Samual N. Brown, Allen Burnett, Charlie Praphatananda and Dara Yin have stories to tell.
Their time in prison was shrouded by their reality. Three of the four were charged with murder and sentenced to life without parole. It’s what one of them, who entered prison at 20, describes as death by incarceration.
Taking college courses had been going on for decades in California prisons, but in 2016, California State University Los Angeles became the first college to offer bachelor’s degrees to people in prison.
Now, eight of the state’s 34 adult prisons have started or are soon to begin partnerships that award four-year degrees, making California a leader in expanding college degree programs into the state’s prisons.
The trend touches only a sliver of incarcerated people, however. While California incarcerates about 95,600 people in its prison system, about 230 enrolled in the fall in a bachelor’s degree program. For the four men whose stories are told in this documentary, just the chance to earn the degree made it possible for them to see themselves living a different life outside of prison. Three ultimately got their sentences commuted. The fourth was paroled.
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Pro-Palestinian encampment encroaches on the stage and grass area where commencement is planned for Sunday at Pomona College.
Credit: Michael Burke / EdSource
At Pomona College in eastern Los Angeles County, commencement ceremonies are scheduled to take place this weekend on the college’s central Marston Quad, with events planned Friday through Sunday.
But as of late Thursday, a pro-Palestinian encampment on the quad was growing in the exact location where commencement is supposed to be held. Dozens of students have set up tents, Palestinian flags and barricades around the college’s graduation stage, making it unclear whether the college will be able to proceed with commencement activities.
Protesters said Thursday that they have no plans to leave the encampment until the college meets their demands to divest its endowment funds from companies supporting Israel and its war in Gaza.
“These schools love their pageantry and their ceremonies, so seizing the commencement plaza was really just a strategic move to show the college that we will continue to disrupt business as usual until they divest,” said Kwame Nkrumah, a sophomore at the college studying political sociology.
The elite liberal arts college of about 1,700 students is one of several campuses across California with commencement events scheduled this weekend that could be disrupted by protests.
The University of Southern California canceled its main stage commencement ceremony altogether, citing security concerns. It does have other events planned, including a celebration for graduating students and their families at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum that was held Thursday night.
At UC Berkeley, which will hold its main ceremony Saturday morning, campus officials acknowledge protests are possible but say they are moving ahead with commencement like business as usual.
They are some of the first graduations to be held since pro-Palestinian encampments and protests popped up last month across California and the rest of the country, sparked by the arrests of more than 100 protesters at Columbia University on April 18. Protesters have demanded their campuses divest from Israel. Protesters at one campus in California declared success earlier this week, when Sacramento State changed its investment policy to state that the college will no longer invest “in corporations and funds that profit from genocide, ethnic cleansing, and activities that violate fundamental human rights.”
At Pomona, campus officials say they remain committed to holding their commencement events this weekend. The first event scheduled to take place on the quad is Friday at 5 p.m., when the college plans to hold an induction for its chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, an honor society. On Saturday evening, the college plans to hold a celebratory dinner on the quad for graduates and their families before the main commencement ceremony on Sunday morning.
“Throughout the year, college leaders have offered to meet with student protesters and will continue to do so. We will promote safety for all members of our community and pursue our educational mission, considering the full range of viewpoints. We are committed to holding Commencement to honor the Class of 2024, with their loved ones, and preparations are continuing,” a college spokesperson said in a statement to EdSource.
College officials, who were not made available for an interview, have not disclosed how or whether they plan to clear the encampment in order to hold the commencement activities. Nkrumah said students are prepared for the possibility that police will attempt to clear the encampment. Last month, 20 students were arrested while occupying the college president’s office.
Mattin Khoshzaban, a graduating senior at Pomona, said he and his classmates have heard little from administrators ahead of this weekend’s ceremonies. Khoshzaban said he supports the protesters and their message but added he’s frustrated by the possibility that commencement could be disrupted. Like many current college seniors, he graduated from high school in 2020 and didn’t get an in-person graduation ceremony because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Although they’re trying to protest the administration, it feels like a protest against the students. And especially because we didn’t get our first graduation,” he said. “We have our families flying in. We literally don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Khoshzaban, who is studying economics, has a dozen family members who were expected to fly into the Los Angeles area starting Thursday night from Oregon, including his parents, grandparents, siblings and even aunts and uncles.
“My family has protested other things at different times, but they are upset for me because they know I didn’t have a high school graduation,” said Khoshzaban, who added that it would be “very meaningful” for him to be able to walk across the commencement stage.
Anwar Mohamed, another graduating senior, feels differently. He also had his high school graduation in Chicago canceled because of the pandemic, but he isn’t worried about whether he walks across the stage.
Demanding that Pomona divest is a personal issue for Mohamed, who is one of the organizers of the encampment. Mohamed, who is Muslim, said he remembers his family talking about Palestine since he was just 3 years old.
“Every time we were in Friday prayer, it was always like our prayers are to Palestine. Like our actions are to Palestine, our beings are for Palestine,” he said. “And I think for me as a senior, it’s realizing that I didn’t come here for walking across a stage. College was never about this degree. College was about doing this study and understanding the material world that we live in.”
Farther north in California, at UC Berkeley, planning for commencement is proceeding normally and will be held Saturday morning at California Memorial Stadium. College officials are not ruling out the possibility of protests but say there are no plans to change any of the usual commencement programming.
“Berkeley graduation ceremonies have been venues for all sorts of protests for many years. This year, like every year in the past, our efforts will focus on ensuring the ceremony can be successfully held, and on supporting the ability of graduating students, their friends, and families to safely enjoy and take part in an incredibly meaningful day,” said Dan Mogulof, a spokesperson for the campus.
Christopher Ying, a graduating senior at UC Berkeley, said he appreciates that Berkeley is moving ahead with a typical commencement. Ying is this year’s recipient of the University Medal, Berkeley’s top honor for graduating seniors, and will give a speech at the ceremony. He received the honor in part for his work with incarcerated people, including tutoring them and helping them edit and publish news stories that were distributed at prisons statewide.
Ying doesn’t plan to address Israel’s war in Gaza during his speech, saying that it wouldn’t be genuine to talk about it because none of his extracurriculars while in college related to the conflict. But he added that the university never told him he couldn’t talk about the conflict in his speech.
Meanwhile, at the University of Southern California, college officials canceled the commencement speech of valedictorian Asna Tabassum before canceling the ceremony altogether. Tabassum had been attacked by pro-Israel groups over a link in her Instagram bio that led to a website supporting Palestine.
“I’m glad that Berkeley is not going down that same path. Berkeley obviously has a very rich history of having been involved with the free speech movement,” Ying said.
Three high school Linked Learning pathway students don lab coats as they collaborate on a hands-on science experiment, bringing classroom learning to life through real-world application.
Courtesy: Linked Learning Alliance
California’s Golden State Pathways Program is a historic commitment to career-connected learning.
In January 2025, $470 million in grants began flowing to hundreds of school communities across the state. These are huge investments, based on a proven approach to education called Linked Learning, which carefully integrates rigorous, college-bound academics with hands-on career learning experiences and strong student supports — all connected by an industry theme that meets workforce needs within the local community.
For example: In Porterville Unified School district, which serves California’s rural central valley, nearly every high school student is enrolled in a Linked Learning college and career preparatory pathway related to thriving local occupations, including those in energy, aviation, agricultural technology, and other fields. The district has an impressive 99% graduation rate, 94% of its alumni enroll in postsecondary education, and 25% percent of students earn industry-recognized certificates while still in high school. Similarly, by offering Linked Learning pathways focused on health sciences, information technology, child development and other high-growth careers, the more urban Oakland Unified School District has boosted its rates of high school graduation and completion of college-preparatory credits, and reduced absenteeism and discipline issues.
Both the extraordinary new Golden State Pathways Program (GSPP) funding and the California Master Plan for Career Education, recently released to guide educators and labor market leaders across the state, empower school leaders to build such learning pathways for their students. We wholeheartedly affirm this work.
But truly effective Linked Learning practice — the kind that extensive third-party research links to excellence and equity — requires more than working through a checklist of courses and activities. It takes intentional integration of each aspect of student experience, thoughtful measurement and supportive policy.
To this end, we offer three key recommendations:
1. District leaders should push for true college and career integration. Rather than maintain the long-standing divide between college prep curricula and career-technical education, Golden State Pathways Program resources can be applied to make core academic subjects more engaging and useful by connecting them to themed pathways focused on the high-opportunity, high-wage careers that correspond to real workforce needs in each region. Classroom learning should sync with similarly themed sequential career-technical education courses and work-based learning, like internships and apprenticeships. Districts should engage students and families to ensure pathway options are well understood, aligned with student interests, and connected to workforce demands. As modeled in Porterville and Oakland, the right industry themes bring learning to life in very tangible ways, and they build skills and mindsets that translate to success in any field of future study or employment.
2. Researchers should inform and strengthen program implementation. Rather than wait for parents and legislators to ask, “did this pathways investment work?” participating regions should develop a robust and proactive research agenda in coordination with local communities to begin generating evidence that improves outcomes along the way. Understanding student experiences, opportunities and outcomes in pathways is essential for strengthening the program over time. Research on the conditions that return the strongest results can help spread best practices across rural, suburban and urban communities.
3. Policymakers should remove barriers to effective implementation. We cannot keep asking high schools to do everything they currently do and layer additional tasks on top of it all. State and local policies that enable waivers, flexibility, or alternatives to A–G requirements for UC/CSU admissions would increase time and space in students’ schedules to engage in work-based learning. Policymakers should also build in incentives for collaboration and coordination between K–12 and postsecondary institutions to enable purposeful dual-enrollment opportunities that accelerate all students toward a valuable credential. To further our recommendation in point two above, policymakers should also ensure data systems that tag students in pathways to lower the barriers and costs of high-quality research on program outcomes.
Washington DC and California are moving in dramatically different directions on education. Where the nation is pulling back, we are charging ahead. We must continue to see this progress through. By acting on these recommendations, we prove a point: that government can respond in good faith to the public it serves. And we do not fail to miss the point of it all: that our future depends on getting education right for young people.
•••
Ash Vasudevais president and CEO of ConnectED: The National Center for College and Career, an organization that partners with school, district, and community leaders to transform education through Linked Learning pathways.
Anne Stanton is president and CEO of the Linked Learning Alliance, an organization that leads the movement toward educational excellence and equity for every adolescent through high-quality college and career preparation.
Editors’ note: Anne Stanton is a member of the EdSource board of directors. EdSource maintains sole editorial control over the content of its coverage.
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.
The New York Times reported that a cartoon about Trump by Art Spiegelmaan was removed by the executive producer of the PBS show “American Masters.”
Trump has proposed defunding both PBS and NPR.
The Times wrote:
The executive producer of the Emmy Award-winning “American Masters” series insisted on removing a scene critical of President Trump from a documentary about the comic artist Art Spiegelman two weeks before it was set to air nationwide on public television stations.
The filmmakers say it is another example of public media organizations bowing to pressure as the Trump administration tries to defund the sector, while the programmers say their decision was a matter of taste.
Alicia Sams, a producer of “Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse,” said in an interview that approximately two weeks before the movie’s April 15 airdate, she received a call from Michael Kantor, the executive producer of “American Masters,” informing her that roughly 90 seconds featuring a cartoon critical of Trump would need to be excised from the film. The series is produced by the WNET Group, the parent company of several New York public television channels.
Stephen Segaller, the vice president of programming for WNET, confirmed in an interview that the station had informed the filmmakers that it needed to make the change. Segaller said WNET felt the scatological imagery in the comic, which Spiegelman drew shortly after the 2016 election — it portrays what appears to be fly-infested feces on Trump’s head — was a “breach of taste” that might prove unpalatable to some of the hundreds of stations that air the series.
Note that the four panels are divided by a swastika.
Art Spiegelman drew a graphic novel called Maus, which received the PulitzerPrize in 1992. The book is about his parents’ experiences during the Holocaust.
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.”
