So the U.S. government accepted the luxurious jet offered by Qatar to serve as Air Force 1, the President’s official airplane.
The New York Timespublished a lengthy story –“the inside story”–of Trump’s longing to accept the jet as a gift from the government of Qatar. It explains that the Qataris had been trying to sell the opulent jet for five years, with no success.
Trump wants an opulent jet, even if it is a used jet. He thinks the U.S. should have the biggest airplane for its president. The Qataris flew the jet to Palm Beach, so he could personally inspect it. He fell in love with it. He always falls for gold trappings. He thought there was no problem accepting a gift from another nation. Who would turn down a “free” gift?
The inside story begins:
President Trump wanted a quick solution to his Air Force One problem.
The United States signed a $3.9 billion contract with Boeing in 2018 for two jets to be used as Air Force One, but a series of delays had slowed the work far past the 2024 delivery deadline, possibly beyond Mr. Trump’s second term.
Now Mr. Trump had to fly around in the same old planes that transported President George H.W. Bush 35 years ago. It wasn’t just a vanity project. Those planes, which are no longer in production, require extensive servicing and frequent repairs, and officials from both parties, reaching back a decade or more, had been pressing for replacements.
Mr. Trump, though, wanted a new plane while he was still in office. But how?
“We’re the United States of America,” Mr. Trump said this month. “I believe that we should have the most impressive plane.”
The story of how the Trump administration decided that it would accept a free luxury Boeing 747-8 from Qatar to serve as Air Force One involved weeks of secret coordination between Washington and Doha. The Pentagon and the White House’s military office swung into action, and Mr. Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steven Witkoff, played a key role.
Aeronautical experts say that it would cost as much as $1 billion to renovate the jet and give it the security of an Air Force 1. It might not be ready until the end of Trump’s term, when (they said) it would be retired to the Trump Library.
The story failed to mention the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which prohibits the President or other federal officials from accepting gifts from foreign nations.
The emoluments clause, also called the foreign emoluments clause, is a provision of the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 8) that generally prohibits federal officeholders from receiving any gift, payment, or other object or service of value from a foreign state or its rulers, officers, or representatives. The clause provides that:
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
The Constitution also contains a “domestic emoluments clause” (Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 7), which prohibits the president from receiving any “Emolument” from the federal government or the states beyond “a Compensation” for his “Services” as chief executive.
I have so far not seen a story that explains that the gift is unconstitutional, unless Congress gives its consent.
I think we have become so accustomed to Trump ignoring and violating the Constitution that it isn’t even worth mentioning. This is a classic demonstration of the Overton Window.
Bob Nelson, outgoing superintendent of Fresno Unified School District
Credit: Fresno Unified / Flickr
In almost seven years of superintendency, Bob Nelson focused on “grow-our-own” initiatives that include 18 teacher pipeline programs for Fresno Unified students, aspiring teachers and current educators.
Seventy-nine percent of new teachers joining Fresno Unified come through one of the district’s teacher pipeline programs, but there is no “similar thing on the leadership side,” said Nelson, the district’s outgoing superintendent. There’s no pipeline program to recruit, retain or support educators or school leaders hoping to become district administrators.
In summer 2023, a cohort of 19 district leaders, most of whom are people of color, graduated from the doctoral program at San Diego State — a result of collaboration between the university and school district which has ignited Nelson’s vision to develop a “grow-our-own” administrator program in the Fresno and broader Central San Joaquin Valley area.
Nelson says that the cohort of administrators graduating from San Diego State is one of the highlights of his superintendency as well as the reason for leaving Fresno Unified for a tenure-track position at California State University, Fresno.
Fresno Unified’s outgoing Superintendent Bob Nelson and interim Superintendent Misty Her Credit: Fresno Unified / Flickr
Fresno State offers a doctoral program in educational leadership, but Nelson wants to strengthen it to draw more Fresno and Central Valley leaders into a Fresno-centered program that can develop administrators for the region.
“I feel it’s my responsibility to go and try and build a cadre of leaders here locally that can come and lead Valley schools,” Nelson said in a sit-down with EdSource in May.
On May 3, the Fresno Unified school board appointed Misty Her, the district’s deputy superintendent, to lead the district on an interim basis while a national search for a permanent replacement is conducted. Her started the interim superintendency on May 8 with Nelson moving into an advisory role until his last day on July 31.
Ahead of his last day, Nelson talked about his seven-year tenure as the leader of the state’s third-largest district and the importance of the new role he’s about to embark on.
Why leave now?
“I’m leaving because I feel really comfortable leaving the district in the hands of my deputy (Her). (I’m) stepping aside so that the first woman in 151 years can come and lead the district,” Nelson said. “It’s time. Leaving on my own volition feels good; I mean, that’s powerful.”
‘Pinnacle of my career’
“Serving as the superintendent in the district where I initially taught elementary school and first served as a leader has been the pinnacle of my career thus far,” he said in his Jan. 22 resignation announcement.
Prior to his appointment as superintendent, Nelson had served the district for over 23 years, holding various positions, including teacher, vice principal, principal, human resources administrator and chief of staff, according to the school district.
What is greatest accomplishment as superintendent?
Nelson said he is most proud of the “visible changes” across the district, including career technical education (CTE), a guaranteed college admissions program, an increase in district-sponsored scholarships, more diverse staff and the pace of student growth.
CTE pathways
“When I came into the district, people were running for the board on a platform that there were no college/career options for kids,” he said. “I think that’s changed demonstrably.”
The changes, he said, include: the heavy truck and diesel maintenance facility and the pharmacology school at Duncan Polytechnical High School, opening the sports medicine complex and setting up an agriculture pathway at Sunnyside High School, and buying land at Chandler Air Force Base to train private pilots and to teach people to fix planes, making the public service pathway — police, fire, EMT — out of Roosevelt High School.
Other accomplishments Nelson mentioned include: offering heating, ventilation and air conditioning certifications at Fresno High School; building teacher pipelines at Hoover and five other high schools, opening a law pathway at Bullard High School, and expanding social justice at Edison High School.
“Kids have access to more than they’ve ever had over the course of seven and a half years,” he said.
Bulldog Bound
Nelson developed a partnership with Fresno State to offer Bulldog Bound Guaranteed Admissions, which provides students college and career prep throughout their entire high school career as well as a guarantee that, once they graduate, they’ll have a spot at Fresno State.
“I was on the front end of authoring the Bulldog Bound initiative in collaboration with Fresno State, making sure every single one of our kids has guaranteed enrollment,” he said.
A foundation
During Nelson’s tenure, Fresno Unified also established the Foundation for Fresno Unified Schools, which now has a $20 million endowment that funds up to $800,000 in scholarships annually — “which is more than we’ve ever given away,” he said.
Diversity
Nelson recalls that in 2017, only two of district’s nearly 100 schools were led by Black principals — although African American students made up at least 8% of the student population. That’s no longer true. Now with over 10 Black principals, school leadership is a more accurate representation of the student enrollment.
Nelson’s senior leadership team is much more diverse, he said, pointing out a rise in Hmong and Latino leaders as well.
“It’s true diversity,” Nelson said. “Every single year of my tenure, and actually several before I got in, the staffing is more reflective of the students that we serve. In every respect — teaching staff, leadership staff, professional staff, including classified personnel — it’s all more indicative of the students that we serve.”
Based on 2022-23 state data, more than 92% of Fresno Unified students are minorities.
“Kids need to see visual images of people who look like them, talk like them, sound like them, have their lived experience,” Nelson said.
A faster pace
Nelson said he is thankful for student academic growth, which outpaces the state’s.
Based on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress, or CAASPP tests, the percentage of students meeting or exceeding standards statewide improved by 6.87% in English and 6.07% in math from 2015 to 2019.
While Fresno Unified is still below state percentages in students meeting standards, from 2015 to 2019, the percentage of students meeting or exceeding standards outpaced the state’s improvement — by 11% in English and 11.85% in math.
“If you only look at the bar of proficiency, we’re always behind,” Nelson said. “But we’re always gaining distance from standard at a rate that’s faster than other people across the state.”
Because of the pandemic, students statewide, including those in Fresno Unified, experienced learning loss that dropped test scores.
Fresno Unified scores increased by 0.96% and 2.49% in English and math, respectively, meaning students are again improving at a faster rate, as they were before the pandemic.
“The same thing (a faster pace of growth) is happening right now with chronic absenteeism (when students miss 10% or more days in one school year),” Nelson said. “Like we’re closing chronic absenteeism at a rate that’s faster than anybody.”
From the 2021-22 school year to the 2022-23 school year, Fresno Unified reduced chronic absences by 14.9% in contrast to the state’s 5% reduction.
“I’m really proud of that,” Nelson said.
Were all his goals met for the district?
“Our kids have needs that are greater (because they) come from abject poverty; you start from a different starting line,” Nelson said.
According to 2023-24 district data, 88% of students are living in disadvantaged circumstances.
“So, the level of systemic change that is needed to help kids thrive is just a higher, deeper, more robust level of change,” he said. “Did I crack that nut in its entirety? No. There’s always room for improvement.”
What does Misty Her inherit?
Fresno Unified’s outgoing superintendent, Bob Nelson, during his tenure, launched a literacy initiative aimed at getting every child to read by first grade.Credit: Fresno Unified / Flickr
“What I am leaving, hanging over, is I launched this literacy initiative, wanting every child to read by first grade,” Nelson said.
In late May, the school district finalized the Every Child Is a Reader literacy plan, a comprehensive five-year plan to achieve first-grade reading proficiency for students, according to a media release.
“The actual digging in and observing the curriculum around that initiative is going to be left for my successor. That is something that’s being held over (for Misty Her),” Nelson said.“I think she is a stronger academic leader and will help move the literacy work in ways that I have not. (As an early learning teacher), she knows very clearly what it takes for kids to read, understands all the complexities of the science of reading — is it phonemics or is it whole language —and balancing those approaches to make sure that kids have what they need.”
How does superintendent experience help at Fresno State?
Nelson will join the educational leadership division at the Kremen School of Education and Human Development. Although he’s leaving K-12 education as a leader, he’ll take his experience and knowledge into the role at Fresno State, which, this year, accepted 2,150 Fresno Unified students — the highest number ever accepted.
If all the accepted students were to attend, Fresno Unified graduates would make up around 20% of the university’s enrollment, based on Fresno State enrollment data that shows over 2,800 FUSD alumni.
“Higher ed needs to better understand what’s going on in Fresno Unified,” Nelson said. “Understanding who we are and what we represent and what we’re trying to do, I think, is critical.”
In applying for the role at Fresno State, Nelson had to teach a lesson, in which he demonstrated his ability to bridge the gap between Fresno Unified and Fresno State, he said.
“I compared their mission, vision, core values and statement of purpose against the lived experiences of the district that they serve (Fresno Unified) and said, ‘If you’re going to say these things, then that has to mirror the lived experiences of the districts that you’re in,’” he said. “’I think I can help you get from here to here. I can bridge that gap.’”
Nelson’s responsibilities at Fresno State?
A tenure-track position will give Nelson the opportunity to continue serving Valley educators.
“I have master’s degree students who are probably teachers, working full time every day, that want to become vice principals and principals and then, potentially, district leaders and on and on … and then helping master’s students get their master’s projects completed too,” he said of the position.
Why back to the classroom?
Before becoming superintendent of Fresno Unified, Nelson taught at Fresno State and “loved every minute of it.”
“I’m really, really excited to just go back to teaching,” he said. “Almost every school counselor that we brought in our system (Fresno Unified) were my former students from Fresno State. You find the best leader, siphon them out and then try to get them into the places in the Valley where they can serve kids.”
What about the goal of a local ‘grow-our-own’ administrator program?
In 2021, Fresno Unified won an $8.2 million grant from the Wallace Foundation to develop and support a pipeline of equity-centered leaders with which the district developed a collaborative relationship with San Diego State. This led to the district’s first cohort of leaders matriculating through the doctorate program. The partnership allows Fresno Unified leaders and faculty — who model what the graduate students are looking to become — to teach the courses in Fresno.
Many of the district leaders who obtained their doctorate from San Diego State in 2023 are now teaching the new cohort of Fresno Unified administrators coming up behind them at San Diego State.
“San Diego State has a really robust infrastructure to take leaders and help them kind of go to the next level,” Nelson said. “Most of what San Diego State is doing is they’re taking existing leaders and getting them their doctorate, and those leaders are ending up in district positions. I’m not sure Fresno State is there yet.”
Nelson’s goal: grow and develop administrators through Fresno State in a way similar to the partnership at San Diego State.
Prior to 2018, Fresno State allowed Fresno Unified leaders and instructors to teach graduate-level courses to prospective leaders, according to Nelson. Now only Fresno State faculty can teach the courses.
“The tenure-track faculty members at Fresno State — the vast majority of them have an emphasis on higher ed, so perpetuating other collegiate leaders,” Nelson said.
“Meanwhile, there’re 150 districts that are all clamoring to find leaders.”
A local program geared toward leadership of K-12 schools and districts is also important to create a collaborative space for them, Nelson said.
“There’s people that I deeply respect in the Valley who also sit in the superintendency,” Nelson said. “I think of Todd Lile in Madera. I think of Yolanda (Valdez in Cutler-Orosi Joint Unified). And there’s no space for us to be together to jointly plan or even talk or collaborate because we’re in three different counties.”
That’s a problem, he said.
“There needs to be a structure by which people who are on the same journey in the same region can collaborate with one another,” he said. “I think Fresno State is uniquely positioned to be able to bring those leaders together. … If you’re in a cohort of people who are on the same journey and have the same goals and you’re trying to strive together, (such as) in your doctoral program, it matters.”
His goal to strengthen the program at Fresno State doesn’t quite fit into his role as professor, but he wants to build and support an effort to reach that goal.
“Fresno State has what’s called the Welty Center for Educational Leadership, and they organized that with the intent of doing exactly this work as a collaborative space for leaders across the Valley,” Nelson said. “(I’m) trying to use that Welty Center as a jumping off place to just provide support for leaders across all of the 150 districts that feed into Fresno State.
“There’s just a high degree of need, and the focus cannot be solely on higher ed. It has to focus on the K-12 experience.”
“I am not going to cop to that. I think that (narrative is) what I’m out to fix,” Nelson said. “I actually think leadership is not only critical, it is a wonderful blessing, and I need people to understand that. We have to change the counterculture narrative that leadership is not possible or not sustainable or a dead-end thing.
“Finding superintendents who actually want to serve is harder than it’s ever been, and there’s a lot of reasons why that’s a factor, but we have to actually push back against that.”
Amy Lemley, right, at an April reception for John Burton Advocates for Youth.
Photo Credit: John Burton Advocates for Youth
Amy Lemley was still a graduate student at UC Berkeley in the late ’90s when she founded First Place for Youth, the first housing program for former foster youth in California.
The daughter of a large-animal veterinarian and a hospice nurse, Lemley has long been a force in policy advocacy for system-impacted youth. After First Place, she joined John Burton Advocates for Youth, or JBAY, an influential nonprofit that advocates for California’s homeless and foster youth.
Amy Lemley
Lemley joined as JBAY’s policy director at its inception in 2006 and went on to become its executive director, a role she has held for the past eight years.
A handful of the policy actions led by Lemley during her tenure as executive director include establishing the nation’s first tax credit for foster youth, the extension of foster care from age 18 to age 21, and increasing state funding for housing for former foster youth.
Lemley, who will be leaving JBAY on Oct. 1, recently sat for an interview with EdSource about her work and what’s ahead. The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Early in your career, you worked at a group home in Massachusetts for pregnant and parenting youth. What led you to work at the group home?
I did what I thought you were supposed to do when you left college, which is to go into management consulting. My parents had paid a lot for that degree, and I felt like I was supposed to go get a big, fancy job. I was miserable, and then I remember breaking down with my mom. She’s like, “Why are you doing this job, honey?” And I said, “Because you guys sacrificed so much for me to have this education.” And she said, “You don’t really get what parenthood is. We want you to be happy.” I just remember the weight of the world coming off my shoulders, and I knew what I wanted to do is what both of my parents had done, which is to try and help people.
I really had to make a hard sell to this nonprofit where I worked because I, clearly on paper, was not qualified. Whether that was responsible to the young people in their care is another question, but it opened my eyes to a whole world of young people who have had this very unfortunate circumstance and kind of set me forth on my career.
What was your role in the group home?
I was a case manager, so I had 14 pregnant and parenting young people on my caseload. I remember thinking at the time, “This shouldn’t be hard. I just have to keep them enrolled in school, and make sure they know how to parent, and help them get a job, and help them navigate public benefits, and how hard could it be?” My eyes were opened very quickly about the complexity of their lives. I had young people who would run away from the group home because their younger siblings were at home and they were trying to protect them. There were so many young people who were victims of intimate partner violence, and their lives were extremely complex. I did my very best to help them make progress in these different domains.
Why did you pursue the path of founding First Place for Youth as a student at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy versus a different path of support for this particular group of young people, foster youth?
I definitely have an entrepreneurial temperament. I also really deeply believe, as many others do, that with safe, stable housing, anything is possible. It’s the foundation on which lives are built, and without it, very little is possible. And so seeing the young people who I worked with in the group home age out of care, become homeless and then tragically lose custody of their children, it was clear to me that it’s completely unreasonable for an 18-year-old to be independent. I certainly wasn’t.
So the creation and opportunity to create something with my very dear friend Deanne Pearn, to do something right, to do it well, to meet the needs of these young people, was very appealing.
At the time, there was this kind of story we told ourselves, that young people don’t want a program; they want to be free; they just want to do their own thing. But in my experience, when you give young people something of value, something that’s actually helping them meet their practical needs, they’re very receptive to it.
I’m curious about the transition from First Place for Youth to John Burton Advocates for Youth. Why transition over to JBAY at the time that you did?
We co-founded First Place and got it to a certain size, and you can really only scale a program so far with private funding. And then I happened to have been introduced to John Burton after he was termed out of office (as a state senator) and really pitched to him taking the First Place program and funding it with public funding. He’d done that a hundred times over. What to me seemed like an impossibility, he had 40 years of experience doing it. So that’s why I left.
Once an organization gets to be a certain size, as the executive director, you’re not running around doing advocacy. Your whole job really is to manage and maintain the existing organization. I felt like First Place needed an executive director that wanted to do that, and that wasn’t me. I had a different mission. I had the good fortune of meeting John Burton and having the opportunity to kind of pursue that mission together.
How do you maintain your policy focus when there is so much need and a constantly changing landscape?
Whether it’s inflation, unemployment during the pandemic or the housing crisis, whatever larger kind of macroeconomic developments occur, these young people feel it the most deeply.
I think a really important part of our success has been to not try to be experts in everything. We have a specific kind of set of policies that we’re deeply informed about, and that we keep revisiting. We try to be very disciplined in terms of really knowing the body of policy, the public agencies that administer it, the details about the implementation, the different actors that implement it, so that we can develop really smart, strategic approaches that are based not just in a conceptual knowledge, but in a deep practical knowledge of how these programs are implemented in communities.
I always say we don’t want to be an inch deep and a mile wide. It really means saying no when it’s appropriate and continuing to dig deep into those issues and figure out what is the most pressing need of young people and then how to marry that very pressing need with what is practically possible in today’s economic and political environment.
What does the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last month in the Johnson v. Grants Pass case, which upheld an Oregon city’s ban on homeless residents sleeping outdoors, mean for youth in California and nationwide?
Unaccompanied homeless youth are less likely to be sheltered than the general population of homeless individuals. And we know that young people who are unsheltered, even for a very short amount of time, are more at risk of violence and exploitation because of the vulnerability of their age. And so every night that they are unsheltered, they’re in danger. The optimist in me hopes that the ruling can be a catalyst for a more coherent, statewide approach, assuming the federal government isn’t going to provide the level of coordination and funding we require.
What comes next for you?
I am going to kind of take a couple months off and then I’m going to raise my head and think about whether I want to try my hand at consulting, potentially working with those high-quality local nonprofits who are doing very high quality service to young people and helping them match that with public funding and public policy, and taking what can be a really wonderful intervention and broadening applicability to all young people.
I’ve promised my husband I will not found another organization. I already had my wheels turning, and he’s just like, “No, Amy, no.” And I was like, “Well, I’ll try my best.”
The Temecula Valley Unified School District can no longer implement its ban on critical race theory (CRT) as litigation moves forward, a California Court of Appeals ruled Monday — marking the first time in California that a court has overturned a district’s effort to censor student learning about racial and LGBTQ+ equity, according to Amanda Mangaser Savage of the Sullivan & Cromwell Strategic Litigation Counsel at Public Counsel.
“This ruling binds all of California,” said Amelia Piazza, an attorney with Public Counsel’s Opportunity Under Law project, “and, I think is an important signal to school districts all over the state that this type of censorship, the courts aren’t going to tolerate it — and that students shouldn’t be deprived of a fact-based education now for any reason, and certainly not because it conflicts with the ideological positions of school board members.”
The decision is the latest chapter in the lawsuit Mae M. v. Komrosky, filed in August 2024, on behalf of the district’s teachers union, teachers, parents and students — alleging that the December 2022 ban on critical race theory has led to a hostile environment at schools, censored teachers and infringes on students’ right to equal protection and to receive information.
Monday’s opinion also called the district’s policy “unconstitutionally vague” and said it has led to anxiety among teachers who remain confused about the policy and fearful of consequences — even if there are accidental violations.
But supporters of the district’s policies maintain that they do not discriminate against students of color or transgender students.
“Critical race theory and its offshoots have no place in public institutions that are meant to serve all individuals equally. These ideas promote division, resentment, and a distorted view of history that punishes students and staff based on skin color rather than character,” said Nicole Velasco, a spokesperson for Advocates For Faith & Freedom, a law firm representing the district for free, in an email to EdSource. “We remain committed to defending lawful policies that reject this kind of racialized thinking and instead promote unity and equal treatment under the law.”
Velasco added that while disappointed in the ruling, they “remain confident in the legality of Temecula Valley Unified School District’s actions and the strength of the case as it proceeds.”
In a statement released Tuesday, David Goldberg, the president of the California Teachers Association, said that “as educators and union workers, we work so hard to provide every student with a quality education and for schools to be safe places for all students, regardless of their race, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”
He added that teachers should be able to focus on teaching without being caught between state law and district policies.
Temecula Valley Unified has not announced whether it will appeal the court’s decision, according to Velasco. But Piazza said they will continue to litigate until a final decision that will “permanently enjoin” Temecula’s resolutions is reached.
“Especially, as the federal government sort of escalates its attack on public schools and the right to a fact-based education, I think it’s a really meaningful decision to come down in the California courts,” Piazza said.
The Temecula Unified School District can no longer implement its ban on Critical Race Theory as litigation moves forward, a California Court of Appeals ruled Monday — marking the first time in California that a court has overturned a district’s effort to censor student learning about racial and LGBTQ+ equity, according to Amanda Mangaser Savage of the Strategic Litigation Counsel at Public Counsel.
“This ruling binds all of California,” said Amelia Piazza, an attorney with Public Counsel’s Opportunity Under Law project, “and, I think is an important signal to school districts all over the state that this type of censorship, the courts aren’t going to tolerate it — and that students shouldn’t be deprived of a fact based education now for any reason, and certainly not because it conflicts with the ideological positions of school board members.”
The decision is the latest chapter in the lawsuit Mae M. v. Komrosky, filed in August 2024, on behalf of the district’s teachers union, teachers, parents and students — alleging that the December 2022 ban on Critical Race Theory has led to a hostile environment at schools, censored teachers and infringes on students’ right to equal protection and to receive information.
Monday’s opinion also called the district’s policy “unconstitutionally vague” and said it has led to anxiety among teachers who remain confused about the policy and fearful of consequences — even if there are accidental violations.
But supporters of the district’s policies maintain that they do not discriminate against students of color or transgender students.
“Critical race theory and its offshoots have no place in public institutions that are meant to serve all individuals equally. These ideas promote division, resentment, and a distorted view of history that punishes students and staff based on skin color rather than character,” said Nicole Velasco, a spokesperson for Advocates For Faith & Freedom, a law firm representing the district for free, in an email to EdSource. “We remain committed to defending lawful policies that reject this kind of racialized thinking and instead promote unity and equal treatment under the law.”
Velasco added that while disappointed in the ruling, they “remain confident in the legality of Temecula Valley Unified School District’s actions and the strength of the case as it proceeds.”
In a statement released Tuesday, David Goldberg, the president of the California Teachers Association, said that “as educators and union workers, we work so hard to provide every student with a quality education and for schools to be safe places for all students, regardless of their race, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”
He added that teachers should be able to focus on teaching, without being caught between state law and district policies.
Temecula Valley Unified has not announced whether it will appeal the court’s decision, according to Velasco. But Piazza said they will continue to litigate until a final decision that will “permanently enjoin” Temecula’s resolutions is reached.
“Especially, as the federal government sort of escalates its attack on public schools and the right to a fact based education, I think it’s a really meaningful decision to come down in the California courts,” Piazza said.
Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho, right, with students at Miles Avenue Elementary School in Huntington Park.
Credit: Twitter / LAUSDSup
The Los Angeles Unified School District is showing signs of recovery from the learning losses it incurred during the Covid-19 pandemic, Superintendent Alberto Carvalho announced Tuesday at a press conference, following his Opening of Schools Address at The Music Center’s Walt Disney Concert Hall.
The preliminary scores for the California Smarter Balanced Assessments show that English proficiency increased from roughly 41% to 43% among LAUSD students. Meanwhile, district students’ math scores went up by more than 2 percentage points — reaching a 32.8% proficiency rate across the district, a spokesperson for LAUSD confirmed. The scores were first reported Tuesday by the Los Angeles Times.
Carvalho said the increase in math scores was particularly impressive given the subject had always been LAUSD’s “achilles heel.”
“For every grade level tester — those are Grades 3 to 11 — both in English Language Arts as well as mathematics, our students beat the odds,” he said Tuesday. “They rose to the expectation we had with them.”
Since 2015, when the state began its current testing system, there has only been one other year when scores have gone up at every grade level.
According to a district announcement on X Tuesday evening, students “are achieving success” in both English Language Arts and math, irrespective of their race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status or gender.
Specifically, students who are English learners — and make up a significant portion of LAUSD’s student population — made the most significant progress of any sub-group, Carvalho also said Tuesday. He added that foster youth was the only sub-group that did not make the same strides.
The district has not yet released its science scores; last year, it was LAUSD’s weakest link, with only 22% of students meeting or exceeding state standards.
At this point, the California Department of Education has not released scores for the state as a whole, so it is impossible to know how Los Angeles Unified performed in comparison to other districts.
In fall 2022, Carvalho vowed to curb the district’s pandemic learning losses. Last year, halfway to that benchmark, math scores went up by small margins, while scores in English Language Arts declined slightly.
Experts at the time called the district’s goal of returning to 2018-19 levels in another year ambitious but possible if they specifically target students who are struggling.
“I just want to appreciate and celebrate the amazing work of our schools in achieving the progress that has been discussed today,” said LAUSD school board member Kelly Gonez at Tuesday’s press conference. “When you think about the struggles that our families are facing, they are significant.”
She applauded the principals, teachers and classified staff members who support Los Angeles Unified students on a daily basis — especially as students continue to struggle with mental health challenges in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Everyday we’re showing up for our students, and it’s showing results,” Gonez said. “I believe that we’re at the tipping point of really achieving the ambitious goals that we have for our students in our school district. And I’m excited for the best school year yet.”
I’m really excited to share our newest video clip–a great example of of one of the most important techniques in the TLAC library, FASE Reading. FASE Reading is a technique that supports student fluency and engagement in reading, topics we discuss extensively in the forthcoming TLAC Guide to the Science of Reading.
The clip comes to us from Jessica Sliman’s 4th grade classroom in Whitefish, MT. It shows 3 and a half minutes of Jessica and her students reading aloud from Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars.
I suspect you will love it as much as everyone on Team TLAC did.
First, here’s the clip:
Now some things we loved:
We love her initial framing, “I want you guys to notice moments of suspense.” This shapes student attention. Learning always starts with attention and directing students to attend to a ‘most important’ thing is one of the most important things a teacher can do. Jessica does a simple and elegant job of it here
Then they’re off reading. Jessica goes first. Her reading is beautifully expressive. She’s bringing the story to life modeling how to read meaningfully so that students will copy her. This will them to build the habit of infusing their reading with expression. Research suggests that this assists with meaning and is likely to translate into better and more expressive silent reading for students.
Izzy is the first student to read. she does a really nice job but Jessica pushes her to bring a bit more expression to her reading in a lighthearted and positive way: “How would she say that?” She’s making a norm of expressive reading that models her own. And happily this just increases her students’ enjoyment. Their laughter at Izzy’s portrayal underscores this.
Hadrian goes next. THere’s a great moment where Jessica drops in a quick definition of the word “prolong”–she’s recognized that students may not know the word and that it’s important. She provides the key knowledge without distracting from the story.
Hadrian is a pretty good reader but he’s also still developing his expressiveness. So it’s lovely the way she praises him for his “extra expression on “very very frightened.” Again the key is to cause students to practice reading aloud with expression and in so doing improve their fluency and infuse maximum meaning into their reading. She builds that culture intentionally.
Next Jessica reads again- moving the story along a bit, keeping it alive and fresh with her own expressive reading–she is after all, the best reader in the class–and modeling again for students how to express meaning as you read. Notice that she’s reading slightly more slowly than her natural rate might be. She’s reminding her class that fast reading isn’t good reading. Expressive reading is.
Steven reads next. Notice by the way that she calls on students unpredictably to read and that every student she’s called on is ready to read right away. This tells her something critical. Her leverage is high–meaning that she knows now that her students are not just listening but reading along.
Steven does something really interesting. He self-corrects, re-reading a sentence of his own volition not because he read it wrong but because he didn’t express its meaning as well as he could have. It’s a very meta-cognitive moment. “Oh, i didn’t capture that quite right.” Interestingly, Jessica doesn’t have to ask him whether he understands this passage. the way that he reads it SHOWS her this. So they can simply keep reading.
But what a statement about the culture of error Jessica has created! Students willingly and unselfconsciously improve their reading as they go.
Weston is next. We love the rhythm of the reading she’s established. Burst of reading are just long enough to allow students to take real pleasure in expressing the text but short enough to allow them to read with maximum success and attention. The switching feels lively but not disruptive. It balances the need to keep students on their toes–I might be next!--and locked in to the story. Beautiful.
Gracefully, Jessica steps in on the word cautiously and reads through to the end herself, again with beautiful expression.
It’s pretty clear that this reading–and that of her students–has had a real effect of her class since they plead to keep reading at the end. “We have to read the next chapter!” one student says urgently. They don’t want to stop!
Senate Bill 1263 will be heard by the full Assembly if it makes it through the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
Credit: AP Photo/Terry Chea
A controversial bill that would have eliminated teaching performance assessments — the last licensure test California teacher candidates are required to take — has been dramatically revised under pressure from education advocacy groups.
Senate Bill 1263, sponsored by the California Teachers Association (CTA), would have ended the requirement that teacher candidates take video clips of classroom instruction, submit lesson plans, student work and written reflections on their practice to prove they are prepared to become teachers.
In mid-June, the bill was amended to retain the teaching performance assessments, with a provision that the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing convene a working group of teachers, college education faculty and performance assessment experts to review the assessments and recommend changes.
The revised bill, if passed, would require the commission to approve recommendations from the work group by July 1, 2025, and to implement them within three years from that date. The commission also would be required to make annual reports to the Legislature.
Leslie Littman, CTA vice president, said that the amendments retaining the test were “disappointing” but that the creation of the work group is a positive step toward addressing the concerns that union members have had with the assessment.
“I think that the way it was going to go, possibly the bill might not have made it out of the Legislature,” Littman said.
Many teachers say the test is a waste of time
Senate Bill 1263 was originally introduced by Sen. Josh Newman, D-Fullerton, chair of the Senate Education Committee, who said in April that eliminating the assessment would encourage more people to enter the teaching profession. He also said that it duplicates other requirements teachers must fulfill to earn a credential.
K-12 teachers who commented on EdSource stories about the legislation were overwhelmingly critical of the assessment, stating that it is too time-consuming, caused anxiety and does not help prepare teachers for the classroom.
California teacher candidates must pass either the California Teaching Performance Assessment (CalTPA), the Educative Teaching Performance Assessment (edTPA) or the Fresno Assessment of Student Teachers (FAST) before they can earn a preliminary teaching credential. The tests cost $300 total, or $150 per cycle, according to Littman.
Education advocates call the test a valuable tool
Proponents of the teacher performance assessments, however, say that eliminating them would have removed a valuable tool for evaluating teacher preparation programs and new teachers.
“We know when parents drop kids off at school, the most important thing in front of those kids is that teacher, and they want to make sure … that teacher is prepared to teach effectively, and that’s what the TPAs help do,” said Marshall Tuck, CEO of EdVoice, an education advocacy organization.
Criticism of the bill to eliminate the assessment grew when its authors amended it in late spring to remove the requirement that candidates for a preliminary, multiple-subject or education specialist credential pass a test that evaluates their ability to teach reading.
The move came less than three years after legislators passed Senate Bill 488, which next July will replace the unpopular written Reading Instruction Competence Assessment (RICA) with a literacy teaching performance assessment. The Commission on Teacher Credentialing spent more than a year developing the assessment with the help of a working group of literacy experts.
Resistance against legislation built
“Unsurprisingly, we got a little pushback from the Commission on Teaching Credentialing and some other folks who are stakeholders in this, including EdTrust-West and, not unimportantly, PTA groups,” Newman told EdSource on Wednesday.
After the legislation moved to the Assembly in late May, Education Committee Chair Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, began meeting with stakeholders, including the California Teachers Association, to discuss possible changes to the legislation. Representatives from the Commission on Teacher Credentialing also made their case for retaining the assessment to legislators.
Education advocates showed up at a public hearing and also reached out to legislators and their staff, Tuck said. In early June, 13 education advocacy organizations, including EdVoice, signed a letter in opposition to the legislation.
By June 17, the legislation had changed considerably.
Legislation charges commission with more oversight
Along with retaining the teaching performance assessments, the proposed legislation would require the commission to report the number of teaching preparation programs with low passing rates on the assessment. The commission would be charged with helping these programs learn how to better prepare teacher candidates.
The commission also would be required to maintain a secondary passing standard for the assessment that takes into consideration other evidence of a teacher candidate’s performance.
“ETW is hopeful that SB 1263 will now help to streamline and improve the administration and scoring of TPAs to ensure they are an additive, constructive experience for candidates, and that they do not have a disparate impact for candidates of color,” said Brian Rivas, senior director of policy and government relations for EdTrust-West (ETW), an education advocacy organization, in a letter to Assembly Appropriations Committee Chair Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland. “Doing so is critical for both addressing the state’s shortage of teachers of color and providing all students with teachers who are fully prepared to teach. For these reasons, we are pleased to support SB 1263.”
The legislation has an annual price tag of $598,000, with $145,000 in start-up costs, according to a state analysis. It is currently being considered by the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
Revised bill a good compromise
Tuck says the revised bill is an example of policy creation working correctly.
“I think that strong pushback from advocacy organizations, as well as from the CTC (Commission on Teacher Credentialing), really helped to shift the direction of the bill,” he said.
Rivas said Newman likely “read the tea leaves” and realized he might have a fight on his hands if he got the bill to the governor’s desk.
Newman sees the compromise as a good outcome.
“Legislation, sort of by definition, is a negotiation,” Newman said. “It was a commitment by the CTC to take a good, hard look and to reassess … the teacher performance assessment, so that it is not only less onerous but that it takes into account the existing demands on teaching candidates and also made sure that the assessment was fully relevant to the kind of skills and requirements that we are seeking from them.”
The amendments are enough for the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, EdTrust-West and other advocacy groups, to change course and support it.
“The commission welcomes the opportunity to engage with educators, teacher education faculty and the larger communities of interest to review and strengthen this important part of California’s teacher preparation system,” said Marquita Grenot-Scheyer, chair, and Mary Vixie Sandy, executive director of the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, in a joint letter to Muratsuchi in late June. “As amended, SB 1263 (Newman) aligns with the commission’s commitment to the process of continuous improvement, and the commission enthusiastically supports its passage.”
But this doesn’t mean the issue won’t return.
“It doesn’t preclude us from watching and seeing what happens in this work group,” CTA’s Littman said. “Then it doesn’t stop us down the road from bringing legislation back.”
Maya Pettiford posing in front of a San José State University sign.
Credit: Courtesy of Maya Pettiford
Going to college has always been my goal. From a very young age, there was no question in my mind that I would end up attending a four-year university. Throughout my years of schooling, high school specifically, I made sure to work hard. I turned in homework on time, studied late and, most importantly, tried my best to soak up the advice given to me to prepare for college.
I relied heavily on the words of teachers and advisers to learn what I should expect from college, because after all, why would they lie?
Now going into my third year at San Jose State University, it is clear that some of the advice I received did help me. For example, some teachers warned me against taking a gap year because it is extremely easy to lose the academic mindset even with just one year off.
However, I can confidently say that in the long run, a lot of the advice was misguided.
Myth: Cellphones will not be tolerated in college.
Many of my high school teachers treated cellphones like they were worse than the devil. The fear of sending a text to my mom during class or having a reminder notification for my doctor’s appointment go off at the wrong time was torture. Teachers would even take your phone as you entered class to ensure no one was sneaking a text under the tables or behind a laptop.
In high school, teachers are allowed to take your phone. They often told us this was to prepare us for college.
In reality, I have used my cellphone more in the past two years of college than during my entire high school experience. I have yet to meet a professor who has an aversion to cellphones. In most of my classes, my phone is required. Having a cellphone is interchangeable with having a laptop. I have on many occasions taken quizzes on my phone and used it to communicate on group student projects. You go from hiding a phone in your lap during a high school class to being told it is mandatory in college.
Myth: Professors are cold and heartless creatures
In high school, some teachers made it seem as though asking for a deadline extension or understanding of a family situation would be as pointless as pleading with a brick wall. From what I was told, I fully prepared myself to meet professors who couldn’t care less about me or the role they played in my academic future.
This could not be further from the truth. Almost all of my professors thus far have been kind and understanding of the fact that life happens. I have professors from my first semester of college that I still talk to even now. I often drop by during office hours simply to catch up. Plus, I have gotten quite a few extensions with no hassle.
Myth: College will be harder than high school.
I prepared myself for having to study for endless hours, taking tests that would surely be anxiety-inducing and following a schedule that would make a hamster wheel look relaxing. I was terrified that I would crumble under the pressure.
The truth is, the freedom you get in college could not be more different than high school. In high school, you go from waking up at the crack of dawn to be in classes for at least six hours a day, five days a week, to having maybe two or three classes a day in college that are barely more than an hour long. Yes, there are exceptions, and some classes are longer or harder than others, but with a well-thought-out schedule, college can be way less stressful than high school. I have learned that it is all about your perspective and how you choose to spend your time.
High school felt like a never-ending loop, the same thing day in and day out. Going to college is like being handed the control board of your life. Whether you choose to take a part-time job or hang out with friends at football games, it’s up to you because you are in control.
I am happy to report that not everything I was told in high school was bad. Some of it was great.
After two years in college, the best advice I would pass on to any incoming freshman is that a 7 a.m. class at college is NOT the same as a 7 a.m. class in high school. Waking up that early gets harder, especially for classes without mandatory attendance.
Avoid early morning college classes at all costs. Thank me later.
•••
Maya Pettiford is a third-year journalism student at San Jose State University and a member of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps.
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Ratcheting up efforts in California to protect children from the negative effects of social media, Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed landmark legislation to combat the powerful “addictive” strategies tech companies use to keep children online, often for hours on end.
The legislation is the second of its kind in the nation, and is similar to a New York law signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul earlier this year.
The bill will prohibit online platforms, which are not named in the legislation, from knowingly providing minors with what are called in the industry “addictive feeds” without parental consent.
The bill also prohibits social media platforms from sending notifications to minors during school hours and late at night.
“Every parent knows the harm social media addiction can inflict on their children — isolation from human contact, stress and anxiety, and endless hours wasted late into the night,” Newsom said in a statement issued over the weekend. “With this bill, California is helping protect children and teenagers from purposely designed features that feed these destructive habits.”
Still on Newsom’s desk for his signature is a bill that would require school districts to limit student access to cellphones during school hours. Because Newsom called for school districts to do just that earlier this year, there is a strong possibility that he will sign that legislation as well.
Authored by Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, the legislation Newsom signed marks a growing effort to rein in the impact of all-encompassing technology that has revolutionized ways of communicating and brought significant benefits — but whose harmful effects on children are only now becoming clearer.
It is almost certainly the case that few parents, and even fewer children, are aware of the complex, and hugely effective, systems tech companies employ to keep users on their platforms, often for hours on end.
Addictive feeds are generated by automated systems known as algorithms and are intended to keep users engaged by suggesting content based on groups, friends, topics or headlines they may have clicked on in the past.
Instead, the law would make “chronological feeds” the default setting on social media platforms accessed by children. These feeds are generated only by posts from people they follow, in the order they were uploaded.
“Social media companies will no longer have the right to addict our kids to their platforms, sending them harmful and sensational content that our kids don’t want and haven’t searched for,” Skinner said.
The legislation follows Newsom’s signing of the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act two years ago. Authored by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, it requires online platforms to consider the best interest of child users and to establish default privacy and safety settings in order to safeguard children’s mental and physical health and well-being.
The 2022 bill requires businesses with an online presence to complete a Data Protection Impact Assessment before offering new online services, products, or features likely to be accessed by children.
It also prohibits companies that provide online services from using a child’s personal information, collecting, selling or retaining a child’s physical location, profiling a child by default, and leading or encouraging children to provide personal information.
But its passage underscored the headwinds that efforts to regulate social media can run into. Immediately on passage of the 2022 law, NetChoice, a national trade association of online businesses, including giants like Amazon, Google, Meta and TikTok, filed a lawsuit to prevent its implementation. It argued that the law violated the First Amendment by restricting free speech and that companies would be limited in their editorial decisions over what content they could put out on their sites. A district court issued a preliminary injunction against the entire law. The state appealed its decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which upheld parts of the lower court’s ruling, but allowed other parts of the law to go into effect.
It is not known whether tech companies will similarly challenge Skinner’s legislation.
