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  • Foster, homeless youth lose disproportionately more instruction to suspensions

    Foster, homeless youth lose disproportionately more instruction to suspensions


    Credit: Alison Yin / EdSource

    Students in precarious living situations — especially foster and homeless youth —are much more likely to be suspended and lose instructional time vital to their academic success, according to a report released by the UCLA Civil Rights Project and the National Center for Youth Law. 

    In the 2021-2022 academic year alone, California students lost more than 500,000 days to out-of-school suspensions, where students are sent home as a form of discipline, the study said. 

    Across the state, foster youth were disproportionately at the receiving end of the punishment, and they lost more time than “all students” across the board to suspensions — about 77 days of instruction for every 100 students. 

    Specifically, for every 100 African American foster youth enrolled, 121 days were lost while, African American homeless youth lost 69 days of instruction, according to the report which was released Oct. 30. Meanwhile, homeless students overall missed 26 days per 100 students. 

    Regardless of whether they are in foster care, students with disabilities lost 23.8 school days per 100, a rate higher than the general population. Dan Losen, senior director for the National Center for Youth Law and co-author of the report, said that missing a day of instruction could result in loss of these students’ access to disability-specific supports, such as counseling.

    “A regular day might be one of the most important days of the week for the students with disabilities,” Losen said. “So, in some sense, they’re getting a harsher punishment and being denied more.” 

    Challenges for foster youth and homeless students 

    K-12 students across the state have already lost a lot of ground academically since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic; Losen said that missing even more days to suspensions is detrimental.

    Losing instructional time “is harming their educational outcomes, not just in the immediate, but it makes it less likely they’re ever going to graduate,” Losen said. “It puts their academic and personal futures at greater risk.” 

    According to the report, suspending a student — even once — is associated with diminished chances of graduating from high school and attending college, as well as an increased probability of being arrested later in life. 

    Losen added that suspensions are more likely to cause delinquent behavior than curb it. 

    “Suspending a student out of school is really a non-intervention. It’s no guarantee that anything will happen. They’re just going to come back to school three days or two days later,” Losen said.

    “Not that you should put up with misconduct, but there’s got to be a way to support these kids, especially those from these unstable home environments.” 

    To make matters worse, these students who are being disproportionately suspended are already likely to have experienced trauma outside of school, Losen said. 

    “The more (adverse experiences) you have, the more likely it is you’ll have a form of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), and that definitely affects behavior. … Some of them might withdraw into a shell, but others might act out in ways that they might normally not act out,” Losen said.

    Discrepancies across districts 

    The report shows records varied from district to district — from Kern High School District where 23.3 days of instruction have been lost per 100 students to Los Angeles Unified School District, where only 0.7 days of instruction per 100 students were lost. 

    “Racial biases (in student discipline) are prevalent, and they don’t have to be intentional,” said Losen, noting that homeless and foster youth are disproportionately Black and brown. 

    That implicit bias “means you’re not aware of how you may be biased in not just how you punish, but who you’re looking at, who you’re expecting to exhibit problem behavior, whether shouting in the hallway is interpreted as a bullying event, or just kids roughhousing,” he said.

    Kern High School District — based in Bakersfield with more than 42,000 students — had the highest rate of instructional time lost among African American students, totaling 80 days per 100 students.  

    EdSource reached out to the Kern High School District regarding the study’s findings, but district spokespeople did not respond by EdSource’s deadline.

    Kern’s number is disappointing, said Ashley De La Rosa, the education policy director for the Central Valley-based Dolores Huerta Foundation, which previously sued the Kern High School District over its disciplinary methods. But she said she’s “not surprised either.” 

    “The current board of education seems more focused on monitoring and policing students than actually seeing what the teachers or the administrators are doing,” De La Rosa said. “… When students are not in class, they’re not learning, and our educational attainment in Kern County is one of the lowest.”

    She noted that the Kern High School District made some progress after a 2014 lawsuit alleged its higher rates of suspension for students of color were discriminatory. 

    According to an announcement released by the Dolores Huerta Foundation, a 2017 settlement had required Kern High School district to “implement positive discipline practices to address disparate discipline outcomes and provide discipline-related training to all staff and personnel operating within the school environment.” 

    But after the terms of the settlement expired and the Covid-19 pandemic struck in 2020, the district took a major step back and out-of-school suspensions began to increase once again, De La Rosa said.

    But following the 2017 settlement, the district said in that “certainly, KHSD has not engaged in intentional systemic racist student discipline practices against African-American and Latino students.” 

    “Rather (Kern High School District), like most public school districts nationwide, has been reviewing its student discipline data as it impacts minority students, and reframing its student discipline practices in order to address the statistically disproportionate suspension and expulsion of students of color,” the district’s statement noted. 

    By comparison, LAUSD’s rate of lost instructional days for African American students was 40 times lower than Kern’s, and no single demographic group lost more than three days per 100 students, according to the report. 

    A district spokesperson and community activists have attributed LAUSD’s reduction in out-of-school suspensions to the elimination of  “willful defiance” suspensions 10 years ago, which was achieved through a School Climate Bill of Rights. 

    Willful defiance suspensions, advocates argued, were used as punitive disciplinary practices for small, subjective infractions such as talking back to a teacher or refusing to spit out gum. 

    Since the bill of rights passed, the district’s suspension rate has dropped from 2.3% in the 2011-12 academic year to 0.3% in 2021-2022, according to a district spokesperson. Meanwhile, LAUSD has worked to incorporate alternative disciplinary methods rooted in restorative justice. 

    “I’m proud of the progress LAUSD has made and the recognition in this report, and I also know that our progress resulted from years of community pressure and advocacy to treat students like the learners they are. As they learn literacy and mathematics, they also learn behavior expectations, conflict resolution skills and restorative practices,” LAUSD board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin said. 

    “If we can shift the hearts, minds and skills of nearly 70,000 employees in LAUSD, then surely other districts can too,” she said. 

    Still, LAUSD remains “far from perfect” and has reported students to the police at higher rates than average, according to the report. 

    “We’re often punishing those that need the most support. So this is a (really) important opportunity … to do more radical listening, making sure that we have the right wraparound support necessary for students to thrive, particularly those students who are often in the shadows, often neglected and nothing more,” said Ryan J. Smith, the chief strategy officer at Community Coalition. 

    He also stressed that the district should prioritize support services, including psychiatric social workers and counselors, to uplift more vulnerable students who often make transitions from one home and community to another. 

    Looking ahead 

    According to the California Compilation of School Discipline Laws And Regulations, suspensions, regardless of whether they are out-of-school suspensions, should only be used as a last resort — and can only be used if a student exhibits certain behaviors, including causing physical injury to others or possessing illegal drugs. 

    Earlier this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 27, which aims to halt all suspensions for one of those categories, willful defiance, for middle and high school students across the state. 

    Losen said that despite statewide attempts to end willful defiance suspensions, he is still concerned that “violence with no injury” suspensions could take its place as another subjective, umbrella category that could disproportionately harm marginalized students. 

    “California has made some progress, but there’s a great amount of work to be done, and much more that could be done. I don’t want to lose sight,” Losen said. “Modest progress shouldn’t kill the initiative to really make more lasting, substantial changes.”





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  • If undocumented parents lose Medi-Cal, California kids could suffer, advocates say

    If undocumented parents lose Medi-Cal, California kids could suffer, advocates say


    A family gets information at Fort Miller Middle School’s Health and Wellness Fair in Fresno.

    Photo courtesy of Eric Calderon-Phangrath

    Children’s health advocates are sounding alarm bells about Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to freeze public health insurance enrollment for undocumented adults. 

    They say the move will put those adults’ children at risk of poor health care and well-being.

    California has gradually expanded Medi-Cal, the state’s health insurance for low-income people, to undocumented immigrants, including those with temporary status such as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. First, undocumented children were included in 2016, then young adults 19-25 in 2019, then seniors 50 and older in 2022, and finally those ages 26-49 in January 2024.

    Before the expansion, undocumented immigrants only qualified for Medi-Cal in emergencies, during pregnancy, and for long-term care. California is paying for the expansion on its own, without federal dollars.

    Now, faced with a deficit, Newsom is proposing to freeze new enrollment in Medi-Cal for undocumented immigrant adults and charge current undocumented enrollees a $100 monthly premium starting in 2027.

    The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have been pressuring states like California to stop providing benefits to undocumented immigrants, saying tax dollars should not be used for people who are in the country without permission.

    In announcing the proposed cuts, though, Newsom said they were to balance the budget. He said his beliefs have not changed. He touted his promises to expand health care to all, regardless of immigration status, both as mayor of San Francisco and governor of California.

    “It’s my value. It’s what I believe, I hold dear. I believe it’s a universal right. And I have for six years championed that,” Newsom said. “This is a tough budget in that respect.”

    He said there are now 1.6 million undocumented adults enrolled in Medi-Cal, about 5.3% of total enrollment.

    “Our approach was not to kick people off and not to roll back the expansion, but to level set on what we can do and what we can’t do,” Newsom said.

    Though undocumented children would not be affected directly by the changes, advocates say that restricting health insurance for undocumented adults will affect their children, the vast majority of whom are U.S. citizens. An estimated 1 in 10 California children have at least one parent who is “undocumented” or has temporary protections from deportation, according to the National Center for Children in Poverty.

    “We are disheartened,” wrote Avo Makdessian, executive director of the First 5 Association of California, an organization that represents the state’s county commissions supporting children in the first five years of life, in a statement released after Newsom’s announcement of his revised budget. “When Medi-Cal coverage is scaled back for adults without legal status, children in those families suffer. Decades of research are clear: Healthy parents lead to healthy kids.”

    Ted Lempert, president of the nonprofit organization Children Now, said, “Children Now is deeply concerned with the proposed cuts to Medi-Cal.”

    “We urge the governor and Legislature to consider that when parents lose coverage, kids are less likely to get the health care they need, so the proposal to hurt parents hurts kids as well,” Lempert said.

    Mayra Alvarez, president of The Children’s Partnership, an organization that advocates for children’s health equity, said studies show that when parents become eligible for Medi-Cal, they are more likely to learn about health insurance options available to their children and enroll them.

    “This ‘welcome mat’ effect can lead to a noticeable increase in the number of children covered by Medi-Cal or similar programs, even without changes in their individual eligibility,” Alvarez said. “Conversely, when a parent or family member is sick and unable to work or provide care, kids suffer as a result.”

    Dolores, 65, is a grandmother who enrolled in Medi-Cal under the expansion for undocumented immigrants. She said losing it would affect not only her but also her children and grandchildren. She did not share her last name because of fear of immigration enforcement.

    Months after enrolling three years ago, Dolores suffered a stroke. 

    “If I hadn’t had Medi-Cal, I don’t know how I would have gotten health care,” she said in Spanish. “It helped me then, and it is still helping me so much.”

    Her enrollment in Medi-Cal has also helped her family, including her grandchildren, who live with her, she said. At a health center in Victorville, she has been able to take nutrition classes and Zumba, and she has learned about healthy foods to cook for her family. She said her 4-year-old granddaughter follows her every move, exercises with her, and has benefited from her grandma’s improved health.

    “You know children are like sponges — everything they see, they absorb,” she said. 

    Dolores said she could not afford to pay $100 a month for Medi-Cal, as proposed by Newsom. She has lived in the U.S. for more than 30 years, but after the stroke, she has not been able to return to work.

    Alvarez added that when state residents are uninsured, that creates other costs in emergency health care.

    “Cynically discriminating against our state’s immigrant communities by rolling back Medi-Cal eligibility is not only unconscionable, but doing so will only result in costs being shifted elsewhere,” she said.

    Alvarez recommended that the governor and Legislature balance the budget in other ways, such as “closing corporate tax loopholes and making the wealthy pay their fair share, drawing down reserves that exist for times like this, and scaling back spending in more appropriate places, such as the state’s bloated prison budget.”





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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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