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  • Over $45 billion in local bonds coming to schools, community colleges

    Over $45 billion in local bonds coming to schools, community colleges


    A San Jose Unified teacher attends a rally Oct. 9 to promote candidates and a school bond measure that includes funding for staff housing.

    Credit: Photo courtesy of California Teachers Union

    This past November, hundreds of California school districts pursued local bond dollars to fix or update campuses across their communities. 

    Voters passed 205 of 267 proposed local construction bonds on the Nov. 5 ballot, including 14 of 15 for community colleges. Along with the largest number of bonds, the 77% passage rate was just shy of the historic approval rate of 79% since 2000, said Michael Coleman, founder of CaliforniaCityFinance.com, who compiled the voting results.

    That was the year voters lowered the threshold for passing school bonds from a two-thirds majority to 55%.

    Voters in major urban areas were the most receptive to bond proposals, including Los Angeles Unified (LAUSD), whose $9 billion bond was by far the biggest on the ballot; $1.15 billion in San Jose Unified, which included money to underwrite staff housing; and $790 million in San Francisco Unified. San Diego Community College District’s $3.5 billion bond proposal was the largest community college measure.

    The bond in Earlimart Elementary in Tulare County passed with the state’s highest approval of 81.6%. But in the if-only-we-had-knocked-on-more-doors category, bonds in Kingsburg Union High School District, spanning three Central Valley counties, and Elverta Joint Elementary District in Sacramento County, lost by only three votes, and in Weed Union School District, in Siskiyou County, by four votes. 

    Across the Central San Joaquin Valley, stretching from San Joaquin and Calaveras counties to Kern County, more than 40 measures were approved. 

    Enrollment is growing in some parts of the region, so voters decided on multimillion dollar measures to meet the demand, such as Clovis Unified’s $400 million bond and Sanger Unified’s $175 million measure. In both districts, 57.6% of voters said yes to meet the needs of their growing communities. 

    “We have emphasized that this bond measure is critical to keeping our schools in the great shape they are in today and to finishing the much-needed Clovis South High School,” Clovis Unified Superintendent Corrine Folmer said when voting results showed that the district’s bond measure had secured a win.

    Clovis and Sanger Unified listed finishing construction at their high schools as priorities. Estimating its student population doubling in the next 10 to 20 years, Sanger Unified is also looking to build a new elementary school to alleviate overcrowding. 

    Other school communities in the Central Valley and up and down the state approved bond money to address the deteriorating condition of aging facilities. For instance, in Fresno Unified, 64.5% of voters said yes to a $500 million bond — the largest in district history.

    In the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area, all districts but one, Vacaville Unified, passed bond measures. In Los Angeles County, only Saugus Union School District’s bond failed. In Orange County, all transitional kindergarten to grade 12 school district bond measures passed, but voters nixed Rancho Santiago Community College District’s bond.

    However, voters in many predominantly rural and low-property-wealth districts, from Humboldt County in the north to Imperial County in the south, voted down bonds that would have raised taxes. This included eight small districts in San Diego County and Del Norte Unified in Del Norte County. In October, EdSource highlighted Del Norte’s struggle with mold-infested, leaky portables and hazardous playgrounds in a roundtable on Proposition 2, a statewide school construction bond that voters passed.

    “Our one-district county is strained by a lack of economy, and the community is struggling with high tax rates. This wasn’t a lack of desire for our youth, but one based on meeting basic needs for household necessities,” said Brie Fraley, a parent of four boys and active bond supporter. “The structure of bonds in California doesn’t help the neediest communities.” 

    Nearly all parcel taxes pass

    Along with construction bonds, 26 school districts placed annual parcel taxes on the ballot, and 24 passed. Parcel taxes are also property taxes, but they must be a uniform amount per property in a district — whether it’s assessed for a run-down home or a five-star hotel. Although it requires a two-thirds majority vote for approval, 92% of the parcel taxes passed in November; 17 of those renewed existing taxes. 

    Particularly popular in the Bay Area and coastal Los Angeles County, they ranged from $647 per parcel in Lakeside Union School District, a small rural district lying in both Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties, and $369 per parcel in Woodside Elementary, near Palo Alto, to $59 per parcel in both Sunnyvale School District and Ventura Unified. 





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  • Academic gaps ‘allowed to linger’ among California’s Black students over past decade, report says

    Academic gaps ‘allowed to linger’ among California’s Black students over past decade, report says


    Aleka Jackson-Jarrell, coordinator of the Heritage Program at Adelanto High in California’s High Desert, regularly meets with Black students to make sure they stay on track to graduate and meet A-G requirements that enable them to apply to a public university.

    Emma Gallegos/EdSource

    In the areas of chronic absenteeism, suspension and reading proficiency, the rates for Black students in California remain largely the same as they were a decade ago. That is the focus of a new report, Black Minds Matter 2025, which provides new insight and recommendations on education for Black students in California a decade after the first iteration of the report was published by Education Trust-West.

    “This report really meets the moment that we’re in when we’re seeing so many cuts to education funding and programs that are inevitably going to impact Black students,” said Melissa Valenzuela-Stookey, director of research at the prominent nonprofit behind the report that advocates for equity in education.

    Ten years ago, Black students were nearly three times more likely than white students to be suspended, and while suspension rates among Black students have since declined from 14% to 9%, the rate is still three times higher than white students, according to data from the California Department of Education included in the report. The chronic absenteeism rates are similar: in 2016-17, Black students had the second-highest rate of chronic absenteeism of any student group, just under Native American students — a statistic that remained the same in 2023-24.

    “None of the opportunity gaps or outcome gaps explored in this report are new — all have been allowed to linger over the past decade,” concluded the report authors.

    Black students represent about 5% of California’s student population from transitional kindergarten to 12th grade. That totals about 287,400 students, with about a third of them living in Los Angeles County, per 2023-24 state data. About 150,000 Black students are enrolled at institutions of higher education, both public and private.

    “We constantly have in the front of our minds that there are students and families and communities behind every single data point,” said Valenzuela-Stookey. “For that reason, it felt really important to not mince words and just bring to bear the information that we have about what conditions students and families are facing and are up against; despite the fact that they enter those systems with really ambitious aspirations, something is pushing against them, and that something is systemic.”

    The “ambitious aspirations” Valenzuela-Stookey mentioned refers to a finding by The United Negro College Fund in which 9 in 10 Black students agreed that earning a college degree is important, plus additional studies that found Black parents “are highly engaged and invested in their children’s educations, particularly in the early years,” per the report.

    The report, published Thursday, highlights multiple key findings, including:

    • The percentage of Black students in California at grade level in math increased from 16% to 18% in the decade since 2015-16 but has remained the lowest of all student groups
    • The gap between California’s Black and white students who have met or exceeded the state’s reading proficiency exams, known as California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress, has not changed significantly since 1998
    • Three in 4 Black students are socioeconomically disadvantaged, which is 13 percentage points higher than the statewide average
    • The rate of Black students completing A-G course sequences in high school, which are required to attend the University of California and California State University systems, has increased by just 4 percentage points in the last decade
    • While the number of Black children enrolled in transitional kindergarten more than doubled from 2021 to 2023-24, the rate still makes up less than half of the number of Black 4-year-olds who are eligible to enroll
    • Black elementary school students report feeling sadness more frequently than any other student group
    • The number of Black teachers remained disproportionately lower than the share of Black students statewide; just over a quarter of school districts employ Black teachers at a rate proportionate to their Black student population
    • The rate at which Black students participate in dual enrollment increased by only 6 percentage points in the last seven school years, from about 11% to nearly 17%, while other student groups increased between 8 and 14 percentage points
    • Black college students in California face the highest rates of food and housing insecurity

    “This status quo is not an accident — it is the consequence of systems designed to produce unequal outcomes operating largely unchecked for centuries,” the report’s authors wrote. “It is also the consequence of incremental changes made in place of what’s called for: much more fundamental transformation.”

    A deeper look into some of the data cited in the report reveals alarming trends. For example, dual enrollment rates increased among all student racial groups between 2015-16 and 2021-22, per an analysis of state data by Policy Analysis for California Education, but Black students recorded the lowest rate of growth — at nearly 17% in 2021-22, just under the rate of dual enrollment participation for Asian students in 2015-16.

    Also, according to data from the California Community Colleges, within their first year in community college, Black students were completing and passing transfer-level coursework at a rate lower than their peers, with a difference of 30 percentage points between Asian students at 77% and Black students at 47%.

    While the report’s authors acknowledged the pandemic exacerbated some of the academic gaps, many existed long before Covid lockdowns began, and the data included in the report reflected that longevity. “It was really important for us to make sure that people had a long view of how entrenched these systemic inequities are because the solutions to them should follow from how long they’ve been baked into our systems,” said Valenzuela-Stookey.

    In addition to sharing the stark disparities, the report’s authors highlighted a handful of programs and initiatives they believe are working to close the gaps.

    These include a teacher residency program called The Village Initiative and created in collaboration with the Watts of Power Foundation; Los Angeles Unified School District; and California State University, Dominguez Hills. Fifteen Black male teachers were part of the program in 2023, and the partnership estimates they will place 113 fully credentialed, Black teachers in school over the next decade.

    Farther north, at Berkeley High School, the campus’ African American Studies Department is credited for the high rate of graduating within four years among the Black student population, at nearly 95% in the latest school year, compared to the statewide average of just over 86%.

    One of the overarching recommendations proposed by the authors was the creation of a Commission on Black Education Transformation, made up in part by Black students, parents and educators. This would be a standing state commission with the authority to make actionable decisions, including the allocation of resources to ensure follow-through from state and local agencies on policies related to academic progress for Black students.

    Other recommendations include:

    • Mandating that all high schools incorporate the 15-course A-G curriculum required for eligibility to the UC and CSU systems
    • Increasing award amounts for the existing Cal Grant program to aid students with non-tuition costs
    • Prioritizing the hiring and retention of Black educators in both TK-12 and higher education
    • Expanding pandemic-era supports, such as before- and after-school programming and academic tutoring
    • Requiring that all school staff receive training to end the disproportionate impact on Black students of punitive disciplinary practices
    • Modifying the state’s Local Control Funding Formula to target funds based on an index of metrics such as levels of adult educational attainment and homeownership rates
    • Instructing school districts to report “evidence-based strategies” aimed at supporting Black students in their Local Control and Accountability Plans

    Valenzuela-Stookey noted that her team sees both the progress and persistent gaps over the last decade “as a reminder that policy change is just the first step in closing a lot of these opportunity gaps that are highlighted in the report, and implementation and on-the-ground practice work is really the necessary next step if any of that is to come to fruition.”





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  • Department of Homeland Security Demands Harvard Turn Over International Student Disciplinary Records

    Department of Homeland Security Demands Harvard Turn Over International Student Disciplinary Records


    CNN reports that Kristi Noem sent a stern letter to Harvard, demanding the disciplinary records of all international students or lose the right to enroll any international students.

    Trump is turning all his dogs loose on Harvard. He can’t believe Harvard is standing up to his threats, and he is determined to crush the nation’s most prestigious research university.

    Whatever happened to small government? Republicans used to believe that the federal government should leave the private sector alone. Trump believes in big government, big enough to interfere in every institution, even into private medical decisions. He wants to be the emperor.

    Clearly, he never read the U.S. Constitution. He knows nothing about checks and balances. Nor did he read Dr. Seuss’s Yertle the Turtle; Yertle wanted to be the master of all he could see. Read it to see what happened to him.

    CNN reports:

    Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is threatening to strip Harvard University of its ability to enroll international students if it doesn’t turn over records on international students’ “illegal and violent activities,” the agency said Wednesday.

    Noem “wrote a scathing letter demanding detailed records on Harvard’s foreign student visa holders’ illegal and violent activities by April 30, 2025, or face immediate loss of Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification,” DHS said in a news release.

    The certification allows universities to issue forms to admitted international students that they can then use to apply for visas to enter the United States, according to DHS.

    CNN has reached out to DHS for additional information.

    A Harvard spokesperson said in a statement that the university is aware of the letter, but they stand by their previous statement that they “will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”



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  • How to describe middling and poor test scores? State Board frets over the right words

    How to describe middling and poor test scores? State Board frets over the right words


    Students in a Fresno Unified classroom.

    Credit: Fresno Unified / Flickr

    Ending several months of uncertainty, the California State Board of Education on Wednesday chose new labels to describe how students perform on the four levels of achievement on its standardized tests.

    The decision was difficult. The 90 minutes of presentations and discussions offered lessons in the subtleties of language and the inferences of words.

    Board members said they were aware of the need to send the right messages to many parents, who had criticized the California Department of Education’s previous choices for labeling low test scores as vague euphemisms for bad news. 

    “Labels matter,” said board member Francisco Escobedo, executive director of the National Center for Urban Transformation at San Diego State. “Knowledge is a continuum, and how we describe students in different levels has a powerful impact.”’

    Researchers have warned that parents are getting confusing messages, with inflated grades on courses and declining scores on standardized tests of how well their children are doing in recovering from Covid setbacks in learning. The new labels will apply to scoring levels for the state science assessments and for the Smarter Balanced English language arts and math tests.

    Board members quickly agreed on “Advanced” for Level 4 and “Proficient” for Level 3 labels, the top two levels of scores. But their selection of “Developing” for Level 2 and “Minimal” for Level 1 differed from the consensus of parents, students and teachers who had been offered various options during focus groups in December and January.

    They had preferred “Basic” for Level 2 and “Below Basic” for Level 1.  The terms are clear, simple and familiar, a summary of the discussions said. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) classifies Basic as the lowest of its three levels, and California’s old state tests, which the state abandoned a decade ago to switch to Smarter Balanced, used Basic and Below Basic for scoring criteria as well.

    But for some veteran educators on the board, familiarity has bred contempt, or at least bad memories, of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the federal law under the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Schools were under heavy pressure to increase their math and English language arts scores, or potentially face sanctions.

    “I had a visceral reaction to the word Basic,” said board member and veteran teacher Haydee Rodriguez. “I remember NCLB and how finite that felt for students.” The feedback should be encouraging, not a label that discourages growth, as Basic did under NCLB, she said.

    She and Kim Patillo Brownson, a parent of two teenagers who served as a policy director at the Advancement Project, a civil rights organization, also pointed out that “basic” has a different connotation for students in 2025. It’s slang for a boring and uninteresting person.  

    “Calling a student Basic is an absolute insult in 2025,” said Rodriguez. “It could shut a child down.”

    Board President Linda Darling-Hammond agreed. “If Basic is being used derogatorily, one can only imagine how Below Basic will be used. It is a real consideration; the meaning is different for adults.”

    Board members turned to other words that had been presented to the focus groups. They agreed the choices should be frank, not Pollyannaish or dispiriting.

    With Level 2, the purpose should be “trying to light a fire under parents to realize there is work to do,” said Patillo Brownson.

    Stating that “Below Basic” says a student is failing, Escobedo preferred “Developing” for Level 1 and “Emerging” for Level 2. These terms are consistent with labels used for scoring the progress of English learners.

    Patillo Brownson called Emerging “vague” and supported “Basic.”

    Board Vice President Cynthia Glover Woods, who was chief academic officer of the Riverside County Office of Education before her retirement, favored “Minimum” for Level 1 because “it is important we are clear for students and parents that students scoring at the level have a minimal understanding of grade-level knowledge.”

    Sharing the perspective of her peers, the student board member on the board, Julia Clauson, a senior at Bella Vista High School in Sacramento, recommended substituting “Approaching” for “Basic,” so as not to deter students from trying challenging courses. “Older students make academic decisions (based on what signals they get), so language matters,” she said.

    The County Superintendents association also endorsed “Approaching” for Level 2 and “Developing” or “Emerging” for Level 1.

    The board initiated what turned into a multi-month decision because of growing dissatisfaction with the labels that had been used since the first Smarter Balanced testing in 2015. They were Standard Not Met for Level 1, Standard Nearly Met for Level 2, Standard Met for Level 3 and Standard Exceeded for Level 4. Focus groups by the California Department of Education found that parents were confused about what “standard” meant. They found Standard Not Met as discouraging and Standard Nearly Met as unclear.

    But a coalition of student advocacy groups, including Teach Plus, Children Now and Innovate Public Schools, along with the County Superintendents association and the Association of California School Administrators, criticized the labels for Levels 1 and 2 that the California Department of Education recommended as their replacements as soft-pedaling euphemisms for poor scorers. The department had proposed Inconsistent for Level 1 and Foundational for Level 2.

    At its December meeting, the board told the department to try again with more focus groups.

    Changing the labels to Advanced, Proficient, Developing and Minimal won’t change how scores are determined; the individual scores within each achievement band have remained the same in all the 18 member states that take all or some of the Smarter Balanced tests, which are given to students in grades three through eight and once in high school, usually in 11th grade.

    However, additional work is needed to communicate the changes to parents and students. The department and its testing contractor, ETS, will spell out the differences between performing at the various levels in each subject and grade and the level of improvement needed to raise scores.

    Tony Alpert, executive director of Smarter Balanced, pointed out that performance differences are a continuum with students showing gaps in some grade-level skills but not others. A student scoring at Level 1 may have answered some questions showing knowledge at grade level. As scores progress from Levels 2 to 4, students demonstrate increasing accuracy and complexity in their knowledge and skills.

    Students who reach Level 3 have the knowledge to succeed in future coursework. Research has determined that for California high school students, Level 3 correlates with preparation for first-year courses at California State University.

    The state board hoped that the label changes and new explanations would be ready for this spring’s testing results. Instead, they will take effect in 2026.





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