This is one of Rachel Maddow’s best clips. She says that we worried about what Trump might do if he won re-election. Wonder no more. It is happening. He is a full-fledged authoritarian, intent on smashing the Constitution and our rights. what can we do? She has some ideas.
Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource
Palo Alto Unified sorely needed to improve.
Despite ample resources and a reputation as one of California’s top districts, we were dramatically failing high-need students in education’s most fundamental subject: reading. For me, as a school board member, that was a tough pill to swallow.
But we have started to turn around our long-term problem as borne out by the results for our district on the state’s CAASPP/Smarter Balanced tests. Our students and teachers raised third grade reading scores for underserved groups from among the worst in the state to one of the best.
Even better, any district can follow the approach we used; it did not rely on big spending or complicated new programs. Early literacy is a “solvable crisis” for California’s schools.
Like most districts in California, we were struggling to teach reading to low-income and historically marginalized students. For low-income Latino third graders, 80% were below grade level, which ranked us near the bottom of all California districts.
This was a shocking realization for a district that thinks of itself as No. 1. It almost certainly meant that we were failing many other students, too, though some were being saved by a safety net of well-educated parents and out-of-school support.
The superintendent and his team decided to go “all-in” on improving early literacy. Instead of piecemeal changes, they put together a comprehensive reworking of our approach to early literacy, called the Every Student Reads Initiative.
Starting in 2021, this initiative has impacted almost every aspect of Palo Alto’s early literacy program, from teacher development and instructional materials to district administration and leadership:
Teacher training
Coaching and on-the-job support
Reading curriculum and interventions
Reading assessment
District leadership
School board
While phonics was an important part of the initiative, our Every Student Reads Initiative is not a “phonics first” or “phonics only” approach — far from it. In every grade, it includes all the major pillars of reading from the National Reading Panel (comprehension, vocabulary, fluency, phonics and phonemic awareness).
District leaders made implementation of the Every Student Reads program a top priority; this was key. Early literacy was one of just five major district goals, called the Palo Alto Promise, and the only goal explicitly focused on student achievement. It has remained one of our top goals for the last three years.
Equally important was our superintendent’s outspoken personal leadership on the issue. He constantly talked about the initiative with parents, teachers and his own leadership team. His community messages included frequent updates throughout the year. And our school board was given formal updates three times a year, including a detailed readout of annual results versus goals. There was no doubt: Every Student Reads was a big deal for Palo Alto Unified.
The results so far have been impressive. Over two years, we’ve seen significant improvement on the state’s CAASPP/Smarter Balanced assessments across all the targeted groups compared with 2019, despite the headwinds from the pandemic. The bellwether low-income Latino third-graders have gone from 20% reading at or above grade level to 47% — one of the top results in the state.
Credit: Todd Collins
Percent of third grade students meeting or exceeding standards on the state’s CAASPP/Smarter Balanced assessments. Statewide results for 2022-23 have not yet been released.
In fact, nearly all groups saw double-digit growth last year. The share of third-grade English learners reclassified to English proficient reached its highest level in at least the last 10 years. And last year’s third graders have held onto their gains in fourth grade.
Credit: Todd Collins
Percent of third-grade students meeting or exceeding standards on the state’s CAASPP / Smarter Balanced assessments. Statewide results for 2022-23 have not yet been released.
Palo Alto is an outlier in some ways, with above average funding and relatively few high-need students (about 17%). But the Every Student Reads approach isn’t just for outliers; it did not rely on big spending or complicated new programs.
Instead, it focused on doing the fundamentals well: an “all-in” commitment, strongly backed by senior leadership, coupled with an array of supports to help teachers build their knowledge and refine their practice in teaching reading. Any district can do what we did.
California faces an early literacy crisis. Just 42% of all third-graders are at grade level for reading. For low-income Black and Latino students, the number plummets to 25%. Our history of struggle in Palo Alto mirrors a broader failure across the state to recognize and address this crisis. While some schools have managed to buck the trend, most face challenges similar to ours.
But we can change this. School boards, superintendents, and district leaders have the power to address this “solvable crisis.” By going “all-in” on early literacy, districts all over California can move the needle for students who rely on school the most. Every Student Reads should be at the top of every California district’s priority list.
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Todd Collins is a member of the Palo Alto Unified School District Board.
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.
Credit: Julie Leopo/EdSource
After years of promoting “local control” in education, the latest news is full of stories on state intervention in decisions being made by local school boards.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has threatened the Temecula Valley school district with fines for exercising its local control. He disagrees with their decisions on curriculum. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond flew to Southern California to stand at the lectern during a Chino Valley Unified School District board meeting and lambasted the members over their policy change strengthening the rights of parents to be involved when their child is facing mental health challenges.
State Attorney General Rob Bonta has even gone so far as to sue Chino Valley Unified for approving the parental notification policy, with the implicit threat this may extend to other districts that have passed or are considering the same policy.
So much for local control.
With all this state-level attention to local school districts, does it surprise anyone that none of that focus has anything to do with actually improving education?
As we’ve seen in headline after headline, actual education in our state is doing nothing but getting worse. By every objective measure, there is — including NAEP scores, SAT/ACT results, and the state’s own CAASPP/SBAC testing system — our education system is doing worse than ever at its core function: educating our kids.
In 2022, according to the Smarter Balanced testing, less than half of our kids (47%) were proficient in English, and a miserable 28% (fewer than one-third of students) were proficient in math.
Results from the statewide CAASPP/Smarter Balanced standardized tests, which are administered to students in grades 3-8 and 11 each spring. No data available for 2020, when testing was suspended due to the Covid pandemic.
Our educational system is clearly failing our kids.
Meanwhile, districts are spending record amounts of money achieving those dismal results. In 2023-24 our state will spend $127.2 billion on K-12 education, more than any year in history.
Since 2012, when California voters approved Proposition 30 to increase taxes on ourselves to “better fund education,” per-student funding has skyrocketed. Based on school district financial data published by Ed-Data, in 2012 the state provided $8,832 per student. In 2022 that number was $18,827.
That means in the last decade, education spending has grown by almost $10,000 per student, which works out to an annual increase rate of 7.86% per year. During that same period, the state reports inflation averaged 2.97% per year. Education funding has risen at a rate over 2½ times faster than inflation.
This doesn’t include one-time Covid mitigation funding, but does include the extraordinary post-Covid increase in tax revenue. This increase is not expected to continue, meaning districts that used that money to increase spending on ongoing expenses (like pay and benefits) will be facing decisions on what to cut from our kids when the expected “fiscal cliff” arrives.
The California Department of Education appears to have stopped reporting class size data in 2019, but as of then, the average class size in the state was about 26 kids; $20,000 times 26 students equals $520,000 per classroom.
Some may think over a half-million dollars a year per classroom should be adequate to provide kids with a good education, but not the education establishment. In a private business, having revenue rising at rates so far above inflation would result in the sound of champagne corks popping. In education, all we hear are continued complaints about “lack of funding.”
To our education leaders, it’s not about how the money is spent, it’s all about insufficient funding. This is said to us by people who clearly benefit personally from those increases in funding.
If we look at pay and benefits for education employees, the graph looks much more like the trend in revenue than the graph of academic performance.
Data for 2022 is not yet complete, but in 2021 according to public pay data collected by Transparent California, the median total compensation for a K-12 administrator was $167,857, and for the certificated group (primarily teachers), $124,513.
Now, as I said in my EdSource article on respect for teachers, I’m very happy we can afford to pay our education professionals well. But are we getting the results we’re paying for?
The failure of education in our state is a crisis. For our kids and for the future of the state. The need for leadership to focus on improvements is clear.
Why, then, is Superintendent Thurmond not showing up at the lectern of board meetings in failing districts and talking about that?
San Diego Unified recently approved a bonus raise for employees adding tens of millions to future deficits. Funding this will require cuts to programs and services for kids. With only 53% of its kids proficient in English and 41% achieving state standards in math, why did Mr. Thurmond not stand up at their meeting and demand they use their funding to improve education, rather than improving their personal bank accounts?
Los Angeles Unified is spending $18 billion dollars, with similar failing results. Why is Gov. Newsom not threatening them with fines, or having Mr. Bonta file lawsuits for misuse of government funds?
Self-serving actions by politicians calculated to appeal to their base rather than improve government services are common in politics. But this is the education of our kids; shouldn’t that be different?
Why do we accept this? Why do “We the People” not stand up and demand action, from both our local district and our state? An entire generation (and perhaps more) of our kids is at stake. Perhaps that should be more important to our state leadership than grandstanding on political issues that play to their base?
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Todd Maddison is the director of research for Transparent California, a founding member of the Parent Association advocacy group in San Diego, and a longtime activist in improving K-12 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.
A teacher helps a student with a math problem.
Credit: Sarah Tully /EdSource
Deep, active learning of mathematics for all students.
We applaud this goal of California’s new math framework, an increasingly urgent priority in our data-rich, technology-enhanced age. However, the framework is only a guideline. Ensuring that schools and classrooms have the resources — including appropriate policies and high-quality teachers — to achieve the goal entails repairing fractures in our education landscape.
Consider high school graduation requirements, which are literally all over the map:
This disarray is possible because California requires just two years of math to graduate from high school. It is one of only three states with such a low requirement. Admission to the state’s public universities, however, requires at least three years of math, preferably four. A majority of districts have set a higher bar that matches or approaches college admission criteria.
But for many California students, the framework’s vision of all students completing three or four years of math remains just that — a vision, not a reality. Too many of them are being left out of the math opportunities that are increasingly important for participating in 21st-century professions and civic life. Research links taking four years of high school math to college access and success. But a quarter of California seniors take no math at all.
The gap in requirements, however, is just one barrier to deep math learning — one that won’t be solved without bridging a second gap, a teacher gap. Doing that demands a commitment from our public universities.
Two decades ago, California State University and University of California teacher preparation programs collectively enrolled more than 38,000 would-be teachers per year. The two systems now produce fewer than 10,000 teachers a year. Teacher preparation enrollments declined by 76% from 2001 to 2014 and have not recovered since.
The Covid-19 pandemic didn’t help keep teachers in math classrooms. In a 2021 national survey of 1,200 school and district leaders, 46% of districts reported shortages of qualified secondary mathematics teachers. In California, nearly half of new math teachers enter the classroom without a credential, according to teacher supply reports.
These shortages fall hardest on poor schools — those serving students with the greatest needs — which have 40% more teachers lacking qualifications than the richest schools do. One of us has witnessed this firsthand as a teacher, coach and professional development leader. In Los Angeles, some schools have few to no permanent mathematics teachers. In one middle school, for example, every math teacher was a long-term substitute. Students had multiple teachers each school year, sometimes for three years in a row. This continual churn of uncertified teachers virtually guarantees that little math will be learned and exerts a devastating impact on students’ preparedness for college,
Confronting the crisis directly means building a teacher pipeline and investing in high-quality, ongoing professional development. A range of strategies would support this goal. They include expanding Golden State teacher fellowships and teacher residences dedicated to science and math teachers. Districts can also consider signing bonuses and retention bonuses for qualified math teachers as well as protection from potential layoffs. Teaching institutes, such as those the state funded in 2001, would also help ensure more and better math instruction.
Instead, the latest contentious debates have focused on narrower issues, often centering on university admission requirements. In 2019, it was CSU’s proposal to add a year of math or quantitative reasoning coursework to admission requirements. It was ultimately shelved.
Then it was the question—raised by an earlier draft of the framework — of middle school math acceleration. Without starting Algebra I in middle school, it is difficult for students to have calculus on their transcripts, which many perceive as a disadvantage in applying to selective universities. However, acceleration policies have traditionally contributed to tracking, in which Black and brown students have been assigned to lower-value math sequences. Vocal San Francisco parents — who objected to San Francisco Unified’s experiment and insisted that students be able to take Algebra I in middle school — are one reason the framework now leaves that decision up to local districts.
A current dispute centers on including options such as statistics and data science — in addition to Algebra II — on the UC system’s list of math courses that fulfill the three-year requirement. After initially supporting expanding options, UC’s admissions board recently reversed itself.
Those are important issues, but the skirmishes detract from more fundamental issues. When students take Algebra I and which math courses they are allowed to take in high school is immaterial if they take only two years of math or if they lack qualified teachers, period. Ultimately, ensuring math opportunity for students means investing in quality teachers. They hold the keys to deeper math learning.
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Kyndall Brown is the executive director of the California Math Project, which is mandated to implement California’s math standards with a focus on supporting low-performing schools.
Pamela Burdman is the executive director of Just Equations, a policy institute that works to rethink the role of math in education equity.
The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the authors. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
From left, President Donald Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Credit: Official White House photo / Molly Riley and AP Photo / Rich Pedroncelli
For all of their differences, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and U.S. President Donald Trump have one thing in common: both are stealing from the future to pay for their budgets.
Trump’s thefts take the form of budget deficits that are financed by issuing U.S. Treasury securities that must be paid back by future budgets, plus interest, with money that future governments won’t be able to use for their own services. His latest budget is expected to add $4 trillion to the national debt.
Newsom’s thefts take the form of drawing from budget reserves that are supposed to be used to provide services during recessions and borrowings from Special Funds that are supposed to provide special services. Newsom has taken so much from budget reserves that his own Department of Finance forecasts the next governor will face his or her first budget without reserves. He also skips or shorts deposits to retirement funds that set aside money for future retirement payments to employees.
How did Trump and Newsom end up with deficits during an economic expansion? The short answer is that Trump cut taxes while Newsom increased spending. Deficits are expected to continue in both Washington, D.C., and Sacramento. To make matters worse, by issuing budget debt during economic expansions, Trump and Newsom set up future governments for a double whammy during recessions when those governments will have to cover Newsom’s and Trump’s thefts, even as their own tax revenues fall.
Another thing Trump and Newsom have in common is throwing people off of Medicaid rolls while throwing money at favored classes. Trump’s latest budget subjects adults to work requirements, reduces funding and adds administrative hurdles, while Newsom’s latest budget imposes asset limits, freezes enrollment of new undocumented adults, and levies new fees on enrollees. Trump’s favored classes are corporations, higher-income taxpayers, tip-based workers and Social Security recipients who got tax cuts, while Newsom’s favored classes are government unions that got more jobs and higher salaries, and entertainment companies that got more corporate welfare.
Trump and Newsom aren’t the only ones budgeting with thefts from the future. In his most recent budget, Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho skipped an annual contribution to a fund set up to cover health care costs for retired employees. You would think he would know better since a principal reason for the deficit he is struggling with is past skips and shorts that have led LAUSD’s annual spending on retirement debt to nearly triple over the last 10 years to nearly $2 billion per year.
Each has their own reasons for their actions — Trump asserts that tax cuts will eventually produce more tax revenues, while Newsom and Carvalho assert that deficit spending is needed now — but all are adding to past thefts that are already robbing citizens of huge levels of resources. The federal government is already spending more every year on interest than the $833 billion it spends on defense; California is already spending as much on bonded and retirement debt than on the $23 billion it sends to the University of California, California State University and California Community Colleges systems combined; and LAUSD is already spending nearly 20% of its revenues on retirement costs.
By their actions, Trump, Newsom and Carvalho have just added to those burdens. Our country desperately needs leaders who care about the future.
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David Crane is a lecturer in public policy at Stanford University and president of Govern for California, a political philanthropy that works to counter special interest influence over California governments.
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.
Credit: AmeriCorps Photos
In the spring of 2020, teachers and administrators managed to re-create school in a home setting in days. It was a Herculean accomplishment that received little praise or recognition. Now, with millions of California students back in school, we are confronting another set of challenges. Many students are struggling academically, psychologically and emotionally, and many teachers and administrators are overwhelmed by the new challenges they face.
Thanks to substantial federal and state funding, our schools are operational again, but the needs persist. We now know that even as we continue rebuilding our education system, we must find ways to address the significant academic and mental health needs of our young people while simultaneously providing educators with the support they need to perform their jobs.
To respond effectively to current challenges, schools in California are in dire need of two valuable resources working in tandem: highly qualified teachers and additional support staff in classrooms. The California Service Corps programs consist of #CaliforniaForAll College Corps, #CaliforniaForAll Youth Jobs Corps, California Climate Action Corps, and AmeriCorps California, including California’s Student Success Coach Learning Network. All together, these programs may be part of the solution to both needs. Together, the programs have recruited thousands of talented and committed individuals who are actively working to provide support to teachers, administrators, and most importantly, our students.
California Service Corps members, including the Student Success Coach Learning Network, provide much-needed resources to vulnerable school communities throughout California. The network was created through funding provided by Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state Legislature in 2022.
Service programs are just one of many solutions needed to address the challenges to our education system, and they have been proven to be effective. These programs improve conditions in schools by providing trained, near-peer coaches (often just a few years older than the students) to California’s school communities to mentor some of our hardest-to-reach students.
Working collaboratively with teachers and administrators, service members are embedded within schools and serve thousands of students across the state. Working closely with teachers and counselors, they help improve academic outcomes, provide critically needed social support to kids, and increase teacher retention by reducing burnout.
Our school communities urgently need this support to continue. California has already established dedicated support for and investment in education-focused service programs. As we move through our third academic year of the “new normal,” we must recommit ourselves to supporting programs that uplift our students and drive teacher success and retention.
In the past three years, we have learned invaluable lessons about the role of service programs in addressing the pandemic’s impact on learning loss and student wellness.
Service members are trusted mentors, tutors and role models for students. They welcome students when they arrive at school, make calls home to check on their well-being, provide one-on-one and small-group interventions to those who need extra support, and facilitate afterschool programs.
In rural communities, these additional coaches are critical, as teachers and administrators are often asked to do more with less. By partnering with school staff to provide vital academic, social, and emotional support, service members improve the conditions in school communities so that teachers can focus on teaching.
Additionally, these service programs offer young adults a valuable introduction to careers in education and are creating a much-needed pipeline into the teaching profession and educational careers. These educators are more diverse than the national teaching force overall and tend to stay in the profession longer than the national average. Equally important, they come into schools prepared for the joys and challenges of the profession, trained in holistic student-centered support, and committed to expanding educational equity.
Like California, we need state and federal leaders to continue investing in education-focused service programs as a permanent part of our education and workforce development infrastructure so we can continue recovering from the catastrophic effects of the March 2020 school closures.
Three years later, we have learned so much. We cannot afford to go back.
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Josh Fryday is the Chief Service Officer of California, serving in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s cabinet, and Pedro Noguera is the Dean of the USC Rossier School of Education.
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.
EdSource’s “Education Beat” podcast highlights stories from our reporters with voices of teachers, parents, and students, bringing listeners the personal stories behind the headlines.
Here are a few of our favorite podcast episodes from 2023. Take a listen:
A Central Valley dad was finally able to return to the U.S., after almost four years separated from his family by a Trump-era immigration policy. His return allows his children to pursue their college dreams.
Inside the first women’s program at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, incarcerated women are working to rebuild their lives by pursuing these higher degrees.
EdSource reporter and Education Beat host Zaidee Stavely visits a school that’s had an uncommonly high degree of success with teaching English learners to read: Frank Sparkes Elementary, in Winton, about 10 miles from Merced, in California’s Central Valley.
A high school drama teacher was removed from the classroom in Temecula Valley Unified, after a parent complained students were reading the Pulitzer-prize-winning play, “Angels in America,” about the AIDS epidemic in New York during the 1980s. It’s the latest in a series of efforts by newly elected conservative school board members to change curriculum in the district.
When Ana Franquis’ family was evicted, they had nowhere to turn. Their local school district helped them out, with food, diapers, even hotel vouchers.
Saxophonist Merryl Goldberg traveled to the Soviet Union in 1985 to meet up with another group of musicians, The Phantom Orchestra, and bring back information, including the names of people who wanted to escape the Soviet Union.
To do this, Merryl made up a secret code, hidden in sheet music.
At El Cerrito High School, in West Contra Costa Unified, students produce and host their own radio shows. Some DJ their own music shows, while others host talk radio programs, with topics ranging from political affairs to chess to dating advice. There’s even an old-time radio drama, based on original scripts from the 1950s.
Have you ever thought about launching into space? One West Contra Costa Unified science teacher has done more than think about it. He’s preparing to become an astronaut.
A school lunch lady’s response after the Oklahoma City bombing sparked a new understanding of how teachers and school staff can help students recover from traumatic events, from wildfires and floods to school shootings.
In Selma Unified School District in the Central Valley, two therapy dogs are helping destigmatize mental health services. Jeter and Scout help identify students who need help, and they give students a soft, cuddly entry to therapy.
The German data company Datapulse released a report showing the vast and growing power of billionaires in the U.S. The report confirms your and my suspicions about the rigging of our economy and our politics. Surely it’s no surprise that Trump’s Cabinet is packed with billionaires. Guess who they are looking out for? Not you.
They cheered on Elon Musk’s ignominious DOGS as they slashed vital government programs. They didn’t complain when Musk closed USAID, causing the ultimate deaths of millions of children and parents because of the halt in US food, medicine and health clinics.
They are thrilled to see Trump send in the troops to halt protests against ICE tactics.
A democracy is supposed to be of the people, for the people, by the people. We are rapidly devolving into an autocratic regime where the rich run the show.
Here is what Datapulse found:
The report, “The Rich Aren’t Just Getting Richer—They’re Running the Show” moves beyond familiar headlines to provide fresh, specific data points on wealth, power, and policy.
Key findings include:
The full study with all 10 interactive charts is available here:
https://www.datapulse.de/en/billionaires-usa/
This data provides a new lens through which to view the intersection of wealth and power in America.
The report was compiled by Datapulse.
https://www.datapulse.de/en/
(+49) 30-75437064
2024 Student Voices Arts Advocacy Day at Cal Arts
Credit: Las Fotos Photography
Middle school students eagerly swiping paintbrushes across canvases, a group of fifth graders rehearsing lines from their upcoming play, and a first-time high school cello player thrilled to be part of the orchestra — all beaming with confidence, excited to attend school, and developing critical life and career skills.
These are scenes that California voters, who overwhelmingly passed Proposition 28 in 2022, expect in every school. Ensuring every student benefits from the power of the arts is why I joined Create CA, the arts education advocacy organization, as executive director six months ago. I firmly believe, and research has shown, that the arts are critical for a well-rounded education and student success.
Unfortunately, student access to the arts is inequitable and often depends on the unpredictability of local fundraising, community advocacy and school districts prioritizing the arts. Voters passed Proposition 28 to address these challenges.
The promise of Proposition 28 is increased access to the arts for all California public school students by providing dedicated, ongoing funding to expand the number of arts education teachers. Regrettably, we’ve heard that some districts are not complying with the law and the voters’ mandate to use the new funds to supplement (i.e., expand), not supplant (i.e., replace), their existing arts education funding.
Californians voted for more arts education for all students, not the status quo. Create CA has been in touch with school leaders, teachers, parents and students who have shared examples of success, which we celebrate. In contrast, others have disclosed suspected violations in their respective school districts.
Districts meeting the promise of Proposition 28 have several things in common: a dedicated district arts education coordinator, an arts education strategic plan developed with community input, and a Proposition 28 report (mandated by the law) that clearly describes how their school district used the new funds to expand arts education. A great example is San Gabriel Unified, which outlines in its Proposition 28 report the hiring of two new art teachers, more dance and theater instruction at its elementary schools, and other investments that further its arts strategic plan.
Another exemplary model is the Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD). The district formed a committee and implemented a plan that included creating job descriptions, arts curriculum planning, coaching and a Proposition 28 communication strategy. The result is that Long Beach hired itinerant teachers from all arts disciplines across its 35 elementary schools and added nine middle school positions and six high school positions. Because of these measures, every student will have access to the arts from K-12th grades, as the proposition intended.
On the other hand, some communities suspect their districts are willfully violating Proposition 28’s intention. Parents, unions and the author of the proposition are suing the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) for eliminating existing funding for the arts and replacing it with Proposition 28 funds. We’ve spoken with teachers at Chula Vista Elementary School District who allege that the district intended to fire arts education teachers with the plan of rehiring them with Proposition 28 funds, skirting the law’s intention. In Hayward Unified, one teacher noted that “5.8 positions currently funded from Proposition 28 are being cut.” One of Create CA’s student advocates wrote a story on South Pasadena Unified’s plan to move funding for their elementary visual arts and music teachers from a “temporary funding source to this Prop 28 restricted permanent resource.” These examples demonstrate that school districts statewide may be denying students the right to more arts education as voters demanded.
We know schools face multiple challenges, but students deserve better. Arts education can help schools meet many of their challenges and help save money by reducing dropout rates, increasing attendance, attracting more community support and improving academics and mental health. All school districts should follow the law of Proposition 28 to ensure all their students have access to all the arts, all year. It’s every student’s right.
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Veronica Alvarez, EdD, is Executive director of Create CA, a nonprofit that advocates for high quality arts education for all students.
The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
Students at Copper Island Academy in Michigan engage in unstructured play during frequent outdoor breaks.
Credit: Courtesy of Timothy Walker / Copper Island Academy
A flush of anger had spread across my fifth-grader’s forehead. I had never seen a student more upset in my classroom, and it was all my fault. During my first week of teaching in Finland, I had withheld recess — not just from this one fifth-grader, but from all my students.
Elementary school teachers in Finland typically incorporate a 15-minute break into every hour-long lesson. Many times each day, their students head to the playground and engage in free play after 45 minutes of classroom instruction. Coming from the United States, I questioned this model.
I firmly believed my fifth-graders would thrive on longer stretches in the classroom. Instead of teaching in 45-minute chunks, I taught 90-minute double lessons followed by 30-minute breaks as often as possible. (Finnish law allows for this kind of scheduling, but it is far from the norm.)
On the third day of school, just an hour into a 90-minute lesson, I saw that my go-to strategy of delaying breaks had failed. Miserably.
“I think I’m going to explode!” my fifth-grader had said to me. “I’m not used to this schedule.”
This awkward confrontation became a turning point in my teaching career. Until then, I had paid little attention to the importance of unstructured breaks. Research, however, has demonstrated many benefits of school recess.
Over the last decade, a growing list of U.S. states — including Missouri, Florida and New Jersey — have mandated daily recess. California joined the trend in late 2023.
Starting with the 2024-2025 school year, all K-8 students in Golden State public schools will receive at least 30 minutes of daily outdoor recess (air quality and weather permitting). Not only that, but the recess law also bans the harmful practice of withholding recess for disciplinary reasons.
California’s new law is a welcome change that expands access to daily recess, but there’s a critical omission. The law does not mandate public schools to offer multiple breaks during the school day. Most U.S. elementary schools (83%) provide daily recess, but only a relative few (21%) offer two periods of daily recess. (Arizona requires its schools to give two periods of daily recess to K-5 students, but unlike California, it fails to specify the duration).
“Increasing recess frequency offers a cost-effective, accessible and sustainable opportunity to improve children’s health on a population level,” U.S. researchers wrote in an article published this year.
Under its new recess law, California schools can easily perpetuate the status quo, offering just a single 30-minute daily break. One recess is better than nothing, but I learned firsthand in Finland that keeping kids cooped up in the classroom for hours is a mistake.
After my fifth-grader confronted me, I quickly embraced the Finnish approach to breaks. And it paid off. Following a 15-minute recess, my fifth-graders would return to the classroom looking refreshed. They seemed much more engaged and focused during lessons, too.
At my former U.S. school, many of my students — after spending hours inside our classroom — used to struggle with behavior and attention issues. Especially in the afternoon. Back then, I often turned to energizers (i.e., brief songs, poems and games) in an effort to reinvigorate my students. These teacher-directed breaks could make hours in the classroom feel more tolerable, but they were only minimally effective. More than anything else, my American students needed more opportunities for unstructured play breaks (ideally outdoors).
Decades ago, educational researcher Anthony Pellegrini conducted experiments at a U.S. elementary school and witnessed what I observed at my Finnish school: Students were more focused after a break than before one. When Pellegrini described his research to his 10-year-old daughter, she responded, “Well, duh.”
Delaying recess — what I did initially at my Finnish school — flies in the face of neuroscience. “People who take regular breaks, and naps even, end up being more productive and more creative in their work,” Daniel Levitin, an American-Canadian neuroscientist, said in a public radio interview. “You need to give your brain time to consolidate all the information that’s come in, to toss it and turn it.”
Implementing a Finnish-inspired schedule may seem like a far-fetched idea for American schools, but it’s already happening in the United States. I now work with a Michigan school that borrows best practices from Finland’s educational model, including its approach to scheduling.
Copper Island Academy, a K-8 charter school, provides students with multiple outdoor breaks each day. Teachers supervise the students on the playground while giving them significant autonomy. Students can freely run up the slide, build forts in the woods and climb trees.
It’s a bold strategy, especially in the Wolverine State. Like most states, Michigan does not require recess, and approximately 1 in 5 elementary school students receive less than 20 minutes of it daily (despite a state Board of Education recommendation to incorporate this amount).
When I visited Copper Island, a few teachers told me they were initially skeptical of the unstructured breaks. “I wondered what fifth-graders would do out on the playground,” fifth-grade teacher Leslie Fischer told me, “but I’ve been really amazed and impressed that it’s been so healthy for them.”
Kevin Boyd — the middle school social studies teacher — has observed an increase in student engagement. “Boredom is not an issue at [Copper Island],” he said in an email, “and I attribute this to the Brain Breaks.”
The nationwide movement to mandate recess makes sense, but it’s just the first step. U.S. elementary school students need more than just one play break each day.
It is time for all American schools to align recess frequency with the science of learning. California can help lead the way.
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Timothy Walker is an American teacher and author living in Espoo, Finland. He is the author of “Teach Like Finland: 33 Simple Strategies for Joyful Classrooms,” and a consultant with Copper Island Academy, a Finnish-inspired charter school in Calumet, Michigan.
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