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California takes a big step in how it measures school performance, but there’s still more to do

Credit: Alison Yin / EdSource

Accountability has been a central plank in California’s — and our nation’s — school reform efforts for over two decades. Over nearly that entire period, California has been criticized (including by me) for being one of the few states that does not include a measure of student achievement growth in our accountability system. The current approach, exemplified in the California School Dashboard, rates schools on their average performance levels on the state’s standardized tests, and on the difference between the school’s average performance this year and last year.

But the state doesn’t have, and has never had, a student-level growth model for test scores. Student-level growth models are important because they do a much better job than the state’s existing measures of capturing school effectiveness at improving student achievement. This is because growth models directly compare students to themselves over time, asking how much individual children are learning each year and how this compares across schools and to established benchmarks for annual learning. The crude difference models the state currently displays in the dashboard could give the wrong idea about school performance, for instance, if there are enrollment changes over time in schools (as there have been since the pandemic).

Growth models can help more fairly identify schools that are often overlooked because they are getting outsize results with underserved student groups. In other words, they send better, more accurate signals to report card users and to the state Department of Education about which schools need support and for which students. Along with Kansas, California has been the last holdout state in adopting a report card that highlights a growth model.

Though the state’s task force on accountability and continuous improvement, on which I served, wrapped up its work and recommended a growth model almost nine years ago, the process of adopting and implementing a growth model has been — to say the least — laborious and drawn-out. Still, I was delighted to see that the California Department of Education (CDE) has finally started providing growth model results in the California School Dashboard! This is a great step forward for the state.

Beyond simply including the results in the dashboard, there are some good things about how the state is reporting these growth model results. The growth model figures present results in a way I think many users will understand (points above typical growth), and results for different student groups can be easily viewed and compared.

There is a clear link to resources to help understand the growth model, too. The state should be commended for its efforts to make the results clear and usable in this way.

It doesn’t take a detailed look at the dashboard to see, however, that there are some important fixes that the State Board of Education should require — and CDE should adopt — as soon as possible. Broadly, I think these fixes fall into two categories: technical fixes about presentation and data availability, and more meaningful fixes about how the growth model results are used.

First, the data are currently buried too deeply for the average user to even find them. As far as I can tell, the growth model results do not appear on the landing page for an individual school. You have to click through using the “view more details” button on some other indicator, and only then can you see the growth model results. The growth model results should, at minimum, be promoted to the front page, even if they are put alongside the other “informational purposes indicator” for science achievement. A downloadable statewide version of the growth model results should also be made available, so that researchers and other interested analysts can examine trends. Especially in light of the long shadow of Covid on California’s students, we need to know which schools could benefit from more support to recover.

Second, the state should prioritize the growth model results in actually creating schools’ dashboard ratings. Right now, the color-coded dashboard rating is based on schools’ status (their average scale score) and change (the difference between this year’s average score and last year’s). It would be much more appropriate to replace the change score with these growth model results.

There are many reasons why a growth model is superior, but the easiest to understand is that the “change” metrics the state currently uses can be affected by compositional changes in the student body (such as which kinds of students are moving into and out of the school). Researchers are unanimous that student-level growth models are superior to these change scores at accurately representing school effectiveness. Even for California’s highly mobile student population, growth models can accommodate student mobility and give “credit” to the schools most responsible for each child’s learning during that academic year.

To be sure, I think there are other ways the dashboard can likely be improved to make it more useful to parents and other interested users. These suggestions have been detailed extensively over the years, including in a recent report that dinged the state for making it difficult to see how children are recovering post-Covid.

The adoption of a growth model is a great sign that the state wishes to improve data transparency and utility for California families. I hope it is just the first in a series of improvements in California’s school accountability systems.

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Morgan Polikoff is a professor at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education.

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

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19/04/2025
How CSU campuses are helping more students graduate on time, without debt

Student para-planners at the Chico State Financial Wellness Clinic provide the campus community with free financial planning and education services overseen by a licensed financial planner.

Credit: Jessica Bartlett / Chico State

There’s a group of students whose fate has largely been forgotten amid the shifting political and policy landscape of higher education. It’s young people from lower-income backgrounds who are taking classes and studying while also working, caring for their families, and struggling to afford housing and basic needs, such as food.

As the shifts continue, institutions and their allies can step up and do more to ensure these students complete their studies and realize the lifelong benefits of graduating with a bachelor’s degree. And they can do so by prioritizing affordability, recognizing that cost is often a major barrier to student success.

Consider the example of Dejanae Wilson, who graduated from California State University, Chico, last year with a bachelor’s degree in social science. While working toward her degree, she was also caring for three younger siblings.

“I had a lot on my plate trying to manage our finances and keep up with my courses,” she said.

To ensure that Dejanae could graduate on schedule and according to plan, she turned to the recently established Financial Wellness Clinic at Chico State. Thanks to consultations with both a student and a faculty adviser at the clinic, she managed the household budget and connected to campus resources (like the Hungry Wildcat Food Pantry), which offered her family crucial support.

“It’s easy to get caught up in the flow of life, your job, and taking care of people — and not realize there are resources on campus that can help,” Dejanae said.

Across California State University’s 23 campuses, administrators, faculty and students are working diligently to support students like Dejanae to complete their studies on time and according to plan. From expanding mentorship, tutoring, and academic advising, to increasing access to financial counseling, to instituting early warning systems to identify and support struggling students, campuses are piloting a range of promising approaches to support student persistence and success. These approaches often build on existing campus policies and programs, making them impactful and achievable.

The Financial Wellness Clinic at Chico State, led by finance professor Jaycob Arbogast in the university’s College of Business and staffed by finance students, is just one example of these practical and effective strategies. This well-organized and structured program, which seamlessly integrates classroom learning with practical experience to support student needs, was recognized for its effectiveness and bestowed the prestigious Catalyst Fund award by the National Association of Higher Education Systems. The awards recognize replicable programs and strategies that California’s public colleges and universities are pursuing to remove cost as a barrier to higher education.

At CSU Channel Islands, another innovative initiative that received Catalyst Fund support has provided additional resources to students who are struggling academically so they can stay on track and reduce the time (and costs) of earning a degree. Launched in spring 2022, the initiative targets students who have nonpassing or incomplete grades and/or other indicators that they are not progressing academically. The program connects these students to faculty and peer mentors and special, cohort-based activities where they bond with other students and develop skills and mindsets that support their persistence and success.

Early results from the program show that participating students’ average GPAs increased, and the percentage of students who graduated or returned for the following semester was higher than that of the general student population. Interestingly, one of the key benefits students point to is how the program builds connections with peers facing similar challenges. As one student said after participating in the program, “You are able to be part of a group that becomes your family, you learn about the experiences of other students, and realize you are not alone.”

Supporting students to persist in their studies can take several forms. At Sonoma State University, students who are the first in their family to go to college are 47% of all undergraduates. As university officials started to see a decline in retention among these “first-gen” students during the Covid pandemic, they developed an early alert system that pings a student and connects them to their adviser and other support when a faculty member reports low test scores or attendance problems. At the end of the program’s pilot year in 2023-24, 97% of first-year, first-gen students enrolled in the program ended in good academic standing and returned the following fall.

What’s happening at Sonoma State and the other CSU campuses is part of a broader commitment to closing the equity gap in higher education across a university system that, despite its uniquely diverse student population, continues to experience racial disparities in degree completion. It was in response to these disparities that CSU set a goal to increase graduation rates between 2015 and 2025. Thanks to Graduation Initiative 2025, the system has nearly doubled its four-year graduation rate for first-year students, and undergraduates are earning their degrees faster than ever before.

Expanding access to a bachelor’s degree and supporting student persistence and success are core functions of the higher education system. In California and across the nation, campuses are showing it’s possible to do better, even in today’s uncertain political and policy environment. All it takes is creativity and a commitment to students who might otherwise struggle to achieve their college dreams.

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Dilcie Perez is a deputy vice chancellor and chief student affairs officer for the California State University system. Monica Martinez is program director for college success at the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund.

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

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19/04/2025
Aaron Tang: The Supreme Court Threatens Public Schools Even More Than Trump

Aaron Tang, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, explains how the U.S. Supreme Court is more dangerous to the future of public schools than Trump’s policies.

He writes in Politico:

The greatest threat to public education in America isn’t Donald Trump.

Yes, he’s moving to dismantle the Department of Education, and yes, he’s trying to restrict what schools can teach about race. But the most dangerous attack on the horizon isn’t coming from the president, it’s coming from the Supreme Court.

This is a particularly disheartening reality because the Supreme Court has often been one of public education’s greatest champions. As far back as 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education, the court described public schooling as “the very foundation of good citizenship” and the “most important function of state and local governments.” Just four years ago, in an 8-1 opinion involving a Snapchatting cheerleader, the court proudly declared that “Public schools are the nurseries of democracy.”

Later this month, however, the court will hear oral argument in a pair of cases with the potential to radically destabilize public schools as we know them. And there is reason to be deeply worried about how the conservative majority will rule.

The first case, Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, poses the question of whether the 46 states with charter schools must offer public funds to schools that would teach religious doctrine as truth. The second case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, involves the claim that religious parents should have a right to opt their children out of controversial public school curricula.

Takentogether, Drummond and Mahmoud threaten the twin cornerstones of the American education system that Brown affirmed six decades ago: Since Brown, America’s public schools have operated under a norm of inclusive enrollment, and they’ve offered all children a shared curriculum that reflects the values that communities believe are essential for civic participation and economic success.

If the court tears down these foundational norms, the schools that remain in their wake will be a shell of the democracy-promoting institution the court itself has long lionized — and that healthy majorities of parents continue to support in their local neighborhoods. And although there’s a way to avoid the worst outcome in both cases, the path ahead is uncertain: It will require the court to follow history in an evenhanded manner (in Drummond) and progressives to accept a middle ground (in Mahmoud).

The legal challenges presented in Drummond and Mahmoud did not arise out of thin air. They are part of a long-term conservative movement strategy aimed at eroding public education.

A major component of this strategy has been a consistent call to fund school choice, a broad umbrella term that encompasses various programs such as school vouchers and educational savings accounts that channel taxpayer dollars away from traditional public schools and into private ones. Drummond’s call for a constitutional right to taxpayer-funded religious education can thus be thought of as a major front in Project 2025’s “core principle” of “significantly advanc[ing] education choice.”

Conservatives have likewise sought to brand public schools as purveyors of “woke” ideology rather than facilitators of a shared set of community values. The claim at issue in Mahmoud — a parental right to opt out of curricular choices that some find religiously objectionable — is accordingly another salvo in the broader culture wars, and one in which conservatives are asking the court to grant them a legal trump card.

Ultimately, to a significant cross-section of the Republican Party, public schools are now the “radical, anti-American” enemy. And viewed from that perspective, Drummond and Mahmoud may represent the greatest chance for delivering a knockout blow.

Drummond and Inclusive Enrollment

Technically, the Drummond case is just about Oklahoma. That’s because it arose out of Oklahoma’s refusal to fund a religious charter school named the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. (According to St. Isidore’s handbook, “the traditions and teachings of the Catholic Church and the virtue of Christian living permeate the school day.”)

But make no mistake: It is blue states that have the most to lose in this case. For if St. Isidore has a right to public funding in Oklahoma, that same right would exist for religious charter schools in California and New York — places where, until now, taxpayer funds have never been used to teach religion as truth to K-12 students.

It is hard to overstate how big a sea change this would be. Nonreligious charter schools currently receive more than $26 billion in public funds and educate some four million children. So a ruling in favor of religious charter schools could mean billions of dollars for religious education — a prospect that one Catholic school executive called “game-changing” for how it would enable religious schools to “grow [their] network.”

But the implications are far more than monetary. They strike at the very vision of public schools as places where children come together from all walks of life to learn what the Supreme Court once called the “values on which our society rests.” Bankrolled by taxpayer dollars, Drummond would transform the American education system into a taxpayer-funded mechanism for transmitting each family’s preferred religious tenets.

What is more, religious charter schools will likely argue that they have a further Free Exercise right to restrict enrollment only to adherents of their particular faith (indeed, a religious private school in Maine has already advanced this claim). At the end of that argument is a publicly funded K-12 education system that tribalizes the American people at a time when we need to be doing exactly the opposite: forging bonds of connection across our differences.

Justice Thurgood Marshall once cautioned that “unless our children begin to learn together, there is little hope that our people will ever learn to live together.” If the court rules for the religious charter schools in Drummond, we will come one giant — and regrettable — step closer to the world Marshall feared.

Mahmoud and the Attack on Curriculum

The Mahmoud case emerged out of a 2022 Montgomery County, Maryland, school board policy that introduced a new set of LGBTQ-inclusive storybooks into its pre-K through 12th-grade language arts curriculum. In general, the books aimed at instilling respect and civility for people from different backgrounds. In practice, though, the books led to controversy. One of the books, entitled Pride Puppy, was directed at pre-K students and invited students to search for images of a lip ring and a drag queen.

Montgomery County initially permitted parents to opt their children out of reading these new books. But the district soon changed course, which is what led the Mahmoud family to sue. Their argument was that the Free Exercise Clause grants parents like them the “right to opt their children out of public school instruction that would substantially interfere with their religious development.”

This is a truly difficult case, even for someone who, like me, holds an unyielding commitment to ensuring that all LGBTQ students feel safe at school. But one can hold that commitment while also acknowledging that the choice to force children as young as five years old to read books like Pride Puppy over their parents’ objection is not an obvious one. Indeed, Montgomery County has since removed Pride Puppy from its curriculum — a reasonable concession.

The great danger in this case, though, is not about the parental right to opt 5- and 6-year-olds out of controversial curricula. It’s that a decision recognizing a parental opt-out right would be difficult to contain via a sensible limiting principle. Would parents of middle or high school children enjoy a similar right to opt their children out of any assignment or reading that espouses support for LGBTQ rights? How about a right to opt out of science classes that teach biology or evolution? And what of history classes that some religious parents may find too secular for their liking?

In all of those contexts, lower federal courts had unanimously rejected the contention that simply because a parent finds something to be religiously objectionable, they can excuse their child from a shared curricular goal. Mahmoud could upend that settled consensus and replace it with a world in which public schools are forced to offer bespoke curricula to all different families based on their particular religious commitments.

That’s a recipe for an education system that would certainly teach some values to our children. But this much is for sure: They would no longer be shared ones.

How to Save Public Education at the Court

The plaintiffs in both Drummond and Mahmoud may be optimistic that the 6-3 conservative supermajority will side with them. After all, religious litigants have fared remarkably well at the Supreme Court of late.

But a surprising obstacle exists in the Drummond case — and Maryland officials, if they are smart, may yet have the final word in Mahmoud.

In Drummond, the best argument against the claimed Free Exercise right to taxpayer-funded religious schools comes from the very place that the conservative Supreme Court has lately looked to move the law right on abortion and guns: history and tradition.

As Ethan Hutt, a leading historian of education, and I show in a forthcoming paper, it turns out the denial of funding that St. Isidore complains of today is something that happened routinely during the founding era. Yet no one — no parent, no religious leader, not even a religious school that was denied funds on equal terms with its nonsectarian counterparts — ever filed a lawsuit (much less won one) arguing that the right to Free Exercise demanded otherwise.

This is precisely the historic pattern that the Supreme Court relied on to reject the right to abortion in Dobbs: “When legislators began to [ban abortion in the 19th century], no one, as far as we are aware, argued that [they had] violated a fundamental right.”

If the absence of legal contestation in the face of government action 200 years ago shows that the Constitution’s original meaning does not encompass a claimed right to abortion, it’s hard to see why that logic should differ when the claimed right involves religious school funding. Put simply, the court can be consistently originalist, or it can recognize the religious charter school funding right claimed in Drummond. But it can’t do both.

The legal argument to protect public education is less clear in Mahmoud. But in that case, there is another way to steer clear of a Supreme Court ruling that would imperil evolution, biology, history and LGBTQ-inclusive lessons in the upper grades: Maryland officials can override the Montgomery County policy and extend an opt-out choice to parents of young children like the Mahmouds.

There would be clear precedent for such an action by the state. After New York officials took a similar step to eliminate a policy dispute in a major gun case in 2020, the court dismissed that case as moot — putting off a dangerous ruling for at least the time being.

Of course, doing so would require lawmakers in Maryland to accept parents of young children choosing to withdraw their children from reading controversial LGBTQ-inclusive books. But perhaps lawmakers can see a principled distinction between the desire to make schools a safe space for LGBTQ children — a nonnegotiable, core value — and the desire to use elementary school classrooms as a tool for changing hearts and minds on controversial topics more generally.

In truth, progressives were probably never going to win that battle in kindergarten classrooms, especially with the present political climate. Progress on social attitudes concerning the transgender community was always more likely through the same mechanisms that produced rapid change for the gay and lesbian community — mainstream media, social media and the critical realization that our friends, family and other loved ones are members of these different communities and deserve equal respect.

In the end, the Supreme Court may choose simply to ignore history and tradition in Drummond, where it is inconvenient for a movement conservative cause. And a policy change in Maryland could simply delay the inevitable, as new cases could always be brought advancing

The bigger takeaway, then, is about the war against public education and its likely toll. Public schools were a major part of what made America great. So in seeking public education’s demise, the Drummond and Mahmoud cases could portend staggering consequences: less social tolerance, reduced international competitiveness and continued inequality along economic and racial lines.

But the greatest cost may be for our democracy. After all, the Supreme Court reminded us just four short years ago that public schools are where our democracy is cultivated. That’s why the timing of these cases could not be any worse. In a moment when American democracy is being tested like never before, the court should be the last institution — not the leading one — to dismantle our public schools.

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16/04/2025
How Covid changed teaching in California: fewer pencils, more technology

The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly changed how students and teachers spend their time in the classroom. Now, instead of writing with paper and pencil, students use computers for most assignments.

Teachers lecture less and spend more time on individualized instruction, social-emotional learning and relationship building.

The last five years have not been easy. Students returned to campuses in the spring of 2021, after spending more than a year learning alone from home on computers. They had knowledge gaps, and many felt isolated and unsure, often resulting in chronic absenteeism and bad behavior.

Thousands of California teachers, discouraged by disciplinary problems, quit the profession.

But others doubled down on individualized instruction and social-emotional support, spending a good portion of class time reacquainting their students with how to behave in the classroom and encouraging them to socialize with their peers.

Now, five years after Covid closed schools, student scores on the state’s standardized Smarter Balanced tests have improved slightly, although achievement is still not back to pre-Covid levels.

California teachers interviewed by EdSource are optimistic, reporting that interventions are working and that student discipline is improving.

“They don’t miss their houses,” said Erika Cedeno, who teaches Spanish at Golden Valley High School in Santa Clarita. “They don’t miss anything related to Covid. They want to be at school, and they are enjoying sports. They are playing tennis and swimming. It’s very different. I think we are probably getting to the point that we were before Covid.”

More personalized learning

Teachers report placing a greater emphasis on small-group instruction and personalized learning to accommodate students who returned from school closures with diverse learning needs, according to “Rewiring the classroom: How the Covid-19 pandemic transformed K-12 education,” released in August by the Brookings Institution.

The spring 2023 survey of 1,000 K-12 teachers and administrators across the country revealed that students now spend less time in lectures and more time working on educational software tailored to their needs. The increased use of technology by students, teachers and parents is the biggest change in the classroom since Covid-19 closures, said Brian Jacob, who co-authored the Brookings report.

After months of working on educational software during pandemic school closures, teachers are now more likely to incorporate it into their classrooms, according to the report. In early 2023, 70% of all students and 80% of all middle and high school students in the United States had a personal computing device.

“I use technology more freely in the classroom now, and it’s an expected part of the day,” Todd Shadbourne, a sixth grade teacher at Foulks Ranch Elementary School in Elk Grove, told EdSource.

“We used to do a research project and everybody had to go to the library and get a book, and hope they could get a book,” Shadbourne said. “And we couldn’t study biographies when my neighboring class was doing biographies because there’s only so many books. … Now you have other resources because you have a computer in front of you.”

Too much technology isn’t good

There are some drawbacks to the increased use of technology in schools, however. Research shows that reading comprehension is better when students read printed texts instead of online materials, Jacob said. Students also struggle with writing and spelling because all their school work is done on computers equipped with programs that correct spelling and grammar, he said.

“School officials and researchers really need to look at that carefully and determine how much time students are spending on devices, and how is that going?” Jacob said.

Some California teachers try to limit their students’ screen time and require them to spend more time reading text, writing with pencil and paper and collaborating with their classmates.

San Diego special education teacher Carly Bresee says the use of technology by students outside the classroom has also increased, prompting her to use less technology in class than before the pandemic.

“I know that general ed teachers are kind of facing that question,” Bresee said. “How much computer use is healthy and positive for the students? They are having difficulty with that balance, knowing what the best formula is for learning.”

Back to classroom carts at some schools

School officials at James Lick Middle School have decided to go back to classroom computer carts because the school, in financially strapped San Francisco Unified, could no longer afford to maintain and replace student computers that are broken, lost or outdated.

“Kids have broken them on purpose,” said Keith Carames, who teaches theater arts and English at the school. “Kids have lost them. Kids have dropped them.”

That move away from technology is a big disappointment to Carames, who became a convert after spending three months learning how to use Zoom, Google Classroom and other online education programs.

“I saw the light,” Carames said. “I can edit stuff online with them (the students). I can post videos. I have resources that are accessible. If they are absent, they can get work. There are letters that you can send to the family and newsletters and interactive things. It changed my practice as an educator. ”

Carames calls the transition back to paper and pen “a nightmare.”

“There are some kids who don’t even know how to spell their own first name,” he said.

Changing views on school attendance

The biggest change for Elk Grove’s Shadbourne since Covid is the perception among some students and parents that attending school is optional. Students go on vacation during the school year or decide to work from home on a given day because they think they can get assignments on Google Classroom and email them to the teacher.

“And the social benefits of school, and the problem-solving that we do as a group, and the common culture we hope to create, it’s hard to do that when people are gone,” Shadbourne said.

The impact of absences is amplified in special education, where a student might make progress one day, miss a day of school, and lose that progress, Bresee said.

Students need social-emotional support

Since schools reopened in 2020, California teachers have been spending more time greeting their students at the door, sending them notes and planning activities that encourage communication and help build relationships. Making these connections helps students develop social-emotional skills and encourages them to come to school.

“In special education, we saw a huge increase in maladaptive behaviors, and that was really difficult both for the students, the support staff and for teachers,” said Bresee, a TK-1 special education teacher at Perkins K-8 School. “… It was hard to maintain a regular routine because it felt like we were more frequently in crisis mode.”

Students, especially younger ones, had to learn how to play and communicate effectively with others. That meant more time was set aside for adult-facilitated playtime than before the pandemic, Bresee said.

“It became, in my eyes, an even more important part of the day, right up there with our literacy and math lessons,” Breese said.

The effort seems to be paying off. This year, student behavior has improved, and the class routine is back on track, according to Bresee.

Social-emotional support and building connections between students and their teachers and classmates are equally important for older students.

Cedeno greets her Spanish students at the door every day and then spends roughly seven minutes at the beginning of each class asking questions to draw students into conversations meant to help them connect with her and their classmates.

“Cuál es tu color favorito (What is your favorite color)?” she asks one day. “Cuál es tu dulce favorito (What is your favorite candy)?” she asks on another day.

Cedeno also invites students to have lunch in her classroom if they need a safe space to relax and a microwave to heat their food.

“We are trying to rebuild this step by step,” Cedeno said. “We are not there yet. But I think we are going to get there if we put in a lot of effort, a lot of compassion and empathy, because these kids, they need this.”

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13/04/2025
Why Home Tuition Should Be More Than Just About Grades
In an increasingly competitive academic environment, it’s easy to fall into the trap of equating education with grades alone. While good marks can open doors to opportunities, true education encompasses far more. Home tuition, often viewed as a tool for academic improvement, has the potential to nurture emotional intelligence, self-discipline, and a love for learning. It’s time to reimagine home tuition as a holistic development platform rather than just a grade-boosting machine.

The Limitations of a Grades-Only Approach

Grades represent only a narrow aspect of a student’s abilities. They rarely reflect creativity, critical thinking, or emotional intelligence. Focusing solely on marks can create undue pressure and lead students to lose interest in subjects they might otherwise enjoy.

Why Home Tuition Should Be About More Than Grades

Here’s why home tuition should go beyond just academic performance:
- Learning at One’s Own Pace: Home tuition allows for personalized teaching that adapts to the student’s speed and understanding. Tutors can clarify doubts, revisit tough topics, and accelerate lessons as needed. This builds confidence and mastery over memorization.
- Developing Critical Thinking Skills: A good home tutor incorporates real-world examples, encourages discussions, and promotes logical reasoning. These practices help develop problem-solving and analytical thinking.
- Encouraging Curiosity and Independent Learning: The right tutor acts as a mentor, sparking curiosity and a love for learning by encouraging questions and deep exploration of topics.
- Building Self-Esteem and Motivation: Personalized attention allows tutors to motivate students and turn mistakes into learning opportunities, helping build confidence and resilience.
- Enhancing Communication Skills: One-on-one sessions allow students to express themselves more freely and build effective communication habits that benefit them in academic and professional settings.
- Teaching Life Skills: Home tuition can be a platform for teaching important life skills like time management, accountability, and goal setting.
- Parental Involvement: Regular feedback from home tutors allows parents to stay updated on both academic and personal development.
How TheTuitionTeacher Goes Beyond Grades

TheTuitionTeacher is a home tuition platform that understands the value of holistic education. Here’s how they stand out:
- Personalized Tutor Matching: Students are matched with tutors who suit their learning style, academic needs, and personality.
- Emphasis on Conceptual Clarity: TheTuitionTeacher promotes understanding rather than rote learning, helping students build strong conceptual foundations.
- Progress Tracking: Parents receive regular feedback and reports to track academic and personal growth.
- Empowered Tutors: Tutors aren’t just educators—they are mentors trained to support emotional and intellectual development.
- Flexible Learning Options: With online and offline classes available, TheTuitionTeacher adapts to each student’s schedule and preferences.
Conclusion: Redefining the Role of Home Tuition

While grades are important, they are not the sole measure of a student’s potential. Home tuition should foster a well-rounded individual by nurturing curiosity, resilience, emotional intelligence, and communication skills. TheTuitionTeacher is pioneering this shift by offering personalized, supportive, and holistic tutoring that puts the child’s overall development at the center.
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13/04/2025
Seize the opportunity to select more effective math curriculum for California students
Credit: English Learners Success Forum

I am a daughter of Mexican immigrants, born in the United States. Spanish is my first language. When I entered school, the language barrier was overwhelming. I see my story in the recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) numbers. The report unveiled troubling trends in math performance, especially among English learners, underscoring the urgency of addressing this critical area.

As a young Spanish speaker still learning English, I sat in the back of the classroom, feeling lost while my classmates actively participated. Contrary to what my parents taught my siblings and me, in school our linguistic background was considered a disadvantage, rather than an asset. I was a bright student with a father who was great with numbers without a calculator. Though my parents had only a second-grade education, they ensured my siblings and I could do math well. Yet, at school the perception was that because I didn’t know English, I couldn’t comprehend the content in other subjects either.

Though my parents encouraged us to embrace learning, education and our cultural roots through our language, I struggled with my identity and found it challenging to express myself in English. The class instruction did not support my need to learn English while also helping me grasp rigorous content.

As California confronts its educational challenges, a critical concern has emerged: the need for math instruction and a math curriculum that is accessible and meets the needs of all students, especially English learners.

The National NAEP data indicates a concerning trend in math scores for both native English speakers and English learners showing a national decline in math scores for 4th and 8th graders, with 40% of 4th graders and only 28% of 8th graders achieving proficiency. Among Grade 8 math scores, English learners in the lowest percentile group experienced a six-point drop, widening the achievement gap with non-English learners, who only decreased by two points. In California, where nearly one out of every five students is learning English as a second language, it’s even more urgent that we address this crisis.

Teacher voices and research consistently show that effective instructional materials are crucial. The California Math Framework adopted in 2023 specifically underscored that sense-making in mathematics is intricately linked to language development. It is critical for any math curriculum we choose to support all students in developing the skills needed to excel in mathematics.

This is a critical moment for California as it is currently in the process of adopting math materials for 2026, which could significantly influence students’ achievement for years to come. The curriculum materials needed to change future outcomes are being selected now, and educators can demand high-quality instructional materials that are designed to support the needs of English learners.

Education leaders play a pivotal role in this adoption process. We must advocate fiercely for the best interests of our students, especially English learners, to ensure they receive the education they deserve. Collaboration with educators, parents, and the community is crucial to ensure that we make informed decisions that cater to the diverse needs of our students.

As California’s education leaders, we play a pivotal role, and there are specific actions that we can take to drive change.
- Learn what high-quality materials for English learners look like. It’s vital to recognize what makes instructional materials effective. They should be culturally responsive, linguistically suitable and engaging, helping students access content while promoting language development.
- Include representation of interest in committees. Ensuring voices are present in decision-making, like curriculum committees, fosters inclusivity. Engaging families and communities provides insights that create a more equitable educational environment.
- Get involved now in curriculum adoption. Participating in the curriculum selection process enables educators to advocate for materials that support English learners. District leaders, school board members, educators and parents all have a role to play here.
- Shift mindsets about materials together with professional learning. Changing educator perceptions and recognizing that traditional materials may not meet the diverse needs of English learners encourages innovative teaching strategies.
If we fail to address the specific needs of the 1.1 million English learners in California’s K-12 schools, we risk perpetuating systemic inequalities, which broadens the achievement gap. The California Math Framework explicitly calls for the integration of language and content. California has an opportunity to make better curriculum choices that benefit all students and significantly improve the educational experience for English learners.

By implementing these strategies, education leaders can foster change and a sustainable education process for English learners. Our children deserve nothing less.

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Alma Castro is the president of the Los Angeles County Schools Trustee Association, a member of the Lynwood Unified School Board, and director of California initiatives at the English Learners Success Forum, a collaboration of researchers, teachers, district leaders, and funders working to improve the quality and accessibility of instructional materials for English learners.

The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
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13/04/2025
Teachers need more prep time

Credit: Allison Shelley / American Education

Yesterday — like every day last week — I had just 27 minutes to plan my lessons and grade my fourth-grade students’ work. In reality, I spent that time signing in to the office, getting my mail, setting up breakfast for my students, and calling a parent about their child who had been absent four days in a row. I had no time left to prepare for my first lesson of the day.

This isn’t just an occasional bad day — it’s a constant reality. Survey results from recent years found that teachers nationwide identify “more planning time during the school day” as one of the most critical changes districts could make to support their teaching.

Yet, in my district, Los Angeles Unified, the second-largest school district in the nation, elementary teachers have only 27 minutes of prep time — a staggering 20 minutes less than the national average of 47 minutes, which is still too little. This gap isn’t just a statistic; it’s a crisis that directly impacts our ability to plan, collaborate and provide the essential support our students deserve.

As a 20-year educator and 2017 Teacher of the Year, meeting the needs of every student is my mission. However, a lack of prep time makes it nearly impossible to fulfill that commitment. Many of my students face behavioral challenges that require additional support — particularly those from our highest-needs neighborhoods. But without time to prepare, access resources or collaborate with colleagues, we are failing students before they even begin their day.

Beyond the individual toll of teacher prep time, the schedule also isolates educators. Teacher collaboration is essential for strong schools, and while I value learning from my colleagues and offering guidance to new teachers, my district’s prep time policy leaves no space for additional collaboration, like mentoring, sharing best practices, or building a community. Burned-out, unsupported teachers cannot create thriving classrooms.

The new reading program in LAUSD exemplifies the intense time demands on teachers. Each 90-minute lesson requires 30 to 40 minutes of planning — every day, five days a week — for just one subject I teach. This leaves little time for other critical tasks like grading, providing feedback or planning small group instruction. To keep up, I’m forced to spend hours working from home each week, sacrificing time with my family.

Teachers should not have to choose between their families and students. Yet, a recent survey by Educators for Excellence, “Voices from the Classroom 2024“, found that the second-biggest reason teachers plan to leave the profession is that they take on too many responsibilities outside of paid hours, including lesson planning and grading at home. For teachers in high-need schools, this was the most significant reason — even more important than concerns about low pay.

At the same time, the Nation’s Report Card (NAEP) 2024 scores show little to no improvement in learning since the pandemic, particularly for LAUSD students. Hispanic students — who make up 80% of the district’s student body — continue to lag behind, with an average 31-point gap compared with white students across all grade levels and subjects.

Addressing the root causes — including insufficient prep time — is critical for districts to close these gaps and keep teachers in classrooms.

The future of our students depends on a system that prioritizes educator support and adequate prep time. Without action, schools risk losing more talented teachers and leaving students further behind. By demanding more prep time, we can create a stronger, more collaborative school environment — one where teachers stay, students thrive and outcomes improve. The clock is ticking.

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Misti Kemmer is a 20-year LAUSD educator, 2017 Teacher of the Year, and an active member of Educators for Excellence – Los Angeles, a teacher advocacy organization.

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

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12/04/2025
As University of California searches for new president, Trump’s policies make the position more difficult

University of California presidents since 2008.

The presidency of the University of California has long been considered one of the more challenging positions in American higher education. It requires overseeing nearly 300,000 students, 10 campuses, $8 billion a year of premier research, six medical centers and three federally funded national energy laboratories.

Now, UC’s board of regents is looking for the next person to fill the role and replace President Michael V. Drake, who plans to step down at the end of the academic year. But in the months since the search began, the job has only grown more complicated and pressured as a result of Donald Trump’s election and his policies affecting funding, racial diversity, student protests and many other aspects of higher education.

“I think the university is dealing with more significant challenges all at the same time than they probably have in the last 50 years, 60 years,” said John Pérez, the former state Assembly speaker who served on the university’s board of regents for a decade, including a stint as chair, before stepping down last year. “My friends on the regents have a difficult task to find the person to lead through this moment.”

The U.S. Department of Justice is currently investigating, among other things, allegations of discriminatory admissions practices and complaints of antisemitism at several UC campuses.

The federal threats are on top of issues that existed even before Trump took office, such as the likelihood of a nearly $400 million cut or 8% to UC’s state funding this year. Even with that probable budget reduction, the next president will be expected to increase graduation rates — especially among Black and Latino students — and to keep enrolling more California residents.

And there are the perennial questions of how to deal with the many and sometimes conflicting constituencies within the state and university, including the state’s governor and legislators, faculty, alumni, student leaders, labor unions, political activists and parents.

“We need a UC president that can be ready to advocate and fight back on any reduction of potential federal funds, and then also be ready to figure out what to do in case we do incur those losses,” said Assemblymember Mike Fong, D-Alhambra, who is chair of the Assembly’s Higher Education Committee. He said some legislators have floated the idea of another tuition hike for out-of-state students.

University presidential searches often raise the questions of whether to get someone from inside the university or someone with fresh, outside experience, and whether to hire someone with experience in academia or from another background, such as in business, government or philanthropy. UC has tried different routes in its most recent presidential hirings.

It’s unlikely that the next president will have every desirable skill and experience, said Hironao Okahana, a vice president at the American Council on Education, a national organization that lobbies on behalf of universities.

What’s most important, he said, is that the president be prepared for a constantly evolving job. He noted that in the past five years, college leaders have had to navigate a pandemic, a racial reckoning following the murder of George Floyd and now the many federal threats. “Higher education leadership is never static, especially for a place like the University of California,” he said.

The search for the next president was launched last summer after Drake announced he would step down. Drake, who earns a base salary of $1.3 million after getting a raise last year, entered the job in 2020 and had to deal with many of the issues arising from the pandemic, including a temporary switch to online classes.

The university’s website for the search says the regents are seeking “an individual who is an outstanding leader and a respected scholar who has successfully demonstrated these abilities in a major complex organization.”

At the most recent regents meeting last month, board chair Janet Reilly said the special regents committee in charge of finding the next president “has been working diligently” but did not say when the search would finish. The committee’s work is being tightly held: It has met only in closed session and has not released the names of any potential finalists.

UC also hosted three town hall meetings in January to gather public feedback. Assisting with the process is SP&A Executive Search, a national search firm specializing in higher education and nonprofit sectors.

Drake’s final months on the job have been marked by policies and actions responding to the Trump administration, a reality with no end in sight.

Last month, his office announced UC would no longer require faculty job applicants to submit statements about how they would promote diversity. That move came after the Trump administration threatened to withhold funding from universities with programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion. Earlier that same day, Drake announced a systemwide hiring freeze in anticipation of those potential funding cuts.

In February, UC also filed a declaration of support when California and 21 other states sued the Trump administration over billions in proposed National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding cuts. The judge in the case has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from making those reductions.

UC gets about $6 billion annually in federal funds for research and other program supports, with NIH being the top source. Cuts to that funding would be felt across the immense system, which comprises nine undergraduate campuses and one graduate-only campus, UC San Francisco. All 10 campuses have R1 status from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, the highest tier for research universities.

Also potentially at risk if the White House and Congress decide to pursue deeper, broader cuts is the $8 billion in Medicare and Medicaid that UC receives for patient care at the medical centers at its Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego and San Francisco campuses. So far, Trump says he will not reduce those.

UC’s next president could be squeezed from two sides: trying to preserve federal funds while also facing pressure from students and faculty not to succumb to any potential demands from Trump. Last month, Columbia University agreed to change its protest policies, security practices and Middle Eastern studies department to keep $400 million that the Trump administration threatened to cut.

Students are “extremely concerned” that a similar scenario could play out at UC, said Aditi Hariharan, a fourth-year student at UC Davis and president of the systemwide UC Student Association. The U.S. Department of Education is investigating UC’s Berkeley, Davis, San Diego and Santa Barbara campuses for possible Title VI violations “relating to antisemitic harassment and discrimination.” Separately, the Department of Justice is investigating Berkeley, UCLA and UC Irvine for potentially considering race in admissions, which UC has denied doing.

Hariharan said she was disappointed to see UC stop requiring diversity statements, which she viewed as a concession to Trump.

“I’m hoping to see the next UC president push back stronger,” she said.

To navigate the many federal complications, UC might consider hiring someone with government experience this time, said Adrianna Kezar, director of the University of Southern California’s Pullias Center of Higher Education.

She pointed to Janet Napolitano, who was UC’s president from 2013 to 2020 and took the job after stints as the U.S. secretary of homeland security and governor of Arizona.

“Someone like that will understand how to navigate all the executive orders, how to navigate shifts in the agencies,” Kezar said. “Over the next four years, this is going to be a landscape where, if you lack that kind of experience, I think it’s going to be really challenging.”

It would also help if the next president has philanthropic acumen, Kezar added. If UC loses significant federal dollars, the university will need to look for new funding sources, she said.

Napolitano was succeeded by Drake, who had a much more traditional academic background. He served as president of Ohio State University and, before that, was UC’s vice president for health affairs and later chancellor of UC Irvine. Napolitano’s predecessor, Mark Yudof, also had an academic background. Before serving as UC’s president from 2008 to 2013, he was the dean of the University of Texas at Austin’s law school, president of the University of Minnesota and chancellor of the University of Texas system.

Pérez, the former regent who chaired the board when Drake was hired, said he’d prefer UC to hire another president who has headed a large public research university, especially if they have experience overseeing academic medical centers.

Despite the many threats and challenges UC faces, Pérez added that he’s confident “in the strength of the institution to weather these storms.”

“But having the right leader means that we will weather the storms more easily and that folks will have confidence that we won’t lose sight of all that’s essential in the university,” he said.

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12/04/2025