Writing in Slate, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern criticize the big law firms that immediately caved to Trump’s demands to quash their diversity programs and pledge millions of dollars in pro bono work for Trump’s causes. They were singled out for punishment by Trump in executive orders because they dared to represent his political enemies.
In the present crisis of American law, judges have been overwhelmingly strong in upholding the rule of law over the demands of an egotistical, lawless president. Over 200 lawsuits have been filed against the Trump administration, which has so far not gone well for Trump. Judges have been targets of abuse, intimidation, even death threats directed at them and their families.
The authors single out Judge Beryl Howell for her fearless defense of the right of lawyers to represent their clients regardless of their political views.
Last Friday, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell deftly knit together the professional obligations of the bench to the bar when she handed down a 102-page opinion in favor of one of these fighting firms, Perkins Coie, handing it a massive victory that carried a deeper lesson for the entire legal profession. Howell’s decision is noteworthy for all manner of things, but perhaps the most important aspect is that it serves as a clarion call for lawyers—meaning every lawyer in the country—to find their way to doing the work of democracy. The judge highlighted the “importance of independent lawyers to ensuring the American judicial system’s fair and impartial administration of justice,” a role “recognized in this country since its founding era.” She condemned the administration’s “unprecedented attack on these foundational principles.” And she praised Perkins Coie for defending its lawyers’ right “to represent their clients vigorously and zealously, without fear of retribution from the government simply for doing the job of a lawyer.” Howell also gave credit to the hundreds of lawyers who filed amicus briefs on behalf of the firm, including a cross-ideological array of lawyers, former government officials, and retired judges, reflecting the profession’s near-unanimous revulsion at the prospect of singling out firms based on the clients they choose to represent.
But Howell went out of her way to cast doubt upon the capitulating firms that took Trump’s deal, for possibly compromising their own legal ethics. Describing Trump’s threat that “lawyers must stick to the party line, or else,” she wrote, archly: “This message has been heard and heeded by some targeted law firms, as reflected in their choice, after reportedly direct dealings with the current White House, to agree to demand terms, perhaps viewing this choice as the best alternative for their clients and employees.” Some clients, she noted, “may harbor reservations about the implications of such deals for the vigorous and zealous representation to which they are entitled from ethically responsible counsel”—an extraordinary warning to these clients that their lawyers may no longer be defending their best interests. And to make her position perfectly clear, the judge added: “If the founding history of this country is any guide, those who stood up in court to vindicate constitutional rights and, by so doing, served to promote the rule of law, will be the models lauded when this period of American history is written.”
Howell’s opinion serves as the most important reminder to date that in this constitutional moment, those trained to operate within the law and those who swear oaths to defend it have a singular and critical role to play. The days of “I just do mergers and acquisitions” are behind us, sports fans. If America were experiencing a national tooth-decay crisis, the dentists would be on the front lines; and were it experiencing a sweeping leaky-pipe epidemic, the plumbers would be on the front lines. Given that we are in the throes of the greatest legal disaster the country has faced in many Americans’ lifetimes, it might be a good idea for the nation’s attorneys to begin to understand that they have a role to play too. Howell, meanwhile, holds no quarter for those who would seek to be neutral. If you have the tools to fight lawlessness and you opt not to use them at this moment in history, you are emphatically still taking a side.
It is hard to read Howell’s opinion without worrying that some judge somewhere will find it too sweeping, too polemical, and too teeming with overinflated claims about the centrality of attorneys in American life. (She quoted Alexis de Tocqueville’s observationthat in the early United States, “the authority … intrusted to members of the legal profession … is the most powerful existing security against the excesses of democracy.”) What Howell seems to understand, with as much force as de Tocqueville, is that those entrusted to protect against the “excesses of democracy” are not going to have the luxury of appearing “neutral” much longer, or even just tamping down criticism by avoiding flowery prose in favor of more anodyne wrist slaps. Effective immediately, the defenders of the rule of law are those who went to school to understand it, who get paid to fight for it, and who swear an oath to uphold it.
Recess at Redwood Heights Elementary School in Oakland.
Credit: Alison Yin / EdSource
When one of our sons (then a third grader) lost recess privileges for a week last school year, he came home cranky and irritable. As he put it, “Recess is the only time I can actually really play with my friends without so many rules.” Research in education, psychology, physiology, and brain science consistently points to recess as a vital part of the school day. There’s a reason most kids claim recess is their favorite subject in school.
As students across California return to their classrooms, they will step back into healthier learning environments thanks to the landmark Senate Bill 291, known as Recess for All, which requires elementary schools — for the first time in the state’s history — to provide students with at least 30 minutes of daily recess, while also prohibiting withholding recess as punishment.
The law is a response to the growing concerns about inactivity and the mental health crisis among our youth — challenges exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. As public-school parents and professors who study recess and school health, we applaud the effort to not only increase students’ opportunities for school-based play but also to help address the traumas and social isolation our children faced during the pandemic.
Now we must ensure that schools implement these changes so all children have the access to recess they need and deserve.
Unfortunately, many still see recess as simply fun and games. This view — a vestige of the No Child Left Behind era, which ramped up school testing and created disincentives for developmental activities like recess, arts, music, and civics — had led some localities to reduce or eliminate regular breaks for children. This was a major issue post-pandemic when concerns about learning loss were pitted against the healing power of play in school. Research supports the importance of taking recess breaks from traditional academic subjects like math and reading; stepping away from classroom learning to move and play can help improve students’ test scores.
Why is recess so essential for California’s more than 3 million public school students? The play, teamwork, socialization, leadership and self-regulation that happen at recess are critical for child and youth development. Recess is the only unstructured time in the school day when students can acquire and practice these skills. Young children learn a tremendous amount through organized and imaginative play — how to create and follow rules, be inclusive, make good decisions and collaborate.
The physical activity that occurs at recess is important for many reasons, including helping students to get their wiggles out. But brain science tells us there is more to it than just wiggles. Physical activity and social connection at recess help students regulate their behaviors and emotions. Supporting these executive functions improves students’ abilities to concentrate and learn throughout the school day.
Importantly, Recess for All is an anti-racist and equitable policy. It has the potential to close the gap in access to recess that exists in California and across the country.
Students of color and those in low-income areas routinely have less recess time than students in wealthier and whiter areas. Additionally, children of color are disproportionately more likely to be disciplined in school. By abolishing the practice of withholding recess, schools can create restorative practices that support appropriate behavior, rather than punishing students by forcing them to sit out and miss essential growth time.
Recess for All is vitally important for California’s youth. As California public school parents, we plan to speak directly to our principals, PTAs and school boards to show our educators how much we value school-based opportunities for play and socialization. We encourage other parents to do the same. Schools respond to the issues most important to parents and their communities. Talk to your school administrators about their plans for ensuring kids get the newly mandated 30 minutes of recess a day. Our children, and our communities, will be healthier for it.
•••
Rebecca A. London, Ph.D., is professor of sociology and faculty director of Campus + Community at the University of California Santa Cruz. She is author of the book “Rethinking Recess: Creating Safe and Inclusive Playtime for All Children in School” (Harvard Education Press, 2019).
Hannah R. Thompson, Ph.D., MPH, is assistant research professor at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health. She works with school districts to study the impact of improved school-based physical activity and nutrition opportunities on student health.
The opinions in this commentary are those of the authors. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us
Gov. Gavin Newsom presents his revised 2025-26 state budget during a news conference in Sacramento on May 14, 2025.
Credit: AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli
TK-12 schools and community colleges can expect the same funding in 2025-26 that they received this year, plus a small cost-of-living adjustment, and there will be a big boost for early literacy, Gov. Gavin Newsom revealed Wednesday in the revision to his January state budget plan.
Schools and community colleges will be shielded from the pain facing other state services because of the revised forecast of a $12 billion drop in state revenues that Newsom blamed on the “Trump slump” — the president’s erratic tariff and other economic policies that are affecting California.
For the University of California and California State University, the news was better than anticipated. The systems would face a 3% cut for 2025-26, notably less than the nearly 8% reduction Newsom proposed in January. The smaller cut may provide some relief at a time when higher education in California and across the nation is worried about losses in federal research grants and other funding under Trump administration policies.
The 2.3% cost-of-living adjustment in 2025-26 for most TK-12 programs is determined by a federal formula that does not factor in the cost of housing, the biggest expense facing teachers and other employees.
In his May budget revision, Newsom keeps significant money for TK-12 programs that he proposed in January for fully rolling out transitional kindergarten for 4-year-olds, along with additional funding to reduce class sizes, and for expanding summer school and after-school learning to more districts.
And Newsom would add $200 million to his earlier $543 million proposal for early literacy instruction, with money to buy instructional materials, hire literacy coaches and train teachers in “evidence-based literacy instruction,” which is code for teaching phonics and word decoding as well as other fundamental reading skills.
That funding would take a significant step toward creating and funding a comprehensive early literacy strategy and coincides with compromise legislation, pushed by Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, on spelling out what the instruction and reading materials should look like.
“We’re thrilled. We’re excited,” said Marshall Tuck, CEO of EdVoice, which pushed early literacy legislation. “In a really tight budget year, prioritizing reading for California kids and investing $200 million is real leadership.”
Newsom would also add to past efforts to recruit teachers by including $64.2 million in one-time funding for the Golden State Teacher Grant Program, under which teachers receive college tuition in exchange for agreeing to teach in underserved districts and in subjects facing critical shortages, and $100 million to pay stipends to student teachers. Unpaid student teaching has been cited as one of the primary reasons teacher candidates fail to complete their credentials.
The Legislature has a month to reshape Newsom’s budget before the June 15 constitutional deadline to pass a budget for the fiscal year that starts on July 1.
What the budget doesn’t include, however, is any funding to backfill for the potential loss of billions of federal dollars in Medi-Cal funding for school physical and mental health services, cuts for Head Start programs, training grants for new teachers and research grants for the University of California and California State University, and the dismantling of the AmeriCorps program, which supplies teachers aides and tutors in hundreds of low-income schools.
“Our ability to backfill all these federal cuts — no, we’re not going to be in a position to do that, we just are not in that position,” Newsom said. “It’s the old adage, you can’t do everything but you can do anything. There may be areas where we can make adjustments.”
“I think we should be cautious about eliminating consideration of x, y, and z until we see the totality of the challenges as they present themselves.”
In one cost-cutting measure, Gov. Newsom is proposing to roll back California’s health insurance program for undocumented immigrant adults, by charging premiums and freezing new enrollment, a move that advocates said will affect their children, many of whom are U.S. citizens. One in 10 California children are estimated to have an undocumented parent.
“When a parent or family member is sick and unable to work or provide care, kids suffer as a result,” said Mayra Alvarez, president of the nonprofit organization The Children’s Partnership. “Ripping away these family members’ access to health care, while they are also under threat of cruel immigration enforcement and other anti-immigrant policies, in turn puts the well-being of our children at risk.”
Higher education
State funding for the state’s system of 116 community colleges would change little from last year, receiving 0.6% less, at $8.9 billion. However, some of its important funding — $531.6 million from Proposition 98 revenues — would be deferred for a year under the proposal.
UC would have its funding cut by $129.7 million, while CSU would lose $143.8 million. In January, Newsom’s administration had proposed deeper cuts of $396.6 million and $375.2 million, respectively.
The revised budget maintains a proposal to defer previously promised 5% budget increases until 2027-28 for both systems. Those deferrals, which were part of Newsom’s multiyear compact agreements with the systems, were also included in Newsom’s January budget proposal.
The compacts, originally agreed to in 2022, promised annual budget increases for UC and CSU in exchange for the systems working toward goals such as increasing graduation rates and enrolling more California residents.
“We were able to hold strong to that over a two-year period. And we’re struggling now with some challenges,” Newsom said during a news conference Wednesday, though he added that the compacts are “sacrosanct” and that the systems would get their deferred dollars in 2027-28.
By reducing the proposed cut to UC’s budget for 2025-26, the 10-campus system will be able to minimize cuts to student support services and preserve “critical investments like affordable student housing construction,” President Michael V. Drake said Wednesday in a statement.
CSU Chancellor Mildred García in January warned that a nearly 8% state budget reduction would result in larger class sizes and fewer course offerings for the system’s more than 460,000 students, hampering their prospects for graduating on time. With those cuts now dialed back to 3%, García praised the May revision as a “thoughtful and measured approach to addressing the state’s fiscal challenges.”
Proposition 98 maneuvers
In total, the May revision proposes $45.7 billion for the state’s higher education institutions and the California Student Aid Commission.
The minimum funding for 2025-26 for Proposition 98, the formula that determines the portion of the general fund that must go to TK-12 and community colleges, would be $114.6 billion, down from $118.9 billion in 2024-25 because of shrinking state revenues.
Newsom proposes to make up the difference by shifting numbers around, depleting what was left in the Proposition 98 rainy day fund. Among other maneuvers, he would:
Drain the remaining $540 million from a fund that was $8.4 billion only two years ago, when the state faced a fiscal crisis.
Defer $1.8 billion that would be due to schools in June 2026 by a month, to July 2026. Schools should notice little difference, although the maneuver does create a state obligation that must be repaid.
Withhold $1.3 billion due to schools and community colleges in 2024-25 in anticipation that the revenues for the rest of the year might come up short because of the further decline in state revenues.
This last maneuver grabbed the attention of the California School Boards Association, which filed a lawsuit over a similar effort last year and is threatening to do so again.
“Even in lean times, investing in public schools is California’s best economic strategy, so we cannot sidestep constitutional protections for public education nor underfund Prop 98 to offset shortfalls in other sections of the budget,” association President Bettye Lusk said in a statement.
The immediate reaction to the budget proposal was positive, with some caveats.
“The bottom line is that amid a budget crisis, the governor is protecting every major investment in education,” said Kevin Gordon, president of Capitol Advisors, a consultant for school districts. “We want to make sure Prop 98 funding is accounted for. As long as that’s the case, there’s not much to complain about.”
Scott Moore, head of Kidango, a nonprofit that runs many Bay Area child care centers, praised the commitment to universal transitional kindergarten (TK) while criticizing Newsom’s decision to suspend a cost-of-living adjustment for child care providers for low-income children and freeze funding for emergency child care services for foster and homeless children.
“We know that small class sizes and highly qualified teachers are two of the most important quality standards to ensure children benefit from pre-K. This budget invests wisely in TK,” he said. “The proposed cut to the COLA (cost of living increase) for child care providers must be restored. Now is the worst time to eliminate a small, but very much needed and deserved COLA for those who take care of our youngest and most vulnerable children.”
Students catch up and get ahead during LAUSD’s Summer of Learning.
Credit: Mallika Seshadri / EdSource
Thomas Jefferson High School has a rich history.
It is one of the oldest schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District — established more than a century ago — and lies in Central Avenue, which used to be called “Little Harlem” during the 1920s and 1930s.
Its graduates — from Ralph Bunche, the first Black Nobel laureate, to Alvin Ailey, the legendary choreographer — have had lasting impact.
Now, Jefferson High sits on LAUSD’s list of 100 priority schools — meaning that Superintendent Alberto Carvalho has identified it as one of the district’s highest-needs campuses with lagging academic performance and lower attendance rates.
In an effort to promote equity across the district, LAUSD provides priority schools like Jefferson extra support and is the first to receive various resources, including instructional days designed to recover pandemic learning losses, as well as being the first to pilot LAUSD’s AI personal assistant.
“This approach places schools with the most need in a place of priority in the District regarding time and attention by Central and Region Offices,” an LAUSD spokesperson said in a statement to EdSource.
While veteran teachers and community activists have applauded Carvalho for putting an emphasis on equity, they have also said that being placed on the list creates a stigma that affects the schools’ administrators, teachers and students. Many have also warned that the superintendent’s approach is too standardized and does not address the root, societal causes of students’ academic struggles.
“Nobody wants to be listed as a failing school,” said Nicolle Fefferman, a longtime LAUSD educator who co-founded the Facebook group Parents Supporting Teachers. “Who wants to be on this list? No one — because it feels like an indictment of the hard work that we are doing every day at these schools in the face of huge historical and institutional obstacles.”
According to a district spokesperson, LAUSD’s priority schools have higher percentages of underserved students, including those who are Black, Latino, foster youth, unhoused and from immigrant backgrounds.
Proponents of other equity programs that largely support the same student body, including the Student Equity Needs Index, say their efforts have been sidelined and that they have not received the same level of support.
LAUSD has a history of prioritizing equity, Fefferman said, and Carvalho wasn’t the first district leader to roll out a list of struggling schools during Fefferman’s tenure as a teacher in the district. Former Superintendent Ruben Zacarias, who served in the late 1990s, did something similar.
“Los Angeles Unified is committed to an equitable approach in providing historically underserved schools with critical access to supports and resources,” the spokesperson for LAUSD said.
A need for equity support
Largely clustered in south and southeast Los Angeles, the roughly 54,000 LAUSD students who attend Carvalho’s priority schools have struggled with chronic absenteeism — 38.2% in the 2022-23 academic year — and lower academic performance. Only 23% of students attending priority schools met or exceeded English standards, while 16% met or exceeded math standards, according to Smarter Balanced Test results for that same year.
Meanwhile, nearly 70% of priority school graduates failed to complete their A-G requirements, which are mandatory for admission to the University of California or the California State University systems.
Data for the 2023-24 academic year is not yet available, and it is difficult to determine whether performance at priority schools has improved since they were so identified.
So far, the priority schools have improved their outcomes, the spokesperson said, noting that their rate of improvement is larger than the district’s overall.
“The questions are: How did those schools get there? How long have they been there? And what’s the plan?” asked Evelyn Aleman, the organizer of the Facebook group Our Voice/Nuestra Voz.
“Outside of tutoring and additional school days, things like that, what does (being a priority school) mean? Is it going to be Saturday classes throughout the year? Is it just going to be three additional days? That’s simply not going to be enough.”
According to a district spokesperson, developing the list of 100 priority schools was part of a larger plan to improve student performance — and that the campuses on the list receive strategic and priority staffing, along with additional professional development opportunities that are “specific to their school’s unique needs.”
They also receive more instructional coaches and dual/current enrollment options. Their progress is more closely monitored.
Some LAUSD teachers, however, maintain that the extra support that comes with being a priority school won’t be enough because there are other institutional and societal factors that get in the way of better outcomes.
“There is so much stress in the community — much of it because of poverty, some because of violence. And it’s not that there’s violence all the time, but it’s the fact that there can be at any moment — that you’re on guard,” said Susan Ferguson, a veteran LAUSD educator who previously taught at Jefferson High School.
“When you’re on your stressors like that for an extended period of time, it affects your immune system. It affects your ability to learn and focus. It affects so many things,” Ferguson said.
‘I just don’t feel like we’re moving forward’
Educators in priority schools say they can feel pressure from the district to improve outcomes, and Ferguson said LAUSD officials would come by and visit classrooms on a weekly basis.
“Classrooms are constantly having visitors: ‘Are they teaching? What are they teaching?’ The people coming in, I feel like, are well-intentioned, but they’re visiting 10 different schools who have different needs,” Ferguson said.
“And yet, they’re being asked to help all of us, and they can’t — not unless they really spend time at one school looking at it.”
Administrators at the Jefferson High School campus, Ferguson said, have been under enormous pressure to improve academic outcomes.
She also said she wouldn’t be surprised if students’ psychology were impacted by the constant flow of district administrators in and out of classrooms — and any nervousness coming from their teachers.
“Our kids aren’t stupid. I’m sure that they have picked up on … some sort of problem,” Ferguson said. “I’m really hoping that they’re not taking it as being them. … I can’t imagine them not feeling the anxiety.”
More than anything, Ferguson maintains that the district’s standardized approach may not address the root cause of students’ academic challenges.
“‘Let’s have tutors. Let’s assign these tutors to Jefferson and make the kids stay till 6 p.m.’” Ferguson said. “Well, if you bothered to come to our school and talk to our kids, you’d realize that we don’t have kids that generally stay until 6 p.m. because it’s not even safe. And people have family members to take care of and responsibilities.”
“It just totally seems not in touch with what’s going on and what the issues are.”
‘A broader view’: SENI’s approach to equity
A long-term equity program across LAUSD schools — the Student Equity Needs Index (SENI) — is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.
The effort, which was developed by the district alongside various community partners, ranks and categorizes all of LAUSD’s campuses based on their needs. The 15 factors that inform SENI’s rankings go beyond academic factors to include the prevalence of gun violence and asthma rates.
During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, exposure to the coronavirus and related deaths were also taken into account.
Jessenia Reyes, Catalyst California’s director of educational equity, said social indicators help them focus on challenges more uniquely faced by lower income communities and communities of color.
SENI then uses a sliding scale to allocate funding, which schools can use to address whatever needs they and their communities collectively feel are most pressing, said Daniela Hernández, the senior director of campaign development at Innercity Struggle, a local nonprofit organization that has been part of the effort to implement the program.
About 90% of SENI funds — which come from the district and are given to schools based on their level of need — went toward bolstering staff across elementary, middle and high schools, with many choosing to focus on psychiatric social workers and pupil services and attendance staff, according to a 2021 evaluation of the district’s SENI program conducted by American Institutes for Research.
The same evaluation found that SENI helped boost English language arts scores among economically disadvantaged students and those who are English learners. Math scores also increased among students with disabilities who are also English learners and economically disadvantaged.
Despite the improvements SENI has seen over the past decade, community advocates have also sounded alarms that not all of SENI funds allocated to schools are spent by principals. According to a district budget report, there is roughly $282 million that remains unused going into the 2024-25 academic year.
“Schools are encouraged to utilize SENI funds for each school year in order to serve the students who generated those dollars, and to engage with educational partners regarding the use of these funds,” a district spokesperson said in a statement to EdSource.
“Unspent SENI dollars are reallocated to schools based on need in order to address learning acceleration, provide mental health services and supports, provide additional learning supports, support student attendance, and address the needs of student populations.”
Priority schools, the spokesperson said, get to keep up to 70% of their carryover funds.
A delicate relationship
This past year, 88 high- and highest-need SENI schools were listed on Carvalho’s list of 100 priority schools. A district spokesperson said that SENI serves as more of a financial designation, while the 100 priority schools list is more of a “strategic designation for central and regional support systems.”
Advocates have said they appreciate LAUSD’s expressed commitment to equity.
“The district, if anything, has been ahead of the game of understanding that students don’t learn in a box — that whatever happens in their community matters,” said Miguel Dominguez, the director of development at Community Coalition, who has worked with LAUSD on the SENI initiative.
“If they’re being exposed to gun fatalities in their neighborhood, maybe doing a test or a pop quiz might not be something at the forefront of their mind. … This understanding of this overall whole child approach has been big.”
But several advocates also maintain that the district’s attitude toward SENI has changed with the emergence of the 100 priority schools.
When Carvalho announced he had developed developedhe list, Reyes said SENI seemed to drift onto the back burner; and, they felt an increasing pressure to prove SENI’s worth, and that it “wasn’t just symbolic” but had funding tied to it.
She noted that funding for SENI has increased over the years — soaring from $25 to $700 million. Advocates have continued to press for sustained support.
“Now more than ever, it is vital that LA Unified takes actionable steps to demonstrate its core belief of equity by interrupting the course of history and committing to prioritizing stable, long-term adequate funding to meet the unique needs of highest-needs students,” a March letter from various SENI supporters to Carvalho and the school board states.
“This includes protection of SENI and ensuring the $700 million investment is a permanent and stable funding source beyond the 2024-2025 school year.”
Meanwhile, SENI advocates said that a lack of transparency from the district and its failure to immediately release the list of 100 priority schools has made it harder for them to work collaboratively.
The district, however, noted that support for priority schools is intended to help campuses take advantage of their resources, including SENI funding and “removing any barriers that may interfere” with their schools’ individual efforts.
“There’s room for improvement in collaborating and working in parallel. Because ultimately, if they are SENI schools and they are priority schools, that means it’s a high-need school, period,” Reyes said. “It needs the support and the love from everybody and everything.”
Did he point his finger at the President who encouraged an insurrection on January 6, 2021?
No.
Did he blame the loser of the 2020 election who spent four years claiming that the election was rigged and that he didn’t lose?
No.
Did he blame the political party that spent four years asserting not only that the election of 2020 was rigged but that the rightful winner was “crooked” and every member of his family was part of a “crime family”?
No.
Did he blame the President who has openly ignored federal court orders?
No.
Did he blame the President who proposes to abolish due process of law even though it is written into the Constitution?
No.
Did he blame the President who said publicly that he didn’t know whether he is required to support the Constitution?
No.
Chief Justice Roberts is right to be concerned about the shrinkage of civics education, but he is wrong to ignore the reason for that shrinkage: No Child Left Behind made test scores the central goal of education, which diminished everything in the curriculum other than reading and math.
Because so many young people have not received civics education, they are likely to be misled by a charlatan whose actions model contempt for the rule of law and the Constitutuon.
And, worse, it was the Roberts Court that proclaimed that the President while carrying out his duties has absolute immunity and is above the law.
The Supreme Court, in short, overturned the deep-seated principle taught in civics classes that “no man is above the law.”
Mr. Chief Justice, if you want to know who encouraged disrespect for the rule of law, look in the mirror.
The start of the school year can be anxiety-producing. We get the anxiety. Believe us, we do. Between the three of us, we parent a kindergartner, a ninth grader and a freshman in college. We know how scary it is to feel like your child is falling behind in a game with life-shaping stakes. But, as this new school year gets started, we’re trying to worry less about our own kids and put our energy into a broader, collective educational enterprise.
To understand what that collective enterprise might look like, it helps to step back and think about the goals that motivate public education. Contemporary schools serve at least three crucial social goals: helping individuals flourish, sorting students into roles in our highly differentiated economy, and creating a broader sense of solidarity.
As we settle into our fall routines, we often focus on the first two goals at the expense of the third. Because we know that education shapes our children’s life chances, we want our kids to get into the advanced math class, make the honor roll, and claim the high-status educational positions that clear the way to high-status positions in the broader world. We start to see the whole educational system as a vast tournament, where students compete for access to learning opportunities that provide access to more advanced learning opportunities that, ultimately, open the way to elite positions in the adult world.
No wonder we’re all so stressed out. We’ve turned education into a zero-sum game and invested that game with high stakes. We once talked about education as a pathway to the middle class. But today, as educational debt loads rise and machine intelligences fuel job insecurity, that pathway feels like a tightrope without a net. And that’s just part of the story. In a meritocratic culture that sees educational success as a marker of worth, we feel like our children need to excel in order to prove they matter.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
In fact, America’s new favorite social studies teacher and high school football coach shows us how different schools can be. As a long-serving public school teacher, Tim Walz recognized the way sports can bring a community together and how school leaders can channel that community toward inclusion and belonging for all students. In the classroom, he developed learning experiences that challenged students to understand the recurring sources of conflict and genocide, helping them see connections between communities across the globe. As a politician, he resisted school choice policies that allow families to wall themselves off from one another and championed a vision of schools as places where everyone — regardless of their family income — can come together around a meal.
You don’t have to be a teacher, coach or policymaker to advance this vision.
Parents, you can choose to send your child to the most diverse public school available to them; leave the packed lunch at home and encourage your child to eat in the cafeteria; praise your child for encouraging a peer who is struggling to fit in; organize parents from throughout your school’s community to get involved; and advocate for policies that provide public schools with the resources they need to ensure that all kids thrive; and vote for leaders who will make those policies a reality.
This fall, as we post back-to-school photos to social media, we’d do well to remember — and celebrate — that school is the place where we learn how to play well with others. This key lesson in social solidarity requires a curriculum far more complicated than Calculus and more nuanced than AP Literature. School teaches us to see ourselves as individuals embedded in a complex set of relationships with others. It teaches us to respect those around us, to observe them with care and empathy in order to identify, and adjust to the intricacies of any given interaction.
Taking these lessons seriously opens us — and our children — up to a deep humility and a profound sense of responsibility. When we are aware of our connections to others, we can’t help but remember that each of the people we run into has an inner life every bit as rich as our own. That we are just one of 8 billion other humans — and countless other organisms — on this planet, each of which shares the same will to survive.
This sense of solidarity is a badly needed antidote to the preening and divisive rhetoric that will dominate the news this election season. Solidarity allows us to step back and gain some perspective on our grievances, reminding us to consider our own wants in light of the wants and needs of others.
If we don’t want the divisiveness that defines our politics to define our society, we need to work together to turn away from educational competition and build schools that create solidarity.
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Emily K. Penner, Ph.D., is associate professor of education in the school of education at the University of California, Irvine.Her research focuses on K-12 education policy and considers the ways that districts, schools, teachers and families contribute to and ameliorate educational inequality.
Thurston Domina is associate dean for academic affairs and director of graduate studies at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Education.
Andrew Penner is a professor in the sociology department at the University of California, Irvine and director of the Center for Administrative Data Analysis.
The opinions in this commentary are those of the authors. We welcome guest commentaries with diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
Project 2025’s section on education proposes that the U.S. Department of Education’s largest funding streams for K-12 schools be turned into block grants to the states with minimal oversight. The two big programs are Title 1 for poor kids and the funding for students with disabilities (IDEA).
The states would be free to convert these funds into vouchers, instead of spending them on low-income students or students with disabilities.
The National Education Association explains here:
Block Grant Overview
Typically, the deal between the federal government and states when specific program funds are block-granted is that the federal government will provide less funding in return for less regulation and requirements. With less regulation, the assumption is that states should be able to do as much or more with less money. While it may be appealing initially to those who administer federal grants at the state and local level, in reality, fewer dollars mean fewer programs and services. States and school districts may have more flexibility in using federal funds but it comes at the expense of the students the federal grant program was designed to help in the first place.
Many states already underfund their commitment to public education. If states and districts don’t cover the shortfall, students receiving Title I and IDEA services will suffer. Furthermore, both Title I and IDEA have maintenance of effort and supplement, not supplant requirements to ensure states and districts hold up their levels of spending when receiving federal funds. Those requirements will fall away, too, and, most likely, so will the funding commitments by states and districts.
Title I of the ESEA and IDEA were created to ensure all students have equal access to an education, regardless of family income or disability. Many states were failing to adequately educate students in these populations, if at all. The federal role here was clear: where a student lived or their circumstances should not determine the quality of their education. ESEA and IDEA enshrined this principle and attached specific conditions and requirements that states must follow, in return for federal financial assistance, to ensure that students from lower-income families and communities and those with disabilities have the same opportunity to learn as any other student. “No-strings-attached” block grant funding turns the clock back 60 years on education policy and progress, and turns its back on our nation’s commitment to educating all students. While one would like to think that we can trust states to do the right thing on behalf of all students, history tells us differently.
Providing states with federal aid and fewer requirements leaves the door open for states to do as they wish. Title I of ESEA and IDEA include important requirements and protections for students and families precisely because they were lacking previously. At its core, the Department of Education is a civil rights agency, providing dollars, regulations, requirements, guidance, technical assistance, research, monitoring, and compliance enforcement to preserve and protect students’ access to a free and appropriate education. Strip it away, and you strip away the rights of certain students to a meaningful education.
Your tax dollars could soon lift a rainbow of religious educators — from Christian academies to pro-Palestinian classrooms — as the U.S. Supreme Court teeters on forcing states to aid sectarian schools.
In oral arguments last month, the high court’s conservatives voiced eagerness to reverse an Oklahoma ruling that blocked public funding for a virtual charter school infused with Catholic teachings, an online scheme designed by the Tulsa diocese.
Oklahoma’s far-from-woke Supreme Court agreed with the state attorney general in Drummond v. Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board that taxpayer funding for religious web-based classes would violate America’s sacred separation of church and state. This key element of our Constitution insulates all faiths from state intrusion, while vesting shared civic duties, like education, within a tolerant and secular government.
But muddled logic ruled this day in the high court among jurists like Samuel Alito, a self-described “practical originalist,” long insisting that judges must abide by the Constitution’s original intent. Alito at one point attacked Oklahoma’s Republican attorney general, Gentner Drummond, claiming that he “reeks of hostility towards Islam.”
This odd allegation stemmed from Drummond’s point that “while many Oklahomans undoubtedly support charter schools sponsored by various Christian faiths, the precedent … will compel approval of similar applications by all faiths.” Alito mangled the argument, alleging that Drummond is “motivated by hostility toward particular religions.”
Alito dodged the bedrock question of whether taxpayer support of religion is permitted by the nation’s founding covenants. Instead, his tortured reasoning claimed that public programs cannot “discriminate” against religious schools.
California hosts more charter schools than any other state. In districts like Los Angeles Unified, one-fifth of all students attend a charter school, which did help lift student achievement for two decades before the pandemic. Still, Alito is not alone in negotiating the shifting ideologies and ironic surprises that mark the charter school movement.
These publicly funded but independently run campuses were first authorized by Minnesota’s Legislature in 1991, founded on the rather Christian yearning for fairness, allowing poor families to escape mediocre public schools and shop for effective teachers. California’s charter law, approved one year later, emphasized how these small hot-houses of innovation would hurry reform of regular public schools.
But few advocates foresaw how the rapid spread of charters would drive religious schools into the ground. Why pay even modest tuition for parochial school when a free charter has opened nearby? Enrollment in Catholic schools has fallen by one-third nationwide since the advent of charter schools; more than one thousand campuses have closed. Small Christian schools have taken a hit as well, with nearly one hundred shuttered in Los Angeles alone.
So, the pushback by religious educators is understandable, with some (not all) sects eager to tap into public funding. If the Supreme Court now rules that states must subsidize faith-filled charter schools, Alito could realize his apparent wish for more Catholic or Confucian schools.
But do spiritual leaders desire a messy entanglement with government? States typically require local school boards, when chartering independent educators, to ensure safe buildings, enforce shared curricular goals, and demonstrate that schools elevate student learning. Conservative jurists may well invite the state to squash evangelical charters that exclude Jewish kids, or protect the errant Presbyterian pupil who refuses to chant from the Quran.
The high court has already permitted limited public financing of religious schools. This includes taxpayer-financed vouchers in select states that help parents pay tuition for sectarian schools, along with tax credits that mostly benefit affluent families enrolling children in private schools. (Los Angeles Unified recently settled with the Catholic archdiocese, reimbursing the church $3 million to cover Title I services required by related court decisions.)
But these earlier rulings “involved fairly discrete state involvement,” Chief Justice John Roberts said during oral arguments, while warning that Oklahoma’s potential oversight of religious schools “does strike me as much more comprehensive involvement.” His vote will likely decide whether public dollars flow to religious schools.
Perhaps it’s reassuring that right-wing judges like Alito remain so protective of religious liberty, sniffing out unlikely opponents of Islam or the Vatican. But telling states and taxpayers we must subsidize sectarian schools, then inviting government inside churches, synagogues and mosques, will only fracture the once common cause of public schools.
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Bruce Fuller is an emeritus professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley and author of “When Schools Work.”
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.
For 30 years, California has experimented with a school choice program that let parents enroll their children in nearby districts that opened up seats for outsiders.Now the little-known District of Choice program, which the Legislature has renewed seven times, will become permanent through the passage of Senate Bill 897, authored by Sen. Josh Newman, D-Fullerton, if the governor signs the bill.
Only about 10,000 — about 0.2% — of the state’s students annually have taken advantage of the program. Most attend a half-dozen, primarily small districts in Southern California.
Districts of choice must be open to all who apply, including students with disabilities, who may be more expensive to serve. To prevent wealthier, primarily white families from exiting their home districts, SB 897 adds some stipulations to existing restrictions to prevent racial disparities and financial impacts. After accommodating siblings of transferees, the next priorities will be foster, homeless and low-income children. Up to 1% of students in districts with more than 50,000 students and a maximum 10% of students in districts with fewer than 50,000 will be able to transfer annually. Districts with a negative or qualified financial status can limit the number of students who can leave under the program.
Walnut Valley Unified, a 14,000-student district in the San Gabriel Valley, has been the most active proponent, with 2,774 students –30% of the total –transferring there in 2023-24, likely drawn to its Chinese immersion schools and emphasis on the arts. Pomona Unified, in opposing the bill, argued it lost wealthier families in Diamond Bar, which borders both districts, to the program.
The California Department of Education has not promoted the program, and many neighboring districts appear to have taken a don’t-poach-on-me, I-won’t-tread-on-you approach to interdistrict transfers.
But in an era of declining enrollment, the district of choice program is an option to shore up finances and fill up seats. It’s an open question whether districts will seize the opportunity.
Stockton Unified Superintendent Michelle Rodriguez talks about how she arrived at her goals and plans for improving student achievement.
Credit: Lasherica Thornton/ EdSource
Stockton Unified, a mostly poverty-stricken community in San Joaquin County, has become known for its legal troubles, financial issues and superintendent turnover, which have, for years, distracted the low-performing school district from addressing student achievement. Most of the district’s nearly 40,000 students have failed to meet state standards in English and math.
Becoming superintendent in July 2023, Michelle Rodriguez knew those facts to be true. Rodriguez, the 14th superintendent to lead the district in less than two decades, said she was determined to change SUSD’s troubled reputation by focusing on students, creating stability, restoring public trust and engaging the community “one interaction, one decision, one day at a time.”
But without “actually digging in to find out what is happening,” Rodriguez refused at the start to make assumptions about what the district faced, especially its barriers to student achievement.
“Until I get in the classroom, I probably won’t be able to answer the question about lack of student achievement here,” Rodriguez told EdSource last year.
“What I knew was that because I was the 14th superintendent in 19 years, and because of just the headlines that we had seen, we knew that we needed to make sure that we solidified the system,” she said in a recent sit-down. “Instead of making the assumption that I knew specifically what was happening, I identified four key areas that effective systems have”: quality assurance, high expectations, continuous improvement and community trust.
A little over a year since her start — aligned with those areas and guided by an initial 100-day plan, over 40 school visits and dozens of listening sessions and town halls — Rodriguez is implementing a public accountability system, 44 priority recommendations, and a district culture in which data and feedback drive change.
“Something that I’m trying to do is create new traditions and new systems to hear feedback, make changes and, kind of, move the work forward,” Rodriguez said.
A system of accountability
At the start of her superintendency, Rodriguez hosted meet-and-greets and community listening sessions in English and Spanish to identify concerns that the district needed to address; based on the sessions, there were in-person and virtual town halls to create priority recommendations with “fingerprints” of community feedback.
“We want to reach the hardest-to-reach parent. We want to reach the hardest-to-reach student,” Rodriguez said a year ago about listening and collaborating with the community to develop a plan. “And within those priority recommendations, you will see your fingerprints.”
As a result, all 44 priority recommendations, including a goal to create student success plans for certain student groups, came from those engagements.
Setting those goals was merely one part of Rodriguez’ approach.
Visit Stockton Unified’s Pubic Accountability Dashboard, here
Read the 2023 State of District, here, which detailed last school year’s priorities
The dashboard includes each goal, its complexity, which of the four areas it falls under, the department(s) responsible, actions, whether it’s completed or not, outcomes and the impact of those outcomes.
Simply put, the dashboard shows the district’s progress and holds the superintendent and the other officials accountable to the goals.
Rodriguez said she didn’t want the Stockton Unified community to feel as though “we did all this work, we did all these 21 listening sessions, and now nothing happened.”
44 goals is a lot. What’s been accomplished?
Within weeks of setting the goals, Rodriguez and the district completed “easy wins.”
An easy win, for example, was providing radios for special education classrooms to address student safety. Since the pandemic, dozens of teachers and staff had reported high numbers of “elopers,” mostly special education students but also young learners, running from the classroom — a recurring problem that “no one necessarily was able to solve, or chose to solve, until now,” she said.
For each radio purchased, a staff member felt better equipped to support students, Rodriguez said.
“Things like that seem insignificant, but to the system, they had a lot of impact because now those teachers feel more at ease that if they do have a student leave the classroom, there’s a way to get help to retrieve them,” she said.
Rodriguez, also in her first few weeks, formed a student advisory group of 90 students from the district’s high schools.
The formation of the Superintendent’s Student Advisory, the first of its kind in Stockton Unified, allowed her to listen to students, such as Emily Gomez Valle, a Chavez High School junior, who said the advisory was a way for her to advocate for her peers.
Then, the district tackled short-term goals, accomplishing them in three months. The district, for instance, started conducting thorough exit interviews to understand why staff were leaving the district.
The easy wins and short-term goals were intentional, so that “people knew the superintendent was getting things done,” Rodriguez said.
In the 2023-24 school year, under Rodriguez’ leadership, Stockton Unified’s graduation rate increased to 83.9% — the highest in the district’s history.
Long-term goals completed in the 2023-24 school year included increased access and participation in Educators Thriving, a program that provides social-emotional support and training for teachers and other school staff. Stockton Unified is set to have two program cohorts with up to 100 educators participating this school year, according to its accountability dashboard.
Based on the need to “focus on our most vulnerable students and have an action plan that is linked to them,” Stockton Unified created specific student success plans for Black students, English learners, homeless youth and students with special needs.
Other long-term goals have addressed the district’s legal and financial woes. The San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office, with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI, launched a criminal investigation into Stockton Unified in April 2023, after a state audit by the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) found evidence that fraud, misappropriation of funds or other illegal fiscal practices may have occurred between July 2019 and April 2022.
Millions of dollars in federal one-time Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding, which school districts received to address the impacts of the pandemic, was the subject of the investigation. Under Rodriguez’ leadership, the school district didn’t have to repay the federal government the $6.6 million in ESSER funding that was improperly awarded for a contract.
Rodriguez’ challenge was spending the ESSER funds by their timeline.
As of March 2023, just months before she started, Stockton Unified had spent only 1.84% (over $5 million) of the more than $156 million it received in ESSER III, which must be returned to the federal government if not budgeted this month and spent by January 2025. According to Rodriguez, the district has now used all the funding, completing over 40 projects.
But the allegations about the misuse of ESSER funding triggered a 2021-22 grand jury investigation into the district’s overall spending as well. Stockton Unified, Rodriguez said in 2023, relied on and spent a lot of money on consultants, which the grand jury attributed to district staff lacking the “necessary training and guidance to execute complex district business needs.”
Stockton Unified has since identified and evaluated the consultants and increased staff expertise to take over the work, leading to a reduction in consultant costs from $886,561 last school year to an estimated $275,000 this year.
And as of June, the district has finalized 32 of 44 priority recommendations, including the easy wins, short-term goals and long-term priorities.
Still there are larger systemic and structural projects and objectives that are taking more than a year to accomplish, up until this school year or longer.
What’s left to do
Three weeks after school started in the 2023-24 school year, Rodriguez said she met a homeless student who hadn’t attended school at all. She told the student about district supports, such as transportation to school and other available resources once on campus.
“And what she said to me is, ‘How do you expect me to come to school when I haven’t bathed in a week?’” the superintendent recalled.
Such encounters highlighted the need to expand family and community partnerships, increase expectations and develop equitable action plans, all of which are among the remaining priorities meant to support students and improve their experience in Stockton Unified, Rodriguez said.
More than 82% of Stockton Unified students are socioeconomically disadvantaged, according to EdData, with many facing challenges such as the student Rodriguez encountered. Even so, there must be increased expectations for students to perform at high levels with strong support.
Using her saying, “You change experiences to change beliefs to change expectations,” Rodriguez said, “I actually have to reframe your experiences so that it changes your beliefs about students, and, then, that changes your expectations for students.”
The district will also conduct an equity audit to develop a three-year action plan. The equity audit is meant to evaluate district and school policies, practices and procedures that are inequitable and create barriers “that are getting in the way of our students,” Rodriguez said. The goal requires the district to form teams of employees from each school, which will develop a multiyear action plan.
In fact, Stockton Unified’s 2024-2027 LCAP goals are to increase student academic achievement; center the whole child; provide systemic and innovative programs aligned to students’ passions, interests and talents; create meaningful partnerships; provide access and opportunities to ensure success for students with disabilities; and provide positive learning conditions and experiences for Black students to thrive.
Some of the other district priorities include:
Investing in facilities by putting $50 million of ESSER funding into schools so that students have access to amenities such as classrooms with science labs.
Equitably offering arts programs at the district’s 55 schools and for all students, specifically those who are Black, English learners, homeless, have special needs and/or are foster youth who benefit from “differentiated instruction,” Rodriguez said.
Launching school and district administrator classroom visits, allowing classroom staff to get feedback and administrators to gain a better knowledge of the adopted curriculum.
Resolving the remaining findings and corrective actions reported by the California Department of Education and the San Joaquin County Office of Education as well as the findings of grand jury, FCMAT and audit reports.
Knowing if and when to change course
In some areas, such as chronic absenteeism, Stockton Unified identified a systemic goal and improved that metric in a year’s time, but still must find solutions to continue addressing the problem. In this case, the goal was to identify solutions to chronic absenteeism, in which students miss 10% or more days in a school year. Stockton Unified data shows that chronic absenteeism, though still higher than prepandemic numbers, decreased by 3.1 percentage points from the 2022-23 to the 2023-24 school year.
“How can we celebrate that?” Rodriguez asked, “but at the same time say, ‘OK, well, what we’re doing is working. Is it working fast enough? Are there any shifts that we could continue to do?’”
Chronic absenteeism, performance indicators and other data measured over time create the challenge of knowing if, when and how to pivot a district response.
For example, even though there isn’t a specific district goal about it, Stockton Unified has been adding an intervention teacher to each K-8 school based on district data. Seventeen of 41 such teachers have been hired so far.
“When we’re looking at our KPI (key performance indicator) data, what we know is that our students aren’t making the growth that we need them to make,” Rodriguez said. The district is now using iReady data, which allows teachers to deliver adaptive lessons and includes data on student progress.
Based on fall 2023 iReady data, 35% of fourth graders were one grade level behind in English, 13% were two grade levels behind and 39% were three or more grades behind, meaning that just 12.6% were on grade level. In math, 35% of fourth graders were one grade level behind, 25% were two grade levels behind and 32% were at least three years behind, meaning only 8.4% of students were on grade level.
“What is our data actually telling us? Every quarter we’re looking at the data because we want to be able to pivot and shift quicker than just yearly,” she said.
And the district was able to do that by the end of the 2023-24 school year. In the spring 2024 semester, 24.3% of fourth graders were on grade level in English – an 11.7 percentage point increase from the previous semester. In math, fourth graders on grade level grew from 8.4% to 29% — an improvement of 20.6 percentage points.
Maintaining focus
The priorities that Stockton Unified has identified are what the district has and will continue to focus on moving forward, Rodriguez said. While the equity audit will identify needed changes over the next three years, and while the district will respond to data, the district won’t shift much from the priorities it has identified.
“If you aren’t actually focused on what you need to do, then you can be too scattered and not really have the impact that you want,” she said, adding that, “Some of these changes will not change in one single year.”
Rodriguez maintains her pledge to make those changes by dedicating the last eight years of her career to Stockton Unified — a plan that became more attainable when the school board extended her contract until 2028, or year five.
“Why aren’t kids being successful?” she said. “That cannot happen until people even believe that I’m going to stay put. I won some people over at the six-month mark. I (won) some people over at the year mark. Some people will take the two-, three- year mark.”
