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  • California poorly trains and supports its math teachers, report concludes 

    California poorly trains and supports its math teachers, report concludes 


    Teacher apprentice Ja’net Williams helps with a math lesson in a first grade class at Delta Elementary Charter School in Clarksburg, near Sacramento.

    Credit: Diana Lambert / EdSource

    Top Takeaways
    • California leaders dismiss the criticism and methodology of the rankings.
    • And yet, graduate credentialing programs cram a lot in a year. 
    • Many teachers may struggle with the demands of California’s new math framework.

    In its “State of the States” report on math instruction published last week, the National Council on Teacher Quality sharply criticized California and many of its teacher certification programs for ineffectively preparing new elementary teachers to teach math and for failing to support and guide them once they reach the classroom.  

    “Far too many elementary teacher prep programs fail to dedicate enough instructional time to building aspiring teachers’ math knowledge — leaving teachers unprepared and students underserved,” the council said in its evaluation of California’s 87 programs that prepare elementary school teachers. “The analysis shows California programs perform among the lowest in the country.”

    The report’s call for more teacher math training and ongoing support coincides with the state’s adoption this summer of materials and textbooks for a new math framework that math professionals universally agree will be a heavy lift for incoming and veteran teachers to master. It will challenge elementary teachers with a poor grasp of the underpinnings behind the math they’ll be teaching. 

    Kyndall Brown, executive director of the California Mathematics Project based at UCLA, agrees. “It’s not just about knowing the content, it’s about helping students learn the content, which are two completely different things,” he said.

    And that raises a question: Does a one-year-plus-summer graduate program, which most prospective teachers take, cram too much in a short time to realistically meet the needs to teach elementary school math?

    California joined two dozen states whose math preparation programs were rated as “weak.” Only one state got a “strong” rating.
    Source: National Council on Teacher Quality, 2025 State of the States report

    Failing grades

    The council graded every teacher prep program nationwide from A to F, based on how many instructional hours they required prospective teachers to take in major content areas of math and in instructional methods and strategies.

    Three out of four California programs got an F, with some programs — California State University, Sacramento, and California State University, Monterey Bay — requiring no instructional hours for algebraic thinking, geometry, and probability, and many offering one-quarter of the 135 instructional hours needed for an A.

    But there was a dichotomy: All the Fs were given to one-year graduate school programs offering a multi-subject credential to teach elementary school, historically the way most new teachers in California get their teaching credential.

    On the other hand, many of the colleges and universities offering a teaching credential and a bachelor’s degree through an Integrated Undergraduate Teacher Credentialing Program got an A, because they included enough time to go into math instruction and content in more depth. For example, California State University, Long Beach’s 226 instructional hours, apportioned through all of the content areas and methods courses, earned an A-plus.

     The California State University rejects the recent grading from the National Council on Teacher Quality about our high-quality teacher training programs

    California State University

    Most of the universities that offer both undergraduate and graduate programs — California State University, Bakersfield; San Jose State University; California State University, Chico; California State University, Northridge, to name a few — had the same split: A for their undergraduate programs, F for their graduate credentialing programs.

    Most California teacher preparation programs have received bad grades in the dozen years that the council has issued evaluations. The state’s higher education institutions, in turn, have defended their programs and denounced the council for basing the quality of a program on analyses of program websites and syllabi.

    California State University, whose campuses train the majority of teachers, and the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, which accredits and oversees teacher prep programs, issued similar denunciations last week.

     “The California State University rejects the recent grading from the National Council on Teacher Quality about our high-quality teacher training programs,” the CSU wrote in a statement. The council “relies on a narrow and flawed methodology, heavily dependent on document reviews, rather than on dialogue with program faculty, students and employers or a systematic review of meaningful program outcomes.”  

    The credentialing commission, in a more diplomatic response, agreed. The report “reflects a methodology that differs from California’s approach to educator preparation,” it said. “While informative, it does not fully capture the structure of California’s clinically rich, performance-based system.” 

    Heather Peske, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality for the past three years, dismissed the criticism as “a really weak critique.”

    “You can look at a syllabus and see what’s being taught in that class much in the same way that if you go to a restaurant and look at the menu to see what’s being served,” she said. “Our reviews are certainly a very solid starting place to know to what extent teacher preparation programs are well preparing future teachers to be effective in teaching.”

    It’s not just a problem in California.

    “When we compare the mathematics instructional hours between the undergrad and the graduate programs, often on the same campus, we saw on average that undergrads get 133 hours compared to just 52 hours at the graduate level. In both cases, it is not meeting the recommended and research-based 150 hours,” Peske said. 

    Part of the problem is that graduate programs usually don’t have enough time to instill future teachers with the content knowledge that they need.

    Heather Peske

    Whether or not examining website data is a good methodology, the disparities in hours devoted to math preparation between undergraduate and graduate programs raise an important issue. 

    True jacks of all trades, elementary teachers must become proficient in many content areas — social studies, English language arts, English language development for English learners, and science, as well as math. Add to that proficiency in emerging technologies, classroom management, skills for teaching students with disabilities, and student mental health: How can they adequately cover math, especially?

    “Part of the problem is that graduate programs usually don’t have enough time to instill future teachers with the content knowledge that they need,” Peske said. “California programs have to reckon with this idea that they’re sending a bunch of teachers into classrooms who have not demonstrated that they are ready to teach kids math.”

    Brown said, “There’s no way that in a one-year credential program that they’re going to get the math that they need to be able to teach the content that they’re responsible for teaching.”

    That was Anthony Caston’s experience. Before starting his career as a sixth-grade teacher at Foulks Ranch Elementary School in Elk Grove three years ago, Caston took courses for his credential in graduate programs at Sacramento State and the University of the Pacific. There wasn’t enough time to learn all he needed to teach the subject, he said. A few classes were useful, but didn’t get much beyond the third- or fourth-grade curriculum, he said.

    “I had to take myself back to school, reteach myself everything, and then come up with some teaching strategies,” Caston said. 

    Fortunately for him, veteran teachers at his school helped him learn more about Common Core math and how to teach it.

    The math content Brown refers to goes beyond knowing how to invert fractions or calculate the area of a triangle; it involves a conceptual understanding of essential math topics, Peske said. Only a deeper conceptual grasp will enable teachers to diagnose and explain students’ errors and misunderstandings, Peske said, and to overcome the math phobia that surveys show many teachers have.

    Ma Bernadette Salgarino, the president of the California Mathematics Council and a math trainer in the Santa Clara County Office of Education, acknowledges that many math teachers have not been taught the concepts behind the progression of the state’s math standards. “It is not clear to them,” she said. “They’re still teaching to a regurgitation of procedures, copy and paste. These are the steps, and this is what you will do.”

    Although a longtime critic of the council, Linda Darling-Hammond, who chaired California’s credentialing commission before becoming the current president of the State Board of Education, acknowledges that the report raises a legitimate issue.

    “Time is an important question,” she said. “It is true that having more time well spent — the ‘well spent’ matters — could make a difference for lots of people in learning lots of subjects, including math.”

    Darling-Hammond faults the study, however, for not factoring in California’s broader approach to teacher preparation, including requiring that teaching candidates pass a performance assessment in math and underwriting teacher residency programs, in which teachers work side by side with an effective teacher for a full year while taking courses in a graduate program.

    “You could end up becoming a pretty spectacular math teacher in a shorter amount of time than if you’re just studying things in an undergraduate program disconnected from student teaching,” she said.

    Weak state policies

    The report also grades every state’s policies on math instruction, from preparing teachers to coaching them after they’re in the classroom. California and two dozen states are rated “weak,” ahead of seven “unacceptable” states (Montana, Arizona, Nebraska, Missouri, Alaska, Vermont and Maine) while behind 17 “moderate” states, including Texas and Florida, and a sole “strong” state, Alabama.

    The council bases the rating on the implementation of five policy “levers” to ensure “rigorous standards-aligned math instruction.” However, California’s actions are more nuanced than perhaps its “unacceptable” ratings on three and “strong” ratings on two would indicate.

    For example, the council dinged the state for not requiring that all teachers in a prep program pass a math licensure test. California does require elementary credential candidates to pass the California Subject Examinations for Teachers, or CSET, a basic skills test, before they can teach students. But the math portion is combined with science, and students can avoid the test by supplying proof they have taken undergraduate math courses.

    At the same time, many superintendents and math teachers may be doing a double-take for a “strong” rating for providing professional learning and ongoing support for teachers to sustain effective math instruction.

    Going back to the adoption of the Common Core, the state has not funded statewide teacher training in math standards. In the past five years, the state has spent $500 million to train literacy coaches in the state’s poorest schools, but nothing of that magnitude for math coaches.

    The Legislature approved $20 million for the California Mathematics Project for training in the new math framework, which was passed in 2023, and $50 million in 2022-23 for instruction in grades fourth to 12th in science, math and computer science training to train coaches and teacher leaders — amounts that would be impressive for smaller states, but not to fund training most math teachers in California. (You can find a listing of organizations offering training and resources on the math framework here.)

    In keeping with local control, Gov. Gavin Newsom has appropriated more than $10 billion in education block grants, including the Student Support and Professional Development Discretionary Block Grant, and the Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant, but those are discretionary; districts have wide latitude to spend money however they want on any subject.

    Tucked into a section on Literacy Instruction in Newsom’s May budget revision (see Page 19) is the mention that a $545 million grant for materials instruction will include a new opportunity to support math coaches, too. The release of the final state budget for 2025-26 later this month will reveal whether that money survives.

    Brown calls for hiring more math specialists for schools and for three-week summer intensive math leadership institutes like the one he attended in 1994. It hasn’t been held since the money ran dry in the early 2000s. 

    EdSource reporter Diana Lambert contributed to this article.





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  • UC has enrolled more Californians, but lawmakers say it’s not enough

    UC has enrolled more Californians, but lawmakers say it’s not enough


    UC Davis

    Credit: Karin Higgins/UC Davis

    State lawmakers Wednesday demanded that the University of California system make more space for California residents — particularly at its most competitive campuses — even if it means charging higher tuition to those who come from out of state.

    The number of non-resident students has declined at most UC campuses, ticking down from 17.7% to 16.3% systemwide over the past two years. Increasing pressure from the Legislature led the state to create a plan in the Budget Act of 2021 to increase the enrollment of Californians in the UC system over five years. The system has enrolled more in-state residents — but not enough to meet targets set by the state.

    Assemblymember David Alvarez, D-San Diego, noted that most UC campuses reject more than half of their applicants, including many highly qualified California residents.

    “This is frustrating for a lot of Californians,” Alvarez said during an Assembly budget hearing addressing college enrollment in the state.

    Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, shared a story from a constituent who said she graduated with a 4.67 GPA, took 12 AP courses and was a varsity captain. She told him she applied as a political science major at four competitive UC campuses and was rejected from all, only to enroll at an out-of-state school.

    “What would you tell this student about why she can’t attend the UC campus of her dreams?” Muratsuchi said.

    A report from the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) called it “frustrating” that during a time of “tremendous demand,” the UC system fell nearly 1,400 full-time equivalent students short of its target to enroll more in-state students this year, as set by the 2023-24 Budget Act.

    Assembly members said they also have concerns about nonresidents increasingly edging out California residents at a few CSU campuses. Nonresidents made up 17% of enrollment at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and 14.6% at San Diego State in 2022-23. 

    The LAO report notes that community college enrollment has begun to rebound after a precipitous decline during the pandemic. But its decline has created a domino effect by reducing the number of students transferring to CSU. Enrollment at the University of California has been growing, but it has not kept pace with student interest, as indicated by the rapidly rising number of applications. Unique applications to the UC system increased by 30% from 2013 to 2022.

    Looking to the future, the systems — especially the community colleges and CSU — face continuing challenges attracting enough students. The report also noted that the numbers of traditional college age students are expected to decline in the coming years, just as they have in California’s K-12 school system.

    Muratsuchi asked whether it might be time to rethink the way funds are allocated, not just between campuses but also between UC and CSU campuses. He pointed to the increased demand at UC campuses and declining interest at many CSU campuses.

    The UC system does plan to address demand from California residents in the long term by adding between 23,000 and 33,000 full-time equivalent students by 2030. UC Merced and UC Riverside would account for 30% to 35% of that growth, while UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC San Diego would account for half or more of that growth. The UC system contends that this plan would rely on state funding to pay for an increase in California residents.

    Seija Virtanen, associate director of state budget relations for the University of California Office of the President, said the UC system became more reliant on nonresident students to backfill massive budget cuts during the Great Recession of 2008. Each nonresident student pays nearly three times the tuition paid by resident students.

    For 2024-25, Californians will pay $14,436 for undergraduate tuition, while nonresidents will pay $48,636.

    “If we were to remove those funds, it would be catastrophic for our campuses,” Virtanen said.

    Currently, the state is providing the UC system with an additional $31 million each year to support more California residents attending UC campuses, supplanting the funds that nonresidents bring in. Over the last two years, UC has enrolled over 2,600 fewer nonresidents. It has also enrolled nearly 5,900 additional in-state residents, but that is nearly 1,400 students short of the state target.

    Alvarez proposed raising tuition for nonresidents to cover this $31 million in annual funds from the state. Using back-of-the-napkin math, Alvarez noted that passing along $31 million in tuition to 20,000 nonresident students would increase their tuition by about $1,500 each year. There are an estimated 36,630 nonresident students in the UC system. Alvarez suggested a follow-up hearing to discuss raising nonresident tuition.

    During public comment, UC alumni-regent Keith Ellis agreed that it would be “worthy” to give the plan to raise nonresident tuition serious consideration.

    CSU, where most campuses have seen enrollment drop, has room in its budget to add 24,000 full-time students, according to the LAO report. Only four of the 23 campuses — Fullerton, Long Beach, San Diego and San Luis Obispo — have increased their enrollment since fall 2019. 

    Seven campuses are enrolling at least 20% fewer students than four years ago, including campuses in Sonoma, the Channel Islands, the East Bay, Chico, Humboldt, Bakersfield and San Francisco.

    Nathan Evans, deputy vice chancellor for academic and student affairs at CSU, said there is a plan to reallocate resources from campuses that have seen a sustained drop in enrollment to those where there is more demand. He said this reallocation needs to be done over several years.

    “We’re not going to pull the rug out from any institution,” he said.

    Evans noted that demographic changes in rural areas in Northern California and the Bay Area mean enrollment is not likely to rebound. The number of families with college-age students has been declining in these areas. 

    Evans said the CSU system is also working on increasing enrollment through partnerships with K-12 districts, marketing and attempting to reengage students who may have stopped out.





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  • It’s Dangerous to Call Him “TACO” Trump

    It’s Dangerous to Call Him “TACO” Trump


    Tim O’Brien is senior executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion News. He writes here about why it is dangerous to call Trump “TACO Trump,” a moniker given to him by Robert Armstrong of the Financial Times.

    TACO means “Trump Always Chickens Out.” It refers to his brash statements about draconian tariffs, followed by his usual backing down and deferring them. It happened on “Liberation Day,” April 2, it happened with his shakedown of Canada and Mexico, then his latest occurred when he announced 50% tariffs on the EU and the very next day, postponed them until July 9.

    O’Brien writes about Trump’s huge and fragile ego. Although he evaded the draft when he was draft-eligible, he needs to be perceived as strong, tough, fearless, and fierce. A super-hero. A warrior. A man with nerves of steel.

    O’Brien has a long history with Trump. In 2006, he wrote a book about Trump called TrumpNation. In the book, he said that Trump was not a billionaire, that he was worth only $150-200 million. Trump sued him for $10 billion for defamation. The suit was tossed out in 2009.

    Being called “chicken” makes Trump very angry, O’Brien says.

    “That’s a nasty question,” he told a reporter who asked about the TACO moniker at a White House press briefing on Wednesday. “Don’t ever say what you said. That’s a nasty question. … To me, that’s the nastiest question.”

    Trump, who fashions himself a brilliant dealmaker and strategist despite ample evidence to the contrary, is, of course, always going to bristle at the notion that he is a chicken — and a predictable one at that. He also routinely peddles himself as an infallible winner, so the nastiest question is also one that speculates about whether he’s mired in a losing streak. His tariff policy, unleashed on allies and competitors alike, has been rolled out on a seesaw and riddled with economically damaging ineptitude.

    O’Brien says we must prepare for a Trumpian show of force. He must show the world that he is no chicken. Not Putin’s puppet! Not a chicken! Tough! Strong! Never chicken!



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  • Artificial intelligence isn’t ruining education; it’s exposing what’s already broken

    Artificial intelligence isn’t ruining education; it’s exposing what’s already broken


    Credit: Allison Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for EDUimages

    A few weeks ago, my high school chemistry class sat through an “AI training.” We were told it would teach us how to use ChatGPT responsibly. We worked on worksheets with questions like, “When is it permissible to use ChatGPT on written homework?” and “How can AI support and not replace your thinking?” Another asked, “What are the risks of relying too heavily on ChatGPT?”

    Most of us just used ChatGPT to finish the worksheet. Then we moved on to other things.

    Schools have rushed to regulate AI based on a hopeful fiction: that students are curious, self-directed learners who’ll use technology responsibly if given the right guardrails. But most students don’t use AI to brainstorm or refine ideas — they use it to get assignments done faster. And school policies, built on optimism rather than observation, have done little to stop it.

    Like many districts across the country, our school policy calls students to use ChatGPT to brainstorm, organize, and even generate ideas — but not to write. If we use generative AI to write the actual content of an assignment, we’re supposed to get a zero.

    In practice, that line is meaningless. Later, I spoke to my chemistry teacher, who confided that she’d started checking Google Docs histories of papers she’d assigned and found that huge chunks of student writing were being pasted in. That is, AI-generated slop, dropped all at once with no edits, no revisions and no sign of actual real work. “It’s just disappointing,” she said. “There’s nothing I can do.”

    In Bible class, students quoted ChatGPT outputs verbatim during presentations. One student projected a slide listing the Minor Prophets alongside the sentence: “Would you like me to format this into a table for you?” Another spoke confidently about the “post-exilic” period— having earlier that week mispronounced “patriarchy.” At one point, Mr. Knoxville paused during a slide and asked, “Why does it say BCE?” Then, chuckling, answered his own question: “Because it’s ChatGPT using secular language.” Everyone laughed and moved on.

    It’s safe to say that in reality, most students aren’t using AI to deepen their learning. They’re using it to get around the learning process altogether. And the real frustration isn’t just that students are cutting corners, but that schools still pretend they aren’t.

    That doesn’t mean AI should be banned. I’m not an AI alarmist. There’s enormous potential for smart, controlled integration of these tools into the classroom. But handing students unrestricted access with little oversight is undermining the core purpose of school.

    This isn’t just a high school problem. At CSU, administrators have doubled down on AI integration with the same blind optimism: assuming students will use these tools responsibly. But widespread adoption doesn’t equal responsible use. A recent study from the National Education Association found that 72% of high school students use AI to complete assignments without really understanding the material.

    “AI didn’t corrupt deep learning,” said Tiffany Noel, education researcher and professor at SUNY Buffalo. “It revealed that many assignments were never asking for critical thinking in the first place. Just performance. AI is just the faster actor; the problem is the script.”

    Exactly. AI didn’t ruin education; it exposed what was already broken. Students are responding to the incentives the education system has given them. We’re taught that grades matter more than understanding. So if there’s an easy shortcut, why wouldn’t we take it?

    This also penalizes students who don’t cheat. They spend an hour struggling through an assignment another student finishes in three minutes with a chatbot and a text humanizer. Both get the same grade. It’s discouraging and painfully absurd.

    Of course, this is nothing new. Students have always found ways to lessen their workload, like copying homework, sharing answers and peeking during tests. But this is different because it’s a technology that should help schools — and under the current paradigm, it isn’t. This leaves schools vulnerable to misuse and students unrewarded for doing things the right way.

    What to do, then?

    Start by admitting the obvious: if an assignment is done at home, it will likely involve AI. If students have internet access in class, they’ll use it there, too. Teachers can’t stop this: they see phones under desks and tabs flipped the second their backs are turned. Teachers simply can’t police 30 screens at once, and most won’t try. Nor should they have to.

    We need hard rules and clearer boundaries. AI should never be used to do a student’s actual academic work — just as calculators aren’t allowed on multiplication drills or Grammarly isn’t accepted on spelling tests. School is where you learn the skill, not where you offload it.

    AI is built to answer prompts. So is homework. Of course students are cheating. The only solution is to make cheating structurally impossible. That means returning to basics: pen-and-paper essays, in-class writing, oral defenses, live problem-solving, source-based analysis where each citation is annotated, explained and verified. If an AI can do an assignment in five seconds, it was probably never a good assignment in the first place.

    But that doesn’t mean AI has no place. It just means we put it where it belongs: behind the desk, not in it. Let it help teachers grade quizzes. Let it assist students with practice problems, or serve as a Socratic tutor that asks questions instead of answering them. Generative AI should be treated as a useful aid after mastery, not a replacement for learning.

    Students are not idealized learners. They are strategic, social, overstretched, and deeply attuned to what the system rewards. Such is the reality of our education system, and the only way forward is to build policies around how students actually behave, not how educators wish they would.

    Until that happens, AI will keep writing our essays. And our teachers will keep grading them.

    •••

    William Liang is a high school student and education journalist living in San Jose, California.

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • It’s way past time to end gun violence

    It’s way past time to end gun violence


    Photo: Fibonacci Blue/Flickr

    “Teachers, the school is currently in lockdown. Please lock your doors and close your windows. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill.”

    When I was in 10th grade, my school’s assistant principal made this announcement during first period. Sparked into action, the teachers at once turned off the lights, locked the doors and closed the windows. It took all of half a second for the 1,500 students of Reseda High School to simultaneously, haltingly, fearing for their lives, come up with a single paralyzing phrase: “school shooter.”

    High schoolers may be chastised for a lot of things: procrastination, breaking curfew, ditching class, or being overly dramatic. As it turns out, there was not a school shooter in that instance. We were on lockdown because LAPD was in a standoff with a domestic violence suspect nearby. But in this case, we were well within our rights to assume the worst. In the past decade, the number of mass shootings per year in the U.S. has nearly doubled. In 2021, 689 mass shootings were reported. That’s an average of nearly two mass shootings each day.  As of Tuesday, the 198th day of the year, our nation has suffered more than 302 shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Since 2020, gun violence has overtaken motor vehicle accidents as the No. 1 cause of death for Americans under the age of 19.

    I’ve grown up hearing stories of my classmates having to run home because they heard gunshots on their block. No one — let alone still-developing children and teens — can or should be expected to lead successful, productive lives in a state of such anxiety. Millions of people across the nation have risen up and spoken out against gun violence, and there have been many student walkouts demanding action from our leaders, but to no avail. 

    This must change. The time for action came 12 years ago with the Sandy Hook school shooting, but it is not too late to make change now. We must not be deterred by the fact that previous efforts to address gun violence have failed, but encouraged by the hope that we have the ability to prevent the next tragedy. Unfortunately, too many legislative and policy attempts at addressing the problem have fallen victim to partisan politics or relied on shortcuts that made them vulnerable to being overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.  

    For example, the court recently struck down a federal ban on bump stocks, devices that enable semi-automatic weapons to fire even more rapidly. The Trump administration issued the ban after a 2017 mass shooting at an outdoor Las Vegas concert in which 60 people were killed and hundreds more wounded. The court only ruled in this way because Congress failed to enact a law banning all high-fire weapons. If Congress had passed such a law instead of relying on administrative action, a different ruling would have ensued, and assailants would not be allowed to use bump stocks. 

    This weekend’s attempted assassination of presidential candidate Donald Trump, in which one person was killed and two others were critically injured, reminds us that no one is immune from gun violence. Hopefully, the nation’s attention on this tragedy will show politicians that both liberals and conservatives must work together to find creative, effective solutions.

    This issue is not one that can be solved overnight. One single law will not suffice, but rather a multitude of innovative policies, such as limiting access to the most dangerous weapons, better licensing and education, more attention to mental health, background checks, gun buybacks to get unwanted firearms out of circulation, limiting children’s access to guns, and more can all work in a coherent fashion to reduce gun violence.

    Local, state and federal politicians must brave the potential threat of losing voters and work together to figure out real, practical measures to reduce American gun violence. 

    Perhaps the three most famous foundational American ideals are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But, on a daily basis, gun violence takes away these rights from students. Because of guns, American students are denied the pursuit of education, the liberty of feeling safe and, too often, stripped of their right to life.

    We, as American citizens, entrust our rights in the hands of those we elect. They must, then, use their power to, with fidelity, find solutions to protect citizens.

    The responsibility falls not only on politicians, but to the community as well. Publish your stories, pester your local leaders, join activist groups, and do anything you can to force change to happen. This is a problem that affects all of us, meaning it will require the entire community to solve it. 

    We shouldn’t have to be in an enduring state of checking before turning every corner. So let’s stop waiting. And let’s start living.

    •••

    Neel J. Thakkar is a rising senior at Reseda High School in Los Angeles.

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • How one county is overhauling its math culture

    How one county is overhauling its math culture


    Riverside County teachers collaboratively learn with the Riverside County Office of Education math team around increasing student thinking.

    Credit: Riverside County Office of Education

    At the Riverside County Office of Education, we serve about 430,000 students across 23 districts, providing instructional support and other direct services in all content areas. In recent years, our state math assessment data has indicated a need for improvement in how our students learn math. As a state and county, we have struggled to show the hoped-for growth in math in our statewide Smarter Balanced Assessments.

    We don’t believe that recommending all our districts adopt new textbooks or curricula would solve the problem because we’d still be teaching math the same way. Instead, we decided to align to evidence-based practices to change our math culture countywide.

    This is how we, in collaboration with our districts, are working toward a better math learning experience for our students.

    Our renewed focus on math culture aligns with national organizations like the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics. The work we are doing also aligns very well with the California’s newly revised math framework. A few of the goals of focusing on culture are to increase student access, build positive identity and develop agency within students. These align directly with the ideas in chapters 1 and 2 of the new framework. Our approach to the teaching and learning of mathematics, informed by national reports such as “Adding It Up” and instructional models like cognitively guided instruction (CGI) honors what students bring to the classroom and builds on it while focusing on a balance between procedural skills, conceptual understanding and application.

    Due to numerous factors, mathematics instruction tends to spend a great deal of time on skills and procedures such as adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing for the purpose of getting answers. There is a continued focus on procedural skills in elementary mathematics. But, instead of drilling students on these processes over and over, we could be spending time helping them understand the mathematics behind the processes by encouraging them to share their thinking.

    We’ve also seen an interplay between math culture improvements and equity. Changing people’s hearts and minds opens doors to more equitable access for students because educators start to recognize that there aren’t low, medium and high students. Rather, there are students who have had diverse opportunities to learn math, and we should listen to them about what they know and how they learn.

    Ultimately, this culture shift is about student engagement. If students in a classroom are tuned out, we can choose to continue with the status quo, or we can help them see the beauty in math and how it connects to their lives and the things they care about.

    Much of our work is additionally grounded in the Teaching for Robust Understanding framework, the book “Street Data” by Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan, and the Universal Design for Learning framework. These ideas underpin the three major aspects of our service: direct contract work with districts, countywide professional development, and the District Math Collaborative.

    We introduce ideas about math culture reform in our professional development contract work with districts. Districts reach out to us when they’d like to do customized professional development work to improve math teaching and learning.

    The District Math Collaborative began with seven districts in spring 2022, and we have continued to grow. Collaboration has centered around reflecting on teaching and learning systems, how they affect students, and how to continuously improve them.

    In addition, we have our annual Week of Math. This event is designed to allow educators, students and families to experience math differently — to find joy in mathematics. We partner with MIND Education to provide many of the games, stories and experiences through their MathMINDs program. We chose this program because it encourages the exploration, problem-solving and pattern-seeking that is the foundation of mathematics instruction we’d like to see in our classrooms. Students and their families delight in solving problems together, which builds community and reinforces the notion that everyone can be a “math person.”

    The anecdotal feedback has been great. We’ve visited schools to measure implementation and conduct surveys on how students perceive the changes. In classrooms with high implementation, we hear that students are more engaged, and that students who were labeled as low or struggling with low participation are now talking and engaging in meaningful ways.

    One of the schools that took the early initiative to work with us about five years ago — Quail Valley Elementary in Menifee Union School District — has exceeded state, county and district averages on assessments for the last two years in the grade levels with high implementation. We make sure to let all our districts know about this sort of success, because an important characteristic of culture is that it’s shared by a whole community.

    Our advice to anyone seeking to improve math culture is to find people who are energized by your ideas and lift them up. In time, they’ll lift others up as well.

    •••

    Dennis Regus, Karon Akins, Diana Ceja and Susan Jagger are the mathematics administrators from Riverside County Office of Education in California.

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





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  • How a community school helped its students through the FAFSA fiasco

    How a community school helped its students through the FAFSA fiasco


    A teacher kicks off a lesson during an AP Research class.

    Credit: Allison Shelley for EDUimages

    High school seniors walked the stage last month, but the FAFSA fiasco has left some still in limbo about their college plans for the fall.

    Changes to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) were supposed to make accessing financial aid easier for students and their families. Instead, it created new challenges for our students at the UCLA Community School, a public LAUSD school located in Koreatown. Despite our best efforts, our predominantly working class, Latino students lived in constant uncertainty around their college plans because issues with the application process led to delays in financial aid packages from universities.

    Although it was a frustrating experience, our counseling team found a silver lining — using this opportunity to teach our students how to overcome one of the many systemic challenges they will face as first-generation college students. As a Latino first-gen student myself, I leveraged my lived experiences and worked with colleagues in our College Center to teach our students the critical college knowledge they will need to navigate a system that seems stacked against them.

    Working in a community school means intentionally anticipating challenges and systemic barriers students and their families face along their educational journey. Community schools, located in neighborhoods with large numbers of high-needs students, work extra closely with community agencies and local government to provide a range of resources and services to students and families.

    Two years ago, we created a College and Careers Transition course to help seniors develop a plan for college and/or careers after high school. However, we didn’t realize how important this course would be until we faced the FAFSA fiasco, which was a huge technical nightmare that delayed aid packages to students who were relying on federal aid to make their college decisions. First-generation college students and underserved communities have always needed support in the application process, but this year, more than ever. Through a collaborative partnership with UCLA, the Fulfillment Fund and Gear Up 4 LA, we helped all students access aid through one-on-one support and educated students and families on how to complete FAFSA once in college.

    Although students were given dedicated class time to complete the application, several students needed extra support. One ambitious student, whom I’ll call Nadia to protect her privacy, was accepted to highly selective colleges and would visit the College Center every day seeking support and understanding. The first issue we faced was verifying their parents’ identities. Although the family had created their Federal Student Aid IDs and submitted verification documents as soon as the application opened (late) in January, Nadia was not able to complete the form. This issue occurred for more than half of our students simply because they are part of mixed-immigration status families. Not being able to provide a parent’s signature on the form meant that the Student Aid Index (SAI) could not be calculated, therefore leaving students uncertain of the amount of financial aid they would receive.

    Although FAFSA provided temporary workarounds, Nadia was still not able to receive an accurate provisional aid letter by the May 15 deadline observed by most colleges in California. Pressured by looming deadlines she deferred admission to her second-choice college because she did not want to risk committing to a school she could not afford. After checking FAFSA every day for months, the day finally came when Nadia could access her Student Aid Index and she elected to attend community college for academic and financial reasons. In a turn of events, she got off the waitlist for her dream university, the University of Southern California (USC). We spent the week leading up to graduation watching Nadia take the lessons learned from the course as she advocated for herself to secure her aid package from USC. She will start there this year. However, while Nadia had a week to have important financial conversations with family, other students had less than 24 hours or no time at all. Some students felt forced to commit to a school without aid packages or deferred to community college to minimize the financial risk.

    While we are hopeful that next year’s FAFSA process will be smoother, this year’s fiasco has helped us build confidence in students and their families who are sending children to college for the very first time. Our transition course affirmed students’ own agency and the power of community. We taught students to have hope and to find it in their circles of support. We also provided coordinated, one-on-one support for every student, which wouldn’t have been possible without the support of UCLA and college access partners like the Fulfillment Fund.

    This experience has demonstrated how critical college access programs are in supporting first-generation college students and the many barriers they will face in their higher education journeys.

    •••

    Jonathan Oyaga is a research associate for UCLA Center for Community Schooling, a campuswide initiative to advance university-assisted community schools, and an educational aide at the UCLA Community School, working in the College and Career Center to support students’ postsecondary transitions.

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





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  • California mustn’t lose its chance to address its teacher shortage and diversity problem

    California mustn’t lose its chance to address its teacher shortage and diversity problem


    Credit: Allison Shelley for EDUimages

    For years, California has been faced with a shortage of teachers that predated the pandemic but which the pandemic certainly did not help. A key factor that exacerbates this shortage are the high-stakes teaching performance assessments (TPAs) used in the state, such as the California Teaching Performance Assessment (CalTPA), the Educative Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA), and the Reading Instruction Competency Assessment (RICA).

    These act as overly restrictive barriers preventing us from solving not just the teacher shortage but also our significant teacher diversity problem. This is why the introduction of Senate Bill 1263 last year was a sign of hope and a step in the right direction.

    The original version of SB 1263, in essence, sought to dismantle the use of TPAs in the state of California and was strongly supported by those of us at the California Alliance of Researchers for Equity in Education (CARE-ED), and the California Teachers Association (CTA).

    But since its introduction, the bill has been modified to keep TPAs intact and instead implement a review panel to oversee the TPA and make recommendations about it to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC), the agency tasked with overseeing the TPA.

    We in CARE-ED and the CTA found this development to be deeply disappointing. While there are naturally differing viewpoints about the TPAs, with voices calling for keeping the assessments intact, it is education researchers and actual teachers on the front line who grapple with the realities of classroom pedagogy on a daily basis and are best positioned to know if TPAs are serving their stated purpose of ensuring qualified teachers or are actually undermining this very goal.

    In theory, TPAs are designed to measure and assess the educational knowledge, skills and readiness of teachers and predict their effectiveness in the classroom. In addition to being a measurement tool, they are also framed as being a learning experience in themselves by providing student teachers with feedback regarding their performance. 

    In practice, however, TPAs are a severe source of stress and strain on student teachers, many of whom come from disadvantaged or underrepresented backgrounds and are already overburdened in various ways.

    In 2022, I was part of a team of researchers at CARE-ED that examined the pass rates of the edTPA, CalTPA, and RICA according to different demographic groups. What we found were consistent racial disparities across all three assessments. In effect, the TPAs are functioning as racialized gatekeepers systematically impeding candidates of color — especially Black, Hispanic, Native American, Pacific Islander, and Southeast Asian candidates — from attaining certification. This exacerbates the teacher shortage and the diversity gap, and undermines efforts to mitigate them.

    Then there are the expenses involved with the TPA process which, while temporarily waived during the pandemic, have been resumed. The TPA consists of two cycles, each one costing $150. This is in addition to the California Subject Examinations for Teachers (CSET), which also costs anywhere from a minimum of $63 up to a few hundred dollars. Furthermore, there is the Reading Instruction Competence Assessment (RICA), which costs over $200.

    These fees are all in addition to the expenses student teachers are already paying while completing their coursework, such as tuition, books, supplies and living expenses. And it’s helpful to remember that many student teachers are trying to make ends meet — while raising families, in many cases — with juggling the full responsibilities of leading classrooms of 30-plus students and completing coursework requirements and, at the same time, having to fulfill the stringent requirements of the TPA within the one year they are allotted upon registration.

    Yet, despite the steep costs and stress of the TPAs that student teachers face on top of juggling so many other challenges, there is often also a lack of support from the teacher preparation programs they are enrolled in, as well as insufficient support from state and local government.

    This is why providing concrete support, both financially and educationally, for student teachers is one of my priorities as interim dean for the school of education at Notre Dame de Namur University. If we can’t relieve student teachers of the burden of TPAs, then we can at least alleviate the burden of some of their expenses and provide as much educational support as possible while they navigate the TPA process.

    Based on our research at CARE-ED and the CTA and our many collective years of working with student teachers, we believe the best-case-scenario would be to pass SB 1263 as it was originally written. But since the bill has been modified, I would urge that at the very least the review panel that has been proposed in lieu of removing the TPAs have fair representation.

    This means that representation from the CTC, the aforementioned agency tasked with overseeing the TPA, should be minimal, and there must be a just representation of teacher educators and, most importantly, teachers themselves, because they are the ones who best understand the realities of teaching and what they need to do their jobs. This is critically important. Otherwise we run the risk of losing this precious opportunity to address California’s teacher shortage and lack of teacher diversity in a way that could make a real difference.

    •••

    Tseh-sien Kelly Vaughn, Ph.D., is the interim dean of the school of education at Notre Dame de Namur University.

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





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  • How California can help all schools harness AI, avoid its pitfalls

    How California can help all schools harness AI, avoid its pitfalls


    Participants at the Think Forward: Learning with AI forum in April were asked to share their hopes and fears for the future of AI in an opening exercise.

    CREDIT: Photo by Ray Mares Photography

    In recent months, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) faced a significant setback when the tech provider it contracted to build personalized report cards for students went out of business. This was both a major financial loss for the district and a significant loss for students. The chatbot dust-up underscores a critical issue in our education system: the need for robust, forward-thinking policies and practices to navigate the integration of technology in our schools. Our school systems must be able to not only withstand disruptions but thrive on them.

    As post-pandemic learning gaps widen, school districts everywhere are at an inflection point when it comes to the use of artificial intelligence (AI). AI offers unprecedented opportunities to tackle complex challenges like widening achievement gaps, teacher shortages, and mental health crises among students — but AI systems must also promote equity and access, particularly for historically marginalized communities. There must be policy guardrails to protect student privacy. And there must be high quality training to empower educators. Achieving this vision requires bold leadership and a clear understanding of each stakeholder’s role.

    While AI can be a powerful tool to address long-standing inequities and improve educational outcomes, it requires strategic and collaborative efforts. The call to action is clear: Educators, policymakers, education technology innovators and community leaders must join forces to create resilient, adaptable education systems.

    With a thriving tech sector, including a broad base of AI startups, California is uniquely positioned to lead the country in the use of AI in education. The state Department of Education has already offered early guidance to schools. The Los Angeles County Office of Education’s cross-sector task force developed guidelines to support responsible AI implementation across 80 school districts. Los Angeles’ Da Vinci Academy piloted the use of AI in project-based learning. Lynwood Unified has been a leader in thinking about how AI can be used responsibly to transform district operations and learning systems. These are steps in the right direction, but more is needed.

    A new report that my organization, the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), just released, “Wicked Opportunities: Leveraging AI to Transform Education,” presents an action plan for harnessing AI to transform education.

    Here’s what California could do next:

    1. Think big about how AI can transform education. Leaders in the space must have a clear vision for the future of education before technology can help realize that vision. The state should consider fostering partnerships between educators, policymakers, Silicon Valley ed-tech developers, and community leaders to rethink and redesign schools and education systems for a world where generative artificial intelligence is ubiquitous. 
    2. Help districts use AI strategically. Districts face an overwhelming number of AI-enabled tools and “solutions,” and risk spreading limited resources on a random assortment of disconnected products. California’s educational county offices can play a role in helping districts identify priorities and streamline funds to proven AI-enabled tools and strategies designed to solve specific problems. 
    3. Allocate funds to support and test AI initiatives, particularly in low-income and historically marginalized communities. CRPE’s research with the Rand Corp. shows that school districts with more advantaged populations are ahead in training their teachers on AI. Funding and evidence-building initiatives are needed to close, rather than widen, existing learning gaps. 
    4. Provide detailed, actionable implementation strategies to help districts navigate AI adoption effectively. Our report suggests California and other states should be “dogged about implementation,” ensuring schools get technical assistance and research partnerships to support them as they try various approaches. 
    5. Make sure there are effective state policy guardrails. It’s essential for California to provide ongoing policy guidance and rules so that every district need not go it alone. Legislation under consideration in Sacramento calls for policies to be in place by January 2026. While we are glad to see policy attention, protections for kids cannot wait that long. A better approach would be to begin piloting policies immediately and revising them as needed. 

    California, a leader in technological innovation, must ensure that its education systems are future-ready. By embracing these strategies, California can lead the nation in transforming education through AI. The LAUSD incident serves as a stark reminder of what happens when systems are unprepared for technological integration. Let’s use this moment as a catalyst for change, ensuring that our schools are equipped to harness the positive potential of AI for the benefit of all students.

    •••

    Robin Lake is director of the Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) which is housed at Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College.

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





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  • Enrollment ticks up 2% at Cal State, its first increase since 2020

    Enrollment ticks up 2% at Cal State, its first increase since 2020


    Cal State Fullerton commencement 2022

    Credit: Cal State Fullerton/Flickr

    California State University’s fall 2024 enrollment has risen to 461,000 students, driven by record gains among first-time, first-year students that nonetheless left the system short of its fall 2020 peak.

    Preliminary data shows enrollment across the 23-campus system has inched up 2%, buoyed by more than 68,500 new first-year students this fall. 

    But Cal State has not yet returned to its 2020 high point, when enrollment hit 485,550 students. Headcount dipped for each of the next three school years, settling at 454,640 students in fall 2023. 

    In a news release, Chancellor Mildred García said the system is pursuing a “multi-year, holistic enrollment growth strategy” and is focused on recruiting and retaining students, including community college transfers. 

    “This promising upward momentum demonstrates the confidence that Californians have in the extraordinary power of a CSU degree to transform lives, particularly for America’s new majority, comprised of first-generation students, students of color, low-income students and adults seeking new opportunities,” García said.

    Cal State reported a 7% increase in enrollment among transfer students, a 2% increase among graduate students and a 1% increase among continuing undergraduate students.  

    Preliminary figures show that 54% of CSU’s first-year students are Latino and that 4% of first-year students are Black. CSU did not break out data on Native American, Asian American and Pacific Islander student enrollment, nor was campus-level enrollment reported. The university system expects to release final systemwide numbers in November.

    FAFSA fallout? 

    Increased enrollment at Cal State will be welcome news to observers who feared that the rocky rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) application might depress enrollment.

    Changes to the application that debuted last year were designed make the process faster and more efficient for families. But delays and glitches plagued the new form, a critical step students must complete to find out whether they’re eligible for federal aid such as Pell Grants, loans and work-study programs. 

    The troubled FAFSA cycle sparked worries that students who were uncertain about their financial aid packages would put off enrolling in college this school year. Previous research has found that receiving grant aid boosts students’ persistence and degree completion.

    Financial aid officers and advocates also voiced concern about how the new application was affecting California students from mixed-status families. Many of those students — those with at least one parent without a Social Security number — had trouble submitting the FAFSA form.

    The delays prompted both Cal State and the University of California to extend their spring deadlines for new students to declare their intent to register for fall 2024 classes, a recognition that many families would need more time to better understand how much their education would cost.

    California ultimately fared better than most other states in terms of FAFSA completions, according to data from the National College Attainment Network. The state notched a 56% FAFSA completion rate, exceeding a rate of roughly 52% among high school seniors nationwide. That’s despite a 7% year-over-year decline in the number of FAFSA completions in California.

    Cal State credited financial aid staff at its universities with helping students to work through a frustrating FAFSA cycle and processing provisional financial aid offers quickly. (The news release cited a rise in federal Pell Grants at CSU, but did not say how much awards increased.) 

    Difficulties with the FAFSA rollout might also have been offset by California’s universal FAFSA completion policy, which was passed in 2021. Assembly Bill 132 tasks school districts with ensuring that graduating seniors complete the FAFSA or the California Dream Act Application, but gives students the ability to opt out of doing so. A recent report by the Public Policy Institute of California found that applications from high school seniors ahead of UC and CSU’s March 2 deadline climbed 16% in the policy’s first year.

    Denise Luna, the director of higher education policy at research and advocacy nonprofit EdTrust-West, said in a written statement that Cal State’s preliminary numbers indicate that giving prospective students more time to consider the costs of a CSU education was not just the right thing to do, but also “the strategic thing to do.”

    “This year’s applicants need the same flexibility,” she wrote. “Since financial aid application timelines are delayed again, we will be looking to the CSU to plan to once again extend their intent-to-register deadline in 2025.”

    Post-pandemic prognosis

    CSU’s preliminary fall headcount is also a step toward reversing pandemic-era enrollment declines.

    Enrollment across the CSU system fell 1.7% in fall 2021, part of a nationwide drop during Covid-19. Seventeen of the system’s 23 campuses saw a year-over-year enrollment slump. 

    Cal State campuses reacted with strategies designed to entice students back, including programs to re-enroll students who stopped attending college with incentives like waived fees and priority registration.

    But CSU enrollment continued to slide in fall 2022, a consequence of record-low enrollment at the state’s community colleges, which had the knock-on effect of fewer transfer students entering Cal State. 

    Demographic trends in the state’s K-12 system may also affect CSU’s student body going forward. In the 2022-23 school year, K-12 public school enrollment fell for the sixth consecutive year. The California Department of Finance projects a drop of more than 660,000 public K-12 students over the next decade if current fertility and migration trends continue.

    Still, CSU sees this fall’s numbers as a good omen. Preliminary fall 2024 enrollment, though 5% below the 2020 peak, “signals additional growth in the coming years,” a system announcement said.





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