Chico State University followed proper procedures in how it handled the sex investigation of suspended professor David Stachura and its lengthy aftermath, including not informing faculty and students that Stachura allegedly threatened gun violence on campus, an independent investigation has found.
The 20-page report by San Diego lawyer Nancy Aeling was released late Monday afternoon by the university, nearly a year after EdSource first reported on findings that Stachura had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a student and allegedly threatened to shoot two colleagues who cooperated in an investigation of the matter, and was later named the university’s Outstanding Professor of the 2020-21 school year.
“The university acted consistently with policy by not notifying the Chico State community of Stachura’s alleged threats of violence,” Aeling wrote. Stachura, according to court testimony by his estranged wife, had told her of his intent to kill two professors who cooperated in the 2021 investigation that found he had an inappropriate relationship, which included sex in his office, with a student. Separately, a biology lecturer revealed — and later testified — that Stachura spoke to her about committing a shooting in the biology department.
Aeling did not respond to a phone message left at her office on Monday.
The report was also not critical of the university’s Campus Violence Consultation Team, which recommended that Stachura be allowed to return to campus after investigating the alleged threats against his colleagues and “did not find that he posed a threat of violence.”
A member of that team, Chico State Police Chief Christopher Nicodemus, testified in a court proceeding earlier this year that he did not agree with the team’s findings.
“There were concerns” about Stachura, Nicodemus said on the stand in a legal proceeding that resulted in a judge issuing a three-year workplace violence restraining order against Stachura that bars him from going on campus or near the people he threatened.
Nicodemus said on the stand that he believed “it’s safer to err on the side of caution” when making a threat assessment. He added that it would have been better to have mistakenly fired Stachura than live with the aftermath of a violent event.
Aeling wrote in the report that she did not consider “the appropriateness of Stachura’s actions or communications with his colleagues nor his colleagues’ responses to Stachura and his continued presence on campus, or the overall effectiveness of the procedures or policies in place to address the situation presented by (his) actions or communications.” Rather, the report was limited to “whether (the) responses were reasonable given the information available at the time and were consistent with the policies and procedures governing them.” The report makes no policy recommendations.
A faculty union officer ripped the report Monday night.
“It’s absolutely demoralizing and heartbreaking that no one has taken any accountability for what has happened,’’ Lindsay Briggs, a public health professor and a California Faculty Association Chico Campus Executive Board member, wrote in an email to EdSource.
“This is why survivors of violence don’t speak out and why we don’t feel safe at our jobs; because we’re not. No one cares to do anything other than offer empty platitudes.” Eleven “months of hand wringing and we’re no better off than we were before,” she said.
Gordon Wolfe, a professor who turned over court records about Stachura’s alleged threat to kill witnesses, said in a phone interview Monday evening that he received an email from Chico State saying that Aeling wanted to interview him, but that “she never followed up.”
Stachura remains on administrative leave as the university finishes an investigation of his alleged threat to kill witnesses in the sex case. He was recently ordered by a judge to pay more than $64,000 for the legal fees of a lecturer he unsuccessfully sued for libel. His lawyer did not respond to a request to comment on Aeling’s report.
In a prepared statement that accompanied the report’s release, Chico State President Stephen Perez said, “I appreciate the thorough review and the opportunity to consider our practices moving forward.”
Without mentioning her by name, the report found that former Chico State President Gayle Hutchinson considered the sex case against Stachura as well as the alleged threats he made when approving “Stachura’s promotion to” full professor in 2021. Hutchinson found him “to be a highly productive citizen of the academy, with a strong record of teaching, service and research,” the report states.
Hutchinson retired in June. She could not be immediately reached Monday night.
Tom Boroujeni, Fresno City College academic senate president.
Credit: Mark Tabay / Fresno City College
The State Center Community College District placed Fresno City College instructor and president of the school’s Academic Senate, Tom Boroujeni, on administrative leave late Thursday, district officials said in a statement.
District officials cited no specific reason for the action. It takes effect immediately.
The move came one day after EdSoruce reported that in 2021 Fresno State University determined that in 2015, Boroujeni “committed an act of sexual violence” against a professor who also teaches part-time at Fresno City College. He denies committing the act.
Chancellor Carol Goldsmith did not respond to messages Thursday night.
Boroujeni did not respond to messages following the district’s brief announcement.
In a message to the City College campus community Thursday, President Robert Pimentel wrote that “investigative action” was being taken, and that “the college takes allegations of this nature very seriously.” He did not explain the specific allegations.
Boroujeni, 38, of Clovis, is also known as Farrokh Eizadiboroujeni and Tom Eizadi, documents show. He has taught at Fresno City College since 2015, the same year he began his academic career at Fresno State while still a graduate student.
Earlier Thursday, three female instructors in the communication department at Fresno City College refused to teach their classes, citing the EdSource report.
Tiffany Sarkisian, the college’s program-review coordinator and a communication arts instructor, told the administration and her students that she and others decided to stay off campus in an effort to advocate for a safe teaching, learning and working environment.
“The environment at FCC (Fresno City College) grows more toxic and unsafe by the day, especially as an abuser has been – and continues to be – protected by various campus leaders,” she emailed college administrators.
Late Thursday, after learning the district put Boroujeni on administrative leave, Sarkisian said the college’s decision was appropriate.
“It provides a space where other parties can feel safe to actually do the job of teaching and learning,” she said, but the paid administrative leave is “essentially rewarding (him) for behaving badly.”
She added that the college had deeper problems than Boroujeni. “It’s not just this individual being a bad actor; it’s institutionalized practices and structures that allowed this to continue for so long.”
“This (was) another example of an institution protecting the abuser and not the victim,” she told EdSource. “What happened on our campus should not have happened, and there should have been other structures in place.”
Boroujeni told EdSource in an interview that he also faces complaints from three female employees of the college for what he described as gender discrimination.
He was also reprimanded last year by Cyndie Luna, dean of the school’s Fine, Performing and Communication Arts Division, for unprofessional conduct that included allegedly referring to a colleague with an apparent racial slur and threatening “to get” the colleague, according to a copy of the reprimand letter EdSource obtained. Boroujeni claimed Luna fabricated the slur and threat she attributed to him, adding, she “makes things up all the time.”
He also claimed that a Fresno State professor was lying when she told an investigator that she did not consent to sex with Boroujeni in her apartment on June 21, 2015, and that he “pinned down her upper region” and that she “zoned out” during what followed.
EdSource does not identify victims of sexual abuse or violence. The woman declined to be interviewed.
Boroujeni told EdSource the woman made up the assault allegation in retribution for a sexual harassment allegation he brought against her, claiming she seduced him into a relationship he didn’t want but entered into out of fear that she would undermine his ability to earn a master’s degree and become a Fresno State instructor.
That claim, which Bouroujeni linked to his removal in 2020 as coach of the school’s nationally prominent debate team, was dismissed by a university investigator.
It was during the probe of his claim that the alleged victim told the investigator about what happened at her apartment on June 21, 2015. The investigator determined she was credible and found that Boroujeni committed what Fresno State has called “an act of sexual violence.”
The university couldn’t discipline him because he was a graduate student when the alleged violence occurred. Boroujeni resigned from Fresno State last year after officials said a report on the matter would be placed in his personnel file when he was up for a performance review.
In his resignation, he agreed to not seek or accept work in the California State University system again.
But the matter had no immediate impact on his teaching a few miles away at Fresno City College, where the victim teaches part-time in addition to her tenured position at Fresno State.
A State Center Community College District document obtained by EdSource shows that “in August 2021, (the victim) sought a ‘no contact order’ from Fresno City College against Tom Boroujeni… as a result of a sexual misconduct investigation at CSU Fresno.” The ‘no contact order’ was granted, the document, titled an “Administrative Determination,” states.
The district granted Boroujeni tenure in March. He assumed the academic senate presidency in May, after a two-year term as president elect.
Jill Wagner, spokesperson for SCCCD, told EdSource that Boroujeni’s tenure committee “considered multiple factors in favor of granting tenure, and areas of concern were not identified” at the time of the review. Asked if the committee that considered Boroujeni’s tenure had access to or was of the district’s administrative determination which confirmed Fresno State’s finding that an act of sexual violence had occurred, Wagner did not respond directly, writing instead that the district followed state law and the district’s union contract, “which prescribes what information can be included in tenure review.”
Boroujeni told Edsource that he “got tenured with the district’s knowledge of everything that had happened.”
Wards at N.A. Chaderjian Youth Correctional Facility talk at a table in Merced Hall in Stockton, Calif.
Credit: Lea Suzuki / San Francisco Chronicle / Polaris
California is failing to provide a high-quality education to students in the juvenile justice system by not addressing the inadequacies of academic data collection practices, according to a recent report from the national Youth Law Center. Current collection practices, the report authors argue, do not accurately measure student needs and outcomes.
“A failure to design better metrics would be a disastrous choice on the part of California stakeholders to keep these students out of sight and out of mind,” the report’s authors wrote.
The report, “Out of Sight, Out of Mind,” is a follow-up to a 2016 report that similarly found the state to be failing in its mission of providing students in juvenile detention with high-quality education via its disproportionate representation of multiple student populations, high rates of chronic absenteeism, low high school graduation rates, inaccurate or incomplete data, and more.
The most recent report highlighted data from two school years — 2018-19 and 2021-22 — using publicly available data from the California Department of Education as well as public records requests sent to 10 county offices of education that oversee court schools, which are education facilities for youth in the juvenile justice system. Students enroll in court school as they await adjudication or disposition, after they’ve been committed to a juvenile facility, or if they’re in a home placement under the supervision of probation.
During 2018-19, nearly 20,000 students attended court schools in the state. In the 2021-22 school year, the number dropped to 10,891. This decrease likely reflects the lower number of youth in the juvenile justice system, which has trended downward in recent years, per the report.
California’s current academic data system does not capture one crucial data point — that the majority of students attend a court school for less than 31 instructional days, the report noted. This means that few students attend for an entire school year, which is typically the time frame that data collection practices are based on.
What’s more, currently available data does not distinguish between academic needs and outcomes of students who spend days or weeks attending a court school versus those who attend for years.
The report highlighted that it has long been anecdotally understood by researchers, probation staff and others working in education within the juvenile justice system that student attendance is often transitory given the dynamic nature of the legal system. The report’s authors argue that instructional programming should reflect this knowledge by calculating any partial credits earned by recording them in student transcripts once they leave juvenile detention. Students also need additional services to more seamlessly move back into their local schools.
While the report’s authors acknowledge that less time in the juvenile justice system is most beneficial, they maintain that the time youth do spend attending a court school should be as minimally disruptive as possible to their education. Minimizing disruption, they said, could include a heightened focus on the transition process out of juvenile detention.
An ongoing challenge with inadequate data collection is that improvements are difficult to highlight. For example, the report authors found that the college-going rate at 10 court schools exceeded the average for the state’s alternative schools.
“The data doesn’t really care if it’s positive or negative. The limitations exist on both sides,” said Chris Middleton, an Equal Justice Works fellow at the Youth Law Center and a primary author of the report. “And I think here where a really positive story could be told, there’s still a set of limitations that’s very evident.”
Much of the data contained in the report reflects a dire reality.
For example, the overall number of youth in the juvenile justice system decreased significantly from 2018 to 2022, yet the number of students with disabilities rose from 20.1% to 29.8%.
The report suggests a few potential reasons: improved screening and identification, improved communication between schools regarding disability status, or a failure to capitalize on the systemic changes that drove the decrease in youth detention statewide.
The report’s authors also found that foster youth are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system.
While foster youth represent less than 1% of all students enrolled in California schools, in 2018-19 they made up 21.44% of court school enrollments; by 2021-22, they were almost 31 times overrepresented in court schools versus traditional schools. This data was either redacted or unavailable for 27 of 51 court schools.
“The extremely high rate of disability status and the extremely high rate of foster care overlap,” Brady said. “We have long known that young people with disabilities are more likely to be impacted by the juvenile justice system. … The numbers for foster care were still surprising.”
Similarly, high rates of students experiencing homelessness were found at some court schools, but the data for this population of students was particularly unclear; much was either redacted or unavailable. While foster youth status is centrally tracked by the state, homelessness is largely screened by school districts — an identification process that has only in recent years improved through legislation and enforcement.
Regarding chronic absenteeism, the rate was 12.9% among court schools and 12.1% statewide during the 2018-19 school year, and by the 2021-22 school year, that rate was 16.8% among court schools and 30% statewide.
Though lower than the state average, this was alarming for the report’s authors.
Students who attend a local education agency for less than 31 days are not eligible to be considered chronically absent, which indicates that the true rate of chronic absences is much higher, given that most court school students attend for less than 31 instructional days, the report authors wrote.
Additionally, the authors found while some students refuse to attend class, some cannot attend due to decisions made by probation staff. Two examples shared in the report include a practice in Los Angeles County “of barring entire living units of young people from attending school if one of them misbehaved” and refusal by probation staff to provide “timely transport” of students to school.
According to the report, “A necessary element of addressing chronic absenteeism in court schools must include better documentation of missed instructional time and the reasons why students are absent from class.
“Additionally, efficient and effective coordination between probation and school staff is critical to ensuring the basic educational responsibility of students being present in their classrooms is met.”
While the rate of chronic absences was lower among court schools during the 2021-22 school year, it should be noted that the percentages across court schools varied. Some schools reported a rate of over 30% while other schools reported 0%.
One recent allocation of $15 million toward post-secondary education programs for youth in the juvenile justice system might turn the tide on better understanding outcomes. The funding will create and expand community college programming inside juvenile facilities, and a portion is intended to go toward evaluating such programs.
This ongoing funding “is the single most positive and exciting thing that’s going on in the area of juvenile justice and education right now,” said Lauren Brady, managing director of the legal team at Youth Law Center.
Many of the issues with data collection that researchers found were due to unavailable data or redactions — when a group includes fewer than 10 students, data is withheld to protect student privacy.
“We can’t tell the complete story. That’s where we’re at right now. … In order to truly transform the experience for students and to give them the best chance to have a brighter future, we have to be able to measure what they’re experiencing,” report co-author Middleton said. “And I think that we have the capability. I have faith in California and our institutions that we are able to properly develop these measures and ensure that the data’s actually being reported.”
Wards at N.A. Chaderjian Youth Correctional Facility talk at a table in Merced Hall in Stockton, Calif.
Credit: Lea Suzuki / San Francisco Chronicle / Polaris
California is failing to provide a high-quality education to students in the juvenile justice system by not addressing the inadequacies of academic data collection practices, according to a recent report from the national Youth Law Center. Current collection practices, the report authors argue, do not accurately measure student needs and outcomes.
“A failure to design better metrics would be a disastrous choice on the part of California stakeholders to keep these students out of sight and out of mind,” the report’s authors wrote.
The report, “Out of Sight, Out of Mind,” is a follow-up to a 2016 report that similarly found the state to be failing in its mission of providing students in juvenile detention with high-quality education via its disproportionate representation of multiple student populations, high rates of chronic absenteeism, low high school graduation rates, inaccurate or incomplete data, and more.
The most recent report highlighted data from two school years — 2018-19 and 2021-22 — using publicly available data from the California Department of Education as well as public records requests sent to 10 county offices of education that oversee court schools, which are education facilities for youth in the juvenile justice system. Students enroll in court school as they await adjudication or disposition, after they’ve been committed to a juvenile facility, or if they’re in a home placement under the supervision of probation.
During 2018-19, nearly 20,000 students attended court schools in the state. In the 2021-22 school year, the number dropped to 10,891. This decrease likely reflects the lower number of youth in the juvenile justice system, which has trended downward in recent years, per the report.
California’s current academic data system does not capture one crucial data point — that the majority of students attend a court school for less than 31 instructional days, the report noted. This means that few students attend for an entire school year, which is typically the time frame that data collection practices are based on.
What’s more, currently available data does not distinguish between academic needs and outcomes of students who spend days or weeks attending a court school versus those who attend for years.
The report highlighted that it has long been anecdotally understood by researchers, probation staff and others working in education within the juvenile justice system that student attendance is often transitory given the dynamic nature of the legal system. The report’s authors argue that instructional programming should reflect this knowledge by calculating any partial credits earned by recording them in student transcripts once they leave juvenile detention. Students also need additional services to more seamlessly move back into their local schools.
While the report’s authors acknowledge that less time in the juvenile justice system is most beneficial, they maintain that the time youth do spend attending a court school should be as minimally disruptive as possible to their education. Minimizing disruption, they said, could include a heightened focus on the transition process out of juvenile detention.
An ongoing challenge with inadequate data collection is that improvements are difficult to highlight. For example, the report authors found that the college-going rate at 10 court schools exceeded the average for the state’s alternative schools.
“The data doesn’t really care if it’s positive or negative. The limitations exist on both sides,” said Chris Middleton, an Equal Justice Works fellow at the Youth Law Center and a primary author of the report. “And I think here where a really positive story could be told, there’s still a set of limitations that’s very evident.”
Much of the data contained in the report reflects a dire reality.
For example, the overall number of youth in the juvenile justice system decreased significantly from 2018 to 2022, yet the number of students with disabilities rose from 20.1% to 29.8%.
The report suggests a few potential reasons: improved screening and identification, improved communication between schools regarding disability status, or a failure to capitalize on the systemic changes that drove the decrease in youth detention statewide.
The report’s authors also found that foster youth are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system.
While foster youth represent less than 1% of all students enrolled in California schools, in 2018-19 they made up 21.44% of court school enrollments; by 2021-22, they were almost 31 times overrepresented in court schools versus traditional schools. This data was either redacted or unavailable for 27 of 51 court schools.
“The extremely high rate of disability status and the extremely high rate of foster care overlap,” Brady said. “We have long known that young people with disabilities are more likely to be impacted by the juvenile justice system. … The numbers for foster care were still surprising.”
Similarly, high rates of students experiencing homelessness were found at some court schools, but the data for this population of students was particularly unclear; much was either redacted or unavailable. While foster youth status is centrally tracked by the state, homelessness is largely screened by school districts — an identification process that has only in recent years improved through legislation and enforcement.
Regarding chronic absenteeism, the rate was 12.9% among court schools and 12.1% statewide during the 2018-19 school year, and by the 2021-22 school year, that rate was 16.8% among court schools and 30% statewide.
Though lower than the state average, this was alarming for the report’s authors.
Students who attend a local education agency for less than 31 days are not eligible to be considered chronically absent, which indicates that the true rate of chronic absences is much higher, given that most court school students attend for less than 31 instructional days, the report authors wrote.
Additionally, the authors found while some students refuse to attend class, some cannot attend due to decisions made by probation staff. Two examples shared in the report include a practice in Los Angeles County “of barring entire living units of young people from attending school if one of them misbehaved” and refusal by probation staff to provide “timely transport” of students to school.
According to the report, “A necessary element of addressing chronic absenteeism in court schools must include better documentation of missed instructional time and the reasons why students are absent from class.
“Additionally, efficient and effective coordination between probation and school staff is critical to ensuring the basic educational responsibility of students being present in their classrooms is met.”
While the rate of chronic absences was lower among court schools during the 2021-22 school year, it should be noted that the percentages across court schools varied. Some schools reported a rate of over 30% while other schools reported 0%.
One recent allocation of $15 million toward post-secondary education programs for youth in the juvenile justice system might turn the tide on better understanding outcomes. The funding will create and expand community college programming inside juvenile facilities, and a portion is intended to go toward evaluating such programs.
This ongoing funding “is the single most positive and exciting thing that’s going on in the area of juvenile justice and education right now,” said Lauren Brady, managing director of the legal team at Youth Law Center.
Many of the issues with data collection that researchers found were due to unavailable data or redactions — when a group includes fewer than 10 students, data is withheld to protect student privacy.
“We can’t tell the complete story. That’s where we’re at right now. … In order to truly transform the experience for students and to give them the best chance to have a brighter future, we have to be able to measure what they’re experiencing,” report co-author Middleton said. “And I think that we have the capability. I have faith in California and our institutions that we are able to properly develop these measures and ensure that the data’s actually being reported.”
Teacher apprentice Ja’net Williams helps with a math lesson in a first grade class at Delta Elementary Charter School in Clarksburg, near Sacramento.
Credit: Diana Lambert / EdSource
Top Takeaways
California leaders dismiss the criticism and methodology of the rankings.
And yet, graduate credentialing programs cram a lot in a year.
Many teachers may struggle with the demands of California’s new math framework.
In its “State of the States” report on math instruction published last week, the National Council on Teacher Quality sharply criticized California and many of its teacher certification programs for ineffectively preparing new elementary teachers to teach math and for failing to support and guide them once they reach the classroom.
“Far too many elementary teacher prep programs fail to dedicate enough instructional time to building aspiring teachers’ math knowledge — leaving teachers unprepared and students underserved,” the council said in its evaluation of California’s 87 programs that prepare elementary school teachers. “The analysis shows California programs perform among the lowest in the country.”
The report’s call for more teacher math training and ongoing support coincides with the state’s adoption this summer of materials and textbooks for a new math framework that math professionals universally agree will be a heavy lift for incoming and veteran teachers to master. It will challenge elementary teachers with a poor grasp of the underpinnings behind the math they’ll be teaching.
Kyndall Brown, executive director of the California Mathematics Project based at UCLA, agrees. “It’s not just about knowing the content, it’s about helping students learn the content, which are two completely different things,” he said.
And that raises a question: Does a one-year-plus-summer graduate program, which most prospective teachers take, cram too much in a short time to realistically meet the needs to teach elementary school math?
California joined two dozen states whose math preparation programs were rated as “weak.” Only one state got a “strong” rating.Source: National Council on Teacher Quality, 2025 State of the States report
Failing grades
The council graded every teacher prep program nationwide from A to F, based on how many instructional hours they required prospective teachers to take in major content areas of math and in instructional methods and strategies.
Three out of four California programs got an F, with some programs — California State University, Sacramento, and California State University, Monterey Bay — requiring no instructional hours for algebraic thinking, geometry, and probability, and many offering one-quarter of the 135 instructional hours needed for an A.
But there was a dichotomy: All the Fs were given to one-year graduate school programs offering a multi-subject credential to teach elementary school, historically the way most new teachers in California get their teaching credential.
On the other hand, many of the colleges and universities offering a teaching credential and a bachelor’s degree through an Integrated Undergraduate Teacher Credentialing Program got an A, because they included enough time to go into math instruction and content in more depth. For example, California State University, Long Beach’s 226 instructional hours, apportioned through all of the content areas and methods courses, earned an A-plus.
The California State University rejects the recent grading from the National Council on Teacher Quality about our high-quality teacher training programs
California State University
Most of the universities that offer both undergraduate and graduate programs — California State University, Bakersfield; San Jose State University; California State University, Chico; California State University, Northridge, to name a few — had the same split: A for their undergraduate programs, F for their graduate credentialing programs.
Most California teacher preparation programs have received bad grades in the dozen years that the council has issued evaluations. The state’s higher education institutions, in turn, have defended their programs and denounced the council for basing the quality of a program on analyses of program websites and syllabi.
California State University, whose campuses train the majority of teachers, and the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, which accredits and oversees teacher prep programs, issued similar denunciations last week.
“The California State University rejects the recent grading from the National Council on Teacher Quality about our high-quality teacher training programs,” the CSU wrote in a statement. The council “relies on a narrow and flawed methodology, heavily dependent on document reviews, rather than on dialogue with program faculty, students and employers or a systematic review of meaningful program outcomes.”
The credentialing commission, in a more diplomatic response, agreed. The report “reflects a methodology that differs from California’s approach to educator preparation,” it said. “While informative, it does not fully capture the structure of California’s clinically rich, performance-based system.”
Heather Peske, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality for the past three years, dismissed the criticism as “a really weak critique.”
“You can look at a syllabus and see what’s being taught in that class much in the same way that if you go to a restaurant and look at the menu to see what’s being served,” she said. “Our reviews are certainly a very solid starting place to know to what extent teacher preparation programs are well preparing future teachers to be effective in teaching.”
It’s not just a problem in California.
“When we compare the mathematics instructional hours between the undergrad and the graduate programs, often on the same campus, we saw on average that undergrads get 133 hours compared to just 52 hours at the graduate level. In both cases, it is not meeting the recommended and research-based 150 hours,” Peske said.
Part of the problem is that graduate programs usually don’t have enough time to instill future teachers with the content knowledge that they need.
Heather Peske
Whether or not examining website data is a good methodology, the disparities in hours devoted to math preparation between undergraduate and graduate programs raise an important issue.
True jacks of all trades, elementary teachers must become proficient in many content areas — social studies, English language arts, English language development for English learners, and science, as well as math. Add to that proficiency in emerging technologies, classroom management, skills for teaching students with disabilities, and student mental health: How can they adequately cover math, especially?
“Part of the problem is that graduate programs usually don’t have enough time to instill future teachers with the content knowledge that they need,” Peske said. “California programs have to reckon with this idea that they’re sending a bunch of teachers into classrooms who have not demonstrated that they are ready to teach kids math.”
Brown said, “There’s no way that in a one-year credential program that they’re going to get the math that they need to be able to teach the content that they’re responsible for teaching.”
That was Anthony Caston’s experience. Before starting his career as a sixth-grade teacher at Foulks Ranch Elementary School in Elk Grove three years ago, Caston took courses for his credential in graduate programs at Sacramento State and the University of the Pacific. There wasn’t enough time to learn all he needed to teach the subject, he said. A few classes were useful, but didn’t get much beyond the third- or fourth-grade curriculum, he said.
“I had to take myself back to school, reteach myself everything, and then come up with some teaching strategies,” Caston said.
Fortunately for him, veteran teachers at his school helped him learn more about Common Core math and how to teach it.
The math content Brown refers togoes beyond knowing how to invert fractions or calculate the area of a triangle; it involves a conceptual understanding of essential math topics, Peske said. Only a deeper conceptual grasp will enable teachers to diagnose and explain students’ errors and misunderstandings, Peske said, and to overcome the math phobia that surveys show many teachers have.
Ma Bernadette Salgarino, the president of the California Mathematics Council and a math trainer in the Santa Clara County Office of Education, acknowledges that many math teachers have not been taught the concepts behind the progression of the state’s math standards. “It is not clear to them,” she said. “They’re still teaching to a regurgitation of procedures, copy and paste. These are the steps, and this is what you will do.”
Although a longtime critic of the council, Linda Darling-Hammond, who chaired California’s credentialing commission before becoming the current president of the State Board of Education, acknowledges that the report raises a legitimate issue.
“Time is an important question,” she said. “It is true that having more time well spent — the ‘well spent’ matters — could make a difference for lots of people in learning lots of subjects, including math.”
Darling-Hammond faults the study, however, for not factoring in California’s broader approach to teacher preparation, including requiring that teaching candidates pass a performance assessment in math and underwriting teacher residency programs, in which teachers work side by side with an effective teacher for a full year while taking courses in a graduate program.
“You could end up becoming a pretty spectacular math teacher in a shorter amount of time than if you’re just studying things in an undergraduate program disconnected from student teaching,” she said.
Weak state policies
The report also grades every state’s policies on math instruction, from preparing teachers to coaching them after they’re in the classroom. California and two dozen states are rated “weak,” ahead of seven “unacceptable” states (Montana, Arizona, Nebraska, Missouri, Alaska, Vermont and Maine) while behind 17 “moderate” states, including Texas and Florida, and a sole “strong” state, Alabama.
The council bases the rating on the implementation of five policy “levers” to ensure “rigorous standards-aligned math instruction.” However, California’s actions are more nuanced than perhaps its “unacceptable” ratings on three and “strong” ratings on two would indicate.
For example, the council dinged the state for not requiring that all teachers in a prep program pass a math licensure test. California does require elementary credential candidates to pass the California Subject Examinations for Teachers, or CSET, a basic skills test, before they can teach students. But the math portion is combined with science, and students can avoid the test by supplying proof they have taken undergraduate math courses.
At the same time, many superintendents and math teachers may be doing a double-take for a “strong” rating for providing professional learning and ongoing support for teachers to sustain effective math instruction.
Going back to the adoption of the Common Core, the state has not funded statewide teacher training in math standards. In the past five years, the state has spent $500 million to train literacy coaches in the state’s poorest schools, but nothing of that magnitude for math coaches.
The Legislature approved $20 million for the California Mathematics Project for training in the new math framework, which was passed in 2023, and $50 million in 2022-23 for instruction in grades fourth to 12th in science, math and computer science training to train coaches and teacher leaders — amounts that would be impressive for smaller states, but not to fund training most math teachers in California. (You can find a listing of organizations offering training and resources on the math framework here.)
In keeping with local control, Gov. Gavin Newsom has appropriated more than $10 billion in education block grants, including the Student Support and Professional Development Discretionary Block Grant,and the Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant, but those are discretionary; districts have wide latitude to spend money however they want on any subject.
Tucked into a section on Literacy Instruction in Newsom’s May budget revision (see Page 19) is the mention that a $545 million grant for materials instruction will include a new opportunity to support math coaches, too. The release of the final state budget for 2025-26 later this month will reveal whether that money survives.
Brown calls for hiring more math specialists for schools and for three-week summer intensive math leadership institutes like the one he attended in 1994. It hasn’t been held since the money ran dry in the early 2000s.
EdSource reporter Diana Lambert contributed to this article.
Despite statewide efforts, California is still struggling to support the personal and educational needs of its students, according to the 2024 California Children’s Report Card conducted by the organization Children Now, which “grades the State on its ability to support better outcomes for kids” and evaluates progress made on California policies and investments.
“California has failed to significantly improve outcomes for kids, allowing unacceptable and economic disparities to stagnate and in many cases grow,” Ted Lempert, Children Now’s president, wrote in a letter included in the report.
“What’s particularly disturbing is that California continues to trail far behind other states on a number of important indicators of child well-being. Despite our relatively high tax burden, our progressive leanings, and our enviable 5th largest economy in the world, California is far from a leader when it comes to kids. That’s not only a threat to our state’s collective future, but to the entire country as well since California is so often a bellwether for the nation.”
Children’s health
Among the health categories assessed, “health insurance” received the highest grade, A-minus. Meanwhile, “birthing health,” “preventative screenings,” “supporting mental health,” “preventing substance abuse” and “health care access and accountability, all received grades in the D range.
The rest of the health categories — including “environmental health and justice,” “oral health care” and “relationships and sexual health” — all received grades in the C range.
Additionally, the report noted that “while many states and municipalities across the country have declared racism as a public health crisis, California has yet to do so.”
According to the report, “children’s poor health outcomes are largely driven by racism at the intersection of poverty, sexual orientation, gender, and geography.”
Children’s education
Of the 12 topics under education, none earned a grade in the A range. Here’s how the report assessed the state on its education:
C-minus for child care.
B-plus for preschool and transitional kindergarten.
B-minus for early care and education workforce.
D for early intervention and special education.
C-minus for education for dual language and English learners.
C-plus for funding.
B for expanded learning programs
D for science, technology, engineering and math education.
C for educator pipeline, retention and diversity.
D for school climate: connections with adults on campus.
C for “school climate: discipline and attendance.
B-minus for higher education.
“California is investing record amounts in public education, yet struggles to effectively support students, especially those who need the most help,” the report reads.
It added that the state’s education system “ranks 43rd of 50 states of outcome gaps by race and ethnicity.”
Support from family
In terms of family support, “voluntary evidence-based home visiting” earned a C-minus, while in “paid family leave,” the state received a B-minus. “Income assistance for low-income families” was given a B.
“Children’s well-being is fueled by good health, enriching learning opportunities, and positive and nurturing relationships with adults. Both adult and child well-being can be undermined by unmet basic needs, economic hardship, social isolation, and stress,” according to the report.
“Throughout the pandemic, California made positive policy changes to bolster families with key supports, even as federal funding withered away,” the report read. “However, too often, families with young children are an afterthought in California policy.”
Child welfare in California
None of the child welfare categories garnered an A or B.
Instead, the state earned a C for “home stability and enduring relationships” and a C-plus in “health care for kids in foster care.”
Meanwhile, the state earned a D in both education supports for students in foster care and transitions to adulthood.
“For children and youth who cannot remain safely at home and must enter foster care, the State must ensure access to stable and nurturing foster homes, trauma-informed services, and targeted, high-quality educational supports to help them heal and thrive,” the report states.
Cross-sector issues facing California children
In terms of “cross-sector” issues, both “food security” and “cradle-to-career data systems” received a B-minus, while support for LGBTQ+ youth received a C-plus, “decriminalization of youth” received a D-plus and support for unaccompanied homeless youth landed a D-minus.
“While all of the issues in the “Report Card” are interrelated, the topics in this section have especially strong implications across multiple sectors and systems,” the report read.
“A whole-child approach to supporting kids incorporates services that meet young people where they’re at and address the many factors that are needed to help them thrive.”
Teacher apprentice Ja’net Williams helps with a math lesson in a first grade class at Delta Elementary Charter School in Clarksburg, near Sacramento.
Credit: Diana Lambert / EdSource
Top Takeaways
California leaders dismiss the criticism and methodology of the rankings.
And yet, graduate credentialing programs cram a lot in a year.
Many teachers may struggle with the demands of California’s new math framework.
In its “State of the States” report on math instruction published last week, the National Council on Teacher Quality sharply criticized California and many of its teacher certification programs for ineffectively preparing new elementary teachers to teach math and for failing to support and guide them once they reach the classroom.
“Far too many elementary teacher prep programs fail to dedicate enough instructional time to building aspiring teachers’ math knowledge — leaving teachers unprepared and students underserved,” the council said in its evaluation of California’s 87 programs that prepare elementary school teachers. “The analysis shows California programs perform among the lowest in the country.”
The report’s call for more teacher math training and ongoing support coincides with the state’s adoption this summer of materials and textbooks for a new math framework that math professionals universally agree will be a heavy lift for incoming and veteran teachers to master. It will challenge elementary teachers with a poor grasp of the underpinnings behind the math they’ll be teaching.
Kyndall Brown, executive director of the California Mathematics Project based at UCLA, agrees. “It’s not just about knowing the content, it’s about helping students learn the content, which are two completely different things,” he said.
And that raises a question: Does a one-year-plus-summer graduate program, which most prospective teachers take, cram too much in a short time to realistically meet the needs to teach elementary school math?
California joined two dozen states whose math preparation programs were rated as “weak.” Only one state got a “strong” rating.Source: National Council on Teacher Quality, 2025 State of the States report
Failing grades
The council graded every teacher prep program nationwide from A to F, based on how many instructional hours they required prospective teachers to take in major content areas of math and in instructional methods and strategies.
Three out of four California programs got an F, with some programs — California State University, Sacramento, and California State University, Monterey Bay — requiring no instructional hours for algebraic thinking, geometry, and probability, and many offering one-quarter of the 135 instructional hours needed for an A.
But there was a dichotomy: All the Fs were given to one-year graduate school programs offering a multi-subject credential to teach elementary school, historically the way most new teachers in California get their teaching credential.
On the other hand, many of the colleges and universities offering a teaching credential and a bachelor’s degree through an Integrated Undergraduate Teacher Credentialing Program got an A, because they included enough time to go into math instruction and content in more depth. For example, California State University, Long Beach’s 226 instructional hours, apportioned through all of the content areas and methods courses, earned an A-plus.
The California State University rejects the recent grading from the National Council on Teacher Quality about our high-quality teacher training programs
California State University
Most of the universities that offer both undergraduate and graduate programs — California State University, Bakersfield; San Jose State University; California State University, Chico; California State University, Northridge, to name a few — had the same split: A for their undergraduate programs, F for their graduate credentialing programs.
Most California teacher preparation programs have received bad grades in the dozen years that the council has issued evaluations. The state’s higher education institutions, in turn, have defended their programs and denounced the council for basing the quality of a program on analyses of program websites and syllabi.
California State University, whose campuses train the majority of teachers, and the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, which accredits and oversees teacher prep programs, issued similar denunciations last week.
“The California State University rejects the recent grading from the National Council on Teacher Quality about our high-quality teacher training programs,” the CSU wrote in a statement. The council “relies on a narrow and flawed methodology, heavily dependent on document reviews, rather than on dialogue with program faculty, students and employers or a systematic review of meaningful program outcomes.”
The credentialing commission, in a more diplomatic response, agreed. The report “reflects a methodology that differs from California’s approach to educator preparation,” it said. “While informative, it does not fully capture the structure of California’s clinically rich, performance-based system.”
Heather Peske, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality for the past three years, dismissed the criticism as “a really weak critique.”
“You can look at a syllabus and see what’s being taught in that class much in the same way that if you go to a restaurant and look at the menu to see what’s being served,” she said. “Our reviews are certainly a very solid starting place to know to what extent teacher preparation programs are well preparing future teachers to be effective in teaching.”
It’s not just a problem in California.
“When we compare the mathematics instructional hours between the undergrad and the graduate programs, often on the same campus, we saw on average that undergrads get 133 hours compared to just 52 hours at the graduate level. In both cases, it is not meeting the recommended and research-based 150 hours,” Peske said.
Part of the problem is that graduate programs usually don’t have enough time to instill future teachers with the content knowledge that they need.
Heather Peske
Whether or not examining website data is a good methodology, the disparities in hours devoted to math preparation between undergraduate and graduate programs raise an important issue.
True jacks of all trades, elementary teachers must become proficient in many content areas — social studies, English language arts, English language development for English learners, and science, as well as math. Add to that proficiency in emerging technologies, classroom management, skills for teaching students with disabilities, and student mental health: How can they adequately cover math, especially?
“Part of the problem is that graduate programs usually don’t have enough time to instill future teachers with the content knowledge that they need,” Peske said. “California programs have to reckon with this idea that they’re sending a bunch of teachers into classrooms who have not demonstrated that they are ready to teach kids math.”
Brown said, “There’s no way that in a one-year credential program that they’re going to get the math that they need to be able to teach the content that they’re responsible for teaching.”
That was Anthony Caston’s experience. Before starting his career as a sixth-grade teacher at Foulks Ranch Elementary School in Elk Grove three years ago, Caston took courses for his credential in graduate programs at Sacramento State and the University of the Pacific. There wasn’t enough time to learn all he needed to teach the subject, he said. A few classes were useful, but didn’t get much beyond the third- or fourth-grade curriculum, he said.
“I had to take myself back to school, reteach myself everything, and then come up with some teaching strategies,” Caston said.
Fortunately for him, veteran teachers at his school helped him learn more about Common Core math and how to teach it.
The math content Brown refers togoes beyond knowing how to invert fractions or calculate the area of a triangle; it involves a conceptual understanding of essential math topics, Peske said. Only a deeper conceptual grasp will enable teachers to diagnose and explain students’ errors and misunderstandings, Peske said, and to overcome the math phobia that surveys show many teachers have.
Ma Bernadette Salgarino, the president of the California Mathematics Council and a math trainer in the Santa Clara County Office of Education, acknowledges that many math teachers have not been taught the concepts behind the progression of the state’s math standards. “It is not clear to them,” she said. “They’re still teaching to a regurgitation of procedures, copy and paste. These are the steps, and this is what you will do.”
Although a longtime critic of the council, Linda Darling-Hammond, who chaired California’s credentialing commission before becoming the current president of the State Board of Education, acknowledges that the report raises a legitimate issue.
“Time is an important question,” she said. “It is true that having more time well spent — the ‘well spent’ matters — could make a difference for lots of people in learning lots of subjects, including math.”
Darling-Hammond faults the study, however, for not factoring in California’s broader approach to teacher preparation, including requiring that teaching candidates pass a performance assessment in math and underwriting teacher residency programs, in which teachers work side by side with an effective teacher for a full year while taking courses in a graduate program.
“You could end up becoming a pretty spectacular math teacher in a shorter amount of time than if you’re just studying things in an undergraduate program disconnected from student teaching,” she said.
Weak state policies
The report also grades every state’s policies on math instruction, from preparing teachers to coaching them after they’re in the classroom. California and two dozen states are rated “weak,” ahead of seven “unacceptable” states (Montana, Arizona, Nebraska, Missouri, Alaska, Vermont and Maine) while behind 17 “moderate” states, including Texas and Florida, and a sole “strong” state, Alabama.
The council bases the rating on the implementation of five policy “levers” to ensure “rigorous standards-aligned math instruction.” However, California’s actions are more nuanced than perhaps its “unacceptable” ratings on three and “strong” ratings on two would indicate.
For example, the council dinged the state for not requiring that all teachers in a prep program pass a math licensure test. California does require elementary credential candidates to pass the California Subject Examinations for Teachers, or CSET, a basic skills test, before they can teach students. But the math portion is combined with science, and students can avoid the test by supplying proof they have taken undergraduate math courses.
At the same time, many superintendents and math teachers may be doing a double-take for a “strong” rating for providing professional learning and ongoing support for teachers to sustain effective math instruction.
Going back to the adoption of the Common Core, the state has not funded statewide teacher training in math standards. In the past five years, the state has spent $500 million to train literacy coaches in the state’s poorest schools, but nothing of that magnitude for math coaches.
The Legislature approved $20 million for the California Mathematics Project for training in the new math framework, which was passed in 2023, and $50 million in 2022-23 for instruction in grades fourth to 12th in science, math and computer science training to train coaches and teacher leaders — amounts that would be impressive for smaller states, but not to fund training most math teachers in California. (You can find a listing of organizations offering training and resources on the math framework here.)
In keeping with local control, Gov. Gavin Newsom has appropriated more than $10 billion in education block grants, including the Student Support and Professional Development Discretionary Block Grant,and the Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant, but those are discretionary; districts have wide latitude to spend money however they want on any subject.
Tucked into a section on Literacy Instruction in Newsom’s May budget revision (see Page 19) is the mention that a $545 million grant for materials instruction will include a new opportunity to support math coaches, too. The release of the final state budget for 2025-26 later this month will reveal whether that money survives.
Brown calls for hiring more math specialists for schools and for three-week summer intensive math leadership institutes like the one he attended in 1994. It hasn’t been held since the money ran dry in the early 2000s.
EdSource reporter Diana Lambert contributed to this article.
Hundreds of UCLA students protest in support of Palestinians on May 2, 2024.
Credit: Christine Kao
A critical presence persists across the dozens of university campuses nationwide where students have organized demonstrations in support of Palestinians: student journalists reporting for their school newspapers, at times providing round-the-clock coverage and, increasingly, doing so under threats of arrest and violence.
“They recognize that the eyes of the world are on college campuses and they can be a lens through which people can see what’s happening,” said Christina Bellantoni, director of the Annenberg Media Center at USC.
Student journalists are central to the reporting of historic national protests calling for universities to divest from companies with military ties to Israel and for a ceasefire in Gaza.
“We have a job to do as student journalists. I like to say we’re not student journalists, we’re journalists,” said Matthew Royer, national editor and higher education editor at the Daily Bruin, UCLA’s student newspaper.
At some schools that have shut down access to nonstudents, like USC, a private institution, student journalists are the only regular source of news on campus grounds. And at schools where journalists from outside news organizations are present, like UCLA, student journalists have remained top producers of the most accurate, up-to-date information.
A post by Matthew Royer from The Daily Bruin at UCLA.
The Daily Bruin had such high readership this week that its site was down for several hours Wednesday, requiring the newsroom to extend the site’s bandwidth.
This week at UCLA, a group of four student reporters were verbally harassed, beaten, kicked and pepper-sprayed by a group of pro-Israel counterprotesters who that night had attacked the on-campus encampment for hours.
A police officer grabs a protester by the back of their jacket to stop him from moving toward the encampment on May 2, 2024. Credit: Brandon Morquecho / Daily Bruin Photo Editor
At least one of the reporters, Catherine Hamilton, went to the hospital with injuries after the violent assault.
“Truly, there’s not much time for us to recover. As the new day starts, we have to be prepared for anything to happen,” Hamilton said in an interview with CNN. She returned to her reporting post shortly after being released from the hospital.
Royer confirmed that UCLA had promised journalists a safe room that night, but “the doors were locked, and they weren’t given access by the hired UCLA security.”
UCLA has not responded to a request for comment.
In a statement Thursday, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said the violence on campus “has fractured our sense of togetherness and frayed our bonds of trust, and will surely leave a scar on the campus.”
His statement made no reference to the assault on journalists.
“I think it’s our jobs to continue to do what we can in the safest manner possible,” said Royer, who said counterprotesters have yanked his press badge, blasted megaphones near his ears, and blocked his camera over multiple days while reporting.
Student journalists nationwide have also been threatened with arrest by police arriving on campus to clear student encampments.
“We train these students to put safety first,” said Bellantoni. “What I cannot guarantee is that they won’t be arrested in this. If they are arrested, I can guarantee you those charges will not stand and we will make sure that we fight that because journalists have a right to be there and a right to witness it.”
A man wearing a jacket that reads “Anti Genocide Social Club” records a livestream of a line of CHP officers between Royce Hall and Haines Hall on May 2, 2024.Credit: Brandon Morquecho / Daily Bruin Photo Editor
Protests in support of Palestine are nothing new on UC Berkeley’s campus, according to Aarya Mukherjee, 19, who has covered campus activism and the encampment as a student life reporter for months at The Daily Californian.
But when he heard Daily Bruin reporters were assaulted, he said he “felt for them.”
“Last night, there was a very good chance of a raid. … So we were kind of preparing for the same thing to happen to us,” Mukherjee said, noting that the campus has been generally peaceful with little hostility toward the press. “It’s honestly scary, but … we accept that risk. We just hope it doesn’t happen.”
Given UC Berkeley’s history of protest and constant stream of student activism, managing editor Matt Brown said Daily Cal reporters are uniquely prepared to cover events that may turn violent. For years, guidelines on staying safe have been passed down through the organization’s editors.
“Everybody’s always in pairs. Everybody’s always taking shifts. Everybody’s always communicating. Nobody goes out there without a press pass,” Brown said.
Free Palestine encampment at UC Berkeley on April 29, 2024. Credit: Kelcie Lee / EdSource
The Daily Cal published an editorial late Wednesday that expressed solidarity with reporters at The Daily Bruin. It also condemned UCLA for failing to protect campus journalists.
“Everybody was on board; and within about an hour, we had a draft,” Brown said.
“We condemn the attackers and any attempt to stifle student coverage,” the editorial read. “It is the community’s duty to safeguard the students who are putting themselves in harm’s way to keep them informed.”
Many have also collaborated across campuses, a sign of their understanding that they hold a powerful position. The Daily Trojan, the Daily Bruin, the Emory Wheel, The Daily Californian, Washington Square News (NYU), the Berkeley Beacon (Emerson College) and the Daily Texan (UT Austin) joined forces to produce a compilation of photos of protests at their respective campuses.
‘That’s our Achilles’ heel’
Mercy Sosa, 22, received a tip that protests were starting at Sacramento State University on Monday at 6 a.m.
As editor-in-chief of The State Hornet, she got to work. By 6:30 a.m., she was on the scene — and continued to report on developments at the encampment for the next two days despite upcoming final exams.
“The amount of walking I did, the amount of not sleeping that I did — it’s exhausting,” Sosa said. “But I felt like it was my duty to be there and to make sure that students knew what was going on. And this isn’t just a Sac State story: This is a national story. … I couldn’t just turn a blind eye.”
The campus announced the encampment could remain intact until May 8. Unlike at other campuses, student reporters at Sacramento State haven’t faced aggression from campus or other stakeholders. The environment, Sosa said, has been mostly peaceful, with some counterprotesters and few police.
It’s similar at Sonoma State University, where Ally Valiente’s team at the Sonoma State Star are covering their growing student encampment.
But the current calm hasn’t made it easier for them to stomach the violence that played out at UCLA.
Daily Bruin homepage on May, 1, 2024.
Daily Bruin homepage on May, 2, 2024.
“It sort of makes me scared this could actually happen to any campus,” said Valiente, news editor.
Being a member of student media, where reporters and protesters can interact student-to-student, has played a key role in developing trust with sources, who are sometimes classmates, according to Chris Woodard, a managing editor at The State Hornet.
It’s a unique level of access that Brad Butterfield leaned into while reporting for Cal Poly Humboldt’s The Lumberjack, along with his knowledge of campus grounds.
Not all reporters covering Humboldt’s protests understood “how complex our campus is,” he said, which impacted police when it came to “gaining control.”
They also often work alongside journalists from other publications, who at times forget they are students.
Woodard recalled being in line for an interview by the encampment alongside a half dozen reporters from other publications.
“I kind of went up to all the other publications like ‘Hey guys, if you can please do me a favor and let me do the next interview? I have to go to class,’” Woodard said.
“I could tell this by the reaction of all the other professional journalists they’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s a thing for you.’”
They let him go ahead — and he made it to class 20 minutes late.
Mukherjee and his Daily Cal colleagues are taking shifts to cover the protests and encampment, sometimes reporting in the field for 24 hours straight in the days leading up to final exams.
He said a relentless news cycle has made it harder to focus on school and that it is sometimes hard to separate life as a student from life as a reporter.
“Students should obviously be studying, hitting the books,” Mukherjee said. “Because of the constant news, we feel as though … we have a responsibility to report that, kind of, almost supersedes our due diligence as students.”
Others, like The Lumberjack’s Butterfield, did not attend class once protests began.
“Because I am a journalism major, I think that’s important to note: I don’t feel like I’m missing out too much on what’s happening in my classes because I’m out in the field doing what I’m going to school to learn how to do,” said Butterfield, 26. “When there’s a massive and important story on our campus to cover, at least my professors have been pretty lenient in understanding that that does take its priority in a lot of ways — and I’ll catch up on my work at some point in the next week or two.”
With local newsrooms growing sparse, Sosa said student press has become increasingly important in filling that void of local coverage for both the campus and larger community.
But in communities like Humboldt, student coverage is sometimes nonexistent over the summer.
“I think that’s our Achilles’ heel, when the semester ends a lot of folks kind of go their own separate ways, especially here in Humboldt County ’cause there’s so little jobs,” said Butterfield.
Woodard also said that “it’s hard to bear that pressure” for being at the forefront of national reporting as a student.
“You’ve become the No. 1 news source for the biggest story in the country. But at the same time, we have finals next week,” said Woodard, 30. “It’s like, which one do I take more pride in?”
A few days ago, he said he sat on the floor of his apartment and cried.
The toll, he said, can be especially difficult on editors — who are not only going to school and contributing to coverage, but also managing teams of their peers and classmates, often in their late teens or early 20s.
“Being an editor of student media and being an editor in real media are two very, very different things,” Woodard said. “For all the student editors out there that are dealing with this: I hope everyone just gives them a hug.”
I spent this past weekend at my sixty-fifth reunion at Wellesley College. Since I graduated in 1960, I have never missed one. Part of my faithfulness is grounded in nostalgia, in a chance to relive a wonderful part of my life. The four years at Wellesley were transformative, and today my closest friends are classmates.
The high point of the weekend is the parade of alumnae on the last day. The youngest cohort goes first, marching about 3/4 of a mile from one end of the campus to the center, called Alumnae Hall. As each group reaches its destination, it stops and lines the road. Then along comes the next group of graduates, five years older. Eventually the road is lined with alumnae from different cohorts, with the oldest ones marching last. That was my group, about 50 women in their mid-80s. The group behind us was the class of 1955, mostly 92 years old, riding in antique Fords, Model A.
1931 Model A Ford
Since we were the last grads standing, we marched past all the younger groups, and they cheered us vigorously, while we applauded them.
What was striking was to see the demographic changes over time. Our class was all white, though we did have a few Asian students.
The classes of 1965 and 1970 had a few nonwhite faces.
Starting with the graduates of 1975, the numbers of African American, Hispanic, and Asian students noticeably increased. Every class from that point was markedly diverse.
I have to say it filled me with pride to see how my Alma Mater had changed.
An example: when I arrived at our lodgings, there were students to help us settle in. A beautiful and vibrant young woman brought my luggage to the room. I asked her where she was from. “Rwanda,” she said. “Do you like Wellesley?” She replied, “I love it!” She is majoring in biochemistry and plans to be a medical doctor and to return to Rwanda. Again, I was proud of how my college was changing the world for the better.
But there is another personal note that I wanted to share with you.
In late February, I went for my annual mammogram. The test spotted an anomaly. Several mammograms and a sonogram later, the doctor told me I had breast cancer. In April, I had surgery and the cancer was removed. But the surgeon reported that she didn’t get it all, so I had a second surgery. The pathologist decided that it was all out. None of it was painful.
But that’s not the end of the story. I start radiation on June 2, which will be five treatments in five days. Then a daily pill, all for the purpose of ensuring that the cancer doesn’t return.
I am not worried or frightened. I’m taking it all a day at a time, knowing that my case was caught early and that I have excellent doctors.
Frankly, I am truly worried about my beloved dog Mitzi. She was diagnosed with cancer in 2023, we took her to an oncologist, he put her on a drug that worked, and in June 2024, he declared her cancer-free. But a few weeks ago, we noticed that something bad was happening to her skull. The oncologist said she apparently has a trigeminal nerve sheaf tumor. Her head, on the right side, is noticeably recessed. That is, it’s caved in above her eye.
I am much more worried about Mitzi than about myself. I will be fine. She won’t be. There is no treatment for her medical problem. So we intend to love her, spoil her, make every day a good day for her.
I love this sweet dogWhen Mitzi met Martha Stewart in GreenportA beauty
At the University of California, Irvine, the basic needs center offers a food pantry, housing support and more to meet students’ basic needs.
Photo: UCI Basic Needs Center
Few college students participate in the state’s CalFresh food program despite being eligible, according to a report published Tuesday by the University of California’s California Policy Lab.
The report’s authors found that CalFresh eligibility and students’ subsequent enrollment in the program depended significantly on which institution of higher learning they attended, age, housing situation, and other factors. The school they were enrolled in was often connected to the level of outreach they received informing them of the food benefits program and whether they received a certain financial aid grant that made them eligible for CalFresh.
“California in the last few years has been increasingly focused on this channel of potential support for college students. It’s one of the pieces that students can paste together to put together a financial package that allows them to go to college,” said Jesse Rothstein, report co-author, about the CalFresh program.
CalFresh, once known as food stamps, is designed to provide money for groceries for California residents, making it a significant support program for low-income students. College students are typically eligible for CalFresh if they meet the regular rules that everyone, whether a student or not, must meet, in addition to at least one of more than a dozen exemptions. Understanding the long list of eligibility criteria specific to students has long been seen as a significant barrier for students, according to the report.
“But because CalFresh is run by a different agency — it’s not part of the education system — I think it’s hard for students to navigate,” said Rothstein, Carmel P. Friesen Professor of Public Policy and Economics at UC Berkeley and the faculty director of the California Policy Lab’s UC Berkeley site.
The data for the report was collected by the UC’s California Policy Lab from four institutions: California Community College Chancellor’s Office, University of California Office of the President, California Department of Social Services and California Student Aid Commission.
In gathering data from these four agencies, the authors developed a database connecting college enrollment numbers, monthly CalFresh participation records, and annual federal financial aid (FAFSA) details.
The data points to differences in eligibility and take-up rates between students in the California community colleges and the UC campuses as well as which students actually enroll to receive the benefits if they are eligible.
Data from the fall of 2019, the semester immediately prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, provides one of the clearest examples. During that time, the data showed a significant discrepancy between students who were eligible for CalFresh versus those who applied to receive the food aid — and further disparities depending on whether students were enrolled in a community college or a UC.
They found that 20% of community college students, 33% of UC undergraduates and 7% of UC graduate students were likely eligible for CalFresh. Yet just 26% of eligible community college students, 22% of eligible UC undergraduates, and 27% of eligible UC graduate students actually enrolled to receive CalFresh benefits.
The authors suggest a few reasons for the discrepancies.
First, UC students are less likely to live at home with their parents, increasing their chances of being eligible for CalFresh.
Second, students in the community colleges are overall less likely to be eligible for CalFresh. This is because “the version of the Cal Grant given to UC students qualifies many of them for CalFresh eligibility, but the version given to CCC students does not,” per the report’s authors.
And, finally, the UC has increased outreach efforts to enroll more eligible students into basic needs programs like CalFresh. This would explain, the authors wrote, why the take-up rate among UC undergraduates has increased substantially since 2017, while the same rate among community college students has declined.
The authors note that they can only provide data estimates in the report because the multiple eligibility determination factors may be captured inaccurately, although errors were likely insignificant and “our estimates are a good approximation of the share of students who would be found eligible under individualized determinations.”
A deeper look into data from the fall of 2019 highlights important details, including:
The Central Coast’s UC Santa Barbara had the third-highest eligibility rate at 37% but the highest take-up rate at 37%
Of the community college regions statewide, the Central Valley had both the highest eligibility rate at 29% and the highest take-up rate at 33%, while the Bay Area had the lowest eligibility rate at 15% and the lowest take-up rate at 20%
Black and Latino students were more likely to be eligible than white or Asian peers regardless of the institution attended
When it came to actually enrolling in CalFresh, Black and Latino students were more likely to do so if attending a UC, but Latino students were less likely to enroll in the program if attending a community college
Students over the age of 23 had higher take-up rates than those 23 years and younger at both institutions
Some of those details were expected given the history of outreach out of certain institutions. Santa Barbara County and UC Santa Barbara, for example, have long worked toward smoothing out the process for students to both determine their CalFresh eligibility and to apply for the program.
Other details, such as the low take-up rates in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, highlight the potential need for additional outreach in regions with increasingly high housing and cost of living expenses. Among community college students in Los Angeles, just 5% of the population were both eligible and participating in CalFresh during the fall of 2019. That number is 3% during the same timeframe in the Bay Area.
The development of a new dataset
The report included data from millions of students who attended UC and community college campuses between the 2010-11 and 2021-22 school years. While the report’s authors were largely focused on the most recent data, they included previous years’ data that was consistent across the four agencies they had data sharing agreements with — and this happened to take them as far back as the 2010-11 school year.
The bulk of the project took about four years to complete, according to Rothstein, who noted that this project took “longer than most” he’s worked on in his career. The team first needed to execute data sharing agreements between each of the institutions included in the report and then clean it up to ensure accuracy.
“It’s really beyond the ability of the individual agencies to do this kind of project,” said Rothstein.“It just takes too long and requires too much collaboration between agencies.”
Notably missing from the institutions that shared their data was California State University, which is the nation’s largest four-year public university system.
The CSU “was more reluctant” to share their data, said Rothstein, and his team decided to move forward without that system’s information. He noted that his team plans to work on another edition of the report in which they hope to be able to include CSU data.
“Our hope is that by kind of developing long-term relationships with the agencies we can build the trust that’s required to do this kind of project,” said Rothstein. “We can also build the kind of specialized knowledge of the individual data sets that makes it possible.”
The story has been updated to reflect changes made to the report by the California Policy Lab.
