The number of homeless students statewide increased by 9.3%, according to recently released state enrollment data. Out of 761 districts, 433 — or 57% — reported an increase in their number of homeless students. This map shows the change in the homeless student population by district from 2023–24 to 2024–25. Click on a district to see the percent change and the number of homeless students enrolled.
Note: A particularly sharp increase from one year to the next may be due to improved tracking or reporting practices. Please contact the district for further details.
Data source: California Department of Education and EdSource Data Analysis
Grading in most classrooms remains tied to rubrics devised by individual teachers and rooted in century-old practices. Recently, amid a broader national trend, grading systems in schools have come under increased scrutiny as educators and policymakers debate the best ways to support students. This movement further gained traction during the Covid-19 pandemic as educators tried new grading approaches to help students.
Traditional grading systems assess students through tests, homework and projects combined into a single class grade and other more subjective factors, such as behavior, attendance and classroom participation.
Standards-based grading, however, measures academic achievement without considering these subjective metrics. Standards-based grading measures academic achievement against specific content standards, offering students multiple opportunities to demonstrate knowledge. It still involves assigning grades, but these grades are based on students’ mastery of the content, making the process more transparent and individualized.
For example, when a friend of mine was in a math class that used standards-based grading, he was assessed on specific learning targets, like solving quadratic equations, without considering participation or behavior. In a traditional grading system, his final grade comprises quizzes, tests, homework, participation and behavior. As such, a poor test score early in the semester could significantly impact his final grade. On the other hand, in standards-based grading, he had multiple opportunities to retake tests and demonstrate improved understanding, so his final grade reflected his highest mastery level. Traditional grading boosted his grade with attendance and participation points, even if he didn’t fully understand the material. Standards-based grading showed his actual academic achievement.
While there isn’t any national data, individual states across the U.S. have begun to adopt standards-based grading. A 2021 statewide survey in Wyoming revealed that over 63% of middle schools and 35% of high schools had either started or fully implemented standards-based grading. In Delaware and Mississippi, schools have actively worked to support the use of high-quality, standards-aligned instructional materials in K-12 classrooms.
Districts in California, including Lindsay Unified District in Tulare County, moved towards standards-based grading systems. High schools in Oakland are also transitioning to a more objective assessment system, emphasizing a gradual and inclusive approach to grading reform.
In my district, Dublin Unified, individual teachers instituted standards-based grading on a trial basis, but nine months ago, the district discontinued its standards-based grading system, impacting almost 13,000 students.
However, despite an overwhelming 85% of the student body voting in favor of standards-based grading practices, the school board discontinued the practice districtwide, preventing teachers from using any form of standards-based grading.
The rationale behind the board’s decision was simple: Trustees believed that standards-based grading decreased academic rigor and harmed students’ chances of success beyond high school by introducing a new grading system. Their concerns, primarily driven by parental pressure, focused on how the grades of high-performing students could fluctuate because of the introduction of a new grading system.
I acknowledge that standards-based grading was a new concept and could pose a risk to the perception of the academic achievement of high school students. (I was sympathetic, too; I am all too familiar with the competitive nature of high school.)
But I think the concerns about standards-based grading hindering academic progress are misguided. For traditionally high-performing students, this grading system allows these students, like all others, to focus on mastering concepts and skills. Instead of promoting memorization to pass tests, students are assessed on their ability to understand concepts, allowing the performance of these students to remain strong even under this new system. If anything, standards-based grading boosts academic performance, evidenced by a study that found that students in schools using standards-based grading were nearly twice as likely to score proficient on state assessments compared with those in traditional grading systems.
Our district’s push to switch to a standards-based grading system ultimately collapsed through misinformation and a lack of teacher training. This perceived lack of support made teachers feel they had to choose between supporting individual student needs and maintaining academic rigor, even though that wasn’t necessary.
Had our district provided more support for parents and teachers, we could have developed effective curriculums that help students and maintain rigor. Larkspur’s multi-year transparent process with teacher training and parent seminars allowed a smooth transition from traditional to standards-based grading. Similarly, in New York City, districts successfully shifted to the new system after training teachers and having town halls with parents.
The transition to standards-based grading or similar systems requires a shift in grading practices and a cultural and perceptual shift in how we view education and student success. It demands robust teacher training, practical communication with parents and students, and a collective commitment to redefining academic achievement. We must provide teachers, students,and parents with the necessary resources to succeed in these new grading paradigms. If we truly want to make education more equitable, districts must put their money where their mouths are and fully support our educators in this significant shift.
I hope the adults responsible for decisions regarding our schools and education can set aside partisanship and genuinely reassess grading practices. Because equity has never been, nor will it ever be, the enemy of achievement.
•••
Aakrisht Mehra just completed his junior year in the Dublin Unified School District.
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.
Sitting in the rear-facing “way back seat” of my family’s station wagon in 1979, we were counting trees tied with yellow ribbons to memorialize 55 Americans held hostage in Iran. As kids, we didn’t understand the conflict, but one thing was clear: Securing the hostages’ freedom was a collective national obsession. Much has changed about the way we express our democratic values in the U.S. and how we think about innocent hostages held today in Gaza.
My nostalgia makes me wonder how young people make sense of our current political divisions, including at UCLA. As an educator and researcher at UCLA’s School of Education and Information Studies, my colleagues and I have been discussing our role to prepare K-12 teachers to advance social justice as global citizens. Teaching and learning to think criticallyand consider a multiplicity of perspectives has never been so crucial, nor has it been so controversial.
When I mention my friends’ 23-year-old son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was severely wounded when abducted by Hamas terrorists from Israel’s Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7, I have been met with skepticism and distrust among colleagues who share my social justice values. It shouldn’t feel so alienating to speak out for the release of the hostages, who include eight Americans among the 120 multinationals held in Gaza for more than 260 days.
Recently, when a colleague asked about the numbered piece of masking tape I was wearing, I explained it is in solidarity with Hersh’s mom, Rachel, marking the days of her heartbreak and his captivity. “Well, now you know how the other side feels,” he replied, as if supporting the hostages equates to indifference to Palestinian suffering. I tried to counter his assumption by explaining that advocating for the release of innocent hostages does not diminish my concern for innocent lives lost in Gaza. Our hearts can hold compassion for both.
This false binary is detrimental to finding common ground in the pursuit of peace. The deep anguish many of us feel for Jews, Palestinians — and their supporters — has made it difficult to know what to say. Rather than choosing a side, our common humanity should unite us.
I learned these lessons years ago as a student at Pitzer College in a seminar that opened my eyes to different perspectives on the Mideast conflict. We debated texts from Palestinian and Israeli authors, appreciating the similarities and differences between the world’s major religions. We learned how our own cultural lens and experiences informed our identities, and we felt inspired to ask more questions, rather than be expected to have the right answer. I’m grateful for this complex picture of the geopolitical, historical and religious perspectives essential to developing a nuanced understanding of current events.
My classmates and I shared a collective journey of discovery, challenging previously held truths without demonizing others for them. The greatest gift I received from my college education is the ability to know what I don’t know, inspiring me to seek new knowledge and perspectives on making the world more just.
I wish more students had this opportunity and more educators had the confidence to teach this way. Good-faith efforts to bridge divides aren’t always easy, and they aren’t fail-proof, but they can deepen ongoing dialogue while building a community with mutual trust and respect.
I’m afraid these essential foundations of education are being avoided in too many college and high school classrooms, since many educators feel ill-equipped to address them. I understand the reluctance to speak out for fear of saying the wrong thing, not knowing enough about the conflict or the anxiety of becoming a meme on social media, and consequently getting “canceled.” The result of this polarized climate is an unfortunate chilling effect, where not having a discussion is safer than a well-intended one.
Diversity, equity and inclusion efforts can help navigate barriers to cross-cultural dialogue, but when these principles are unevenly applied, they lose their power. For example, campus statements of solidarity that center one people’s history, while insidiously erasing any mention of the other, serve to further entrench beliefs. Acknowledging the value of others’ “lived experiences” would increase awareness of multiple indigenous claims to land in Israel-Palestine dating back to biblical times.
Without a rigorous understanding of the roots of the conflict and different historical narratives, we are mis-educating a generation of young people who lack the skills to excavate the depth of complicated problems, and have little agency to generate solutions to them. These omissions lead to oversimplified “either-or” “oppressor vs. oppressed” or “black-white” narratives that have become familiar in the U.S. College is supposed to be the place to cultivate curiosity, critical thinking, and challenge an ethnocentric Western lens that may or may not always apply.
The deeply divided campus protests have unveiled the harm of a false dichotomy. Rather than picking a side on a protest encampment, we should be creating a space for students to advance a peaceful coexistence, recognizing each party’s rightful presence.
Thankfully, I recently had the opportunity to participate in a UCLA effort to seek peaceful solutions through its Dialogue Across Difference Initiative. Through this cross-campus collaboration, faculty and staff engaged in dialogue, instilling empathy, while building active listening skills to think critically and compassionately about recent protests and how we can carry these lessons into our respective roles on campus. Education initiatives like this can play a vital role in building a democratic citizenry.
Beyond simplified slogans, opportunities to dialogue across our differences can help bridge our individual and collective aspirations, including those who support Israelis, Palestinians, and their allies. These critical conversations can help connect our shared values and unite in seeking justice at home and abroad.
•••
Julie Flapan is a researcher, educator, and the director of the Computer Science Equity Project at UCLA Center X, School of Education and Information Studies and co-lead of the CSforCA coalition, where she is working to expand teaching and learning opportunities for girls, students of color and low-income students.
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.
Trevor Aguilar, a 6-year-old, narrates his own story with a puppet while playing with Jacqui June Whitlock, a puppet education specialist at Children’s Fairyland in Oakland.
Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource
Puppetry is more than just child’s play at Children’s Fairyland, Oakland’s iconic storybook theme park. Small children have been stimulated by the wonders of live performance at the Storybook Puppet Theater since 1956, but now they will also be exposed to arts education programming specially crafted for preschool learners. A new puppet education initiative, Puppet Playdates, takes hands-on learning to the next level.
Once upon a time comes alive for a new generation every Thursday after the 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. puppet shows, when children are cordially invited to a nearby meadow to make friends with marionettes after the curtain falls.
Amber Rose ArthurCredit: Andrew Reed / EdSource
On a recent morning, Amber Rose Arthur, 5, wasted no time breathing life into the unicorn puppet, its sparkles glittering in the sun. Every so often, she gently nudged other children with the unicorn’s horn to bestow them with magic powers. In the interests of total disclosure: She gave this reporter some enchantment too.
“They don’t get enough arts in school anymore, so events like this are great,” said her father, Gregory Arthur, watching as the little girl explored the craft of puppetry and social interactions in one fell swoop. “It stimulates the brain more than a lot of other things. It gets them to think and learn, and it makes them smile.”
Nestled on the shores of Lake Merritt, this bewitching arts education program invites children to learn the magic of puppetry while immersing themselves in classic fables including James M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan,” Frank L. Baum’s “The Wizard of Oz” and Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen.” This program also lays the groundwork for a proposed puppet education program that will pay visits to early-learning classrooms in Oakland Unified School District (OUSD).
“Fairyland is designed to inspire a young child to have a great imagination,” said Joy Peacock, client and community relations director for the PNC Foundation, the philanthropic arm of PNC Bank, which is partnering on the puppet-based early-learning program. “It’s not all laid out there for you, like in TV. You have to rely on your own imagination. Puppetry is very interactive, it’s very tactile, it’s very creative.”
Coming out of the pandemic, Fairyland held focus groups with local teachers to pinpoint what kinds of activities would be most beneficial for the preschool cohort, and the takeaway was that children today need more social-emotional learning as well as more exposure to the creative impulse. Enter puppets.
“One of the things that actually made me really sad is that the teachers were saying the children are losing their imagination,” said Maria Rodriguez, manager of the puppet theater. “They’re losing their ability to make believe. For me, you know, I can’t imagine life without imagination, so I was just like, oh goodness. We need to help inspire the children to learn how to make believe. We want to help them to light that spark.”
That’s basically Jacqui June Whitlock’s calling in life. A former transitional kindergarten teacher with a background in theater and an affinity for puppetry, this is her dream gig. She studied child development in college and the art of shadow puppetry in Bali. She has encountered more than one child who was too afraid to express themselves, until she handed them a puppet. Suddenly they found their voice.
“For me, this has been like a lifelong career. Incorporating social-emotional learning with puppetry, that’s my bread and butter,” said Whitlock, a puppet education specialist. “Something wonderful happens when you hand a child a puppet. Puppets are a great conduit for storytelling and learning without putting any pressure on the child.”
Whitlock is a master at teaching through play. Holding court with a cavalcade of puppets, from rabbits and dragons to cats, after a recent performance of “Peter Pan,” she relishes helping children spin yarns of their own.
“I’ve been dreaming of doing a program like this for years. It’s amazing that we finally have the funding to do it,” she said. “In America, we tend to think of puppets as simple toys for children, but really there’s so much more to puppetry. Many other cultures think of them as more than that. They can be a very complex tool.”
At the play dates, she helps guide groups of pint-sized puppeteers as they learn and play. If a child has a puppet pretend to bite her, for example, she inquires whether the puppet is hungry, opening up a dialogue with the child. But she always wants the kiddo to lead the way.
“They weave their own story,” said Whitlock, who crafts a lot of her own puppets by hand. “You’re not really telling them what the story is, they’re telling you.”
Empowering children to express themselves is particularly critical right now, experts say, because this generation missed out on so many formative experiences because of school closures and other pandemic disruptions. The arts can be an effortless way to boost special emotional learning, she says, through the kind of make-believe games that children are naturally drawn to.
Jacqui June Whitlock, a puppet education specialist at Children’s Fairyland in Oakland, teaches through puppet play and imagination.Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource
“Teachers were saying that they were seeing a lack of imagination or a lack of pretend play happening in their classrooms, noticing that children weren’t interacting as much,” she said. “And puppets are an excellent tool for cultivating that pretend play, also just communicating with each other, it’s sort of like a conduit for your personality … It just makes it so easy for them to communicate with each other and break down that barrier.”
Puppets can play a role in helping children communicate on a deeper level, experts say, by externalizing their emotions onto the inanimate object. The puppet becomes a proxy that helps kids process hard situations, grapple with fears and explore their feelings through metaphor.
“One of my favorite things that I’ve observed is that puppet playtime creates a lot of interaction between the grownup and the kiddo,” said Whitlock. “It’s like time slows down for them. Also, I put in a bench recently, so now I’m also seeing a lot of elders, and I love the interactions between grandparents and their littles. It’s very nurturing.”
Of course, puppetry can also fuel expressions of pure escapism, encouraging little children to create their own big adventures.
“Children and puppetry go hand in hand, because kids have no trouble suspending their disbelief, and endowing the simplest props with life,” said Carey Perloff, former artistic director of San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater and a longtime puppet proponent. “Puppets are a direct conduit to the imagination. Because they can be realistic or totally abstract, they invite audience members to project their own idea of character and circumstance onto a piece of fabric or some papier mache, and thus to transform it into something magical.”
Trevor Aguilar finds joy in using his imagination with a dragon puppet.Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource
Trevor Aguilar, for one, celebrated his sixth birthday by weaving a tale of intrigue with his new fuzzy friends. He narrated an adventure in which the grandmother puppet saved the townspeople from the evil machinations of the fire-breathing dragon puppet. The last child at the puppet play date, he didn’t seem to want the fun to end.
Indeed, some children become so enamored of the marionettes that they make a point of paying a visit to Whitlock and her buckets of puppets every time they visit the park.
“I’ve got my regulars, which is so great,” said Whitlock. “They know exactly what they want. ‘OK, I’m here. I’m getting the raccoon puppet today.’ ”
Adult education students at Huntington Beach Adult School in the Huntington Beach Union School District
Credit: Jorge Van Dyck / Huntington Beach Adult School
There’s an incredibly important program that takes place in the back lots of a number of K-12 school sites.
Adult Education serves students aged 18 and over in English as a second language (ESL), citizenship, adult basic education/adult secondary education (diploma and GED), and short-term career technical Education (CTE).
But their services to the schools they are housed in and the surrounding community are so much more. In fact, adult education staff and supporters have been espousing the benefits associated with Community Schools before the term became popular. They are that link schools don’t know they have to make sure parents know about and attend their District English Language Advisory Committee to help plan how funds will be used to support English learners, and they are often the link to immigration attorneys, financial literacy programs and a bridge to the training that so many parents of K-12 students end up needing.
Adult education also benefits students in the K-12 system. To put it simply, our immigrant students have immigrant parents, and assisting parents in learning the language and the school system’s processes in an English learner class is bound to pay off for the child as well. Also, offering short-term career technical education classes for those same parents to transition into once they have a grasp of the language (like in this medical assistant IET – integrated education and training program) is ultimately going to provide a more financially stable family structure that, again, benefits the child attending our K-12 schools. Finally, no matter how many redundant systems we put into K-12, students do drop out, and adult schools provide a place for that student to come back and finish their diploma or high school equivalency.
Yes, these folks are flexible, and their services complement the goals of our K-12 districts, which is likely why a decision was made a long time ago to house adult education within these institutions.
Unfortunately, flexibility is also a sore spot for adult educators. When the state budget gets pinched, adult education feels it first. In 2008-09, that meant cuts of 15% and 20%, and when the state government allowed for categorical programs — which previously could only be used for specific purposes — to be used flexibly, adult education funds were used to keep K-12 programs going, and many adult programs were decreased or even lost. By 2013-14, the Legislature introduced a package to eliminate school district categorical programs that targeted funding for adult education but salvage the adult education system by requiring districts to move into consortia beginning in 2015-16, joining community colleges and K-12 adult schools together in offering non-credit adult education. Schools moving to this system were asked to maintain 2011-12 levels of spending on adult education, which by then was at about 50% of 2008-09 levels.
So, it is understandable when an adult educator winces at the word “flexibility” and would rather it not even be mentioned in these bleak financial times. But the good news for California, its schools, and communities around those schools, is that California still supports its adult education system like no other state. The budget for adult education has actually grown in recent years. And, despite a recent Legislative Analyst Office report second guessing the funding structure it helped to create, adult educators feel the more they let folks know about the incredible wraparound services they provide for adults and children in the K-12 districts that are lucky enough to house them, then the more likely it will be for that elusive respect to be gained and programs sustained into the distant future.
The fundamental tasks of adult education are widely agreed upon and supported, even if many K-12 educators don’t know exactly what happens in those beige portables at the edge of their campus.
As alluded to at the start, those classes for adults are often tucked away in corners of larger campuses that are hard to find, and some forget they are there, and that’s generally OK with those who work there, since adult school employees know the value of their work is about so much more than that; they are flexible. They know that being right there on the campus where adult school parents’ kids attend is a great start.
Going back and forth between different sets and shades of beige portables on the four different campuses where Huntington Beach Adult School provides ESL classes, I have an appreciation for the often slighted portable and feel compelled to steal from William Carlos Williams to bring an end to this musing on the value of adult education.
So much depends upon
the beige portables
at the edge of campus
glazed in floodlights
filled with adult students
Credit: Jorge Van Dyck / Huntington Beach Adult School
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.
Despite efforts across various sectors, adults throughout California continue to struggle to access education opportunities that can be critical for their family’s economic mobility.
The panel at EdSource’s roundtable, “Adult education: Overlooked and underfunded,” discussed how adults and their families can benefit from adult education, the common barriers to access and ways to overcome them.
“During the pandemic, our emergency room took in some of our most at-need people and triaged them to the right medical care that they need,” said John Werner, the executive director of Sequoias Adult Education Consortium at Thursday’s discussion. “Adult schools do very similar work with education.”
Barriers to adult education
Panelist Francisco Solano grew up in Mexico, where he earned a high school education but had no interest in continuing his schooling. About 16 years ago, he came to the United States and found himself working for salad-packing companies.
He eventually enrolled in adult education classes at Salinas Adult School and is now wrapping up a doctorate in molecular biology at UCLA.
But the road through his adult education was “exhausting” and “not convenient at all.”
“That’s what I see with my peers,” Solano said. “They are not able to get out of that lifestyle because it’s so difficult for them to be able to have a job that secures rent and food for the families and, at the same time, find time and resources to go to school or try something else.”
Solano also believes that larger companies do not want migrants like him to succeed because that would take away a source of cheap labor.
Rural areas — where barriers associated with time and distance are greater — have a high need for adult education.
Steve Curiel, the principal of Huntington Beach Adult School, said not enough conversations about adult education are held at the policy level because most people in elected positions are unlikely to understand the critical role it plays, having experienced more traditional educational journeys.
Raising awareness and marketing
Carolyn Zachry, the state director and education administrator for adult education at the California Department of Education, stressed the importance of raising awareness and sharing stories like Solano’s among potential students.
“That gives the courage to come forward and to walk in those doors of that school,” she said. “And once they’re inside those school doors, then that school community wraps around them and really supports them.”
Werner also emphasized the importance of actively seeking students. He mentioned specific efforts to speak to individuals at local community events, like farmers markets and flea markets. A TV or radio presence can also be helpful, he said.
Helping communities overcome barriers
Numerous organizations are enacting measures to expand access to adult education, including creating remote and virtual options as well as providing child care for students while they are in school.
Several panelists agreed that virtual learning can be a helpful way to bring educational opportunities to adults at home — though Kathy Locke, who teaches English as a second language in Oakland Unified, emphasized the importance of in-person instruction, so adults can learn the skills they need to succeed online.
“The more marginalized, the greater your need in terms of English level, the harder it is to access the technology to be able to use the technology to do distance learning well,” Locke said.
To improve access to online learning, Curiel said the Huntington Beach Adult School has provided laptops and channels for internet connection.
Providing child care is another way to help reduce barriers for adults.
“Our classes provide babysitting for our students to be able to come with their children. Their children go to child care, and then they’re able to come and learn,” Locke said.
“I think that as a district, we really named that as a barrier and really put our money where our mouths were, I think, and made that a priority to get adults in our classrooms, so that they can do the learning that they need.”
Broader benefits of adult education
Adult education also helps support a child’s education, the roundtable panelists agreed.
For example, a child’s literacy benefits when parents attend English language classes, Locke said. And parents are more likely to be involved with their child’s education later on.
“If you want to help a child in poverty, you have to help an adult in poverty,” Werner said. “Only the adult can go get a job tomorrow.”
The University of California admitted a record number of California resident first-year students for the upcoming fall term, offering a spot to 93,920 of them, the university system announced Wednesday.
UC also made more admission offers to community college transfer students and to low-income students. Latino students were the largest demographic group of admitted first-year students, while UC also slightly increased offers to Black students.
But just because the students were accepted doesn’t mean they will ultimately attend UC. The numbers released Wednesday do not indicate how many students paid their deposits and told UC they intended to enroll. Enrollment data won’t be available until after the fall term — typically in January.
Still, UC President Michael Drake said in a statement that the admission numbers “demonstrate the University of California’s commitment to expanding opportunity and access” for all students.
“We’re setting more California students on the path to a college degree and future success, and that translates to a positive impact on communities throughout the state,” Drake said.
Latino students represented the largest share of California first-year admits, accounting for 38.6% of them, up from 37.7% last year. UC also made admission offers to about 500 more Black students than it did for fall 2023.
In total, UC admitted 166,706 students for fall 2024, its largest ever class of admitted students. That includes 137,200 first-year students and 29,506 transfer students.
The 93,920 admission offers to California resident first-year students represents a 4.3% increase from last year.
Latino students in fall 2023 accounted for 26% of UC’s undergraduate population — much less than the share of Latino students in California high schools, where they make up more than half the student population. Black students made up 4.6% of the UC undergraduate population in fall 2023. The largest demographic group was Asian students, accounting for 36%, while white students accounted for about 20%.
Although UC is aware of the race of applicants, the system is not allowed to consider race as a factor in admissions due to Proposition 209, a 1996 ballot measure banning the use of race in admissions at California public colleges.
UC in recent years has prioritized admitting and enrolling California residents in response to pressure from lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom. In 2022, Newsom agreed to give UC as well as the California State University system annual funding increases of 5% for five years. In exchange, the two systems are expected to work toward a number of goals, including increasing graduation rates and enrolling more in-state students.
Amid declining state revenues, the governor nearly reneged on the compact this year. But after negotiations with lawmakers, the final budget deal included a 5% base increase for both UC and CSU, equal to $227.8 million for UC. The budget, however, also included a one-time cut of $125 million for UC.
In a statement Wednesday, UC said this fall it is “poised to enroll more California undergraduates than ever, building on systemwide progress toward the shared enrollment goals outlined in the budget compact with the state.”
The compact also calls for UC to increase access for California community college transfer students. UC admitted 26,430 of those transfer students for fall 2024, a 7.8% jump from a year ago. That increase is consistent with trends in the community college system, which has seen its enrollment steadily increase since the 2022-23 academic year following pandemic-related enrollment declines prior to that.
UC on Wednesday also touted its increased admission offers to low-income students. Among California first-year students who were admitted, the number who reported low family incomes grew by 1% compared with a year ago.
Han Mi Yoon-Wu, UC’s associate vice provost for undergraduate admissions, credited UC’s “holistic admissions process” and the system’s “deliberate work” with high schools, community colleges and community-based organizations.
“We are thrilled that the University of California continues to be a destination of choice for our state’s incredibly accomplished and diverse students,” she added in her statement.
In California and across the United States this year, policies banning or restricting student cellphone use on school campuses are being enacted in an effort to curb bullying, classroom distractions and addiction to the devices.
“It’s part of the zeitgeist right now, and there is a trend toward cellphone restriction,” said Troy Flint, spokesperson for the California School Boards Association. “There’s more scrutiny of the issue now than there was previously.”
Lincoln Unified School District in Stockton, Santa Barbara Unified, San Francisco Unified, Roseville City School District and Folsom Cordova Unified near Sacramento are among the California districts starting the school year with cellphone restrictions on their campuses.
Cellphone restrictions look different across the state, depending on school district, school or even individual teachers’ policies. In some schools, students entering a campus or classroom are required to put their phones in an electronic pouch that can only be unlocked by school staff with a special magnet. In other schools, cellphones are turned off and put in lockers in the classroom. More commonly, students are asked to turn off their phones and to put them in their backpacks or pockets during class time.
California district leaders got a nudge from Gov. Gavin Newsom last week when he urged them to take immediate steps to restrict cellphone use this academic year. Newsom reminded school leaders that legislation signed in 2019 gives them the authority to regulate smartphones during school hours.
“Excessive smartphone use among young people is linked to increased anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues,” Newsom said in a letter to school leaders on Aug. 14.
California lawmakers are also considering proposed legislation to restrict student cellphone use on all public school campuses, a mandate at least five other states have already enacted. Without a statewide mandate, it’s up to districts, schools or teachers to implement a policy.
San Diego Unified officials have indicated they are studying the issue, while Los Angeles Unified (LAUSD), the state’s largest school district, is finalizing a policy that will ban student cellphone and social media use. It will go into effect in January.
“Kids no longer have the opportunity to just be kids,” said Nick Melvoin, the LAUSD school board member who authored a resolution calling for the policy. “I’m hoping this resolution will help students not only focus in class, but also give them a chance to interact and engage more with each other — and just be kids.”
Melvoin commended Newsom for encouraging other districts to follow suit.
“I have seen the positive effects firsthand at schools that have already implemented a phone-free school policy, and look forward to seeing the benefits of this policy take hold districtwide next semester,” Melvoin said.
But the policies have had pushback from some parents who fear losing touch with their children during emergencies.
“Some parents, some families feel that the cellphone is essential for notification in the case of a natural disaster, a school emergency, or a school shooting,” said the CSBA’s Flint. “Or some people use it for less extreme, but still important reasons, like monitoring their kids’ required medicine. Some families with students with disabilities like to have an additional level of contact with their students at schools.”
Cellphone addiction is a problem
School cellphone bans gained momentum nationally in May when Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory calling on policymakers, technology companies, researchers and families to minimize the harm of social media and to create safer, healthier online environments to protect children online.
Murthy said there is growing evidence that social media use is associated with harm to a young person’s mental health, adding that 95% of children between the ages of 13 and 17 use at least one social media platform, and more than a third use social media constantly.
Santa Barbara Unified has made mental health a priority when it comes to cellphone use on campus. The Off and Away policy requires cellphones be turned off and put away in classrooms, and anywhere on a campus where learning is taking place, said Assistant Superintendent ShaKenya Edison.
Consequences for not complying with the policy ranges from students and parents being required to meet with school staff, to confiscating phones. Students may be referred to counseling or a therapist if necessary, Edison said.
“One of the things that the (planning) committee was very clear about — we had doctors also on our committee, and psychologists — is that we need to treat cellphone usage as an addiction, not as defiance,” Edison said. “So it really is trying to get at the root of the dependency of the phone.”
Students became more reliant on cellphones and smartwatches during the Covid pandemic, when the devices were the only way they could connect to their social circle, Edison said. Students sometimes use their phone to deal with the anxiety of being in the classroom, or when they are struggling with academics, she said.
University of San Francisco researchers found that 12- to 13-year-old children in the U.S. doubled their non-school related screen time from 3.8 hours a day to 7.7 hours a day when campuses were closed during the pandemic.
Warning signs of smartphone addiction in students include becoming distressed at the thought of being without their phone, thinking about their phone when not using it, interrupting whatever they are doing when contacted on their phone, or having arguments with others because of phone use, said Jason Nagata, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of California San Francisco.
Santa Barbara Unified is taking on the cellphone addiction problem inside and outside the classroom. Along with including parents in the planning of the program, the district offers parents information about monitoring social media and age-appropriate apps on their website.
“We receive gratitude from parents saying, ‘Thank you for tackling this. I’m trying to tackle it at home, and I don’t know how to tackle the dependency. So thank you for at least dealing with it on the school site,’ ” Edison said.
Students are more focused without phones
Andrea Blair-Simon says the ban on cellphone use in the Folsom Cordova Unified School District allows her eighth-grade daughter, Laila, to fully focus on her studies in the classroom and to socialize with others during breaks and lunch. She had previously watched her daughter sit with her friends texting one another instead of talking.
“I love the cellphone policy,” Blair-Simon said. “I think it benefits the kids. I think it benefits the teachers. I’m not saying don’t have it (a cellphone), I’m just saying it’s not necessary during school hours. Before or after, do whatever you want. It’s your life. It’s your own time. But when you’re on a teacher’s time — school time — using school resources, listen to your teacher.”
The no-phone policies also curtail online bullying, Blair-Simon said. Things like posting unflattering pictures with mean comments can damage kids’ self-image, she said.
Under last year’s cellphone policy update, Folsom Cordova Unified no longer permits students in transitional kindergarten through eighth grade to use cellphones, smartwatches or other mobile communication devices anywhere on campus during the school day. High school students can’t use them in classrooms.
Last year, Laila and her classmates were required to use a lockable Yondr Pouch, which allows students to keep their phone, but with no access to it unless a teacher or school administrator unlocks the pouch. Now, instead of pouches, students have been asked to turn off their phones and put them away.
“This year, there are no warnings, and you are to be sent straight to the office,” Laila said. “This year, they have a little locker in the office, like a phone locker, and it has to be locked in there until the end of the day if they catch you with it.”
Laila would like to have her phone at lunch or during passing periods, but she acknowledges that students are more focused and spend more time talking to one another during breaks than before the ban.
Policies improve school climate
Drama teacher Keith Carames says there has been a positive shift in culture and climate at James Lick Middle School in San Francisco since the school began requiring students to lock their phones in a Yondr Pouch at the beginning of the school day.
“There’s been a significant shift away from the buzzing and the distractions,” Carames said. “There’s been a significant decrease in digital bullying.”
The school is part of San Francisco Unified, which requires cellphones, smartwatches and other mobile devices to be turned off and put away during classes and passing periods.
James Lick Middle School has its own, stricter policy that requires students to present a lockable pouch, provided by the school, when they show up on the campus — empty or not. If the student does not have their pouch, the phone is confiscated. If a student’s phone is not in the pouch during the school day, security is called to confiscate it, Carames said.
Some districts in the state without districtwide cellphone bans allow individual schools to make their own rules about cellphone use on their campus.
Fresno Unified relies on a 20-year-old policy that prohibits students from using phones in an inappropriate and disruptive way, like invading someone’s privacy, cheating on tests or ridiculing or shaming someone. Students who violate the policy can have their phones confiscated, or can be suspended or expelled.
The board policy is the “minimum requirement” for the district, Fresno Unified spokesperson A.J. Kato told EdSource on Wednesday. Each school determines how the policy is implemented on its campus and has the discretion to go beyond what the policy dictates.
Bullard High in Fresno Unified introduced the Yondr Pouch in 2022 to create a phone-free campus, The Fresno Bee reported. Students must lock their phones in the pouch during the school day – even during lunch. After 2022-23, the first school year with the pouches, Bullard High officials credited its 17% improvement in English proficiency to the restriction, The Bee reported.
Teachers largely support restrictions
Teachers nationwide say cellphones are a major distraction for students in class, according to Pew Research released in 2023. A third of public K-12 teachers surveyed for the report said cellphones are a major problem, while 20% said they are a minor problem. Almost three-quarters of the high school teachers surveyed said phones are a major distraction to their students, compared with 33% of middle school teachers and 6% of elementary school teachers.
Cellphone disruptions in the classroom have been a recurring topic for teachers and administrators at staff meetings in the Roseville City School District, said school board member Jonathan Zachreson.
Some teachers in the district conducted an informal experiment, asking students to note how many times they received alerts on their phones during class. The teachers discovered that the students who had the most alerts were performing worse than others academically, Zachreson said.
The K-8 district near Sacramento put a new cellphone policy in place this year to cut down on classroom distractions and behavior problems. The policy requires students to turn off cellphones, personal tablets, Bluetooth headphones or smartwatches and to store them away during school hours.
The district’s elementary schools already had a no-phone policy, but it was not enforced uniformly across the district, Zachreson said. The district decided to put a uniform policy in place and to expand it to all grade levels.
Even without district policies, some teachers have banned phones in their classrooms. Nicolle Fefferman, a longtime LAUSD educator and co-founder of the Facebook group Parents Supporting Teachers, is one of them. When cellphones are not tucked away, Fefferman said, it can be challenging for teachers to “police” their use.
“I would tell my students: ‘I see you for so little time every day that I’m really selfish. I’m really greedy,’” Fefferman said. “‘I want every minute of your attention for the work that we’re doing together in this class.’”
A Phineas Banning Senior High School classroom with a “phone parking lot” in Los Angeles Unified School District.Credit: Mallika Seshadri
United Teachers Los Angeles, the union representing more than 35,000 educators across LAUSD, supports the board’s decision to implement a districtwide policy.
“For these policies to be effective, strong collaboration is essential,” Gina Gray, an LAUSD middle school English teacher, told EdSource in a statement on behalf of the union.
“School district administrators must work closely with educators and parents to implement these changes,” Gray said. “Educators care deeply about the well-being of our students, and their families should be included in decisions about changes to our school communities.”
California Teachers Association President David Goldberg agrees: “Our union has supported improving school environments and restricting the use of smartphones on campuses,” he said in a statement. “As educators, we always seek to help our students reach their full potential, and we are moved by the data, listening to our students and their families, and our own experiences showing that smartphones can be a distraction and harmful to the mental health of students.”
Bans gain national momentum
California may soon join Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, South Carolina and Ohio in passing legislation that bans or restricts cellphone use on public school campuses.
Although California law allows districts to restrict the use of cellphones on campus, it does not require them to. That could change if a bill working its way through the Legislature passes. Assembly Bill 3216 would requireschool districts to adopt a policy to limit or prohibit the use of smartphones by students. The bill passed the Senate Appropriations Committee last week and is likely to make it to the governor’s desk for final approval, according to School Services, an education consulting company.
Another piece of legislation, Senate Bill 1283, would allow, but not require, districts to limit students’ use of social media while on campus. The bill is expected to get a vote on the Assembly floor this month.
The bills have bipartisan support.
“Josh Hoover’s a Republican who’s putting forth this legislation (Assembly Bill 3216),” Zachreson said. “Gavin Newsom is pushing school districts to take action. You have Ron DeSantis and an Arkansas governor doing the same thing. I mean, when you have Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis on the same page, I think you have a winning issue.”
Assemblymember Dawn Addis, D-Morro Bay, explains AB 2918 during an Aug. 5 Senate committee hearing.
Credit: Senate Education Committee
A solution to curb antisemitic content they say is infecting some districts’ ethnic studies courses is eluding Jewish legislators. The legislation they authored has failed to gain traction so far, despite the support of State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Assemblymembers Rick Zbur, D-Los Angeles, and Dawn Addis, D-Morro Bay, are pledging to return next year with a new version of their bill and a bigger coalition behind it. Last week, they pulled Assembly Bill 2918 from consideration amid sharp opposition from the California Teachers Association and college ethnic studies faculty. And they have yet to make the case to the largely progressive Legislature that some ethnic studies courses are problematic, and that it’s not just a Jewish problem.
The bill would have added levels of public review, additional disclosure and additional anti-bias provisions to 2021 law (Assembly Bill 101) that set a mandate for students to take high school ethnic studies as a graduation requirement, starting in 2030-31. Zbur said that he, Addis and the backers are ready to “really start from scratch, put everything on the table, and try to share something that addresses the problem that we are facing.”
The “problem,” they charge, is anti-Israel content that is bleeding over to antisemitism in the classroom. The primary intent of California’s high school ethnic studies is to focus on the historic struggles and achievements of minority groups within the United States. But a collection of groups, called the Coalition for Liberated Ethnic Studies, led primarily by college ethnic studies faculty, have made the Palestinian conflict with Israel a theme of a high school ethnic studies course. They have characterized Israel as an oppressive settler colonialist nation that compels the liberation of Palestine. Jewish families complain that teaching a biased and one-sided view of the conflict has provoked antisemitic remarks, bullying and antagonism toward Jewish students. The courses also stress the continuing harms of white supremacy and corporate capitalism.
More than two dozen unified school districts, including Santa Ana, San Diego, Hayward, San Diego, Oakland, Castro Valley and Berkeley unified school districts, have signed contracts with consultants affiliated with the “liberated” approach to ethnic studies. The groups include the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium, Community Responsive Education, the Association of Raza Educators, and the Xicanx Institute for Teaching and Organizing.
“Unfortunately, we are witnessing harmful situations where, intentionally or not, some ethnic studies curriculum and instruction is creating classrooms that Jewish students are not experiencing as safe, inclusive, or affirming,” Addis said at an Aug. 5 hearing of a Senate committee.
The clash between the Legislative Jewish Caucus and the authors of liberated ethnic studies instruction predates the adoption of the state’s ethnic studies model curriculum framework in 2021. But the ongoing conflict in Gaza, in which 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered and 40,000-plus Palestinians have perished, has heightened tensions. Since Jan. 1, the Office of Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education has opened investigations of Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco unified districts on charges they have failed to respond properly to incidents of antisemitism.
Several UC and CSU ethnic studies faculty advised or participated in creating the first draft of the state’s ethnic studies model curriculum, which the State Board of Education ordered rewritten in 2019 to present a more balanced perspective on race. The final draft excised the initial draft’s endorsement of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against the Israeli government and universities.
Addition of guardrails
At the encouragement of the Legislative Jewish Caucus and Gov. Newsom, Assembly Bill 101 establishing the high school graduation mandate explicitly stated that the Legislature intended for school districts to not use unadopted portions of earlier drafts of the model curriculum.
The law also states that ethnic studies materials and instruction should be appropriate for use with pupils of all races, religions, nationalities and other legally protected student groups and that it “not reflect or promote, directly or indirectly, any bias, bigotry, or discrimination against any person or group of persons.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the Newsom administration have reminded school districts to follow the law’s requirements for “inclusivity, sensitivity, and accuracy.”
“Vendors have begun promoting curriculum to use for ethnic studies courses. We have been advised, however, that some vendors are offering materials that may not meet the requirements of AB 101, particularly the second requirement (not reflecting or promoting any bias, bigotry, or discrimination), an important guardrail highlighted when the bill was signed,” Brooks Allen, executive director of the State Board of Education and an education adviser to Newsom, wrote in a memo to districts a year ago. “Accordingly, before any curriculum or instructional materials for ethnic studies courses are selected, we strongly encourage you to closely scrutinize them to ensure that they meet the above requirements.”
Allen’s guidance does not single out any vendor or group, but the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council assumed it was aimed at them. In response, the council denounced the guardrails as censorship. “We vehemently oppose the preemptive restriction of what can be taught, examined, and researched as part of ethnic studies. … In a very real sense, the guardrails are themselves a form of bias, bigotry, and discrimination. California teachers should be able to deliver lessons on important concepts such as settler colonialism, apartheid, and resistance without having to fear censorship or legal action by the state.”
The Legislative Jewish Caucus, however, argues that the “guardrails” and transparency requirements under the law must be more explicit to be effective.
The last version of AB 2918, posted July 3, included compromise language suggested by staff of the Senate Education Committee. Among its key provisions, it called for districts to create a committee to review ethnic studies curriculum and materials prior to adoption. Although the majority would be teachers, it would include parents and guardians and representatives from community organizations “with experience assisting children build cultural awareness and understanding.” The district would notify parents how they could participate in the process or comment on the courses and materials once they are produced.
And, once materials or a curriculum is approved, the school board or superintendent would certify to the California Department of Education that it followed the review process — requirements that do not apply to other academic programs.
Under current law, districts must hold a hearing on a proposed ethnic studies curriculum before adopting it at a second board meeting. But some parents have complained that they were unaware that an ethnic studies course had been adopted, and some boards had placed the curriculum on a “consent” calendar for automatic approval without discussion.
In August 2023, the Washington, D.C.-based Louis Brandeis Center and other legal groups sued Santa Ana Unified school board for violating the Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law, in passing a liberated ethnic studies curriculum without proper notice, and for allowing members in the audience to insult Jewish speakers.
“By failing to intervene in the heckling and harassment of Jewish speakers at its board meeting, the board contributed to creating a hostile environment that prevented Jewish members of the public from fully exercising their right to participate in SAUSD Board meetings as the Brown Act requires,” the lawsuit read.
The bill also would have added another protection to the existing “guardrails” in the current law, that the curriculum “foster respect and acceptance and focus on the experiences of communities of the United States” — as opposed to tensions abroad. The implication is that a lesson on the war in Gaza should incorporate the perspective of Israel and American Jews. And the principle would apply to other minority groups portrayed negatively, he said.
“A lot of people think we are ‘trying to water down the curriculum’ “and steer away from the four primary groups that are the focus of ethnic studies (Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans and Asian Americans), Zbur said at the Aug. 5 Senate hearing. “We’re not. But to the extent there is content that is about or affects other communities, you need to look at how it will be viewed by the community itself.”
A threat to ethnic studies?
Opposition to the bill was strong. In an urgent call to action to ethnic studies supporters at UC Santa Cruz, Christine Hong, professor of critical race and ethnic studies and literature at the university, wrote that AB 2918 would require an extra round of approval and another round of state certification.
“No other K-12 discipline has these requirements — ethnic studies, a field forged by students of color, is specifically being targeted by special political interests,” she wrote. And she charged that undefined community “stakeholders” would be able “to shut down an ethnic studies program if they don’t like what is being taught.”
Seth Bramble, a lobbyist for the California Teachers Association, agreed, saying the bill singled out ethnic studies courses and educators “as the only discipline where we need extra scrutiny and where we need extra red tape to ensure the class is appropriate for all learners.”
“These unnecessary hurdles replicate the very inequality that ethnic studies seek to address, limiting the potential reach and impact of ethnic studies,” he said at the hearing.
Although most of the speakers who identified themselves as Jewish expressed support, Maya Steinhardt, who said she was a Jewish teacher and former Sacramento State student who had spent time at a pro-Palestinian encampment, dissented. “I’m concerned that this bill will result in the same kind of biased education that the authors say they are combating. As the authors stated, marginalized communities should have a voice in how their stories are told. But what happens when different marginalized communities have differing views on the same history? Do you privilege one group’s perception over another?”
The authors and the caucus say that ethnic studies require a different response because it is different. For other subjects — math, English language arts, history, and science — the state has adopted academic standards with a state-led textbook and materials adoption process. For ethnic studies, there is only a voluntary model curriculum framework, leaving it to districts to choose what to teach.
The lack of academic standards, along with a materials review, “makes school districts susceptible to adopting variations of curricula that go beyond the law’s guardrails,” Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, and a caucus member, wrote in an email. He said the ethnic studies course at a high school his son attended was “a clear and dramatic violation of the law” on ethnic studies “with obvious factual inaccuracies.”
More time to build support
Zbur and Addis introduced AB 2918 late in the legislative session, leaving too little time to assemble a coalition outside the Legislative Jewish Caucus, Zbur acknowledged. He said he would spend the coming weeks negotiating with education unions, including the CTA, and increasing the support by showing that “these guardrails protect all communities,” not just Jewish Californians.
He said he expects support from Thurmond, who has not participated in negotiations thus far, and Newsom, who committed in his April 2024 Golden State Plan to Counter Antisemitism that he “will work with the Jewish Caucus and Legislature to pursue legislation strengthening the guardrails established by AB 101.”
Along with setting a high school graduation mandate, AB 101 requires that all high schools begin offering an ethnic studies course in 2025-26. In preparation, many school districts will approve courses and materials this year.
AB 2918’s delay could mean the window for affecting that process will close too soon to affect that process in many districts.
Gov. Gavin Newsom presents his revised 2025-26 state budget during a news conference in Sacramento on May 14, 2025.
Credit: AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli
TK-12 schools and community colleges can expect the same funding in 2025-26 that they received this year, plus a small cost-of-living adjustment, and there will be a big boost for early literacy, Gov. Gavin Newsom revealed Wednesday in the revision to his January state budget plan.
Schools and community colleges will be shielded from the pain facing other state services because of the revised forecast of a $12 billion drop in state revenues that Newsom blamed on the “Trump slump” — the president’s erratic tariff and other economic policies that are affecting California.
For the University of California and California State University, the news was better than anticipated. The systems would face a 3% cut for 2025-26, notably less than the nearly 8% reduction Newsom proposed in January. The smaller cut may provide some relief at a time when higher education in California and across the nation is worried about losses in federal research grants and other funding under Trump administration policies.
The 2.3% cost-of-living adjustment in 2025-26 for most TK-12 programs is determined by a federal formula that does not factor in the cost of housing, the biggest expense facing teachers and other employees.
In his May budget revision, Newsom keeps significant money for TK-12 programs that he proposed in January for fully rolling out transitional kindergarten for 4-year-olds, along with additional funding to reduce class sizes, and for expanding summer school and after-school learning to more districts.
And Newsom would add $200 million to his earlier $543 million proposal for early literacy instruction, with money to buy instructional materials, hire literacy coaches and train teachers in “evidence-based literacy instruction,” which is code for teaching phonics and word decoding as well as other fundamental reading skills.
That funding would take a significant step toward creating and funding a comprehensive early literacy strategy and coincides with compromise legislation, pushed by Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, on spelling out what the instruction and reading materials should look like.
“We’re thrilled. We’re excited,” said Marshall Tuck, CEO of EdVoice, which pushed early literacy legislation. “In a really tight budget year, prioritizing reading for California kids and investing $200 million is real leadership.”
Newsom would also add to past efforts to recruit teachers by including $64.2 million in one-time funding for the Golden State Teacher Grant Program, under which teachers receive college tuition in exchange for agreeing to teach in underserved districts and in subjects facing critical shortages, and $100 million to pay stipends to student teachers. Unpaid student teaching has been cited as one of the primary reasons teacher candidates fail to complete their credentials.
The Legislature has a month to reshape Newsom’s budget before the June 15 constitutional deadline to pass a budget for the fiscal year that starts on July 1.
What the budget doesn’t include, however, is any funding to backfill for the potential loss of billions of federal dollars in Medi-Cal funding for school physical and mental health services, cuts for Head Start programs, training grants for new teachers and research grants for the University of California and California State University, and the dismantling of the AmeriCorps program, which supplies teachers aides and tutors in hundreds of low-income schools.
“Our ability to backfill all these federal cuts — no, we’re not going to be in a position to do that, we just are not in that position,” Newsom said. “It’s the old adage, you can’t do everything but you can do anything. There may be areas where we can make adjustments.”
“I think we should be cautious about eliminating consideration of x, y, and z until we see the totality of the challenges as they present themselves.”
In one cost-cutting measure, Gov. Newsom is proposing to roll back California’s health insurance program for undocumented immigrant adults, by charging premiums and freezing new enrollment, a move that advocates said will affect their children, many of whom are U.S. citizens. One in 10 California children are estimated to have an undocumented parent.
“When a parent or family member is sick and unable to work or provide care, kids suffer as a result,” said Mayra Alvarez, president of the nonprofit organization The Children’s Partnership. “Ripping away these family members’ access to health care, while they are also under threat of cruel immigration enforcement and other anti-immigrant policies, in turn puts the well-being of our children at risk.”
Higher education
State funding for the state’s system of 116 community colleges would change little from last year, receiving 0.6% less, at $8.9 billion. However, some of its important funding — $531.6 million from Proposition 98 revenues — would be deferred for a year under the proposal.
UC would have its funding cut by $129.7 million, while CSU would lose $143.8 million. In January, Newsom’s administration had proposed deeper cuts of $396.6 million and $375.2 million, respectively.
The revised budget maintains a proposal to defer previously promised 5% budget increases until 2027-28 for both systems. Those deferrals, which were part of Newsom’s multiyear compact agreements with the systems, were also included in Newsom’s January budget proposal.
The compacts, originally agreed to in 2022, promised annual budget increases for UC and CSU in exchange for the systems working toward goals such as increasing graduation rates and enrolling more California residents.
“We were able to hold strong to that over a two-year period. And we’re struggling now with some challenges,” Newsom said during a news conference Wednesday, though he added that the compacts are “sacrosanct” and that the systems would get their deferred dollars in 2027-28.
By reducing the proposed cut to UC’s budget for 2025-26, the 10-campus system will be able to minimize cuts to student support services and preserve “critical investments like affordable student housing construction,” President Michael V. Drake said Wednesday in a statement.
CSU Chancellor Mildred García in January warned that a nearly 8% state budget reduction would result in larger class sizes and fewer course offerings for the system’s more than 460,000 students, hampering their prospects for graduating on time. With those cuts now dialed back to 3%, García praised the May revision as a “thoughtful and measured approach to addressing the state’s fiscal challenges.”
Proposition 98 maneuvers
In total, the May revision proposes $45.7 billion for the state’s higher education institutions and the California Student Aid Commission.
The minimum funding for 2025-26 for Proposition 98, the formula that determines the portion of the general fund that must go to TK-12 and community colleges, would be $114.6 billion, down from $118.9 billion in 2024-25 because of shrinking state revenues.
Newsom proposes to make up the difference by shifting numbers around, depleting what was left in the Proposition 98 rainy day fund. Among other maneuvers, he would:
Drain the remaining $540 million from a fund that was $8.4 billion only two years ago, when the state faced a fiscal crisis.
Defer $1.8 billion that would be due to schools in June 2026 by a month, to July 2026. Schools should notice little difference, although the maneuver does create a state obligation that must be repaid.
Withhold $1.3 billion due to schools and community colleges in 2024-25 in anticipation that the revenues for the rest of the year might come up short because of the further decline in state revenues.
This last maneuver grabbed the attention of the California School Boards Association, which filed a lawsuit over a similar effort last year and is threatening to do so again.
“Even in lean times, investing in public schools is California’s best economic strategy, so we cannot sidestep constitutional protections for public education nor underfund Prop 98 to offset shortfalls in other sections of the budget,” association President Bettye Lusk said in a statement.
The immediate reaction to the budget proposal was positive, with some caveats.
“The bottom line is that amid a budget crisis, the governor is protecting every major investment in education,” said Kevin Gordon, president of Capitol Advisors, a consultant for school districts. “We want to make sure Prop 98 funding is accounted for. As long as that’s the case, there’s not much to complain about.”
Scott Moore, head of Kidango, a nonprofit that runs many Bay Area child care centers, praised the commitment to universal transitional kindergarten (TK) while criticizing Newsom’s decision to suspend a cost-of-living adjustment for child care providers for low-income children and freeze funding for emergency child care services for foster and homeless children.
“We know that small class sizes and highly qualified teachers are two of the most important quality standards to ensure children benefit from pre-K. This budget invests wisely in TK,” he said. “The proposed cut to the COLA (cost of living increase) for child care providers must be restored. Now is the worst time to eliminate a small, but very much needed and deserved COLA for those who take care of our youngest and most vulnerable children.”
