the short clip and the longer one as a financial opportunity. He sued “60 Minutes” and CBS for $10 billion (later raised to $20 billion) for portraying Harris in a favorable light, interfering in the election, and damaging his campaign.

    Since he won the election, it’s hard to see how he could demonstrate that his campaign was damaged. Most outside observers thought it was a frivolous lawsuit and would be tossed out if it ever went to trial.

    But Trump persisted because the owner of CBS and its parent company Paramount, Shari Redstone, needed the FCC’s approval to complete a deal to be purchased by another company. Trump could tell his friend Brendan Carr to approve the deal or to block it. Shari Redstone would be a billionaire if the deal went through.

    A veteran producer at “60 Minutes” resigned in anticipation of corporate leaders selling out their premier news program. The president of CBS News followed him out the door.

    As expected, corporate caved to Trump. CBS will pay $16 million towards the cost of his Presidential library. He once again humbled the press. He did it to ABC, he did it to META, he did it to The Washington Post.

    Will any mainstream media dare to criticize him?

    Larry Edelman of The Boston Globe wrote about Trump’s humbling of the most respected news program on network TV:

    💵 A sell-out

    The show is almost over for National Amusements, the entertainment conglomerate with humble beginnings as a Dedham drive-in movie theater chain.

    Unlike most Hollywood endings, this one is a downer.

    Shame on Shari Redstone.

    Recap: Redstone is the daughter of Sumner Redstone, the larger-than-life dealmaker who transformed the theater company started by his father into the holding company that owns CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, and the Paramount movie studio.

    On Tuesday, Paramount Global, controlled by Shari Redstone, said it agreed to pay $16 million to settle President Trump’s widely criticized lawsuit stemming from the “60 Minutes” interview of Vice President Kamala Harris during last year’s election campaign. The payment, after legal fees, will go to Trump’s presidential library.

    Why it matters: It’s impossible not to see this as an unabashed payoff intended to win the Federal Communications Commission’s approval of Redstone’s multibillion-dollar deal to sell Paramount to Skydance Media, the studio behind movies including “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.”

    Everyone involved denied the settlement was a quid pro quo. If you believe that, I have some Trump meme coins to sell you.

    In a $10 billion lawsuit against CBS last year, Trump alleged that “60 Minutes,” part of CBS News, deceptively edited the Harris interview in order to interfere with the election.

    Legal experts said Trump’s chances of winning the case were slim to none given CBS’s First Amendment protections for what was considered routine editing. But his election victory in November gave him enormous leverage over Redstone.

    Reaction: “With Paramount folding to Donald Trump at the same time the company needs his administration’s approval for its billion-dollar merger, this could be bribery in plain sight,” Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren said in a statement after the settlement was announced.

    “CBS and Paramount Global realized the strength of this historic case and had no choice but to settle,” a spokesperson for Trump’s lawyers said. The president was holding “the fake news accountable,” the spokesperson said. 

    Of course, the lawsuit was all about putting the news media under the president’s thumb.

    “The enemy of the people” — Trump’s words — is a power base Trump wants desperately to neutralize, along with other perceived foes such as elite universities and big law firms.

    Columbia University and law firms including Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison have already caved. Harvard University had no choice but to come to the negotiating table, though it also is battling the White House in court.

    “The President is using government to intimidate news outlets that publish stories he doesn’t like,” the conservative editorial board of The Wall Street Journal wrote.

    For what it’s worth: The two points I’d like to make here may seem obvious but are worth repeating.

    First: The ownership of news outlets by big corporations is a double-edged sword. 

    Yes, they can provide financial shelter from devastation wrought by Google and Meta — and the brewing storm coming from artificial intelligence. 

    But they also own bigger — and more profitable — businesses that need to maintain at least a civil relationship with the federal government.

    That’s why Disney ended Trump’s dubious defamation case against ABC News by agreeing to “donate” $15 million to the presidential library, and why Meta, the parent of Facebook, coughed up $25 million to settle a Trump lawsuit over the company’s suspension of his accounts after the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol. 

    Second: Private sector extortion — multiple law firms promised $100 million in pro-bono work for causes favored by Trump — dovetails with the president’s use of the power of the office to make money for himself and his family.

    Trump’s crypto ventures, including the shameless $TRUMP and $MELANIA meme coins, have added at least $620 million to his fortune in a few months, Bloomberg reported this week. Then there are all those real estate deals in the Middle East, the Qatari jet, and the licensed products, from bibles to a mobile phone service.

    Shari Redstone’s $16 million payment is chump change by comparison. And it makes perfect business sense. It smooths the way for National Amusements to salvage at least $1.75 billion from the sale of its stake in Paramount. Sumner Redstone, a consummate dealmaker, would have done the same thing.

    Skydance, by the way, was launched by another child of a billionaire, David Ellison.

    His father, Larry Ellison, founded software giant Oracle and is worth nearly $250 billion. Oracle is negotiating to take a role in the sale of TikTok by its Chinese owner, a transaction being orchestrated by Trump.

    Small world, eh?

    Final thought: After nearly 90 years in business, National Amusements, now based in Norwood, is going out with a whimper, not a bang.

    The company has struggled with heavy debt, declining cable network profits, and huge costs for building out its streaming business. Paramount’s market value has dropped to $9 billion from $26 billion when Viacom recombined with CBS to form the new company in 2019.

    To get the Skydance rescue deal done, Redstone, 71, sold out the journalists at CBS News — the onetime home of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, and still one of the most respected names in the business.

    That’s one bummer of an ending.



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  • Texas Floods: Staff Cuts at Weather Service, Plus Local Refusal to Pay Taxes for Early Warning=Disaster

    Texas Floods: Staff Cuts at Weather Service, Plus Local Refusal to Pay Taxes for Early Warning=Disaster


    The disastrous floods that swept through Hill Country and caused the deaths of 80 or more people were made worse by human error.

    The New York Times found that the local branches of the National Weather Service were short on staff; critical positions were empty. The computer specialists who worked for Elon Musk in an operation called DOGE decided that too many people worked for the National Weather Service. Some meteorologists took buyouts, others resigned.

    Furthermore the affected area did not have an early warning ststem. Local taxpayers didn’t want to pay for it.

    The quasi-libertarian belief that we don’t need government services and we shouldn’t pay for them took a toll on innocent people.

    The combination of Musk’s ruthless cost-cutting and local hostility to taxes set the stage for a disastrous tragedy.

    The Times reported:

    Crucial positions at the local offices of the National Weather Service were unfilled as severe rainfall inundated parts of Central Texas on Friday morning, prompting some experts to question whether staffing shortages made it harder for the forecasting agency to coordinate with local emergency managers as floodwaters rose. 

    Texas officials appeared to blame the Weather Service for issuing forecasts on Wednesday that underestimated how much rain was coming. But former Weather Service officials said the forecasts were as good as could be expected, given the enormous levels of rainfall and the storm’s unusually abrupt escalation.

    The staffing shortages suggested a separate problem, those former officials said — the loss of experienced people who would typically have helped communicate with local authorities in the hours after flash flood warnings were issued overnight. 

    The shortages are among the factors likely to be scrutinized as the death toll climbs from the floods. Separate questions have emerged about the preparedness of local communities, including Kerr County’s apparent lack of a local flood warning system. The county, roughly 50 miles northwest of San Antonio, is where many of the deaths occurred. 

    In an interview, Rob Kelly, the Kerr County judge and its most senior elected official, said the county did not have a warning system because such systems are expensive, and local residents are resistant to new spending. 

    “Taxpayers won’t pay for it,” Mr. Kelly said. Asked if people might reconsider in light of the catastrophe, he said, “I don’t know.”

    The National Weather Service’s San Angelo office, which is responsible for some of the areas hit hardest by Friday’s flooding, was missing a senior hydrologist, staff forecaster and meteorologist in charge, according to Tom Fahy, the legislative director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization, the union that represents Weather Service workers.

    The Weather Service’s nearby San Antonio office, which covers other areas hit by the floods, also had significant vacancies, including a warning coordination meteorologist and science officer, Mr. Fahy said. Staff members in those positions are meant to work with local emergency managers to plan for floods, including when and how to warn local residents and help them evacuate.

    That office’s warning coordination meteorologist left on April 30, after taking the early retirement package the Trump administration used to reduce the number of federal employees, according to a person with knowledge of his departure. 

    Sign up for Your Places: Extreme Weather.  Get notified about extreme weather before it happens with custom alerts for places in the U.S. you choose. Get it sent to your inbox.

    Some of the openings may predate the current Trump administration. But at both offices, the vacancy rate is roughly double what it was when Mr. Trump returned to the White House in January, according to Mr. Fahy.



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  • One Temecula Valley PAC submits signatures for Joseph Komrosky recall 

    One Temecula Valley PAC submits signatures for Joseph Komrosky recall 


    Temecula Valley Unified School District board member Joseph Komrosky.

    Credit: Temecula Valley Unified

    One Temecula Valley PAC has submitted 5,236 signatures to initiate a recall election against Temecula Valley Unified School District’s school board president, Joseph Komrosky — surpassing the requirement of 4,280 two days before Friday’s deadline. 

    The Registrar of Voters in Riverside County will now formally count and verify the legitimacy of the signatures to determine if the recall campaign will lead to an election. Jeff Pack, co-founder of One Temecula Valley political action committee — which aims to combat “a very real and dangerous threat to local governance posed by political and religious extremist views” — anticipates that the process will take a couple of months. 

    “We’re looking … forward to being this organization that demands good governance, and I think this is a great start,” Pack said. “I’m really proud.” 

    In its initial stages, the recall campaign was also gathering signatures for board members Jennifer Wiersma and Danny Gonzalez, who, with Komrosky, make up the board’s conservative majority. 

    Since their election in November 2022, the three have together banned critical race theory in the classroom, temporarily barred the Social Studies Alive! curriculum because its supplemental material mentioned LGBTQ+ activist Harvey Milk, fired former Superintendent Jodi McClay without cause and passed policies mandating that school officials notify parents if their child indicates they are transgender. 

    However, Pack said the campaign eventually decided to focus on Komrosky because his recall seemed to be the most likely, based on the number of signatures gathered for his recall. And flipping his seat alone would be enough to tip the board’s current majority. 

    Meanwhile, some community members have speculated that Gonzalez plans to leave the state altogether, noting that his house is currently on the market for sale. 

    Neither Komrosky nor Gonzalez responded to EdSource’s request for comment. Wiersma, who stated she may be able to respond, did not provide a comment by EdSource’s deadline. 

    The road to recall

    The effort to recall Komrosky, Wiersma and Gonzalez began early in June when Pack met a group of moms at a local duck pond. 

    The moms, who eventually formed the organization EnACT Temecula-Equity in Action, wanted to initiate a recall against Wiersma.  

    “Well, why don’t we just do all three? he told them “We’ll back you. We have money. We can get all this stuff together, get all the paperwork together and let’s do it.”

    The moms questioned his idea to start a recall for all three. 

    “Which one deserves to stay? Which one do you want to leave there?” Pack said he responded. “And nobody can answer that question.” 

    The recall effort began to gain steam, he said. And in one day, they had gathered the 35 signatures needed to file a notice of intent to recall for each board member. 

    In the months that followed, teachers and community members went door to door, gathering more signatures. They also stationed themselves at the duck pond during weekends. 

    Eventually, the recall effort also garnered support from organizations including the Temecula Valley Educators Association, the League of United Latin American Citizens Inland Empire chapter and the NAACP’s Southwest Riverside branch 1034. 

    “As educators, we’re all just hoping that the focus of the district can return to student performance, supporting learning environments to maximize how teachers can do their jobs,” said Edgar Diaz, the president of the Temecula Valley Educators Association. 

    He added that he’s “glad the community came out and supported” the recall, showing “that this is actually a community issue, not a teacher- or a union-driven issue.” 

    Reactions to the recall

    The recall effort has been met with mixed reactions from members of the community and beyond. 

    While Pack said there has been enthusiastic support for Komrosky’s recall, they were unable to gather the 3,987 signatures needed to get Wiersma’s on the ballot. 

    Pastor Tim Thompson of Evangelical 412 Church Temecula Valley — who has consistently stood by the board’s majority — has said he doubts a recall election will take place. 

    “If they get their way and this goes to an election, what we’re going to find is the same thing we found in the election cycle last period, is that the vast majority of people in the Temecula Valley support these three,” Thompson said. “They’re happy that they’re in there. They’re happy for the changes that they’re making.”

    Thompson also commended the current board for fulfilling their duty to “protect the youth in our community.” 

    Temecula Valley district board member Steven Schwartz, however, disagrees, saying most board decisions have been “political and not educational.” 

    As a member of the board minority, Schwartz said he has received mostly positive feedback from parents and community members who he said feel the same way as he does. 

    Meanwhile, he said many of the speakers who have voiced their support for the conservative majority at meetings do not come from the community. 

    “When you have people coming from outside disrupting meetings … calling people names, what is that supposed to prove?” Schwartz said. “What is that supposed to do for our children and for schools?” 

    Regardless of the outcome, Pack said he is proud of the effort and that the recall’s advocates were able to make history in Temecula. 

    “This is entirely volunteers that are local, and it’s really, really something that I don’t think this community has ever seen,” Pack said. “It’s a big growing-up moment, I think, for the city of Temecula.”

    Editors’ note: This story has been updated to correct a name’s spelling and revise the number of signatures needed to file the notice of intent to recall.





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  • Legislative Analyst’s Office forecasts $19 billion state budget deficit for schools and community colleges

    Legislative Analyst’s Office forecasts $19 billion state budget deficit for schools and community colleges


    California State Capitol

    Credit: Christopher Schodt for EdSource

    Schools and community colleges likely will face a $19 billion, three-year state funding deficit, the Legislative Analyst’s Office reported Thursday. The funding for TK-12 this year is $108 billion.

    The LAO’s annual projection is a forecast of what to expect from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s first pass next month on the 2024-25 state budget. It reflects a decline in funding in Proposition 98, the 35-year-old constitutional amendment that determines the portion of the state’s general fund that must go to schools and community colleges. Complicating the picture is that about half of the education deficit covers money that schools and community colleges spent in 2022-23.

    The overall projected state general fund budget deficit of $68 billion could also jeopardize 5% annual increases for the University of California and California State University systems that Gov. Gavin Newsom had agreed to, as well as children’s services not covered by Proposition 98.

    The projected shortfall is the largest financial challenge schools and community colleges will face since the Great Recession budget of 2009. However, the LAO said that schools are better positioned now because of an education rainy-day fund that the Legislature was required to sock away in the record-high revenue years of the past half-decade.  

    Edgar Zazueta, executive director of the Association of California School Administrators, cautioned that state leaders must avoid the sort of harsh cuts made during the Great Recession. They included forcing districts to borrow billions of dollars with the expectation they would be repaid later.

    “Fortunately, we have tools, including the Proposition 98 reserve, that we can leverage to protect Proposition 98 funding levels,” he said. “Even during fiscal times like these, public education must be prioritized and protected. We must continue to build on our state’s great momentum and investments that have been made these past few years.”

    The LAO report lays out several options to balance school spending, some of them jarring for schools and community colleges.

    One option is for the Legislature to preserve TK-14 funding approved last June and find the full $68 billion in cuts in the general fund. That would spare schools, but other programs for children outside of Proposition 98 funding would more likely be hit, including support and subsidized costs for child care.

    The opposite approach — the most painful to schools and community colleges and politically risky for legislators — would be to revise the 2022-23 and the current 2023-24 Proposition 98 funding downward to meet the minimum required by law. That would slash funding by $9 billion from 2022-23 and $6.3 billion for the current year, with a ripple effect of lowering the minimum guarantee for 2024-25 by $3.5 billion.

    The Legislature could ease the burden by draining the $8.1 billion rainy day fund. That would still leave about $10 billion in cuts. Billions of dollars in one-time funding, whether unspent so far this year, or allotted by the Legislature for the next several years, could be targets. These could include $1 billion as yet unallocated for developing community schools or money set aside for learning recovery and for after-school extended learning time. It could be politically unpopular for legislators to make significant school cuts in an election year. And they would have to approve a resolution that there is a fiscal emergency to reduce the Proposition 98 appropriation.

    The third alternative is somewhere in the middle — cuts to K-14 and cuts from other general fund programs.

    The Legislature had an inkling that economic conditions were worsening but no hard numbers when they passed the 2023-24 budget in June: The deadline for paying state and federal income taxes had been extended from April 15 to Oct. 16. So they didn’t know the impact on state revenues in 2022-23 and 2023-24 from slowing home sales, a drop in new startups in Silicon Valley, and from declining income of the top 1% of earners, who contribute 50% of the personal income tax receipts.

    The LAO’s forecast for state revenues for the general fund shows a big drop in 2022-23, a flat line in 2023-24 and a slight uptick in the next fiscal year. But the gray area shows the possibility of an additional decline or a quick recovery.
    Source: The Legislative Analyst’s Office.

    The LAO cautioned that economic conditions are volatile, and revenues will remain unpredictable. A graph of its revenue outlook shows slow growth in 2024-25, with a large gray penumbra of uncertainty above and below that line.

    Kevin Gordon, president of Capitol Advisors Group, an education consulting company based in Sacramento, said he was pleased that the LAO listed several options and did not recommend resetting funding to meet the Proposition 98 minimum, with “devastating cuts.”

    “The numbers are worrisome, but the approaches laid out are significant efforts to demonstrate how lawmakers might work to protect basic investment in education funding,” he said.





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  • Community college faculty call for union to take stance against accused professor

    Community college faculty call for union to take stance against accused professor


    Fresno City College campus.

    Credit: Ashleigh Panoo / EdSource

    The post has been updated to correct the position held by one of the union leaders mentioned in the story and to say that 50% of senators must be present and 75% must vote to remove the president.

    Some professors in the State Center Community College District are calling for their union leaders to be transparent about their knowledge of the 2020 sexual misconduct findings against a colleague at Fresno City College who formerly taught at California State University, Fresno. 

    “Shocked” by EdSource’s report of the “alarming” allegations involving Tom Boroujeni, Laurie Taylor, an anthropology professor at Clovis Community College, which is also part of State Center, said she questioned union leadership and called for leaders to resign during a Dec. 1 meeting. Two professors at the meeting confirmed Taylor demanded union leadership resignations. Boroujeni is a Fresno City College communication instructor and also president of the school’s academic senate.

    Union president Keith Ford forwarded EdSource’s interview request to the union’s executive vice president Ria Williams; Williams has not yet responded.  Lacy Barnes, the union’s immediate past president and the Secretary Treasurer of the California Federation of Teachers, declined to comment. 

    “We, as union members, demand to know what our union leadership knew and when they knew it,” Taylor said in an interview with EdSource. 

    Boroujeni was found to have committed an “act of sexual violence” against a professor and colleague at nearby Fresno State in 2015 when he was a graduate student and adjunct instructor. The alleged victim is also a professor and Boroujeni’s colleague at Fresno City College. The State Center Community College District, parent agency to City College, learned of the “sexual misconduct investigation” when the alleged victim requested a no-contact order against Boroujeni, which was granted in the spring 2022 semester.

    Boroujeni has taught at Fresno City College since 2015, the same year he began his academic career at Fresno State while still a graduate student. Fresno State couldn’t discipline him because he was a graduate student when the alleged violence occurred, Debbie Adishian-Astone, the school’s vice president for administration, told EdSource. Boroujeni resigned from Fresno State last year after officials said the act-of-sexual-violence report would be placed in his personnel file. 

    In his resignation, he agreed not to seek or accept work in the California State University system again.  

    But the matter had no immediate impact on his teaching career at Fresno City College, where the alleged victim teaches part-time in addition to her tenured position at Fresno State. State Center Community College District granted Boroujeni tenure in March. He assumed the academic senate presidency in May, after a two-year term as president-elect. 

    But the district put Boroujeni on paid leave on Nov. 30, a day after EdSource’s report. 

    This week, State Center officials remained tight-lipped over Boroujeni’s administrative leave because of “personnel matters subject to legal considerations related to privacy and to protect the integrity of any ongoing investigations,” a district spokesperson, Jill Wagner, wrote in an email. 

    A person familiar with the matter said the decision to put Boroujeni on administrative leave was because his presence on campus was disruptive and impacted the college’s ability to serve students, following EdSource’s report on the alleged sexual violence. Three instructors canceled class in response to the report.

    Union response 

    The State Center Federation of Teachers represents faculty in the community college district. According to a statement obtained by EdSource, union officers would not comment on the sexual misconduct allegations publicly but could talk with members individually. 

    “We cannot comment specifically on this case or any other,” according to the union’s formal statement. “In no way does the Federation endorse or condone acts of harassment or violence in any circumstance.” 

    The union’s statement, Taylor said, seemed “dismissive and placating,” and “more could have been said.” 

    And Liz Romero, an early childhood education instructor at Clovis Community College, said she is also angry with the union over their response. She said she expected the union to take a position on the allegation of sexual violence against Boroujeni. Romero said it was “disheartening” that the union, through its statement, said their responsibility was to “defend the contract” and “defend the faculty’s rights to due process.” 

    “It seems like a disparity in power structure with a full-time faculty versus a part-time faculty,” Romero said about the union’s statement, “a man versus a woman, a person in leadership versus a person not in leadership. It feels very unbalanced.” 

    Academic Senate response

    Professors who spoke to EdSource also directed their frustration at the Fresno City College Academic Senate, which Boroujeni leads.

    In May 2023, Boroujeni started a two-year term as Fresno City College’s academic senate president, a role requiring that he works with the college’s administration in setting academic policy among other responsibilities. He became president-elect in May 2021 for a two-year term before ascending to the senate presidency seven months ago.

    Romero, who has previously served as academic senate president at Clovis Community College, said the academic senate should remove Boroujeni as the president and hold a new election for the next president-elect. According to the bylaws of the Fresno City College academic senate, removing an officer requires a written petition detailing the rationale for the removal, with signatures from 25% of the academic senators; 50% of the senators must be present and 75% must vote to remove the president. 

    While Boroujeni is on administrative leave, the senate’s executive committee is using an acting president. 

    Past president Michael Takeda is the acting president while current president-elect Jackie Williams is on a sabbatical leave.  Williams will become acting president in January if Boroujeni remains on leave. 

    The executive committee did not discuss Boroujeni during its Wednesday meeting.

    “For now, there’s nothing really to discuss,” Takeda said.

    Boroujeni did not respond to EdSource’s questions on Thursday.

    As some faculty members expect more from the union, the college’s academic senate as well as the college and district, professors are finding ways to show solidarity with the alleged victim and to demand action. 

    For example, Romero said she won’t stay a union member if the union doesn’t take a stance on the matter. 

    “I don’t want my money to fund an organization that’s going to protect abusers,” she said. “That’s my only power in this situation. Everyone needs to do what they think is best for them, and I hope it’s always supporting victims of sexual assault and standing up for those with less power.”





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  • ‘Bug’ professionals for better opportunities

    ‘Bug’ professionals for better opportunities


    “Double texting” and “spamming” are perhaps two of the most dreaded phrases in Gen Z lingo.

    It’s intimidating to send a friend or partner multiple messages without a response, but it can be even more terrifying to come across as overbearing to a professional.

    This fear, while coming from a good place of not trying to inundate recruiters, professors and professionals with messages, holds students back from advancing their careers.

    It’s better to be persistent than to be absent and miss out on valuable opportunities.

    If I hadn’t pushed back against my trepidation of being overbearing, I wouldn’t be writing this story for this publication.

    I saw a listing for EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps in April and quickly assembled a cover letter, resume and list of bylines. Over two days, I completed everything and went back to the website — but the post was gone.

    Unbeknownst to my scrambled, midterms-focused brain, the application deadline had passed and the opportunity seemingly vanished.

    While I worried that a last-minute email would fall into an abyss of similar messages, my friend Brittany pushed me to send my application regardless.

    I was pleasantly surprised to see a response less than 24 hours later informing me that although the cohort was mostly full, I still had a chance. After quickly submitting my documents and having a good phone interview with the internship coordinator, I was offered a position.

    Now in my second semester as a Student Corps member, the experience has been invaluable. And it never would have happened if I let my intrusive thoughts win.

    A quick survey through my emails reveals that I’ve sent the phrase “follow up” in some capacity to professionals or my co-workers 34 times. I should probably vary my rampant use of “follow up,” but the sentiment stands.

    Not once did I receive a response saying “stop emailing me” or “you’re bothering me.” Most of my emails yielded responses thanking me for following up and apologizing for the delay.

    Some of the most fulfilling experiences I’ve had as a journalist came from spur-of-the-moment messages I sent. There were plenty of unread emails, but the ones that did receive responses helped me tremendously.

    I was able to attend and produce content at the 2023 Online News Association conference in Philadelphia because I applied for a scholarship opportunity I never thought I would win. At the conference, I connected with writers, editors and leaders from newsrooms I had long admired.

    Less than a year prior, I applied to cover the hip-hop festival Rolling Loud for San Diego State University’s publication The Daily Aztec. Walking through the campgrounds filled with eager fans and thrilling performances, I couldn’t help but think what would have happened if I never sent that application.

    Daniel Newell, executive director of San Diego State’s career center, works to connect students with jobs and internships during and after college. In his experience with recruiters, and previously working as one, he noted that persistence is a key quality for applicants.

    “Every recruiter likes to see genuine interest and passion,” Newell said. “I’ve met so many people where they didn’t have all the requirements for the job, but man, they were persistent and they were dedicated and they were passionate. I would take a passionate person who wants to learn and get the job done any day over someone who has the experience but isn’t really gung-ho about the position.”

    While these attributes are important for building connections, Newell said it’s also essential to maintain a respectable tone and demeanor when interacting with professionals.

    “When you’re talking to a professional or a recruiter, you’re always going to be professional,” Newell said. “Even if you don’t think they’re sort of assessing you or judging you, they are. Every interaction is important.”

    Instead of deliberating whether to send the follow-up message, students and budding professionals should focus more on how to deliver their messages. Being pushy and unprofessional can be a significant turn-off, but being persistent and professional can help you land a job.

    Students aren’t alone in their endeavors to network and reach out to professionals. And you don’t have to take advice exclusively from a 22-year-old like me. The New York Times published a guide on how to get email responses by being truthful, quick and direct. The Wall Street Journal also detailed tips and tricks for sending thank-you messages after a job interview.

    It’s perfectly normal to feel nervous when reaching out to people you admire or want to work with. I feel imposter syndrome all the time. But you never know what will happen when you reach out, and there’s only so much you can accomplish if you don’t ask.

    •••

    Noah Lyons is a fourth-year journalism major at San Diego State University and a member of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps.

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





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  • DOGE Cuts to NOAA and National Weather Service Blamed for Deaths in Texas Floods

    DOGE Cuts to NOAA and National Weather Service Blamed for Deaths in Texas Floods


    Among its many stupid decisions, Elon Musk’s DOGE cut the staff of NOAA and the Natuonal Weather Service. Experts warned that people would die without accurate warnings. Trump ignored the warnings; so did Republicans in Congress. The cuts were imposed. The savings were a pittance. Unprepared for the storm and flooding in Texas a few days ago, people died.

    Ron Filipowski wrote at The Meidas Report:

    As the best and the brightest were being fired at the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by senseless and draconian ‘DOGE’ cuts earlier this year under Trump, with no reason given except for the need to cut a paltry amount of the government’s budget, experts warned repeatedly that the cuts would have deadly consequences during the storm season. And they have.

    Dozens and dozens of stories have been written in the media citing hundreds of experts which said that weather forecasting was never going to be the same, and that inaccurate forecasts were going to lead to fewer evacuations, impaired preparedness of first responders, and deadly consequences. I quoted many of them in my daily Bulletins and wrote about this issue nearly 20 different times. 

    And the chickens have come home to roost. Hundreds of people have already been killed across the US in a variety of storms including deadly tornadoes – many of which were inaccurately forecasted. And we are just entering peak hurricane season. Meteorologist Chris Vagasky posted earlier this spring on social media: “The world’s example for weather services is being destroyed.” 

    Now, after severe flooding in non-evacuated areas in Texas has left at least 24 dead with dozens more missing, including several young girls at a summer camp, Texas officials are blaming their failure to act on a faulty forecast by Donald Trump’s new National Weather Service gutted by cuts to their operating budget and most experienced personnel. 

    At a press conference last night, one official said: “The original forecast we received on Wednesday from the National Weather Service predicted 3-6” of rain in the Concho Valley and 4-8” of rain in the hill country. The amount of rain that fell in these locations was never in any of their forecasts. Everybody got the forecast from the National Weather Service. They did not predict the amount of rain that we saw.” 

    Reuters published a story just a few days ago, one of many warning about this problem: “In May, every living former director of the NWS signed on to an open letter with a warning that, if continued, Trump’s cuts to federal weather forecasting would create ‘needless loss of life’. Despite bipartisan congressional pushback for a restoration in staffing and funding to the NWS, sharp budget cuts remain on pace in projections for the 2026 budget for the NOAA, the parent organization of the NWS.”

    But Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whose agency oversees NOAA, testified before Congress on June 5 that the cuts wouldn’t be a problem because “we are transforming how we track storms and forecast weather with cutting-edge technology. Under no circumstances am I going to let public safety or public forecasting be touched.” Apparently the “cutting edge technology” hasn’t arrived yet.

    And now presumably FEMA will be called upon to help pick up the pieces of shattered lives in Texas – an agency that Trump said repeatedly that he wants to abolish. In fact, Trump’s first FEMA director Cameron Hamilton was fired one day after he testified before Congress that FEMA should not be abolished. 

    The voters of Texas decided that they wanted Donald Trump and Greg Abbott to be in charge of the government services they received. That is exactly what they are getting. And as of this writing on Saturday morning, Trump still hasn’t said a word about the storm and the little girls who were killed at the camp. 

    However, Trump was seen dancing on the balcony of the White House last night celebrating the latest round of cuts in his budget bill that just became law so billionaires and corporations can have huge tax cuts. People are dying and more will die because of their recklessness, just like we saw during covid. And now millions won’t even have health insurance to deal with the consequences.



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  • Hope for West Fresno now comes in the form of a college campus

    Hope for West Fresno now comes in the form of a college campus


    A student walks past the “You Belong Here” sign at Fresno City College’s newest campus, West Fresno Center.

    Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource

    Brianna Knight can walk from her college campus down the street to her family’s home to check on her children when they need her, an option only recently available with the opening of Fresno City College’s latest campus in West Fresno.

    Her family, longtime residents of West Fresno, often takes care of her children while she’s in class or working as a tutor on campus. Knight, who is completing her associate degree in human biology, said that working toward her degree was more stressful before the new campus opened.

    She had planned to leave her hometown before the new West Fresno Center was built, she said, because she didn’t see a future there for her children. But her plans have changed now that the campus is open.

    “I’m big on: Where can I plant my seeds for my kids to grow? And if my kids can’t grow somewhere, why am I here? And so to be able to have this in the community I grew up in … if my kids don’t want to leave, they don’t have to,” Knight said about the new campus.

    For the West Fresno community that fought for this new campus, the college has come to symbolize hope for future generations like Knight’s children.

    Eric Payne, executive director of the nonprofit Central Valley Urban Institute, and Brianna Knight were both raised in West Fresno. Knight is currently a student at the new West Fresno Center campus of Fresno City College.
    Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource

    “West Fresno is a phoenix rising out of the ashes because we can fundamentally zero out a lot of the systemic issues that we’re experiencing if we center the voices of young people in our community,” said Eric Payne, executive director of the nonprofit Central Valley Urban Institute. “And what better place than a college campus?”

    West Fresno is home to over 25,000 people in a historically marginalized section of the Central Valley’s largest city. It’s a region with one of the highest levels of concentrated poverty in the nation, higher rates of incarceration, and a lower life expectancy rate by about 20 years than their neighbors in wealthier sections of Fresno.

    These statistics have solidified over decades with strategic redlining practices, documented in detail, since at least the 1930s, and have led to limited opportunities and resources for those raised in the area.

    “Before, it was … just all about survival. There was no space to really grow. You don’t see a future, you don’t see yourself being a nurse,” said Knight, 33. “You hear about it, but you don’t actually get to see it.”

    It’s an area so deeply understood by locals as being underserved that a high school graduate made the local news this year because she was valedictorian, despite growing up within 93706, West Fresno’s ZIP code.

    “I can graduate with the highest honors despite the lack of resources and violence we endure on the West Side,” said Uzueth “Uzi” Ramírez-Gallegos during her speech, as reported by the Fresno Bee.

    This history is why the newest Fresno City College location was thoughtfully chosen to be constructed within a 1- to 2-mile radius of more than 10 K-12 schools.

    “We operated from a place of intention,” said Payne, who grew up in West Fresno and was elected trustee of State Center Community College District’s governing board in 2012. “How do we pull the greatest number of students into this community college?”

    The answer to that question was twofold: Build the new college campus within walking distance of those K-12 schools, plus reach out to the students and staff at those very schools to draw them onto campus and eventually enroll in the courses.

    The long-term vision for the college, Payne and campus leaders emphasized, is to create a space that not only disrupts the school-to-prison pipeline in the area but also more deeply connects West Fresno to the rest of the city.

    “I think the location is perhaps the best decision that was made by the community members and administration to make sure that 93706 is no longer left behind,” said one such campus leader, Gurminder Sangha, dean of educational services at the West Fresno Center.

    The 39 acres on which the school stands today were empty before its construction.

    Gurminder Sangha is the dean of educational services and pathway effectiveness at the West Fresno Center.
    Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource

    The financial backing for the acquisition of the land and construction of the facility was secured in a combination of ways: partial funding from a $485 million facilities bond approved by voters in 2016, a $16.5 million grant awarded by the city of Fresno through its Transformative Climate Community program, and an additional $11 million directly from the city.

    Included in the mix was a donation of 6 acres from TFS Investments, a real estate investment firm that owned a portion of the land where the campus now stands.

    The land has since been transformed into an open campus, with an automotive technology center opening in the new year, where students will train for certifications in electric vehicle mechanics and in the field of alternative fuels such as diesel technology.

    The degrees and programs offered at the campus include access to medical assistant certifications, chemistry and biology laboratories, business administration courses, elementary teaching education training, and more.

    There is also a newly-established city bus stop at the front entrance of the school on the previously existing route 38, with service every 15 minutes between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays.

    Local community members have long expressed frustration over the unreliable public transit system. The new stop and the accompanying free bus passes available for students are meant to increase accessibility to and from the campus.

    Perhaps most clearly bridging the new campus to its local West Fresno community is the one-mile walking trail with exercise equipment circling the campus, which will be open to all once construction is finished.

    The amenities and services offered at the new campus are in contrast with the larger West Fresno community, where essentials like grocery stores, banks and even trees are uncommon. In light of this contrast, the school is becoming a haven for many. Knight, for example, noted that her children enjoy walking from their home up the street and onto the campus.

    Those who enter the campus’ main lobby are greeted by both staff and peers who are hired to work in the student services department housed on the first floor of the same building where many of the college’s academic courses are offered.

    From counseling to basic needs resources and financial aid to records, students can easily find the right person to speak with because those offices are one of the first things they see as they walk into the lobby. The clearest welcome might just be the large lettering above those offices, which reads: “You belong here.”

    George Alvarado is the Director of Counseling and Special Projects at the new West Fresno Center. He offered EdSource a tour of the campus during a recent visit.
    Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource

    Barring the sections of campus remaining under construction through the beginning of next year — the automotive center and the walking trail — it is difficult to believe that the school opened just this fall; the facility has the typical hum of a college campus. Some students take their mid-class breaks in the main lobby, which doubles as a student lounge area, complete with snacks available for purchase and soft classical music playing in the background.

    Others study in the academic support centers on the second floor, where they also have a clear view of the greater West Fresno community.

    Sangha expects the available resources will expand as the school community grows.

    Conversations around building the campus began nearly two decades ago, said Sangha, with the actual construction taking about two years to complete.

    Payne noted that he remembers hearing about a college being established in West Fresno when he was in high school over two decades ago, but “it never materialized,” so he left Fresno at the time to attend Alabama A&M University.

    When he returned to his hometown years later, he began organizing with his former neighbors and joined a movement to push for what eventually became West Fresno Center. If it had existed when he was in high school, he said he may have chosen to stay in the city where he grew up and that more of his peers might have had better life outcomes and opportunities.

    “There are a lot of people that I graduated with that are deceased, that are incarcerated, and a lot of folks who are barely making it financially,” he said. “There was a thirst for this facility; there was a thirst for better outcomes.”

    That thirst is slowly being reflected in the number of students enrolling from the West Fresno community. Out of the 800 enrolled during this first fall semester since its grand opening, 130 students are exclusively taking courses at this campus, about 125 live in the 93706 ZIP code, and about 160 live in 93722, the ZIP code just north of campus.

    With their doors now open, plans are in place to offer college credit to local high school students. At three nearby high schools — Edison, Washington Union, and Kerman — students are already in dual enrollment courses held at their high school campuses. Sometime next year, according to Sangha, West Fresno Center plans to offer courses for high school students at the college campus so they may earn additional credits.

    “It is truly an academic village in a way, in that students can envision themselves walking from one school to the other school, then coming to us and going to Fresno State or wherever they want to go,” said Sangha.

    Knight graduated from high school about 15 years ago and moved to Los Angeles to enroll in Santa Monica College, but her move coincided with the 2008 recession and she couldn’t afford to remain in L.A. She returned to Fresno and enrolled in Fresno City College, but left shortly after becoming pregnant.

    The campus walking trail, seen in the distance, will open to all in the community after construction is complete.
    Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource

    “My journey to school has been … it’s been very different,” she said. “I’ve tried to come back throughout the years, and I just don’t think I was ready.”

    During the pandemic, she enrolled in school once more. She said the support she has received at the center made a significant difference for her.

    “My professors actually care that I show up, whether I’m late or whether I have to leave and take care of my kids or come back — which doesn’t happen often, but the fact that I have that support is important,” she said.

    Knight, who is a Fresno Unified School District graduate and whose mother and grandmother worked at Fresno Unified schools, now plans to continue raising her children in West Fresno. She is completing her degrees in human biology, public health and pre-allied health this month and will be walking the graduation stage in May.

    “To live across the street and to see it being built from the ground up, that was everything to me,” said Knight, a mother of two who is pregnant with twins. “It changed my whole mindset on Fresno, to be honest with you.”





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  • California School Dashboard released for the 2022-23 School Year

    California School Dashboard released for the 2022-23 School Year


    Students work together during an after-school tutoring club.

    Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education

    For the first time since 2019, the California Department of Education has fully updated the California School Dashboard that tracks the annual progress of K-12 students on factors such as standardized test scores, chronic absenteeism, suspensions and graduation rates.

    Since its rollout in 2017, the dashboard aims to show the progress of students at the state, district and school level using a color-coded system. It breaks this information down by 13 student subgroups, such as English language learners, disabled students and race and ethnicity. Friday’s update provides a snapshot of the progress made between the 2021-22 and 2022-23 academic years, representing the aftermath of the pandemic’s peak.

    Red signals the poorest performance, followed by orange, yellow and green, while blue signals the best performance. State officials say that anything below green indicates the need for attention and improvement. Amidst the pandemic, the state stopped releasing this information in 2020.

    The dashboard relies on some data, such as test scores and chronic absences, that was released in October. Other data — such as graduation rates and how many students met the entrance requirements to California universities, one measure of career and college readiness — were released Friday.

    For the first time, this year’s dashboard adds a color-coded score to measure how many English learners are making progress toward proficiency on the English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC).

    On chronic absenteeism and English learner progress, the state’s status was yellow, a midway point between blue and red. The state’s status was orange — the second-worst status — for its suspension rate, graduation rate and performance on standardized tests for mathematics and English language arts.

    State officials said the results demonstrate California schools are making progress in the wake of the pandemic, which witnessed sharp declines in standardized test scores and a surge in chronic absenteeism.

    “Recovery from the pandemic has been a long process all across the country,” said California State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond, in a statement. “While we have a long way to go, these results show that California is making strides, especially in enabling students to get to school and graduate ready for college and careers.”

    The rate of students graduating from high school who met the minimum course requirements to attend a CSU or UC reached an all-time high: 45.15%. That number has continued to steadily increase throughout the pandemic, up from 41.24% in 2016-17.

    The statewide four-year graduation rate is 86.2%, a decline from last year’s all-time high of 87%. State officials attribute 2021-22’s peak to a loosening of state graduation requirements and grading policies at the height of the pandemic. Officials say this most recent dip is due to a return to pre-pandemic policies.

    The dashboard’s color coding system takes into account both whether a metric is high or low, and also whether that metric has declined, maintained or improved within the past year.

    For instance, the orange ratings for math and English language arts test scores reflect the fact that after huge dips from pre-pandemic scores, there was little change from the previous year’s scores. Math scores edged up 2.6 points and English scores dipped 1.4 points. 

    The state’s chronic absentee rate in 2022-23 was 24.3%. That means nearly a quarter of students missed 10 or more days of school that year. That is a 5.7 point dip from the previous year’s all-time high of 30%. However, it is still a historically poor rate, roughly double the 2018-19 rate of 12.1%. Chronic absentee rates were above 20%, the worst category, in 62% of districts.

    Data shows that chronic absenteeism surged nationwide in the wake of the pandemic, and it hit nearly every school district. Experts have said that sick days from Covid and quarantining can account for part but not all of the rapidly increasing absentee rates. The CDE trumpeted the state’s declining chronic absenteeism rate.

    “This is encouraging news, and our work is not complete,” said Superintendent Tony Thurmond, in a statement. “We have made an unprecedented investment in services that address the needs of the whole child. We can see that those efforts are paying off, but this is only the beginning.”

    But some questioned whether the dashboard’s metrics provide a meaningful portrait of progress in the state.

    The dashboard was created before the pandemic when there were a different set of assumptions about what progress would look like in schools, said Heather Hough, executive director of PACE, a Stanford-based education research organization. Metrics didn’t tend to surge or nosedive year to year before the pandemic. Improvement on metrics like chronic absenteeism or standardized test scores are worth noting, she said, but the dashboard’s focus on one year of change can be misleading.

    “That can mask the concern that we should still be having: A lot of students are far behind where they have been, and large portions of students are not attending school,” Hough said.

    The color coding system has implications for which schools are eligible for additional assistance. Skyrocketing chronic absenteeism rates were largely responsible for a surge in schools that were eligible for differentiated assistance. In 2019, 333 school districts were eligible but by 2022 that number shot up to 617. This year 466 school districts were eligible.

    Advocates for English learners also worry that the way that the dashboard presents metrics is downplaying an urgent issue in education.

    The dashboard shows that about half (48.7%) of English learners in the state advanced at least one level or remained at the top level of English language proficiency, based on their scores on the ELPAC, a test English learners are required to take every year until they reach proficiency. This is about the same number who progressed as last year.

    CDE considers this to be a yellow score — a medium number of students making progress toward English proficiency, and not much change in how many did so. In order to reach green, the number of students making progress toward English proficiency would have to increase by 2 percentage points.

    Martha Hernandez, executive director of Californians Together, an organization that advocates for English learners statewide, said fewer than 50% of English learners making progress each year should be considered very low, or red, rather than medium, or yellow.

    “That seems to be a passing score, so to speak, and really doesn’t create the sense of urgency to really focus on the needs of English learners,” Hernandez said. “We really think the state has low expectations for districts having students make progress.”

    Hernandez said if students advance one level each year, they would achieve proficiency in six years, which is a reasonable expectation based on research. When students take longer than six years to achieve proficiency, they are considered long-term English learners and can struggle in middle and high school.

    Californians Together has advocated for the state to change indicators for English learner progress. The group believes that districts or schools should receive a high, or green, level of progress if at least 70% of English learners progress at least one level in one year. Currently, the state considers 55% of English learners progressing at least one level to be high.

    About a third of English learners (32.7%) in the state remained at one of the same lower levels of English proficiency as the year before on the test. Almost one fifth (18.6%) decreased one level in English proficiency.

    Districts achieved varied scores on English learner progress – 66 were red, 215 orange, 152 yellow, 192 green, and 43 blue.

    In addition, Californians Together criticized the fact that the dashboard rates English learners’ scores on English language arts and math tests together with the scores of students who have achieved proficiency in English in the last four years.

    “It’s a very, very weak picture of the needs of English learners,” said Shelly Spiegel-Coleman, strategic advisor for Californians Together.

    Melissa Valenzuela-Stookey, director of P-16 research at Ed Trust-West, said that the nonprofit that advocates for justice in education, is planning to dig into the data to get insight into what is happening for the state’s most marginalized students, but the initial data is concerning.

    “This data shows that the status quo for students of color is unacceptable, and we’re making alarmingly slow progress — but it also points to schools and districts that are proving that we can do better,” Valenzuela-Stookey said.





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