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.”
Last week, the Trump administration’s draft executive order to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into K-12 schools made national headlines. The order, still in flux, would direct federal agencies to embed AI in classrooms and partner with private companies to create new educational programs. The move comes as China, Singapore and other nations ramp up their AI education initiatives, fueling talk of a new “AI space race.” But as the world’s biggest players push for rapid adoption, the real question for American education isn’t whether AI is coming — it’s who will shape its role in our schools, and on whose terms.
AI is not simply the next classroom gadget or software subscription. It represents a fundamentally new kind of disruptor in the education space — one that doesn’t just supplement public education but is increasingly building parallel systems alongside it. These AI-powered platforms, often funded by public dollars through vouchers or direct-to-consumer models, can operate outside the traditional oversight and values of public schools. The stakes are high: AI is already influencing what counts as education, who delivers it and how it is governed.
This transformation is happening fast. For example, in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) the district’s ambitious “AI friend” chatbot project, meant to support students and families, collapsed when its startup partner folded, exposing the risks of investing public funds in untested AI ventures. Meanwhile, major tech firms are pitching AI as a “tutor for every learner and a TA for every teacher,” promising to personalize learning and free up educators’ time. The reality is more complex: AI’s promise is real, but so are its pitfalls, especially when it bypasses local voices and democratic control.
The rise of AI in education is reshaping three core principles: agency, accountability and equity.
Agency: Traditionally, public education has empowered teachers, students and communities to shape learning. Now, AI platforms — sometimes chosen by parents or delivered through private providers — can shift decision-making from classrooms to opaque algorithms. Teachers may find themselves implementing AI-generated lessons, while students’ learning paths are increasingly set by proprietary systems. If local educators and families aren’t at the table, agency risks becoming fragmented and individualized, eroding the collective mission of public schooling.
Accountability: In public schools, accountability means clear lines of responsibility and public oversight. But when AI tools misclassify students or private micro-schools underperform, it’s unclear who is answerable: the vendor, the parent, the state, or the algorithm? This diffusion of responsibility can undermine public trust and make it harder to ensure quality and fairness.
Equity: AI has the potential to personalize learning and expand access, but its benefits often flow unevenly. Wealthier families and districts are more likely to access cutting-edge tools, while under-resourced students risk being left behind. As AI-powered platforms grow outside of traditional systems, the risk is that public funds flow to private, less accountable alternatives, deepening educational divides.
It’s tempting to see AI as an unstoppable force, destined to either save or doom public education. But that narrative misses the most important variable: us. AI is not inherently good or bad. Its impact will depend on how — and by whom — it is implemented.
The U.S. education system’s greatest strength is its tradition of local control and community engagement. As national and global pressures mount, local leaders — school boards, district administrators, teachers, and parents — must drive how AI is used. That means:
Demanding transparency from vendors about how AI systems work and how data is used.
Prioritizing investments in teacher training and professional development, so educators can use AI as a tool for empowerment, not replacement.
Insisting that AI tools align with local values and needs, rather than accepting one-size-fits-all solutions from distant tech companies or federal mandates.
Building coalitions across districts and states to share expertise and advocate for policies that center agency, accountability, and equity.
As Dallas schools Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde put it, “It’s irresponsible to not teach (AI). We have to. We are preparing kids for their future”. But preparing students for the future doesn’t mean ceding control to algorithms or outside interests. It means harnessing AI’s potential while holding fast to the public values that define American education.
The choices we make now — especially at the local level — will determine whether AI becomes a tool for equity and empowerment, or a force for further privatization and exclusion. Policymakers should focus less on top-down mandates and more on empowering local communities to lead. AI can strengthen public education, but only if we ensure that the people closest to students — teachers, families and local leaders — have the authority and resources to shape its use.
The world is changing fast. Let’s make sure our schools change on our terms.
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.
In 2000, the contagious disease measles was officially eradicated in the United States. However, since the rise of anti-vaccine anxieties during the COVID pandemic, a growing number of parents have refused to let their children be vaccinated.
Texas is the center of a measles outbreak. 702 children have measles; 95% had not been vaccinated. Two have died, neither of them had been vaccinated. The national number is certainly larger.
The measles outbreak that started in the South Plains region of Texas surpassed 700 cases on Tuesday, according to health officials.
The latest update from the Texas Department of State Health Services shows the state has seen 702 cases of measles since the outbreak began spreading in late January. The outbreak, which has also spread to New Mexico and Oklahoma, is the largest in the United States since measles was declared eliminated in the country in 2000.
Two children, an 8-year-old girl and a 6-year-old girl, died after contracting the virus, and 91 people have been hospitalized. Neither child who died had received the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, and they did not have any underlying medical conditions, according to the DSHS.
Roughly two-thirds of cases in Texas have been in children and teens. More than 95% have been in individuals who are unvaccinated, or whose vaccination status is unknown.
School is back in session. In California, we ended the prior school year with promising data that student attendance rates throughout the state are rising from historic lows during the pandemic. While having students in seats is cause for celebration, we must ensure that we have enough teachers in classrooms.
The initiative we should be champing at the bit to implement is high-impact tutoring: tutoring in one-on-one situations or very small groups meeting at least 30 minutes, three or more times a week. Here’s why this is an effective, scalable way to provide students with high-quality educators:
You can’t argue with data. Research shows that high-dosage tutoring is one of the most effective ways to help students make academic progress. Yet few students actually receive it. A recent study from Stanford University demonstrated the many positive effects of tutoring, including increased reading and math scores, attendance and a feeling of belonging. Teach For America’s (TFA) tutoring program, the Ignite Fellowship, finds and develops tutors who connect virtually with students during the school day. Fellows, who are paid for their work, are supported by a school-based veteran educator to customize instruction. Seventy-one percent of the 3,500 students across the country being tutored by Ignite fellows meet their semester-long reading and math goals.
Tutoring is a pipeline to teaching. Teacher morale is an ongoing issue. Because teaching is so unique, it can be hard to fully prepare aspiring educators for what it’s like to lead a classroom. Tutoring serves as a way for college students to step behind the wheel, with a professional providing roadside assistance before they are given full control. This can be key to teacher recruitment and retention — before people fully enlist in becoming a teacher, they have the opportunity to see if this profession is right for them. AmeriCorps, which also invests in employing young people as tutors to help them jump-start service-oriented careers, has found that more than half of its tutors hope to pursue a career in education after their service. When teachers are more confident stepping into their classrooms, students are the ones who reap the rewards.
Tutors ease the burden for teachers. Tutors can focus on small groups or individual sessions with students — something that lead teachers don’t always have the capacity to do. This way, tutors can address specific learning gaps for individual students, meeting more individual and diverse needs, and allowing students to build authentic relationships with multiple educators/mentors. I have had teachers tell me they wish they could clone themselves so they could work with more students to meet different needs and speeds. In our reality, tutors may be the closest thing we have to clones.
Prioritizing diversity. To provide a diverse experience for our nation’s students, we must have their educators — their role models — reflect them. This means we should prioritize recruiting and retaining teachers of color. Throughout California’s public schools, 77% of the K-12 population is composed of students of color, whereas only 37% of educators identify as people of color. This kind of ratio is true for Los Angeles, where I am based. That’s why I’m excited to be welcoming the Ignite Fellowship to schools throughout Los Angeles (and expanding even further throughout California) this year, helping bring more diverse and locally rooted teachers into classrooms. People of color face historically more hurdles than white people in the workforce, and this is even more extreme in the teaching profession. Tutoring is a way to expand the diversity of the teacher pipeline and can increase students’ access to educators from diverse backgrounds. Virtual programs like Ignite also allow for more flexibility and accessibility, meaning fewer hurdles for aspiring teachers to become tutors, and more opportunities for students to connect with tutors and mentors.
The school year may already be underway, but the reality is that schools will be fighting to staff their classrooms all year. Anything we can do to mitigate the detrimental effects that understaffed schools have on students should be a priority. Investing in tutors is an actionable way to help staff schools with diverse educators, with an added benefit of creating a pipeline of tomorrow’s teachers.
We have the proof that it will help our students, so what are we waiting for?
•••
Lida Jennings is the executive director of Teach For America Los Angeles and San Diego.
The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. We welcome guest commentaries with diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
Baleria Contreras and Monica Cha, representatives with the state’s CalKIDS program, explained what the scholarship funds could be used for once students graduate from high school during a community event at Golden 1 Credit Union in Fresno on April 5, 2025.
Credit: Lasherica Thornton / EdSource
Top Takeaways
CalKIDS is a state program providing seed money for college or career to eligible public school students.
The number of students claiming their CalKIDS accounts is up by nearly 4 percentage points since last year, but it is still far from reaching most of the state’s students.
The increase is linked to more community engagement, targeted campaigns and multilingual materials.
The doors of the Golden 1 Credit Union remained ajar on April 5 as elementary-aged kids played games or had their faces painted outside while families inside circled the display tables featuring material from the bank and CalKIDS.
The event was to encourage families to open a youth education savings account as well as learn about and claim at least $500 in free scholarship money already sitting in a state-funded account.
Erica Wade-Lamas registered for the interest-bearing money for three of her four Fresno Unified students, an eighth grader and twin seventh graders. (Her twelfth grader was at a prom and would claim his own money later at home.)
“It’s going to be easier on me and my husband, knowing that there’s an extra cushion when they do graduate, to have the ability to use that money for a laptop or something additional that’s not going to have to come out of our pockets,” said Wade-Lamas. “That’s what I’m excited about.”
Even though the money is automatically deposited into the savings account under a student’s name, families must claim the accounts by registering online. Students can claim the money up until age 26.
To expand its reach and create more awareness, CalKIDS is drawing on lessons from the past, plus the perspective of a new director. The program has changed its approach to marketing and expanded its multilingual and community engagement.
Over 3.9 million school-aged children across the state now qualify for at least $500 with CalKIDS, the savings account launched by the state in 2022. It automatically awards at least $500 to low-income students and English learners with the goal of helping families save for college or career training.
The California Department of Education determines eligibility based on students identified as low income under the state’s Local Control Funding Formula or as English language learners.
Low-income public school students and English learners are automatically awarded $500 if they:
Were in grades 1-12 during the 2021-22 school year.
Were enrolled in first grade during the 2022-23 school year.
Are first graders in subsequent years, meaning the number of accounts grows annually.
An additional $500 is deposited for students identified as foster youth and another $500 for students classified as homeless.
Since last year, the number of students who have claimed their funds has gone up 4 percentage points, and 475,862 or 12% of all accounts statewide have been claimed, still far from reaching most of the state’s students.
And since hundreds of thousands of new accounts are automatically added each year, maintaining and increasing the percentage of claimed accounts will be an ever-elusive target, especially as the program starts tackling new challenges created by Assembly Bill 2508, which will expand program eligibility.
The struggle to reach more families
The program’s new director, Cassandra DiBenedetto, appointed in October 2024, has visited various communities to learn about the unique barriers and experiences of those who qualify for CalKIDS.
“What children in Modoc County are experiencing is very different than what children in LA County are experiencing,” she said. “So I’ve really tried to reach out to our partners in various communities and learn about their experiences so that we make well-informed decisions … based on the lived experience of the people we’re trying to reach.”
Awareness — or a lack thereof — has been the No. 1 challenge related to CalKIDS account access.
To improve that, DiBenedetto and her team have, in the past six months, focused on partnering with organizations across the state.
From its inception in summer 2022 through the end of 2023, CalKIDS partnered with about 550 organizations to promote the program, according to the state treasurer’s office. Now it works with more than 1,000 community-based organizations, school districts and financial institutions.
“More and more people are approaching us saying, ‘Hey, we know you’re doing this thing. We want to be involved,’” DiBenedetto said. “I don’t know that, in the first two years of the program, that was necessarily the case, so I think that has been a huge change for us.”
Partnerships, targeted outreach are key
Thanh-Truc “April” Hoang, a second-year student at the University of California Riverside, remembers attending an open house on campus as a high school senior in 2023 and seeing a display table with Riverside County Office of Education material about free money for college. Hoang learned about CalKIDS and what the $500 could be used for. She and her three younger siblings would go on to claim their accounts.
Attending UC Riverside the following semester due to its proximity to her home, Hoang commuted back and forth to campus, saving thousands of dollars in on-campus expenses but faced one unexpected cost: parking. She requested and received her CalKIDS funds to pay for the annual parking permit, lifting a burden off her shoulders — and her parents.
“I didn’t want to burden my parents with having to pay for my college parking,” she said. “I wanted them to feel like they didn’t have to constantly keep looking after me, because I have three younger siblings (two of whom are in high school). I wanted to make sure their burden could be alleviated.”
Since Hoang and her siblings claimed their accounts once she was aware of it, the CalKIDS funds will continue helping her family.
“I was just really glad that we were able to find out about this resource,” said Hoang, who helped her younger cousins claim their accounts.
In its back-to-school campaign from July to October 2024, CalKIDS used social media and mailers to inform high schoolers and high-school graduates about the money waiting to be claimed.
DiBenedetto said that more than 94,000 accounts were claimed in that one targeted marketing campaign; 73% of the new accounts belonged to high school graduates or college students, who could use their money right away.
She said a new partnership with the California Cradle-to-Career Data System will further help reach that population of students, as will partnerships with the California Student Aid Commission and the community college chancellor’s office, which can connect with college students who haven’t claimed their funds.
Addressing language, literacy barriers
Last year, advocates, such as those at End Poverty in California, suggested ways for local communities and the CalKIDS program to address the barriers limiting account access, including:
Rewriting informational materials to a third-grade reading level so more families understand the content.
Advocating for multilingual outreach at the state level.
The CalKIDS team has expanded its multilingual media campaigns, too, ensuring materials, such as event fliers, are available in at least the top 10 languages spoken in California — something that wasn’t available a year ago, DiBenedetto said.
“We are meeting people where they are in the language that they speak,” she said.
Subtle shifts in the way CalKIDS is framed and talked about are just as important as language and literacy, said many interviewed.
According to DiBenedetto, instead of using the term “savings account,” CalKIDS materials now say “scholarship,” “a baby’s first scholarship,” “the easiest scholarship your child will ever get” and simply “claim your money.”
“Sometimes it’s things like the word ‘account’ (that) can be scary in some populations,” she said. “These populations understand the word scholarship.”
Increased awareness, access
Awareness is growing as a result of increased partnerships, targeted outreach and changes in material to address language access and reading comprehension, DiBenedetto said.
“More kids are taking advantage of their CalKIDS scholarship accounts,” she said about the more than 475,000 student accounts claimed as of March 31.
But hundreds of thousands of accounts for first graders are added annually, making the percentage of claimed accounts a “moving target,” she said.
Newborn accounts
Those born in the state between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023, were awarded $25 before the seed deposit increased to $100. The California Department of Public Health provides information on newborns. Parents who link the CalKIDS account to a ScholarShare 529 college savings account are eligible for an additional $50 deposit for their newborns. A partnership with Covered California has tied the completion of well-child visits and vaccinations to the ability to earn up to $1,000 in the newborn accounts until March 2026.
More than 400,000 accounts are added annually for newborns as well, and children born in California after June 2023, regardless of their parents’ income, are granted $100.
Nearly 96,000 of over 1 million eligible newborn accounts have been claimed as of March 31.
Altogether, the claimed student and newborn accounts total 571,631, representing an 82% increase from this time last year.
Challenges ahead
Due to September 2024 legislation, CalKIDS’ eligibility will expand to all foster youth in grades 1-12, starting next school year until 2029.
The CalKIDS team does not yet know the numbers for all eligible foster youth but reported that 3,093 claimed their accounts so far. Based on 2023-24 state data, nearly 30,000 students are foster youth, a number that will likely remain consistent next school year when the legislation takes effect.
Millions of dollars have been allocated to program outreach and collaboration.
But in the 2025 budget approved in June, $5 million was reverted back to the general fund, a maneuver often taken to share funds with other programs.
Because the program was still in its early stages, DiBenedetto said, it had a minimal impact on outreach efforts.
The expanded program eligibility and funding changes may present unforeseen obstacles, but the CalKIDS team plans to tackle those challenges by using them as learning opportunities.
“I think that we’ve learned a lot over the last couple years,” DiBenedetto said. “I’ve learned a lot over the last (six) months, and we are ready for whatever comes our way. Every challenge is really just opportunity.”
Credit: Jorge Van Dyck / Huntington Beach Adult School
