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  • Expanding arts education requires accountability and team effort, panel says 

    Expanding arts education requires accountability and team effort, panel says 


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3cmXuO9w2M

    The rollout of Proposition 28, which gives $1 billion for arts education every year, has caused confusion among districts throughout California as many look to expand opportunities available to students. 

    Despite the hurdles, bringing arts education into schools in an equitable way is possible with the right team, according to panelists at EdSource’s March 21 Roundtable discussion, “Raising the curtain on Prop 28: Can arts education help transform California schools?” 

    “We have the funding to do great things,” said Marcos Hernandez, the principal of the International Studies Learning Center at Legacy High School in Los Angeles Unified. “But we all have to be committed, and we have to listen to the students.” 

    ‘The glue that holds a good education together’ 

    When University of California Irvine student and panelist Matthew Garcia-Ramirez was in middle school, his 30-minute art classes changed everything. 

    As a high school student grappling with personal losses during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Garcia-Ramirez got into the California State Summer School for the Arts, where he received a piece of advice that stuck with him: “You can remember you can learn all the fancy words you need for poetry, but what you have is something special. It’s your voice.” 

    That opportunity led Garcia-Ramirez to receiving a scholarship for college — and he isn’t alone in experiencing the transformative impacts of an arts education. 

    Several panelists discussed the importance of arts education — particularly in a post-pandemic world — and its ability to keep students engaged. 

    According to Letty Kraus, director of the California County Superintendents Statewide Arts Initiative, chronic absenteeism throughout the state, which has surged by 30% since 2018, can be improved when students have access to arts education. The exposure is associated with improved attendance. 

    “It’s a 21st century learning skill. It’s so necessary, and I just think that a lot of people think in an old-fashioned way about arts education,” said Malissa Feruzzi Shriver, co-founder of Turnaround Arts: California, a nonprofit that works in elementary and middle schools across the state, who emphasized the importance of seeing arts as “applied creativity.” 

    “It’s a child with a crayon or a paintbrush, or what if my child doesn’t want to be a musician? It’s much broader and more impactful than that.” 

    Implementing Proposition 28

    While Proposition 28 was designed to give twice as much money to kids who are in lower income communities, the law’s implementation so far deserves a C-minus, said former LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner. 

    Under the law, Proposition 28 funds are specifically designed to supplement, and not supplant, existing funding, Beutner said.

    “Some school districts either don’t wish to recognize the plain language of the law or are willfully violating the law,” Beutner said. “And they’re using money to backfill existing programs.” 

    Beutner said that the California Department of Education, which has been tasked with overseeing Proposition 28 funds, has been “relatively circumspect on this.” He called for the state auditor to get more involved. 

    “This is the first full year, and it’s going to set a precedent,” Beutner said. “If school districts are allowed to willfully just flat out violate the law, what’s going to happen next year or the year after?” 

    Supporting arts programs 

    While some districts are confused about how to implement Proposition 28, others are working to build arts programs from the ground up. 

    Schools that have “disinvested in the arts over the years don’t have that expertise in-house, and they need help,” said Jessica Mele, the interim executive director of Create CA, which advocates for high quality arts education for all students. “They’re struggling to know what kind of decisions to make when it comes to building an arts education program from scratch. That’s where we see some inequities.”

    From developing strategic plans to incorporating professional development opportunities for teaching artists seeking more stability, panelists emphasized that partnerships are critical — as is the need to cultivate a demand from students and families.

    “Education is here for us, the students. It’s here to serve us, and we have a voice at the table. So please use that voice because that is very important,” Garcia-Ramirez said. 

    “Use the public comment at your school district’s meetings; ask your principal questions; there is a seat for you at the table, and if there isn’t, please make one for yourself.”





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  • Dual admission programs a tool for addressing state’s transfer challenges, panel says

    Dual admission programs a tool for addressing state’s transfer challenges, panel says


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a7FKovXyWQ

    A group of education leaders and experts representing both community colleges and four-year universities agreed during EdSource’s Wednesday roundtable discussion that dual admission might be one of the most promising solutions to California’s broken transfer systems.

    About 2 million students are enrolled in the state’s 116 community colleges, yet just 10% of them transfer to a four-year university within two years, according to research from the Public Policy Institute of California, or PPIC.

    “At the end of the day, it’s really important for us to ensure that transfer is as seamless as possible, that students have the information they need upfront, that it’s actionable, that they’re able to take the courses they need and get through to transfer,” said Hans Johnson, a senior fellow at the PPIC Higher Education Center.

    Panelists at the roundtable — “Is dual admission a solution to California’s broken transfer system?” — agreed that dual admission should be available statewide for all interested students in order to ensure more seamless transfers.

    The roundtable included discussion of a state law passed in 2021 that sought to improve transfer rates in California. The postsecondary education trailer bill, or Assembly Bill 132, asked the University of California and required the California State University systems to create such programs for students who didn’t “meet freshman admissions eligibility criteria due to limitations in the high school curriculum offered or personal or financial hardship.”

    going deeper

    Visit the virtual event page for EdSource’s dual admission roundtable for more information about the speakers and a list of resources.

    Dual admission programs offer students guaranteed admission into certain four-year universities after completing a specific list of lower division courses at a community college. This is different from dual enrollment, a process in which students earn college credit while in high school.

    This law could potentially transform the state’s higher education pathways, given that California ranks 41st when it comes to high school graduates who enroll in a four-year university but third in its share who enroll in community college, according to Johnson.

    “What that means is that transfer students are critical to ensuring that California really provides a meaningful ladder of educational and economic mobility for our population,” Johnson said.

    While the state law calls for a pilot program, CSU’s dual admission program is permanent. It’s called the Transfer Success Pathway Program and launched in fall 2023 with an initial cohort of 2,000 students, said April Grommo, CSU’s assistant vice chancellor of enrollment management.

    “We purposely are creating a statewide system,” Grommo said. “We also know that students transfer or take courses at multiple community colleges, and we wanted all of that credit to be reflected in the system and for students to be able to accurately track how many units they’ve completed, what their transferable GPA is, and how they fulfill general education and major prerequisites so that they truly understand the courses that they need to transfer.”

    CSU’s program includes all campuses, though some of the most impacted majors are excluded, while UC’s program is limited to six of the nine campuses. CSU also goes beyond what’s required by law by offering dual admission to just about any student who was rejected or simply chose not to attend CSU.

    “Just for scale, there’s 162 community college students in the dual admission program for UC, and there’s 2,008 students in the dual admission program for CSU currently in the community colleges,” said panelist John Stanskas, vice chancellor for educational services and support at the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office.

    Roundtable panelists also discussed existing programs that could be used as a model for more statewide access to dual admission.

    One such example is in the state of Virginia, where Northern Virginia Community College has a dual admission partnership with George Mason University, which sits just 5 miles away. One of the roundtable panelists, Jaden Todd, is a current student at the community college and shared his experience.

    A significant benefit of his dual admission program, called ADVANCE, has been the clarity of knowing exactly which classes he’d need to take at his current campus and at George Mason University after transferring. A clear understanding of the courses he’d be required to take was important, he said, as he decided whether to pursue computer science versus computer engineering.

    “The fact that I’m able to see not only what classes I need to take here at NOVA (Northern Virginia Community College) but also what it transfers to and what it transfers as, I think that’s one of the biggest benefits of the program,” said Todd, who is on track to transfer to George Mason University in one year.

    “I don’t have to worry I’m wasting my money, I don’t have to worry I’m wasting my time. … I don’t have to be a junior taking freshman classes because I didn’t know that this history class was a prereq for this other class.”

    Todd said he’s also benefited from having access to a second campus.

    “That’s something that I wouldn’t have if this ADVANCE program doesn’t exist because I have access to everything a GMU student has access to because I’m considered a GMU student, even though I’m at NOVA,” Todd said, referring to George Mason University.

    Some GMU resources available to Todd are their libraries, a lab with 3D printers, and access to their student clubs.

    One of the longstanding challenges that California community college students face when transferring to a CSU or UC is the need to align the courses on their transcripts with the courses they must take after transferring. It’s a challenge that NOVA and GMU avoided by clearly outlining required courses for students enrolled in ADVANCE, but one that students in Long Beach City College’s initial dual admission program often came up against.

    In its initial iteration of the program in 2008, Long Beach City College partnered with Long Beach Unified and CSU Long Beach to create the Long Beach College Promise. Understanding which courses students were required to take at each level of their higher education journey, however, “was almost like a maze that they were trying to demystify,” said panelist Nohel C. Corral, executive vice president of student services at Long Beach City College.

    In 2019, the college relaunched a revised version called Long Beach College Promise 2.0, Corral said.

    “We mapped the courses students would need to take in their first two years here at Long Beach City College and what it would look like in their last two years at California State University Long Beach,” Corral said. “And that required a lot of coordination between the instructional faculty at both Long Beach City College and at Long Beach State, in addition to counselors and advisers in both institutions.”

    The relaunched program included 38 students enrolled at Long Beach City College who were also given CSU Long Beach student identification cards with access to the CSU library, sporting events and career services, among other resources. The following year, the cohort included 162 students, which grew to 774 by the fall of 2021.

    “We’re still tracking them and collecting data to assess the transfer rates for those cohorts, but for that fall 2019 cohort, we saw significant transfer rates compared to other populations,” he said.

    The panelists agreed that geography may become a potential challenge in the development of dual admission programs statewide, given California’s size. They also agreed, however, that regional partnerships become crucial in those areas.

    Just last week, for example, Chico State announced a dual admission partnership with seven community colleges. Fresno State and Fresno City College also have a partnership; likewise, CSU Bakersfield has one with Bakersfield College.

    Corral suggested “starting off with the data and seeing where the students are transferring to, if you don’t have a local CSU in your direct vicinity, so that you can start those dialogues and start those engagements with those CSUs that your students are going to.”

    Stanskas, of the community colleges’ chancellor’s office, said that dual admission can be “especially important for our place-bound students who can’t go a hundred miles or 500 miles to a program. They have family; they have commitments; they have lives that they are unable to move that way.”

    Grommo said, “We would love to see every student that’s transitioning from high school and decides that the community college pathway is their pathway that they need to take, really enroll in the Transfer Success Pathway program so we can support them early in their process and help them through this transfer journey.”

    This story was updated to accurately reflect Jaden Todd’s name.





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  • UCLA chancellor faces Congress, says he regrets not removing encampment sooner

    UCLA chancellor faces Congress, says he regrets not removing encampment sooner


    UCLA Chancellor Gene Block testifies during a hearing of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce regarding pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses on Capitol Hill on May 23, 2024, in Washington.

    Credit: AP Photo / Mariam Zuhaib

    This story was updated with additional quotes and information from Thursday’s hearing.

    Testifying in front of a congressional committee Thursday, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said he regrets not acting sooner to remove the pro-Palestinian encampment that was violently attacked last month by counter protesters.

    “With the benefit of hindsight, we should have been prepared to immediately remove the encampment if and when the safety of our community was put at risk,” Block said during prepared remarks to the Republican-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

    Block, who himself is Jewish, testified before the committee in Washington, D.C., as part of a hearing on antisemitism on college campuses. It was the third time the committee had called on university leaders to testify about antisemitism since last fall, and the first time that a chancellor or president from California has testified.

    Testifying alongside Block were Michael Schill, the president of Northwestern University, and Jonathan Holloway, the president of Rutgers University.

    For the most part, Block avoided harsh questioning during the hearing, with lawmakers spending more time grilling Holloway and especially Schill. Some of his most insightful remarks came during his opening statement, when he addressed the encampment that sprang up on the UCLA campus on April 25.

    Block said he initially followed UC system guidance, which is to only use law enforcement to remove protesters “when absolutely necessary” to protect the safety of the campus. 

    But as the encampment grew to more than 500 protesters, “some of whom were not even affiliated with UCLA,” Block said he decided on April 28 to remove the encampment. He then gave the protesters written notice on April 30, but it was too late. Later that night, a violent mob of counter demonstrators attacked the encampment, resulting in injuries and hospitalizations.

    Meanwhile, as Block addressed the lawmakers Thursday, protesters on UCLA’s campus were erecting a new encampment Thursday.

    Later during Thursday’s hearing, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) questioned Block about the violent attacks, which she said he could have prevented. 

    “The recent images from UCLA are appalling. What is more appalling is that it was completely preventable. You could have prevented this by protecting the diverse groups of pro-Palestinian students that were peacefully gathered on campus,” she said.

    “Are any of these people in jail?” Omar then asked, referring to the counter protesters who attacked the encampment.

    Block said Los Angeles police are still working to identify the assailants from that evening. 

    “It’s been over a month,” Omar responded.

    Block also faced questions over allegations that the UCLA encampment was blocking Jewish and pro-Israel students from parts of campus. Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) shared a video that he said showed Jewish students being blocked by encampment protesters from getting to class. 

    “After we learned about that, I sent a message to all our student affairs people to make sure the pathways were open for everyone. And I sent the message out to our community,” Block said when Kiley asked if the encampment protesters were disciplined, an answer that did not satisfy Kiley.

    Rep. Virginia Foxx, the Republican chair of the committee from North Carolina, also criticized Block for that incident. In her closing remarks, Foxx said there was “horrifying footage of encampment members setting up illegal checkpoints, denying Jewish students access to central parts of campus.”

    Republicans spent more time questioning Schill, the Northwestern president. They criticized him for coming to an agreement with pro-Palestinian protesters on his campus, but Schill defended himself and said he “rejected the main student demand of divestment.” Northwestern’s agreement did include a promise to disclose more information about its investments.

    “We had to get the encampment down,” Schill said Thursday. That answer, however, did not satisfy lawmakers.

    Outside the hearing, faculty members from Rutgers, Northwestern and UCLA criticized Republican lawmakers over the hearing and said it was an attack on higher education.

    That included Mia McIver, an English professor at UCLA who during a live streamed press conference called the hearing a “shameful farce.”

    “Instead of focusing on learning, teaching, inquiry, understanding, analysis, and argumentation, which are the primary functions of higher ed, the committee’s perverse obsession with harsh discipline and bizarre thirst for punishment revealed that the real goal is to shut down repress, suppress and criminalize constitutionally protected speech and action,” McIver said.





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  • Proactive campus policies, communication with students critical under ‘antagonistic’ federal actions, panel says

    Proactive campus policies, communication with students critical under ‘antagonistic’ federal actions, panel says


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUqMDwwZbO8

    How might federal funding to colleges change under the current federal administration? What to tell students who are worried their financial aid packages might be impacted by proposed changes to federal education funding? Is it possible to find common ground with President Donald Trump?

    A panel of education experts on Tuesday provided few definitive answers to those questions, leaving several unanswered, reflecting the uncertainty facing many in education today as they examine how the Trump administration’s approach to higher education may impact them.

    The panelists on an EdSource roundtable, “The future of California higher education under Trump,” described a barrage of executive actions — banning diversity efforts, withdrawing already budgeted funds, blacklisting colleges, canceling visas of international students and threatening college leaders — actions that Dominique J. Baker, associate professor at the University of Delaware, described as “antagonistic.”

    Baker stated that while many of the funding threats and proposed changes to education come from the executive branch of government, it’s important to consider the role of “the entirety of our federal apparatus” when discussing the future of higher education in this country, including Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court.

    Panelists agreed that proposed changes to student loan repayment options and to the federal Pell Grants, which are awarded to students with exceptional financial need, would be detrimental to many students.

    “If all of these policies went into place the way that they are currently written out, we would expect to see a stark drop in low-income students enrolling in higher education, whether that’s for the first time or students who had previously enrolled leaving higher education before they can earn any sort of credential or degree,” said Baker, in a blunt assessment of what could occur if the proposed changes to those programs are approved.

    Panelist Cristian Ulisses Reyes, a master’s candidate in higher education counseling and student affairs at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo who received the Pell Grant, said that threats to such funding are instilling fear in his peers.

    “Students aren’t just numbers and policy debates,” Reyes said. “We’re the ones that are being directly impacted.”

    Potential scenarios in case of cuts

    Gregory A. Smith, chancellor of the San Diego Community College District, said that of around $64 million in annual federal funds, about $43 million goes toward financial aid for students, much in the form of Pell Grants.

    The rest of the funds go to programming — about $3.5 million in yearly Title III grants from the federal Department of Education are geared toward the enrollment and retention of Hispanic students in STEM fields; the community college district is a Hispanic-serving institution.

    If threats to funding continue, Smith said the San Diego Community College District needs to be prepared for these scenarios:

    • The funding could be withheld altogether.
    • The funding may remain intact, but the staff who process the payments may have been laid off during recent staff terminations at the federal Department of Education, which could lead to funding delays.
    • “The most catastrophic version” of events, he said, would be if Congress amended Title III of the Higher Education Act, which would eliminate the Hispanic-serving institution’s STEM program.

    And if any of these scenarios were to occur, “[the program] may need to look different, it may need to be funded differently, but we’re certainly committed to continuing the work in any of those three scenarios,” Smith said.

    “Especially for a lot of the populations that we’ve listed — like low-income students, first-generation students — the administration’s attacks on student protections feel personal for many of us,” said Reyes, the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo master’s student.

    Reyes urged colleges and universities to be more transparent with their students about discussions and involve them in decisions being made. “Institutions shouldn’t be making decisions about us, without us,” he said.

    Relying on long-standing California policies

    California has decades of practice in implementing anti-affirmative action policies after approving Proposition 209 in 1996, the panelists noted, as a reminder that the state is protected from some of the changes being made at the federal level.

    “Legally, we’ve spent a lot of time figuring out what that looks like to not consider race in hiring, race in admissions, while still being equity-minded,” said Gina Ann Garcia, professor in the School of Education at UC Berkeley.

    Affinity graduation ceremonies, for example, have been criticized by the federal administration as part of its attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.

    Garcia, however, not only recently attended a cultural graduation, but said she feels supported by her university to say such graduations will not be canceled.

    “We’re talking about a state that’s been anti-affirmative action for 30 years, so we’ve had 30 years to get in compliance,” she said. “We’re not really the state you want to come for, if they’re smart.”

    Smith, from San Diego community colleges, echoed Garcia’s sentiments about feeling no fear when the federal Department of Education issued a “Dear Colleague” letter in February, threatening cuts in federal funding if schools did not eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

    The letter has not changed their DEI programming, Smith said, but it has led to fear in their school community, and they are afraid about the security of these programs.

    Smith also shared strategies his district has implemented to keep their students and staff informed, including:

    • Discussions on what DEI activities are offered and why.
    • Communicating that campus policies on civility, academic freedom, freedom of expression, and freedom of speech remain intact.
    • Proactive action by their board in adopting resolutions related to institutional protection from certain government threats.

    “It is really important in this moment that we say these are lines around which there is no negotiation, they are fundamental to higher education in America, they’re at the core of a free democratic society, and so there is no negotiation,” Smith said, echoing what Baker and others noted during their discussion. “We can’t give up any margin on it whatsoever at all without crumbling the entire foundation of our institutions.”

    While the panelists agreed on this point, they also warned of a future in which the state’s present-day policies on education may change. Upcoming state elections, they said, will determine the direction California heads in regardless of who is in power at the federal level.

    “We could swing in a few years … there are many red districts in California,” said Garcia. “It changes what happens as far as funding and commitments to education when we change political leanings.”





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  • ‘Bring it on,’ Kamala Harris says in fiery speech to teachers’ union

    ‘Bring it on,’ Kamala Harris says in fiery speech to teachers’ union


    Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during the American Federation of Teachers’ 88th national convention,
    Thursday in Houston.

    Credit: AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez

    It may well just have been a case of fortuitous timing, but Vice President Kamala Harris — the likely Democratic nominee for the presidency — gave her most full-throated address on Thursday since President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign Sunday to an auditorium filled with enthusiastic teachers.

    watch or read the speech

    Watch the speech here.

    Read the transcript here.

    She articulated what seem likely to be the principal lines of attack in what, for her, will be one of the shortest presidential campaigns in American history.  She also reprised some of the education issues that have figured prominently in her career so far. 

    Speaking Thursday in Houston at the convention of the American Federation of Teachers, which, as she noted, was the first union to endorse her candidacy, her speech was in effect a paean of praise not only to teachers, but to everyone working in schools, from bus drivers to nurses. 

    As she has many times, she paid tribute to her first grade teacher at Thousand Oaks Elementary School in Berkeley, Frances Wilson.

    “I am a proud product of public education,” she said in a not-so-subtle rebuttal to former President Donald Trump and his allies’ disparaging descriptions of public schools as “government schools” intent on indoctrinating students with left-wing and “woke” ideologies.   

    Vice President Kamala Harris attended Thousand Oaks Elementary School in Berkeley in the 1960s. The school has been rebuilt since then.
    Credit: Andrew Reed/EdSource

    “It is because of Mrs. Wilson and many teachers like her that I stand before you as the vice president of the United States, and why I am running to become president of the United States,” she said. 

    “You all do God’s work teaching our children,” she told the teachers, all of whom are union members. 

    In what could become the signature slogan of her campaign, Harris framed the contest as one between the future and the past.

    “In this moment we are in a fight for our most fundamental freedoms,” she said, pausing dramatically.  “And to this room of leaders, I say, bring it on.”

    She repeated “bring it on” three times, as the audience roared “bring it on” back to her. 

    She said the choice was clear between “two different visions” of America — one focused on the future, and another on the past, and “we are fighting for the future.” 

    Teachers, by the very nature of their work, are engaged in creating America’s future. 

    “You see potential in every child,” she said. “You shape the future of our nation.” 

    “While you teach students about democracy, extremists attack us on the right to vote,” she declared. 

    And she criticized Republican resistance to gun control, less than a week after a 20-year-old inexperienced gunman nearly assassinated her likely opponent with an AR-15 rifle. 

    “They have the nerve to tell teachers to strap on a gun in the classroom, while they refuse to pass common sense gun safety laws,” she said. 

    Harris also took on some of the ideological issues raised by Republicans and the far-right that have roiled the education landscape. 

    “While you (the teachers) teach about our nation’s past, these extremists attack the freedom to learn, and to acknowledge our nation’s full history, including book bans,” she declared. “We want to ban assault weapons, and they want to ban books.”

    The vice president doubled down on the Biden administration’s ambitious efforts to ease the burden of student loan debt — efforts that have been stymied by lawsuits brought by Republicans and their allies blocking his most ambitious loan forgiveness plans.

    She described a teacher in Philadelphia she met recently who had been paying off her student loan for 20 years but still had $40,000 to pay off, despite being part of the public service loan program that has been in place for years. 

    “We forgave it all,” she said. 

    Her appearance before the AFT, the second-largest teacher’s union (with almost 2 million members) after the National Education Association, may also have been fortuitous for practical reasons.  

    In addition to their financial contributions, teachers’ unions have a large network of volunteers they can draw on to go out into communities, knock on doors, and make phone calls to mobilize support for the candidates they back.  

    Both unions have now formally endorsed her. 

    It is that kind of backing that will make a big difference in the outcome of what almost everyone, regardless of their political affiliation, acknowledges is likely to be a close race.





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  • More outreach and access are needed in adult education, panel says

    More outreach and access are needed in adult education, panel says


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-TxSs3XHpA

    Despite efforts across various sectors, adults throughout California continue to struggle to access education opportunities that can be critical for their family’s economic mobility. 

    The panel at EdSource’s roundtable, “Adult education: Overlooked and underfunded,” discussed how adults and their families can benefit from adult education, the common barriers to access and ways to overcome them. 

    “During the pandemic, our emergency room took in some of our most at-need people and triaged them to the right medical care that they need,” said John Werner, the executive director of Sequoias Adult Education Consortium at Thursday’s discussion. “Adult schools do very similar work with education.” 

    Barriers to adult education

    Panelist Francisco Solano grew up in Mexico, where he earned a high school education but had no interest in continuing his schooling. About 16 years ago, he came to the United States and found himself working for salad-packing companies. 

    He eventually enrolled in adult education classes at Salinas Adult School and is now wrapping up a doctorate in molecular biology at UCLA. 

    But the road through his adult education was “exhausting” and “not convenient at all.” 

    “That’s what I see with my peers,” Solano said. “They are not able to get out of that lifestyle because it’s so difficult for them to be able to have a job that secures rent and food for the families and, at the same time, find time and resources to go to school or try something else.” 

    Solano also believes that larger companies do not want migrants like him to succeed because that would take away a source of cheap labor. 

    Rural areas — where barriers associated with time and distance are greater — have a high need for adult education.

    Steve Curiel, the principal of Huntington Beach Adult School, said not enough conversations about adult education are held at the policy level because most people in elected positions are unlikely to understand the critical role it plays, having experienced more traditional educational journeys.

    Raising awareness and marketing 

    Carolyn Zachry, the state director and education administrator for adult education at the California Department of Education, stressed the importance of raising awareness and sharing stories like Solano’s among potential students. 

    “That gives the courage to come forward and to walk in those doors of that school,” she said. “And once they’re inside those school doors, then that school community wraps around them and really supports them.” 

    Werner also emphasized the importance of actively seeking students. He mentioned specific efforts to speak to individuals at local community events, like farmers markets and flea markets. A TV or radio presence can also be helpful, he said. 

    Helping communities overcome barriers 

    Numerous organizations are enacting measures to expand access to adult education, including creating remote and virtual options as well as providing child care for students while they are in school.

    Several panelists agreed that virtual learning can be a helpful way to bring educational opportunities to adults at home — though Kathy Locke, who teaches English as a second language in Oakland Unified, emphasized the importance of in-person instruction, so adults can learn the skills they need to succeed online. 

    “The more marginalized, the greater your need in terms of English level, the harder it is to access the technology to be able to use the technology to do distance learning well,” Locke said. 

    To improve access to online learning, Curiel said the Huntington Beach Adult School has provided laptops and channels for internet connection. 

    Providing child care is another way to help reduce barriers for adults. 

    “Our classes provide babysitting for our students to be able to come with their children. Their children go to child care, and then they’re able to come and learn,” Locke said. 

    “I think that as a district, we really named that as a barrier and really put our money where our mouths were, I think, and made that a priority to get adults in our classrooms, so that they can do the learning that they need.”

    Broader benefits of adult education 

    Adult education also helps support a child’s education, the roundtable panelists agreed. 

    For example, a child’s literacy benefits when parents attend English language classes, Locke said. And parents are more likely to be involved with their child’s education later on. 

    “If you want to help a child in poverty, you have to help an adult in poverty,” Werner said. “Only the adult can go get a job tomorrow.” 





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  • Communication with parents is key to addressing chronic absenteeism, panel says

    Communication with parents is key to addressing chronic absenteeism, panel says


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q12tG9pvhpM

    Students who are missing too much school might be facing mental health issues, poverty and housing insecurity — issues that might seem daunting if not impossible for the school system to tackle by itself.

    But relatively simple strategies, such as improved communication with parents via phone calls, emails or postcards, can be effective while costing little, according to a panel convened by EdSource on Wednesday called “Getting students back to school: Addressing chronic absenteeism.” Communication alone can motivate parents to improve their children’s attendance — and it can also help schools understand the causes of chronic absenteeism. 

    “Engagement is mostly free,” said Jessica Hull, executive director of communication and community engagement for Roseville City School District in Placer County. “It doesn’t take any money to sit and listen to the barriers that exist for our families.”

    Researchers and educators know what a serious problem chronic absenteeism is, but parents don’t, according to Amie Rapaport, co-director of the Center for Applied Research in Education at University of Southern California (USC). Rapaport calls this the “parent/expert disconnect.”

    “If parents don’t know that their children are struggling in school, then they’re not going to be seeking intervention or support for their child,” Rapaport said.

    That appears to be what is happening. Rapaport’s research as part of a new USC report on school absenteeism found that fewer than half of the parents of chronically absent students were worried or concerned about it. But research has found that chronic absenteeism can cause a cascade of academic problems for students throughout their schooling.

    The pandemic played a role in diminishing parents’ belief that school attendance is valuable, according to Thomas S. Dee, professor of education at Stanford University Graduate School of Education. He said this “norm erosion” has been a national phenomenon.

    “Over the past few years, we’ve seen nearly 20 years of test score gains evaporate,” Dee said. “We’ve seen an accelerating youth mental health crisis that’s attested by a declaration from the American Academy of Pediatrics, (and) a rare public health advisory from the U.S. Surgeon General.”

    Schools are still seeing the effects of the pandemic on their students, even as federal funding to address those problems is drying up, Dee noted. For schools to address this crisis, they need interventions that are easy to scale and don’t cost a lot of money — and have research to back it.

    “I think if I were to encourage people to leave today’s webinar with one piece of information, it’s that most promising (intervention) is low cost, scalable parent engagement through outreach, through texting, through postcards,” Dee said.

    The way that educators frame the problem to parents is important, according to Hull. That can mean celebrating when a student who has been absent returns to school. But it can also mean explaining why missing a couple of days each month can take a toll on a student. Avoiding jargon or confusing language is also key.

    When confronted with a chronic absenteeism rate that soared to 26% from a prepandemic level of 6%, Roseville City School District began a campaign to educate parents about the importance of attendance. One piece of that was designing an infographic, in parents’ home language, that explained what chronic absenteeism is and the consequences of too many unexcused or even excused absences.

    Dee said that the state could also play a role by integrating data about attendance with a text messaging system, for instance, alerting parents that their student is missing too much school.

    “But California’s a place that’s put a heavy emphasis on local control, and so it’s down to our many districts and schools to navigate those challenges,” Dee said.

    Some schools might see that certain issues — such as school safety, transportation or economic or health barriers — are especially prevalent in their communities, Dee said. Understanding what those issues are from the community is important. That, too, requires parent engagement.

    Communication needs to be a two-way street, according to Jennifer Hwang, a Los Angeles Unified parent. LAUSD educators initially brushed Hwang’s concerns aside when she told them her son was struggling with attendance, due to anxiety and neurodivergence. Hwang wishes that her school had simply listened to her concerns when she first raised them.

    “It took a while for me to just go in constantly, reach out to the teacher and reach out to the school. If that initial reaction would have been much more helpful, then I don’t think that he would have been as absent as he was,” Hwang said. 

    Zaia Vera, an education consultant with Sown To Grown, credits conversations with students for inspiring a novel way of addressing attendance. Students said they were struggling with money and that they needed adults who cared about them. So Oakland Unified conducted an experiment while Vera was the head of social-emotional learning. 

    For 10 weeks, the district provided mentors and $50 a week to encourage students to improve their attendance. It paid off with improved attendance that continued well beyond the experiment.

    “The key finding here was that the money incentivized the students to come to school, but it was the relationships that they built that kept them there, and coming back,” Vera said. 

    Research demonstrates that good relationships with teachers are key for encouraging students to come to school — and so are factors such as the school environment and the quality of instruction, Dee said. 

    But Dee cautions schools to not get too overwhelmed trying to tackle all the problems that can exacerbate chronic absenteeism, especially at a time when school finances are tight.

    “The notion that (schools) should do all the things seems really problematic,” he said. “I’m seeing things like, ‘Well, maybe to promote attendance, you should fix housing and security or solve the American health/healthare system.’ I think that’s great advice for a state legislator or federal legislator, but not appropriate for districts and schools.”





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  • ACLU says Cal State Long Beach sound amplification rules ‘unconstitutional’

    ACLU says Cal State Long Beach sound amplification rules ‘unconstitutional’


    A teach-in on Palestine at Cal State Long Beach on May 2, 2024.

    Credit: Courtesy of Ben Huff

    California State University, Long Beach is facing accusations that a policy limiting amplified sound on campus violates free speech rights and has been selectively enforced to single out faculty members who criticized the university. 

    The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California last Thursday sent a letter to campus leaders on behalf of two faculty members it said received notices warning that they violated the school’s sound amplification policies during a teach-in about Palestine last spring.

    Cal State Long Beach regulations for devices like megaphones and microphones “are unconstitutional as written, and there is good reason to suspect that warnings … may have been issued because of disagreement with the professors’ political speech,” ACLU attorney Jonathan Markovitz wrote.

    Cal State Long Beach spokesperson Jeff Cook said in a statement that the university respects “the perspectives expressed in the letter from the ACLU but (disagrees) with several of the characterizations made. As our review of the letter continues, we also reaffirm that campus policies related to ‘Time, Place and Manner’ are viewpoint-neutral.”

    The confrontation at Cal State Long Beach highlights the potential for backlash as universities around the country place a new emphasis on rules around how, where and when people can assemble on their campuses this fall, a reaction to a wave of pro-Palestinian protests last spring. University officials frame revamped guardrails as promoting the peaceful exchange of ideas in continuation of past practices, but critics argue the restrictions will chill free speech.

    The California State University Chancellor’s Office last month debuted a systemwide time, place and manner policy in response to legislation requiring schools in both the Cal State and University of California systems to notify students of free speech rules on their campuses at the start of the academic year.

    Cal State Chancellor Mildred García additionally notified campus presidents in an Aug. 27 letter that activities like forming encampments and occupying buildings “are also prohibited by law and by systemwide directive.” García’s letter has sparked pushback from the California Faculty Association, which argues the university system is imposing new standards of employee conduct unilaterally, failing to give the faculty union an opportunity to bargain.

    The ACLU letter was sent on behalf of professors Sabrina Alimahomed-Wilson and Jake Alimahomed-Wilson, who in May co-wrote an article with four other Cal State Long Beach faculty members condemning the university’s ties to Boeing and other defense contractors. 

    “My understanding is that, while many faculty members used amplified sound while participating in the teach-in that provides the ostensible basis for the warning emails, the only faculty members who received these warnings (the Alimahomed-Wilsons, Araceli Esparza, Steven Osuna, Azza Basarudin) were the co-authors of the article,” Markovitz wrote. “I hope that this is mere coincidence, but the correlation is at least notable.” 

    The letter asks the university to stop enforcing its sound amplification restrictions and repeal them until they can be amended “to comport with constitutional requirements.”

    Looking back to the spring

    Both the university’s current sound amplification policy and the policy in effect last spring require advance permission to use any kind of amplification. University policy also sets a decibel limit and specifies times and places where amplification is permitted.

    The matter discussed in the ACLU letter stems from a May 2 teach-in held at the campus.

    The student-organized demonstration started with a march from the school’s upper campus to its lower campus, where a group of hundreds gathered for a teach-in outside an administration building, the five professors named in the ACLU letter said in a group interview. They recalled that roughly eight to 12 speakers shared remarks using a megaphone or a microphone.

    “The whole time, we had mic and megaphone problems,” Osuna said. “It wasn’t very loud. So that’s the part that’s really funny to me – we all kept on trying to tell people, ‘Can you hear us? Can you hear us?’”

    Sabrina Alimahomed-Wilson, Esparza and Basarudin shared remarks about why Palestine is a feminist issue, while Jake Alimahomed-Wilson and Osuna gave a talk describing the university’s connections to Boeing. The latter presentation became the basis for an opinion piece the five professors and a colleague published on May 20 in the website Mondoweiss, which argued that the university’s close relationship with Boeing makes it complicit in the violence in Gaza.

    The five professors said that on Aug. 19, the first day of the fall term, they each received emails notifying them that they had violated the time, place and manner policy and would risk formal written reprimand or other disciplinary action if they did not comply with it in the future. 

    “They waited all this time to send us this message on the first day of the semester,” Osuna said. “It’s kind of letting us know, ‘We have our eyes on you.’ That’s the feeling.”

    Osuna said that a similar warning email sent to a sixth person was rescinded because there wasn’t evidence to show they had used a microphone.

    A free speech argument

    Markovitz argued in the letter addressed to Associate Vice President Patricia A. Pérez last week that Cal State Long Beach’s amplified sound policy is unconstitutional because regulations affecting speech must be narrowly tailored. 

    While some limits on amplified sound may be legitimate, he wrote, it is “clearly impermissible to require advance permission for any use of amplification anywhere on campus.” He argued that the campus’ volume limitations could be used to prohibit shouting or chanting without amplification, even if that is not the university’s intention. And he said the time limitations are “poorly written and unclear,” making it difficult to decipher when and where amplification is allowed.

    “The policy’s lack of clarity is a serious problem in its own right, because it makes it impossible for members of the University community to know when they might be in violation of the policy, or when they will be denied permission for amplified sound,” Markovitz wrote. “The risk of arbitrary enforcement is especially pronounced because the policy provides no guidelines indicating when the required requests for advance permission will be granted or denied.”

    Markovitz’s letter also expressed concerns that the university has not enforced its sound amplification consistently, but rather is using the policy to discriminate against faculty members based on their political views. 

    “The inference of viewpoint discrimination or retaliation is bolstered by my understanding that faculty have regularly used amplified sound at union rallies without obtaining advance permission, and without receiving warnings of (time, place and manner) violations later on,” Markovitz wrote. “Again, I hope that the apparent inconsistent application of the university’s amplification has been merely an honest mistake, but I am concerned that hope may not be justified.”

    ‘A fabric of our university’

    Sabrina Alimahomed-Wilson said she and other faculty who received the emails have used megaphones at previous teach-ins and protests, including an event following the 2020 murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. 

    “Teach-ins have been a fabric of our university,” she said, “and have never been policed in these ways.”

    “Our students see this, too,” Alimahomed-Wilson added. “So what does it mean when all our students are like, ‘Oh, those professors have gotten doxed over this. Now, those professors are getting criminalized over this. They’re getting charged.’”? I think the impact is really chilling.”

    Alimahomed-Wilson and her colleagues said their support for student protesters is an extension of their duties as faculty members: research, teaching and service to students. 

    “We teach our students about justice, about the military-industrial complex, about settler-colonialism, and if we don’t speak out against what is happening right now, we’re not doing our job,” Basarudin said.





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  • Pandemic recovery in schools will be a ‘long slog,’ says sobering national report

    Pandemic recovery in schools will be a ‘long slog,’ says sobering national report


    Student mental health was declining even before the pandemic, research has shown.

    Alison Yin for EdSource

    Nearly five years after Covid-19 began, a national report released Tuesday shows that recovery from the pandemic for students will be a “long slog.”    

    “The State of the American Student,” a report by the Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) states that the findings are “sobering, daunting, and discouraging,” and that the slow pace of recovery from the pandemic has left an indelible mark on education, with long-term implications for students’ income, racial inequity and social mobility in the United States. 

    “If policymakers and educators do not get serious about ensuring these students have access to proven interventions, then we will continue to see the educational impact of the pandemic reverberate for many years, both in our schools and in our economy,” the report stated.

    For the last three years, CRPE — a research organization out of the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University — has released annual reports examining the academic, social, emotional and mental health effects of the pandemic on students. CRPE Executive Director Robin Lake said the reports were an attempt to ensure that schools wouldn’t go back to business as usual before students were “made whole.”

    Fears that the pandemic would widen pre-existing opportunity gaps have come to fruition, according to the report’s summary of a wide span of research. The report focuses extra attention on certain groups: young children, disabled students, English learners and homeless students, and students who still lag far behind from where they would have been if not for the pandemic. Lake added these groups were largely not well served by schools before the pandemic began.

    The report takes a sweeping look at the issues that have been harming students’ recovery since 2020, including chronic absenteeism, staffing shortages, poor teacher morale and student disengagement. These are all signs pointing to a pandemic recovery effort that will require a “long haul.”

    Struggling students need more attention

    Currently, schools are facing “gale-force” headwinds trying to address these challenges, the report states. Pandemic-era funding is drying up, declining school enrollment is stretching district finances, and many educators are facing burnout. But the worst part is that the problem is underappreciated, Lake said.

    “Perhaps the most concerning thing to us is how little discussion there is about these problems,” Lake said. 

    Politicians are not talking about pandemic recovery, especially when it comes to the groups that have been struggling the most, she said. For instance, CRPE pointed out how some states, including California, do a poor job communicating data about how students have fared since the pandemic.

    Additionally, parents do not seem to know just how far behind their children are — thanks in part to grade inflation and some schools’ poor communication, Lake said.

    USC’s Center for Economic and Social Research conducted interviews with the parents of disabled students.

    One parent did not learn from the school that their child was failing two courses, making him ineligible to graduate from high school: “I didn’t know until we were in the process of graduation,” the parent told interviewers.

    The number of students who are served under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act has skyrocketed in recent years. It dipped during the peak of the pandemic when school campuses were closed, but surged again as students returned to the classrooms. It’s not clear why, but different theories have emerged.

    While it states that kindergartners who have not attended preschool are more likely to have academic and social struggles, including a rising number of behavioral issues and speech delays, the report notes that students who start school behind their peers may be being over-identified as having a disability or that the high numbers could be because students who might have simply been treading water in a previous era are now being correctly identified as having a disability.

    The problems faced by disabled students exemplify many of the biggest struggles of pandemic recovery efforts in schools. Disabled students’ academic performance has long lagged behind other students, but that gap has widened in the wake of the pandemic. The teacher shortage is particularly acute among special education teachers, now that they are needed most. Meanwhile, some effective efforts, such as tutoring, are not reaching disabled students. Low expectations for students with disabilities is a crisis that has failed to garner proper attention and resources, Lake said.

    One parent interviewed for the report said that getting help for their disabled students required constant fighting. “Multiple times, they promised in-person, in-school tutoring — which they just were understaffed and were never able to find anyone,” the parent said.

    Another parent said that without speech therapy, their son with epilepsy fell behind in school during the pandemic.

    “He fell further behind because my husband and I tried our best, but we can only do so much if you’re not a teacher, which is very frustrating,” the parent said in an interview.

    Recovery solutions are straightforward

    The strategies that helped schools recover have “not been rocket science,” Lake said. 

    Many schools have been successful with programs such as tutoring, high-quality curricula, extending learning time and improving communication with parents. Some schools are making these strategies a permanent part of the school experience, which is good news: Tutoring and small-group instruction are some of the most powerful tools schools have at their disposal, the report states.

    But scaling can be tricky, and many of the students who need help the most are not getting it, CRPE notes. Fewer than half of students who most needed that help enrolled in summer school, according to a Rand study, and just 1% of eligible students in Louisiana enrolled in a tutoring program for struggling readers.

    The report recommends focusing on the specific needs of struggling students, such as students with a disability or English learners, rather than so-called average students. Addressing the issues that these students are struggling with will pay dividends for the broader student population, Lake said.

    Some schools are demonstrating that recovery is possible, even if it’s not the dominant story right now. Students and educators alike are struggling, but there is a renewed understanding of the crucial role that school plays in a community. That has led to some schools rebuilding and strengthening that institution.

    “During the pandemic, you remember, there was so much talk about more joyful education, more engaging, more flexible,” Lake said. “We think that that has actually taken hold.”





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  • UC, Cal State, community colleges should work together to boost transfer rates, auditor says

    UC, Cal State, community colleges should work together to boost transfer rates, auditor says


    The Transfer and Reentry Center in Dutton Hall at UC Davis helps transfers get acclimated to their new environment.

    Credit: Karin Higgins/UC Davis

    Few students who intend to transfer from California’s community colleges do so successfully. To reverse that trend, the state’s public college systems will need to work collaboratively.

    That’s the finding of a report released Tuesday by the California State Auditor, which, at the direction of the state Assembly’s Joint Legislative Audit Committee, examined the state’s community college transfer system. 

    Only about 1 in 5 students who entered community college between 2017 and 2019 and intended to transfer did so within four years, the audit found. Rates were even lower for Black and Latino students, as well as for students from certain regions of the state, including the Central Valley.

    Many students struggled to navigate what critics call a complex transfer system in California, with variations in transfer requirements across the University of California and California State University systems, the audit found. 

    The report recommends that UC and CSU work with the community college system to streamline the transfer process. UC should consider widely adopting the associate degree for transfer (ADT) model that is already in place at CSU, and the systems should also share more data, according to the audit’s recommendations. The Legislature could also step in and appropriate funding to help CSU and UC better align their transfer requirements.

    Complexity leads to low transfer rates

    Students wishing to transfer often face obstacles that prevent them from getting to a four-year university. If students are considering multiple four-year universities for transfer, that often means a different set of requirements for each.

    For example, the auditor reviewed six potential four-year campuses to which a community college student studying computer science could transfer: UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego, CSU San Marcos, San Diego State and Stanislaus State. 

    The course requirements vary greatly across the four-year campuses. UC San Diego and San Diego State require potential transfer students to complete a course in intermediate computer programming, whereas the other four campuses do not. UC San Diego is also the only campus to require an additional calculus course. Meanwhile, that campus does not require students to take differential equations, but UC Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara do.

    The audit calls out the ADT as a promising model at CSU, but even that has shortcomings, the report notes. The ADT, created in 2010, is a two-year degree that is no more than 60 credits and is fully transferable to CSU.

    Although completing the ADT guarantees a student admission into CSU, it does not guarantee students admission to a specific major campus. That’s a problem, the audit notes, because transfer-intending students are more likely to enroll if they’re admitted to their preferred program.

    UC, meanwhile, has not adopted the ADT at all and instead relies on its own transfer programs, such as the transfer admission guarantee. That program does admit students to specific campuses and majors, but not all campuses participate in the program, and for those that do, some majors are excluded. UC’s three most selective campuses — Berkeley, Los Angeles and San Diego — are the three that do not offer the transfer admission guarantee.

    Among the transfer-intending students who entered community college between 2017 and 2019, 21% transferred within four years and less than 30% did so within six years.

    Among Black students, between 16.1% and about 17.3% successfully transferred within four years for each cohort. For Latino students, between 14.5% and 15.6% in each cohort transferred in that time frame. That compares to more than 28% of white students in each cohort and as many as 30% of Asian students. 

    There were also differences depending on a student’s location.

    The audit found that community colleges in the San Francisco Bay Area and San Diego regions, for example, had higher transfer rates than colleges in the Central Valley, Inland Empire and northern parts of the state.

    “One factor contributing to this difference may be the distances between community colleges and CSU and UC campuses in those regions. Students are more likely to transfer to a nearby university for a variety of reasons, including challenges associated with relocating,” the audit states.

    That’s true for students at Lassen Community College in northeastern California, according to an administrator there. The administrator told auditors that “proximity is a major barrier” for transfer-intending students. The closest CSU or UC campus is Chico State, which is still more than a two-hour drive. In fact, about three-quarters of students who did transfer from Lassen went to an out-of-state university.

    Streamlining transfer 

    The report offers several recommendations to lawmakers and the public college systems that could streamline the transfer process.

    Auditors recommend that lawmakers consider providing funding to the colleges to align requirements and make the ADT more widely accepted across the state. 

    The community colleges and the four-year systems could also do their part to improve the ADT. For the community colleges, that means analyzing why certain community colleges don’t offer the ADT for some majors. CSU, auditors recommend, should do the same for campuses that don’t accept the ADT for certain majors and then determine whether their reasons make sense.

    UC should either widely adopt the ADT model or, for campuses unwilling to do that, ensure that their transfer options “emulate the ADT’s key benefits for streamlining course requirements,” auditors say. Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom did sign Assembly Bill 1291 to create a pilot program at UCLA in which students beginning in 2026-27 will get priority admission if they complete an associate degree in select majors. The pilot will eventually expand to more campuses, though some students and advocacy groups criticized the legislation because it won’t guarantee students admission to their chosen campus.

    The audit also recommends better data-sharing between the three systems. 

    The community college system could share data with UC and CSU about students who intend to transfer, which UC and CSU could use to better tailor their advice to those students. 

    Additionally, UC and CSU could share more data with the community colleges about the students who successfully transfer, which could help the community colleges better evaluate their transfer efforts and determine which ones are most effective.

    Sonya Christian, chancellor of the community college system, said in a letter responding to the audit that the system looks forward to working with UC, CSU and lawmakers to implement the report’s recommendations, but said there could be challenges, including with data-sharing.

    Christian said consistent and timely data remains a “persistent challenge” for the system because of its decentralized nature, which requires each of the 73 local community college districts to individually report data to Christian’s office. 

    “The lack of a common data platform hampers our ability to collect timely and reliable data on transfer rates and gaps and hinders our ability to be able to accelerate transfer for the students of California through real-time data sharing with four-year system and institutional partners,” she said.

    But, Christian added, she has made it a priority since becoming chancellor last year to improve those processes and “let the data flow.” 

    “I look forward to carrying forward recommendations around improvements to our data, research, and system-wide policy leadership,” she added.





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