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  • GOP Tax on College Endowments Excludes Some Lucky Winners

    GOP Tax on College Endowments Excludes Some Lucky Winners


    In 2017, Trump pushed through a 1.4% tax on college endowments. Not on all colleges, but on those that had a large endowment relative to the size of their student body. No President had ever thought to tax endowments, which typically subsidize scholarships and maintenance.

    This time around, Trump proposed a draconian increase in the tax on college endowments, 4% for some, 8% for another group, and 21% for the colleges with the largest endowments.

    But Republicans wanted to shield one college: the ultra conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan.

    They tried eliminating the tax from religious colleges, but the Senate Parliamentarian nixed that idea.

    They finally settled on a solution that protected Hillsdale and certain other private colleges.

    Emma Whitfield of Forbes wrote:

    Republicans were aiming to shield Hillsdale College, a small conservative Christian liberal arts school in Michigan, from the endowment tax.

    While 11 schools, including Princeton, MIT, Yale and Harvard, were hit with a higher tax on their endowments’ investment earnings, Congress exempted wealthy small schools, including Swarthmore, Amherst, Hillsdale and CalTech, from the levy.

    Strange things happen when details of a massive tax and budget bill, like the one President Donald Trump signed yesterday, are tweaked behind closed doors. Among them: A couple dozen of the nation’s wealthiest small private colleges will be getting a tax cut next year, even as bigger rich universities, including Princeton, MIT, Yale and Harvard, will be slammed with higher taxes.

    It all began as an effort by House Republicans to dramatically raise the excise tax imposed on the earnings of college endowments, and particularly the endowments of wealthy “woke” schools like Harvard University that they (and President Donald Trump) have targeted.

    But as it turns out, while Harvard’s tax bill will likely more than double, some smaller schools with famously left-leaning student bodies (e.g. Swarthmore College and Amherst College) are getting tax relief. That’s because schools with fewer than 3,000 full-time equivalent tuition-paying students will be exempt from the revamped endowment tax beginning next year. It currently applies to private schools with more than 500 full-time equivalent tuition-paying students and endowments worth more than $500,000 per student.

    Using the latest available federal data from fiscal year 2023, Forbes identified at least 26 wealthy colleges that are likely subject to the endowment tax now, but will be exempt next year based on their size. Along with top liberal arts schools like Williams College, Wellesley College, Amherst and Swarthmore, the list includes the California Institute of Technology, a STEM powerhouse, and the Julliard School, the New York city institution known for its music, dance and drama training. Grinnell College in Iowa, which enrolled 1,790 students in 2023, will save around $2.4 million in tax each year as a result of the change, President Anne Harris said in an email to Forbes.

    Here’s what happened. As passed by the House in late May, the One Big Beautiful Bill (its Trumpian name) increased the current 1.4% excise tax on college endowments’ investment earnings to as high as 21% for the richest institutions—those with endowments worth more than $2 million a student. (While these schools are all non-profits and traditionally tax exempt, the 1.4% tax on investment earnings was introduced by Trump’s big 2017 tax bill. According to Internal Revenue Service data, 56 schools paid a total of $381 million in endowment tax in calendar 2023.)

    Along with raising the rate, the House voted to exempt from the tax both religiously-affiliated schools (think the University of Notre Dame) and those that don’t take federal student financial aid. (The religious exemption was structured in a way that Harvard, founded by the Puritans to train ministers, wouldn’t qualify.) The House also sought to penalize schools like Columbia University, with heavy international student enrollments, by excluding students who aren’t U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents from the per capita calculations.

    Then the bill went to the Senate, where the Finance Committee settled on more modest–albeit still stiff–rate hikes. Schools with endowments of $500,000 to $750,000 per capita would still pay at a 1.4% rate, while those with endowments above $750,000 and up to $2 million would pay 4%. Those with endowments worth more than $2 million per student would pay an 8% tax on their earnings, not the 21% passed by the House.

    Enter Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, who makes decisions on the Senate’s Byrd rule, which requires parts of a budget reconciliation bill like this one to have a primary purpose related to the budget—not other types of policy. The Byrd rule was put in place because reconciliation isn’t subject to filibuster. “You can’t get into a lot of prescriptive activity” in a budget reconciliation bill, explains Dean Zerbe, a national managing director for Alliantgroup, who worked on college endowment issues back when he was tax counsel for Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). “Like, ‘you’ve got to hop on one foot,’ or ‘you’ve got to make tuition affordable,’ or ‘you’ve got to do better in terms of admission.’”

    The Parliamentarian ruled that those three House provisions—exempting religious-affiliated schools, exempting schools that don’t take federal aid, and excluding foreign students from the per capita calculation—didn’t pass the Byrd test.

    At that point, Republican senators settled on the 3,000-student threshold in large part to specifically exempt one school from the tax: Hillsdale College, an ultra-conservative, Christian liberal arts college in Hillsdale, Michigan and a GOP darling. It enrolled 1,794 students in 2023, had an endowment worth $584,000 per-student, and notably accepts no federal money, including student aid. (So both the religious exemption and the one for schools taking no federal student aid would have presumably shielded Hillsdale from the endowment tax—before the Parliamentarian gave them the thumbs down.)

    There was also a broader group of small schools pushing for the exemption, notes Jonathan Fansmith, senior vice president for government relations and national engagement at the American Council on Education. “They made an argument that I think got some positive reception among Republican senators of saying that essentially, while their endowments may be big relative to the fact that they have small student bodies … their endowments weren’t big.” A school like Amherst, he adds, “might have a big endowment for a small school, but they don’t have a big endowment relative to the Ivies and the more heavily resourced [universities].”

    House Republicans, under intense pressure to meet Trump’s July 4th deadline, ended up accepting the final Senate product in full. That meant exempting the smaller schools, including the “woke” ones, while levying a rate of up to 8% on the endowments of bigger schools. Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation estimates colleges will now pay an extra $761 million in tax over 10 years, compared to the extra $6.7 billion they would have paid under the House version with its higher 21% rate and broader reach.

    Based on data from 2023, Forbes estimates that at least 11 universities will have their endowment earnings taxed at an 8% or 4% rate in 2026, while five will continue to pay the 1.4% rate.

    Three schools—Princeton University, Yale University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—will likely be required to pay an 8% excise tax on their endowment earnings. Another eight, including Harvard, Stanford University, Dartmouth College and Vanderbilt University, will likely pay a 4% tax. The remaining five schools—Emory University, Duke University, Washington University in St Louis, the University of Pennsylvania, and Brown University—would pay the same 1.4% endowment tax rate they’re paying now, based on fiscal 2023 numbers.

    One school that will likely pay 4% is the University of Notre Dame, a Catholic-affiliated school which would have been exempt from the tax were it not for the Byrd rule. “We are deeply disappointed by the removal of language protecting religious institutions of higher education from the endowment tax before passage of the final bill,” Notre Dame wrote in a statement to Forbes. “Any expansion of the endowment tax threatens to undermine the ability of a broad range of faith-based institutions to serve their religious purpose. We are proud to have stood with a coalition of these institutions against that threat, and we are encouraged by the strong support for a religious exemption received from both chambers.”

    Fansmith, for his part, won’t call the exemption of the small schools a win. “We think the tax is a bad idea and it’s bad policy, and no schools should be paying it. But, by the standard that fewer schools are paying, it’s better, but it’s still not good,” he says. “It’s not really about revenue,” adds Fansmith. “It’s really about punishing these schools that right now a segment of the Republican party doesn’t like.” The schools make the argument that it’s students who are being punished, since around half of endowment spending pays for student scholarships.

    Meanwhile, Zerbe warns the now exempt schools shouldn’t take that status for granted. “Once revenue raisers are in play and out there, they come back again and again,” he says. “It would be a disaster for [colleges] to think somehow this was a win for them. This was a billion dollar hit on them and there’s more to come later.”

    To see the list of private colleges that were exempted, and those that will see an increase, open the article.



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  • UC delays vote on much-debated proposal to restrict some faculty speech

    UC delays vote on much-debated proposal to restrict some faculty speech


    Public speakers address UC leaders during a March UC regents meeting at UCLA.

    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

    The University of California’s board of regents has delayed voting until May on a controversial policy proposal that would restrict faculty from using some university websites to make opinionated and political statements, such as opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza.

    The proposal would ban faculty departments and other academic units from using the homepages of their department websites to make “discretionary statements,” which the proposal defines as comments on “local, regional, global or national” events or issues and not related to daily departmental operations.

    In the days leading up to the meeting, the UC system’s Academic Senate had asked the regents to reject or at least delay a vote and expressed concerns that the proposal would limit freedom of speech.

    The policy was scheduled for a vote Wednesday during a joint meeting of the regents’ academic affairs and compliance and audit committees. But regents voted to delay a final decision until their next meeting in May. Before that meeting, they plan to collect additional comments from the Academic Senate and other regents.

    “People will submit their issues that they have. The Academic Senate will do their thing. We’ll hear everyone’s point of view. We’ll modify if we need to modify. And maybe we could just personally commit that we’ll vote in the next meeting,” said regent Jay Sures, one of the regents responsible for bringing the proposal forward. Sures is vice-chairman of United Talent Agency, a powerful entertainment and sports-related firm.

    Regent Jay Sures, seen during Wednesday’s board meeting, backs a proposal to curb opinionated comments on academic department homepages.
    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

    UC systemwide President Michael Drake also supported delaying the vote, saying he doesn’t think the policy is finished and that the university “needs to get it right” before moving forward.

    The policy doesn’t mention a specific issue, but many faculty see it as an attempt to limit what they can say about Israel’s war in Gaza. The consideration of the policy, which has been in the works for months, comes after UC’s Ethnic Studies Faculty Council and several faculty departments have criticized Israel over the war. In addition, when the policy was first discussed at January’s regents meeting, regent Hadi Makarechian said the board was considering the policy because “some people were making political statements related to Hamas and Palestinians.”

    UC leaders who support the policy have said it is needed to ensure that the opinions of faculty departments aren’t misinterpreted as representing the university as a whole. 

    It’s unclear whether the policy will get enough support among the board when it does go to a vote. Some regents voiced concern Wednesday about the proposal’s possible impacts.

    Merhawi Tesfai, a graduate student at UCLA and a student regent, said during the meeting that he doesn’t think the regents should be setting a systemwide policy.

    “I think each campus should be free to decide on what policies they’re going to be doing, what guidelines they’re going to set around this issue,” he added.

    Another regent, Keith Ellis, said he was concerned that the policy could be used “as a weapon” against faculty.

    If faculty departments or other academic units, such as research centers, do want to make opinionated statements, the proposal still would allow them to publish those elsewhere on UC web pages, just not on the homepages. Those statements would also need to include a disclaimer explaining that the opinions don’t represent the university as a whole. The policy also allows faculty and groups of faculty to publish their opinions on private websites. 

    Last week, the Academic Senate formally requested that the regents reject the proposal or at least delay a vote. The Senate’s Academic Council voted unanimously, 19-0, in making that request to the regents. In a letter to the regents, Academic Senate leaders said the policy has the potential to “limit free speech and impinge on academic freedom,” among other concerns. 

    An overflow crowd waits outside of Wednesday’s meeting of the UC board of regents at UCLA.
    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

    The policy was updated after the Senate submitted its comments, and did include some changes addressing the concerns raised. The latest draft of the policy, for example, includes a definition of the types of statements that would be banned, whereas the previous version did not.

    In remarks to the regents, Academic Senate Chair James Steintrager said the latest version was a step in the right direction but lamented that the Senate had only two days to review the latest version before the meeting. He urged the regents to delay a vote and send the draft policy out for further review by the Senate.

    Trevor Griffey, a lecturer at UCLA and a vice president for the union representing UC’s non-tenure track faculty, wrote on social media on Wednesday that the union is worried about how the policy would be enforced. The union “believes that enforcement of this vague standard cannot be done consistently, and is likely to increase interest group pressure” on faculty departments, Griffey wrote.

    Griffey also said the regents were trying to bypass the Senate on this issue. Rather than approving a new policy, Senate leaders have asked the regents to adopt recommendations made by the Senate in 2022. 

    The Senate determined at that time that UC faculty departments have the right to “make statements on University-owned websites” as long as the statements don’t take positions on elections. The Senate, like the regents, also recommended that those statements include disclaimers that the departments don’t speak for the university as a whole. But the Senate didn’t discourage statements from appearing on departmental homepages. 

    “These recommendations were based on comprehensive consultation with faculty on the ten campuses, as well as with UC Legal consultants. They are intended to guide departments whose members opt to post statements to do so in ways that minimize downsides and that do not infringe on academic freedom,” the Senate leaders wrote in their letter to the regents last week.

    Since last fall, some faculty departments have included statements on their websites criticizing Israel. The homepage for UC Santa Cruz’s critical race and ethnic studies department website has a statement calling on “scholars, researchers, organizers, and administrators worldwide” to take action “to end Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza.” 

    In a letter last fall, the systemwide UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council also criticized UC leaders for their public statements following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel. The council said UC’s statements lacked context because they didn’t acknowledge Israeli violence against Palestine, including “75 years of settler colonialism and globally acknowledged apartheid.” The faculty also said UC’s statements “irresponsibly wield charges of terrorism.” 

    Sures, the regent who supports the proposal, responded with a letter of his own, saying the council’s letter was “rife with falsehoods about Israel and seeks to legitimize and defend the horrific savagery of the Hamas massacre.” He also pledged to do “everything in my power” to protect “everyone in our extended community from your inflammatory and out of touch rhetoric.” The faculty responded by criticizing Sures for not condemning Israeli violence and calling on him to resign. 





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  • UC regents again postpone vote on policy to restrict some faculty speech

    UC regents again postpone vote on policy to restrict some faculty speech


    Public speakers address UC leaders during a March UC regents meeting at UCLA.

    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

    The University of California’s board of regents on Thursday again postponed a vote on a controversial policy to restrict faculty departments from making opinionated statements on the homepages of university websites. The regents could next consider the policy at their July meeting in San Francisco.

    The proposal was initially introduced after some faculty departments, such as the ethnic studies department at UC Santa Cruz, posted statements on their websites criticizing Israel’s invasion of Gaza in response to the Hamas assault in Israel. The potential adoption of the policy comes as pro-Palestinian protests and encampments have popped up across the system’s 10 campuses, with arrests of hundreds and, at UCLA, a violent counter-protest.

    How a university should respond, if at all, to various forms of protest has suddenly become an overwhelming question across California and the rest of the nation, affecting graduation ceremonies and faculty support of campus leaders.

    The agenda for Thursday’s regents meeting at UC Merced included the policy as an action item to be voted on by the regents, but for the third consecutive meeting, the vote was delayed. Unlike previous meetings, the item was not discussed in open session before regents decided to postpone the vote. They did not say whether it was debated in closed session. 

    Faculty across UC have criticized the policy, arguing that it would infringe on academic freedom and questioning how it would be enforced. But supporters of the policy, led by regent Jay Sures, say it is needed to ensure that the views of faculty departments aren’t misinterpreted as representing UC as a whole. Sures could not be reached for comment Thursday about why the item was delayed again.

    Under the latest version, political and other opinionated statements would not be allowed to appear on the homepages of departmental websites. They would be permitted elsewhere on those websites, but only with a disclaimer stating that the opinions don’t represent the entire campus or university system.

    Entering the regents meeting, academic senate leaders had asked the regents not to adopt the policy and instead issue a statement endorsing recommendations made by the senate in 2022. The latest policy in many ways mirrors the senate recommendations but does have some differences. The senate recommendations say faculty departments should be able to make political statements on UC homepages, as long as the statements include a disclaimer and don’t take stances on elections. 

    “We would welcome a straightforward Regents’ statement endorsing the 2022 Senate recommendations rather than the creation of new and not entirely clear bureaucratic regulations that raise issues of compliance and enforcement,” wrote James Steintrager, chair of the senate, in a letter to regents ahead of this week’s meeting.

    Steintrager did, however, say the policy was an improvement over previous versions because it “enunciates clearer goals, defines key terms more explicitly, and better specifies the types of statements it covers.” 

    Steintrager also wrote that he appreciated that the regents took feedback from the senate ahead of this weekend’s meeting. That sentiment was echoed by James Vernon, a professor of history at UC Berkeley and chair of the Berkeley Faculty Association. Vernon said in an interview this week that the regents ahead of this meeting took “a more consultative approach to the academic senate.”

    But Vernon, like senate leaders, still has reservations about the policy and questioned whether it’s an issue the regents should be dealing with at all. 

    “For me, this policy represents an overreach by the regents. The academic senate has already issued a report about statements on websites. It set out a set of discretionary guidelines for campuses and departments to follow,” Vernon said.





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  • TK staffing ratios are often unmet, teachers say; why some districts escape fines

    TK staffing ratios are often unmet, teachers say; why some districts escape fines


    A preschool student shows his classmate a spider he made from pipe cleaners and a paper cup.

    Credit: Allison Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for EDUimages

    This is the second in a series of stories on how inadequate staffing may be impeding California’s efforts to offer high-quality instruction to all 4-year-olds by 2025.

    Four-year-olds, many of whom have never attended school or day care, are entering California classrooms in droves following the state’s rapid expansion of transitional kindergarten, a grade preceding kindergarten. 

    In this grade known as TK, young students are exposed to academics and become familiar with letters, sounds and numbers. They also acquire social, emotional and intellectual skills through play and exploration. For example, from having to share toys with their peers in a structured environment, they learn to communicate with each other and handle conflict. 

    Once designed to serve only children who missed the kindergarten age cutoff, TK has evolved and is now projected to reach all the state’s 4-year-olds by the 2025-26 school year. TK is the first year of a two-year kindergarten program that uses a curriculum modified for the age and developmental level of the participating children. When fully implemented, California will have the largest universal preschool program in the nation, serving nearly 400,000 children.

    Expanding TK: The age cutoff

    According to the California Department of Education, California children who turned 5 between Sept. 2, 2022 and April 2, 2023 were eligible for TK this school year. For the 2024–25 school year, children who turn 5 between Sept. 2 and June 2 will be eligible. Students who turn 4 by Sept. 1 will be eligible during the 2024-25 school year. 

    Some of the state’s largest school districts, including Los Angeles Unified and Fresno Unified, are  ahead of the state’s timeline in offering that access. 

    Fresno Unified operates 116 transitional kindergarten classes. Los Angeles Unified has not released the number of TK classes it offers, but according to district data, they serve nearly 11,000 students. 

    Though imperative for students, the expansion has created a problem: Some districts are not staffing TK classrooms with enough adults to maintain the required 1:12 staff-student ratio, a problem that educators say puts the 4-year-old pupils at risk, hampers learning and violates state legislation. 

    Twenty schools in LAUSD have been cited by the state for understaffing classes and violating the ratio. 

    Teachers told EdSource that 4-year-olds can’t learn if they aren’t safe and properly supervised by adults, and that not having enough adults in the classroom jeopardizes children’s safety. 

    “If you’re one adult and you’re managing so many children that have never been to school before, there isn’t any teaching going on,” said David Hunter, a teacher in Fresno Unified who has taught TK for the last six years of a 17-year career. “You’re just keeping them safe as best as you can, but you’re not actually able to teach.” 

    School districts jeopardize state funding if they fail to meet the state-set TK requirements of the 1:12 staff-student ratio and the average class size of 24 kids.

    Out of the 1,815 audit reports that the California Department of Education reviewed, just seven school districts and 16 charter schools have been fined and will lose thousands of dollars in funding from their Local Control Funding Formula for failing to meet the staffing ratios during the 2022-23 school year.  Teachers and others in the classroom say that many more districts and charters are not meeting the requirements but are managing to avoid punishment.

    Los Angeles Unified, which is facing multimillion dollar fines, considers being fined because the classes do not have one additional adult unfair, district leaders said at a board meeting earlier this year. Many other penalized districts blamed the national shortage of teachers and paraprofessionals while some districts were critical of the California Department of Education for not clearly outlining the requirements. 

    Some teachers, on the other hand, say that what is unfair is that TK classes are not being staffed as outlined by the legislation and to support the young students. 

    According to the Fresno Teachers Association, more than a dozen TK classes were not meeting staffing ratios during the 2022-23 school year, yet Fresno Unified was not fined. Fresno educators told EdSource that school districts that were not in compliance last year, such as Fresno Unified, escaped detection and fines because fiscal penalties are based on sample auditing that did not check every school.

    “This is a systems issue,” Hunter said, “and I want to see the system be better for everyone.” 

    Why do TK classes need extra staffing?

    The California Department of Education (CDE) has outlined numerous benefits to having a lower adult-to-student ratio in TK classes, including opportunities for individualized instruction, additional adult support and attention as well as supervision at all times. 

    Legislation requires district staff such as paraprofessionals to work alongside teachers to meet the ratio requirement and share responsibilities of serving the students. 

    On any given day, a TK student may need to use the restroom or have a potty accident; another may get sick and others will require different types of attention.

    “How do you manage that when there’s one of you and 21 four-year-olds?” Hunter said. “You need another adult to help deal with those situations.”  

    Hunter said he taught a class of 21 TK students without an aide from August to December 2022 during the 2022-23 school year, the first school year after the state added fiscal penalties related to TK requirements. 

    He said a teacher and an aide can split a large class into small groups to foster individualized learning, improve student assessment and evaluation and, ultimately, educate the young students — things that won’t happen in one large group of up to 24 four-year-olds. 

    Verifying compliance is difficult

    Going Deeper

    Compliance with the TK staffing ratio requirement is based on adult counts taken on the last teaching day of each school month prior to April 15, typically from August to March. In evaluating ratio compliance, auditors must consider an aide’s daily or weekly schedule, class rosters and other documentation for each class, according to the audit guide. 

    State compliance with TK requirements is verified in a district’s annual audit at the end of the school year and is based on a representative sample of a district’s schools. 

    Schools that are out of compliance may go unchecked if the sampled schools in the district are compliant. Because the sampled schools meet compliance, even though other schools do not, some districts and charters avoid penalties. 

    Fresno Unified, Hunter’s district, was not one of the school systems fined. District spokesperson AJ Kato told EdSource that Fresno Unified has not had problems with meeting the requirements that other districts may be experiencing. 

    But that’s not what teachers say. 

    At least 13 classes, according to Fresno Teachers Association President Manuel Bonilla, only had one adult for more than 12 students. 

    “The district could have done a better job at hiring additional folks … or in an emergency term, having their administrative staff provide additional support, but that seemingly didn’t happen,” Bonilla said.

    A Fresno Unified TK teacher and union leader surveyed his colleagues. 

    “They were out of compliance with the state, and ultimately the problem is that the students aren’t getting the additional support that’s necessary,” Bonilla added. 

    Hunter said this is the second consecutive school year he’s been teaching out of ratio. 

    This school year, Hunter has a part-time aide but is still out of ratio because he is the only adult for 16 students on days the aide isn’t scheduled to work. 

    Having a full-time aide, or the equivalent, he said, should be baseline and is mandated by law. 

    According to the state Education Department, to be counted in the staffing ratio, the “assigned” adult must be a district employee who is dedicated and available to all TK students the entire school day. Student teachers and volunteers do not count toward it, nor do staff such as a special education aide or speech therapist who are assigned to work with specific students. 

    Part-time aides can satisfy the classroom staffing ratio, but only if the working time equals 100% of the time of a full-time aide, according to the CDE. Because Hunter’s class has 16 students, he needs more than one part-time aide working enough hours to equal the hours of a full-time aide. He has only had one part-time aide this school year. 

    Laton Joint Unified was penalized $30,943 for having a 1:16 ratio last school year. The school had a paraprofessional scheduled for one hour, 45 minutes each day, and that person was not available for all students the entire school day, the audit report detailed. 

    There are also instances of aides being pulled for recess or cafeteria duty or other teaching responsibilities, removing that aide from the instructional minutes with students, teachers told EdSource.

    “Rina,” a former TK teacher who asked to be identified only by her nickname, said that when she took a job at Ballington Academy in San Bernardino City Unified in the 2023-24 school year, the school’s one TK classroom had 18 students. Rina and her aide would align with state compliance for the 18 students. About a week before school started, Rina said the school informed her that the aide, though assigned to her TK students, would be pulled to other elementary classrooms whenever a teacher was absent.

    “It was wrong,” she said. She only stayed in the position for about a week after school started. 

    Some schools and districts, such as Scholarship Prep Charter School in Oceanside, Pomona Unified in eastern Los Angeles County and Culver City Unified in Los Angeles County, said in their audit reports that staffing shortages resulted in their inability to comply with state guidelines. 

    But that’s no excuse, teachers say, because it’s up to district administration to recruit, hire and retain paraprofessionals, instead of making it the teacher’s problem, Rina said.

    Some suggest that the problem with hiring and retaining paraprofessionals is the low compensation.

    A preschool teacher’s aide at Ericson Elementary in Fresno Unified is not in the TK classroom but works with students who are the same age as those entering transitional kindergarten. Speaking with EdSource on condition of anonymity, she said aides, whether in the TK or preschool class, are dealing with the same challenge: subpar pay. 

    Throughout the day, especially when working in groups, she helps the preschoolers with writing their names and learning letters and numbers. At other times during the day, such as during reading time, the aide ensures students keep their hands to themselves and listen to the teacher. As an aide, she sees the impact and importance of her role.

    “We’re like their (teacher’s)  spine,” she said about paraprofessionals. “We’re there to support and help. We do so much for these kids.” 

    She is paid $15.90 an hour and has, over the last two years, questioned whether she should remain in the role.  

    “That’s not helping me,” she said. She’s had to take on side jobs in the district, such as at sporting events, or resorted to borrowing money from friends and family. “I have to buy food, pay bills and then, I have four kids.

    “If they’re still going keep that low (salary), people are not going … to apply for a position as an aide.” 

    Can teachers do anything?

    As a teacher who’s been working out of ratio, Hunter wants districts to be held accountable. 

    “There’s a mechanism there, and I’d like to see that enforced,” Hunter said about the fiscal penalties outlined in legislation.

    While the only way to address the compliance is with fines — which Hunter called “reactive” — he said a tool to report violations throughout the year could push districts to comply sooner and stop teachers from working out of compliance. 

    Currently, there is no such system or tool. 

    And if teachers are providing instruction in classrooms that are out of compliance, they would not report the violation to the state, CDE spokesperson Scott Roark said via email. 

    “Complaints against a district, school, principal, teacher or school personnel are not within the jurisdiction of the CDE unless the complaint falls within the scope of the Uniform Complaint Procedures,” Roark said, explaining that the TK requirements are under local control, with each district’s school board having authority over the complaint process.

    The same reasoning applies to a teachers union hoping to report compliance concerns or violations.  

    But the struggles teachers are experiencing shouldn’t detract from the importance of TK. 

    TK expansion is necessary; schools just need support 

    Patricia Lozano, executive director of the advocacy group Early Edge California and a champion for expanding transitional kindergarten, told EdSource last year about the importance of the program, including how it provides children who were infants during the pandemic with social and intellectual engagement as well as age- and developmentally-appropriate structure and routine to help them thrive. 

    Simply put, TK is imperative for students, said many teachers interviewed by EdSource. 

    Hunter, who has a background in early childhood education, said TK is vital for introducing students to what school is, for teaching socialization and exposing them to academics.

    “Any child who’s been through TK is that much more ready to hit the ground running in kindergarten,” he said. “I just want to see the appropriate support that not only the state promised, but I want to see the districts live up to that support so we can show these learners the best we can.” 





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  • Gov. Newsom, school groups settle funding fight, with some more money coming as IOUs

    Gov. Newsom, school groups settle funding fight, with some more money coming as IOUs


    Gov. Gavin Newsom unveils his revised 2024-25 state budget during a news conference in Sacramento on May 10.

    Credit: AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli

    The Newsom administration has settled a disagreement with K-12 education groups over multiyear funding that will provide nearly all of the money the groups had demanded, although deferring and delaying several billion dollars for at least a few years.

    Pending legislative approval, the compromise that the California Department of Education negotiated with the California Teachers Association (CTA) would remove an obstacle to resolving the 2024-25 state budget by the June 15 deadline.

    The deal would preserve Gov. Gavin Newsom’s promise to exempt TK-12 schools and community colleges from appreciable funding cuts that other areas of the state budget would face, including the California State University and the University of California.

    The proposal also would meet the legal requirements of Proposition 98, the 4-decade-old formula that calculates the minimum portion of the general fund that must be spent on education. It was Newsom’s plan in his original January budget to spare schools and community colleges immediate cuts while scaling back Proposition 98 growth in future years that led CTA and the California School Boards Association to threaten to take Newsom to court with a lawsuit it had reasonable odds of winning.

    “This is a good deal for public schools. In its simplest terms, this agreement will protect the state’s core TK-12 investments, like the Local Control Funding Formula and new whole child programs,” said Derick Lennox, senior director of governmental relations and legal affairs for the California County Superintendents Association, who was briefed on the negotiations Tuesday. “If approved by the Legislature, the governor will be able to honor his commitment to protect school funding amidst a challenging budget.”

    Challenging is an understatement. Because the state will fall short of full funding for the current year, 2023-24, the Legislature would suspend Proposition 98 for the first time since the height of the Great Recession in 2010-11 by $5.5 billion. The money owed, an IOU called the “maintenance factor” under Proposition 98 terminology, would be repaid over multiple years, as determined by the growth in state revenue. The repayments would start with $1.3 billion in 2024-25.

    The deal would reintroduce funding deferrals — another accounting maneuver from the Great Recession, though at a smaller magnitude. As opposed to a funding suspension, a deferral is a late payment, in which the Legislature shifts funding by days or months from one fiscal year to the next, and districts are on the hook for money they’ve already spent.

    The settlement calls for three years of deferrals, ranging from $1.3 billion to $2.6 billion, from 2023-24 through 2025-26. The last deferral, for $2.4 billion, would make up about 2% of funding to community colleges and school districts. Together, the three deferrals should have no appreciable impact on school and community college budgets but will require $2.4 billion in future school funding to pay off. They will involve an accounting shift from June, the last month of one fiscal year, to July, the first month of the next.

    “The agreement reached with the governor to protect public school funding is a critical step forward for California’s schools and communities,” said CTA President David Goldberg. “It ensures that students, educators, and families aren’t impacted by cuts to the classroom and includes protection against additional layoffs of educators.”

    The revenue conundrum reflects a slow rebound from an unexpected drop in state revenue following the Covid pandemic. Because of winter storms in early 2023, the federal government and California pushed back the filing date for taxes by six months. Without accurate revenue estimates when they set the 2023-24 budget in June, Newsom and the Legislature appropriated $8.8 billion more than the Proposition 98 minimum.

    Since TK-12 and community colleges had already budgeted and spent the money, Newsom promised to hold them harmless. But in his first budget draft in January and his May revision, Newsom proposed to treat the $8.8 billion as an off-the-books, one-time overpayment; CTA and school groups viewed it as an ongoing obligation, that, as spelled out by voters in approving Proposition 98, would become the base for the following year’s minimum level of the guarantee.

    “They arrived at a solution that gives the Governor and Legislature near-term budget flexibility while abiding by the state’s constitutional provisions related to minimum funding for schools,” education consultant Kevin Gordon said. “A negotiated suspension of Prop 98 has been the obvious solution since the outset of the debate.”

    Here’s how the negotiated deal resolves the dispute over the three-year period covered by the budget:

    2022-23

    Original Proposal: Newsom proposed an unorthodox move: holding the general fund, not Proposition 98, responsible for paying for the $8.8 billion shortfall over five years, starting in 2025-26, at $1.8 billion per year.

    Compromise: Shift an unallocated $2.6 billion in one-time funding from 2022-23 into 2023-24. That would lower the ongoing Proposition 98 increase from $8.8 billion to $6.2 billion. The effect would be to cut general fund repayments by $500 million to $1.3 billion per year for five years. And it would lower the calculation for the following year’s Proposition 98 minimum.

    2023-24

    The state would drain $8.4 billion from the Proposition 98 reserve fund, built up during a half-decade of good revenue years, to pay off a continuing Proposition 98 shortfall, including the $2.6 billion deferral from 2022-23.

    Compromise: The $6.2 billion rise in the Proposition 98 base in 2022-23 would raise the Proposition 98 minimum by $4.2 billion. Lacking the money to pay for it, the Legislature, by an anticipated two-thirds majority, would suspend the Proposition 98 base by $5.5 billion; this would include $1.3 billion, the first installment of the maintenance factor, due to be repaid in 2024-25. As a result of the $5.5 billion suspension, the Proposition 98 base would be lowered to $101.3 billion.

    2024-25

    The level of Proposition 98 is determined by several factors, called “tests,” that are tied to changing economic conditions, such as a rise in state spending or personal income, and the increase in the base from the year before. The 2024-25 Proposition 98 level, under Test 1, would be set at about 39% of the general fund: an estimated $110.6 billion. This would include a $1.3 billion maintenance factor repayment.

    The Department of Finance says that “overall, the Agreement provides stability for schools both in the short and long-term.”

    That’s true as long as the governor’s revenue projections for the next two years hold. But if they come up short, expect additional deferrals or cuts without a state rainy day fund to cushion the impact; many districts were already required to reduce their local rainy day funds this year. And heading into 2025-26, the state will still owe districts and community colleges a $4.5 billion maintenance factor, an IOU with no immediate deadline for repaying it.   

    “We’re encouraged that the administration has found a way to address the constitutional concerns, and this might be the best funding package that schools could hope for in this budget environment,” said Rob Manwaring, a senior adviser for the nonprofit Children Now. “At the same time, it is difficult to support suspending the constitutional funding guarantee when California schools are still in the bottom five states in terms of student-teacher ratios and other staffing supports.”





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  • School year already underway at some California districts as start dates keep creeping earlier

    School year already underway at some California districts as start dates keep creeping earlier


    Parents line up to take photos of their children on the first day of school Tuesday at George Washington Elementary School in Lodi.

    Credit: Diana Lambert / EdSource

    Children wearing colorful new backpacks, parents in tow, hugged and high-fived Principal Gina Lopez and other school staff as they streamed under an arch of multicolored balloons, accompanied by pulsating music, on the first day of school at George Washington Elementary School in Lodi on Tuesday. 

    Lodi Unified in San Joaquin County was among the first California school districts to return to school this year, beginning just after Sweetwater Union High School District in San Diego, which reopened on July 24. Some districts, many with year-round schedules, started even earlier.

    California school districts have moved away from the September return to school that was common in California and other states until the 1990s. School districts sometimes made the change to allow students to complete their semester studies and take their final exams before the winter break. It also gives students more time to prepare for state standardized tests.

    Sweetwater Union decided to complete its first semester by December to maximize instruction days before Advanced Placement testing, according to a statement from the district.

    “Key educational benefits to an earlier start date include reducing summer learning loss, alleviating overcrowding in schools, and aligning the calendar with four feeder districts — Chula Vista Elementary, San Ysidro, National School District, and South Bay — allowing families to coordinate vacations and child care more effectively,” according to the district statement.

    An EdSource survey of California’s 30 largest school districts this year found that all are returning to school before the Labor Day holiday in September and 21 of those are returning by Aug. 15. In 2014, seven of the 30 largest school districts were still starting school after Labor Day, according to an EdSource survey that year. 

    Some districts that instituted earlier start dates have opted to end the school year earlier, but others have shortened the summer break and added days off during the school year.

    California isn’t the only state returning to school early. About 70% of U.S. students had returned to school by Aug. 25 last school year, according to the Pew Research Center. 

    Summer shortened decades ago

    The students at George Washington Elementary and other Lodi Unified schools are used to returning to school in late July or early August — the district has been doing it for about two decades. Sweetwater Union High School District has been returning to school in late July for more than a decade.

    Lodi Unified moved its schools to a year-round schedule in the late 1980s because of overcrowding. It changed course in the early 1990s, after high schools struggled with the schedule, and began to move schools to a modified traditional schedule as they built more schools, said Superintendent Neil Young. Today, all of its schools are on a schedule that divides the year into quarters with a two-week break after each one. 

    Most parents and teachers have been in favor of the calendar and there has been no interest in changing it, Young said. 

    “I know for our teachers to be able to do a reset at the end of each quarter and begin the new quarter refreshed has been a positive,” he said. “And I have heard teachers say they appreciate that.”

    George Washington Elementary teachers Jenny Hampton and Natalie Smalley agree. They both prefer the regular breaks to a longer summer.

    “Those two weeks every nine to 10 weeks, like the kids are ready for a break, we’re ready for a break and so we just, we like that better,” Hampton said.

    Students excited for new year

    Sisters Karina Barron and Maria Barron remember starting school in July when they were students in Lodi Unified schools. On Tuesday they were dropping their children off at school. Their families like the school calendar, they said.

    “They kept asking when school started,” said Karina Barron of the children.

    The kindergarten through sixth-grade students streaming through the doors of George Washington Elementary seemed excited to be back in school. 

    “It’s better to be learning, so in the future I can have more life skills,” said Emmanuel, a sixth-grade student. His favorite subject is math.

    It’s all new to kindergartners

    Kindergartners in Kristen McDaniel’s class have no recollection of a time when school started in September. On Tuesday they each sat on a square on a rug in the middle of the classroom, much like decades of students before them. On a stool in the corner, one little girl wept, reluctant to join the group.

    McDaniel, who has taught kindergarten in the same classroom at George Washington Elementary for 25 years, knows the first day can be tough for her students. Everything takes longer on the first day of school, she said.

    The first day of school can be difficult for kindergartners not accustomed to being away from their parents. Shortly after this picture was taken, this little girl calmed down and had a great day, reported her teacher at George Washington Elementary in Lodi.
    Credit: Diana Lambert / EdSource

    “They don’t know where their cubbies are,” McDaniel said. “They don’t know how to walk in, where to go. So, it took a little bit of extra time today in order to get them to the carpet to circle time.”

    The first day can also be tough for teachers. McDaniel repeatedly told one boy to sit and not to lie on the rug, and twice had to gently remove the hand of a girl who grabbed at the book she was reading to the class.

    “This first day is so hard, and if it stayed this way, no one would ever, ever do it,” McDaniel said. “You couldn’t pay me enough to do this every single day. But the growth that you get at kindergarten versus other grade levels, it’s just incredible. And that’s why I do it, because I remind myself of this day and how they didn’t even know how to sit or just wanted to lay down on the carpet instead.”

    By the end of kindergarten, the students will be reading, adding and subtracting and focusing on literature, she said.

    McDaniel started the day by reading “Your Teacher’s Pet Creature,” which reinforces positive classroom behavior and introduces students to the stuffed class pet. During circle time, each child passed the class pet to the child sitting beside them, after reciting their name and receiving a welcome from the class in return.

    “The point of that first circle time is to build community, to get them to feel like they’re a part of the class and to learn about each other,” McDaniel said.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_Yl6qWrfzE

    Kristen McDaniel, who has taught kindergarten in the same classroom for 25 years, started the first day at George Washington Elementary in Lodi Unified with an opening circle to help the student acclimate to being in school, and to develop a sense of community in the classroom. Each child passed around the class pet, a stuffed creature, after reciting their name and receiving a welcome in return.

    With introductions made and cubbies squared away, McDaniel dived into instruction, holding up a flash card with an apple to introduce the letter A. Shortly after, the little girl in the corner wiped away her tears and joined the group.

    “She actually had a great rest of the day, reported McDaniel. 

    The kindergartner wasn’t the only one overcome emotionally at the start of school. Principal Lopez said she became emotional when she visited classrooms the day before school, especially when she saw that the old mismatched desks and chairs had been replaced with new furniture.

    “This is like my 24th year, but you know, every beginning is always special,” said Lopez. “Right? Because this is my heart.”

    EdSource reporters Mallika Sheshadri, Lasherica Thornton, Emma Gallegos, Zaidee Stavely and Betty  Márquez Rosales contributed to this report.





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  • LAUSD’s 100 priority schools show support for equity, but some say program isn’t enough

    LAUSD’s 100 priority schools show support for equity, but some say program isn’t enough


    Students catch up and get ahead during LAUSD’s Summer of Learning.

    Credit: Mallika Seshadri / EdSource

    Thomas Jefferson High School has a rich history. 

    It is one of the oldest schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District — established more than a century ago — and lies in Central Avenue, which used to be called “Little Harlem” during the 1920s and 1930s. 

    Its graduates — from Ralph Bunche, the first Black Nobel laureate, to Alvin Ailey, the legendary choreographer — have had lasting impact.

    Now, Jefferson High sits on LAUSD’s list of 100 priority schools — meaning that Superintendent Alberto Carvalho has identified it as one of the district’s highest-needs campuses with lagging academic performance and lower attendance rates. 

    In an effort to promote equity across the district, LAUSD provides priority schools like Jefferson extra support and is the first to receive various resources, including instructional days designed to recover pandemic learning losses, as well as being the first to pilot LAUSD’s AI personal assistant. 

    “This approach places schools with the most need in a place of priority in the District regarding time and attention by Central and Region Offices,” an LAUSD spokesperson said in a statement to EdSource. 

    While veteran teachers and community activists have applauded Carvalho for putting an emphasis on equity, they have also said that being placed on the list creates a stigma that affects the schools’ administrators, teachers and students. Many have also warned that the superintendent’s approach is too standardized and does not address the root, societal causes of students’ academic struggles. 

    “Nobody wants to be listed as a failing school,” said Nicolle Fefferman, a longtime LAUSD educator who co-founded the Facebook group Parents Supporting Teachers. “Who wants to be on this list? No one — because it feels like an indictment of the hard work that we are doing every day at these schools in the face of huge historical and institutional obstacles.” 

    According to a district spokesperson, LAUSD’s priority schools have higher percentages of underserved students, including those who are Black, Latino, foster youth, unhoused and from immigrant backgrounds. 

    Proponents of other equity programs that largely support the same student body, including the Student Equity Needs Index, say their efforts have been sidelined and that they have not received the same level of support. 

    LAUSD has a history of prioritizing equity, Fefferman said, and Carvalho wasn’t the first district leader to roll out a list of struggling schools during Fefferman’s tenure as a teacher in the district. Former Superintendent Ruben Zacarias, who served in the late 1990s, did something similar. 

    “Los Angeles Unified is committed to an equitable approach in providing historically underserved schools with critical access to supports and resources,” the spokesperson for LAUSD said. 

    A need for equity support

    Largely clustered in south and southeast Los Angeles, the roughly 54,000 LAUSD students who attend Carvalho’s priority schools have struggled with chronic absenteeism — 38.2% in the 2022-23 academic year — and lower academic performance. Only 23% of students attending priority schools met or exceeded English standards, while 16% met or exceeded math standards, according to Smarter Balanced Test results for that same year. 

    Meanwhile, nearly 70% of priority school graduates failed to complete their A-G requirements, which are mandatory for admission to the University of California or the California State University systems. 

    Data for the 2023-24 academic year is not yet available, and it is difficult to determine whether performance at priority schools has improved since they were so identified. 

    So far, the priority schools have improved their outcomes, the spokesperson said, noting that their rate of improvement is larger than the district’s overall. 

    “The questions are: How did those schools get there? How long have they been there? And what’s the plan?” asked Evelyn Aleman, the organizer of the Facebook group Our Voice/Nuestra Voz. 

    “Outside of tutoring and additional school days, things like that, what does (being a priority school) mean? Is it going to be Saturday classes throughout the year? Is it just going to be three additional days? That’s simply not going to be enough.” 

    According to a district spokesperson, developing the list of 100 priority schools was part of a larger plan to improve student performance — and that the campuses on the list receive strategic and priority staffing, along with additional professional development opportunities that are “specific to their school’s unique needs.” 

    They also receive more instructional coaches and dual/current enrollment options. Their progress is more closely monitored. 

    Some LAUSD teachers, however, maintain that the extra support that comes with being a priority school won’t be enough because there are other institutional and societal factors that get in the way of better outcomes. 

    “There is so much stress in the community — much of it because of poverty, some because of violence. And it’s not that there’s violence all the time, but it’s the fact that there can be at any moment — that you’re on guard,” said Susan Ferguson, a veteran LAUSD educator who previously taught at Jefferson High School. 

    “When you’re on your stressors like that for an extended period of time, it affects your immune system. It affects your ability to learn and focus. It affects so many things,” Ferguson said.

    ‘I just don’t feel like we’re moving forward’ 

    Educators in priority schools say they can feel pressure from the district to improve outcomes, and Ferguson said LAUSD officials would come by and visit classrooms on a weekly basis. 

    “Classrooms are constantly having visitors: ‘Are they teaching? What are they teaching?’ The people coming in, I feel like, are well-intentioned, but they’re visiting 10 different schools who have different needs,” Ferguson said.

    “And yet, they’re being asked to help all of us, and they can’t — not unless they really spend time at one school looking at it.” 

    Administrators at the Jefferson High School campus, Ferguson said, have been under enormous pressure to improve academic outcomes. 

    She also said she wouldn’t be surprised if students’ psychology were impacted by the constant flow of district administrators in and out of classrooms — and any nervousness coming from their teachers. 

    “Our kids aren’t stupid. I’m sure that they have picked up on … some sort of problem,” Ferguson said. “I’m really hoping that they’re not taking it as being them. … I can’t imagine them not feeling the anxiety.”

    More than anything, Ferguson maintains that the district’s standardized approach may not address the root cause of students’ academic challenges. 

    “‘Let’s have tutors. Let’s assign these tutors to Jefferson and make the kids stay till 6 p.m.’” Ferguson said. “Well, if you bothered to come to our school and talk to our kids, you’d realize that we don’t have kids that generally stay until 6 p.m. because it’s not even safe. And people have family members to take care of and responsibilities.” 

    “It just totally seems not in touch with what’s going on and what the issues are.”

    ‘A broader view’: SENI’s approach to equity 

    A long-term equity program across LAUSD schools — the Student Equity Needs Index (SENI) — is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. 

    The effort, which was developed by the district alongside various community partners, ranks and categorizes all of LAUSD’s campuses based on their needs. The 15 factors that inform SENI’s rankings go beyond academic factors to include the prevalence of gun violence and asthma rates. 

    During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, exposure to the coronavirus and related deaths were also taken into account. 

    Jessenia Reyes, Catalyst California’s director of educational equity, said social indicators help them focus on challenges more uniquely faced by lower income communities and communities of color. 

    SENI then uses a sliding scale to allocate funding, which schools can use to address whatever needs they and their communities collectively feel are most pressing, said Daniela Hernández, the senior director of campaign development at Innercity Struggle, a local nonprofit organization that has been part of the effort to implement the program. 

    About 90% of SENI funds — which come from the district and are given to schools based on their level of need — went toward bolstering staff across elementary, middle and high schools, with many choosing to focus on psychiatric social workers and pupil services and attendance staff, according to a 2021 evaluation of the district’s SENI program conducted by American Institutes for Research. 

    The same evaluation found that SENI helped boost English language arts scores among economically disadvantaged students and those who are English learners. Math scores also increased among students with disabilities who are also English learners and economically disadvantaged.  

    Despite the improvements SENI has seen over the past decade, community advocates have also sounded alarms that not all of SENI funds allocated to schools are spent by principals. According to a district budget report, there is roughly $282 million that remains unused going into the 2024-25 academic year. 

    “Schools are encouraged to utilize SENI funds for each school year in order to serve the students who generated those dollars, and to engage with educational partners regarding the use of these funds,” a district spokesperson said in a statement to EdSource. 

    “Unspent SENI dollars are reallocated to schools based on need in order to address learning acceleration, provide mental health services and supports, provide additional learning supports, support student attendance, and address the needs of student populations.”

    Priority schools, the spokesperson said, get to keep up to 70% of their carryover funds. 

    A delicate relationship 

    This past year, 88 high- and highest-need SENI schools were listed on Carvalho’s list of 100 priority schools. A district spokesperson said that SENI serves as more of a financial designation, while the 100 priority schools list is more of a “strategic designation for central and regional support systems.”

    Advocates have said they appreciate LAUSD’s expressed commitment to equity. 

    “The district, if anything, has been ahead of the game of understanding that students don’t learn in a box — that whatever happens in their community matters,” said Miguel Dominguez, the director of development at Community Coalition, who has worked with LAUSD on the SENI initiative. 

    “If they’re being exposed to gun fatalities in their neighborhood, maybe doing a test or a pop quiz might not be something at the forefront of their mind. … This understanding of this overall whole child approach has been big.” 

    But several advocates also maintain that the district’s attitude toward SENI has changed with the emergence of the 100 priority schools. 

    When Carvalho announced he had developed developedhe list, Reyes said SENI seemed to drift onto the back burner; and, they felt an increasing pressure to prove SENI’s worth, and that it “wasn’t just symbolic” but had funding tied to it. 

    She noted that funding for SENI has increased over the years — soaring from $25 to $700 million. Advocates have continued to press for sustained support. 

    “Now more than ever, it is vital that LA Unified takes actionable steps to demonstrate its core belief of equity by interrupting the course of history and committing to prioritizing stable, long-term adequate funding to meet the unique needs of highest-needs students,” a March letter from various SENI supporters to Carvalho and the school board states. 

    “This includes protection of SENI and ensuring the $700 million investment is a permanent and stable funding source beyond the 2024-2025 school year.”      

    Meanwhile, SENI advocates said that a lack of transparency from the district and its failure to immediately release the list of 100 priority schools has made it harder for them to work collaboratively. 

    The district, however, noted that support for priority schools is intended to help campuses take advantage of their resources, including SENI funding and “removing any barriers that may interfere” with their schools’ individual efforts. 

    “There’s room for improvement in collaborating and working in parallel. Because ultimately, if they are SENI schools and they are priority schools, that means it’s a high-need school, period,” Reyes said. “It needs the support and the love from everybody and everything.”





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  • Graduation rates up at most Cal State campuses, but some worsen

    Graduation rates up at most Cal State campuses, but some worsen


    Cal State Fullerton commencement 2024.

    Credit: Cal State Fullerton/Flickr

    While 14 Cal State universities notched six-year graduation rate increases over the previous year, nine schools in the system saw their rates decline.

    San Jose (+ 4.6 percentage points), East Bay (+ 2.4 percentage points) and Fresno (+ 2.1 percentage points) were among the campuses with the greatest increases in six-year graduation rate. Those figures represent the difference in completion among first-time, full-time freshman students who started in 2018 and those who began in 2017.

    But several campuses’ graduation rates slipped year-over-year, with the deepest dips at three of Cal State’s smallest campuses. Cal Maritime posted the biggest downswing, falling 7 percentage points. Stanislaus (- 4.6 percentage points) and Monterey Bay (- 4.1 percentage points) recorded the next-largest decreases. Two of Cal State’s largest campuses — San Diego (- 1.8 percentage points) and Long Beach (- 1 percentage point) — also saw six-year freshman rates go down slightly. 

    That’s according to campus-level statistics the system unveiled this week, coinciding with Cal State’s November board of trustees meeting. The university system is nearing the end of a decadelong campaign to graduate more students, which will conclude in spring 2025. It has made marked improvement toward hitting top-line goals across the system, but is falling short on some targets. Cal State officials have said that the pandemic set back progress on some graduation metrics. They also cite a need to focus on retaining students entering their second and third years of school, particularly students of color.

    Cal State knows “that we have a leak, that in that second to third year we’re losing a significantly high number of our students of color and probably male students of color, quite honestly,” said Dilcie D. Perez, Cal State’s chief student affairs officer. “We’re bringing them in. But if the mechanism doesn’t change, we’re going to lose students.” 

    Systemwide data presented last month shows that Cal State’s freshman four-year graduation rate across all campuses increased slightly during the 2023-24 school year over the previous year, but that its six-year freshman rate plateaued and four-year transfer rate fell.

    Cal Maritime, the university system’s smallest campus, was an outlier in terms of how much graduation rates fell from spring 2023 to spring 2024. The school, which specializes in shipping and oceanography programs, experienced the system’s greatest decrease in four-year graduation rates among students transferring from the California Community Colleges over the past two school years. Flagging enrollment has plunged the school into financial difficulty, which culminated this week in a vote to merge the maritime academy with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in order to keep it afloat. 

    Eight other campuses including Bakersfield (- 3 percentage points) showed declines in four-year transfer graduation rates. Humboldt (+ 5.8 percentage points) and Monterey Bay (+ 4.1 percentage points) gained the most, comparing four-year transfer graduation rates for the 2018 cohort to their peers a year earlier.

    Systemwide, Cal State is aiming to have 40% of first-year students graduate in four years and 70% of first-year students graduate in six years by spring 2025. Individual campuses also have their own graduation rate targets, which can be more or less ambitious than those that apply to the system as a whole. 

    None of the system’s universities met their individual campuses’ graduation rate targets for first-time, six-year graduation rates among students who started in 2018. There has been more success on four-year rates. San Diego, Long Beach, San Jose, Sacramento and Northridge met their four-year target for first-time students who started in 2020. 





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  • Why — and how — some California schools bounced back five years after the pandemic

    Why — and how — some California schools bounced back five years after the pandemic


    Kindergarten teacher Carla Randazzo watches a student write alphabet letters on a white board at Golden Empire Elementary School in Sacramento.

    Credit: Rich Pedroncelli / AP Photo

    California’s students have struggled in the five years since the pandemic closed schools across the state. But kids in many schools are bouncing back, returning to pre-Covid achievement levels. What’s working? How have some districts innovated to turn kids’ learning curves upward once again?

    After analyzing student-level statewide data and visiting nine districts in each of the past three years, our team has made these discoveries:

    Mindful policies make a difference

    Nationwide, the pandemic erased nearly two decades of progress in math and reading. In California, average math proficiency decreased by 6.4 percentage points between 2019 and 2022, and reading proficiency dropped by 4 percentage points. Our work shows a modest positive effect of early reopening and federal recovery investments over this period. This highlights the importance of keeping schools open when it is safe to do so and prioritizing high-need students in reopening. Federal stimulus dollars also helped during this period.

    Our statewide work further shows that districts blended, braided and sequenced multiple funding sources to extend instructional learning time, strengthen staffing and provide learning supports.

    We also studied the impact of recovery investments and specific district recovery programs. We did not find that increased federal Covid funding to schools increased student test scores post-pandemic. However, districts that devoted funds to teacher retention efforts and extended learning time showed more improvement in student attendance, a key to improving academic outcomes.  

    Cross-sector partnerships advance whole-child development

    Prolonged school closure, social isolation, economic anxiety, housing and food insecurity, Covid-19 infection, and the loss of loved ones exacerbated a national mental health crisis already underway before the pandemic. In 2021, 42% of high school students nationwide experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, and 32% attempted or seriously considered attempting suicide. As schools reopened, educators found themselves dealing with not just academic learning, but also support for basic needs (such as food and health care), mental health, and life skills (such as relationship skills).

    Some districts pivoted to fostering whole-child development. For example, Compton Unified partnered with community health providers to offer health care services (such as vaccinations and check-ups), and Del Norte Unified leveraged Medi-Cal reimbursements to provide mental health counseling and therapy sessions. Educators will still need to deal with the academic, behavioral and life-skills needs for years to come. More cross-sector partnerships with public health, social services and housing would better equip schools to address these challenges.

    School innovations foster a rebound in learning

    Overall spending infusions have helped students rebound, but the impact has been relatively small. More important is how Covid relief funds were spent by districts. Our longitudinal case study of nine districts revealed some substantial organizational changes — reforms that may stick over time.

    One large structural reform was the investment in student well-being. Before the pandemic, student well-being was considered mostly secondary to instruction and academic achievement. However, the pandemic highlighted the need to integrate life skills into instruction. As a result, districts invested in new program materials and moved resources to hire counselors, social workers, psychologists, and increased student access to school-based supports. Some even built new community centers where students and families come together.

    A smaller scale, yet key, reform is districts’ investment in career pathways. Districts like Compton and Milpitas Unified offer a wide variety of pathways — from E-sports to computer science to early education — that are tied to on-the-job internships and certificates. These pathways have played an important role in engaging students and connecting them with employment opportunities.

    Districts also tried new approaches to the structure of schooling and classroom practices. For example, Glendale Unified shifted to a seven-period block schedule that allowed middle and high school students to add an elective course that sparked their interest. In Poway Unified, small groups of students meet with teachers and classroom aides to focus on specific skill areas.

    Digital innovations engage students, but gaps remain

    Many districts have turned to digital innovations to motivate kids. In Poway, coaches embedded in the classroom work with teachers to build learning stations, where stronger students work in teams, freeing teachers to provide more direct instruction to kids at risk of falling behind.

    Unfortunately, since the pandemic, the digital divide has narrowed, but it has not been eliminated. 

    In spring 2020, when schools abruptly shifted online, 40% of California households with school-age children did not have reliable internet or devices for distance learning. Over time, the state has made remarkable progress in device access, but not as much progress with internet access. The lack of progress could be attributed to multiple factors, including the absence of pre-existing infrastructure and affordability challenges. Federal and state governments provided unprecedented investments (such as the federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program and California Senate Bill 356) to address barriers to universal broadband access; however, communities face significant challenges in building out infrastructure and improving affordability.

    The pandemic provided an unprecedented opportunity to rethink and restart public education. Given the increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters, learning disruptions will become the new norm for many communities throughout the U.S.

    By learning from the example of districts that have demonstrated resilience and success in pandemic recovery, we can better prepare for future disruptions and build a more resilient public education that supports all students.   

    •••

    Niu Gao is a principal researcher at the American Institutes for Research. Julian Betts is a professor at UC San Diego. Jonathan Isler and Piper Stanger are administrators at the California Department of Education.

    Bruce Fuller, professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley, was part of the research team and contributed to this report.

    This collaboration research is supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through grant R305X230002 to the American Institutes for Research (AIR). Any errors or misinterpretations belong to the authors and do not reflect the views of the institute, the U.S. Department of Education or the California Department of Education.

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





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  • Enrollment climbs at some Cal State campuses, tumbles at others

    Enrollment climbs at some Cal State campuses, tumbles at others


    Students walk on a college campus.

    Students walking on the campus of Cal State San Marcos on Dec. 3, 2024.

    Credit: Amy DiPierro / EdSource

    Diego Lopez, a student in his last year at Cal State San Marcos, gives the north San Diego County campus high marks. The Army veteran likes his classes, feels the campus is generally well-managed and appreciates that at the school’s current size, “you can just chill, and relax, and not get too overwhelmed.” 

    But Lopez can tell the student body is expanding, especially at the start of the semester, when he has to navigate crowded parking lots.  

    “The parking lots are so full, so you have to make sure you get here early. And then just right across the street, you see all the construction being done,” he said. “You can definitely tell: This school is growing a lot, and it’s growing fast.”

    The number of students at the suburban Cal State San Marcos campus has mushroomed over the past decade. It’s now home to 14,655 students, an almost 15% jump since 2015, among the sharpest increases of any Cal State campus in that period.

    But that is not the case across the 23 campuses of the California State University system. Overall system enrollment has settled at 2.7% lower than a decade ago after tumbling more deeply during the pandemic. And behind that number is a more complicated picture, with some individual campuses showing double-digit percent increases even as others have experienced big decreases.

    While San Marcos students have raced to find parking in the first weeks of recent academic years, Sonoma State students in contrast can usually find dozens of empty spaces in the Bay Area school’s main parking lot. The campus has suffered the worst enrollment loss in the university system, contracting from 9,408 students in 2015 to 5,784 students in 2024. Recent statistics suggest it had the highest dorm vacancy rate in the Cal State system in spring 2023, prompting the university to open some housing to nonstudents.

    Falling enrollment has prompted a period of tight finances at the Sonoma State campus. Tess Wilkinson, a fourth-year transfer student studying communications, said she saw fewer courses being offered. She suspects budget cuts are one reason why.

    “I even noticed some professors that had regularly taught courses in my major were no longer on the course schedule at all,” she said. “Some courses were thrown together to accommodate abrupt faculty changes — and student engagement in my classes felt like it had decreased.”

    The divergence between San Marcos and Sonoma shows how the enrollment challenge facing the nation’s largest university system defies a one-size-fits-all solution about how to serve students and where to spend money around the state.

    The trend continued this fall, with enrollment up from the year before at 15 campuses and down at eight. That uneven distribution of new students is in part due to regional differences in population, the cost of living and labor markets. It may also reflect whether they cater primarily to commuters or on-campus residents, offer higher- or lower-demand degrees and serve more or fewer students sensitive to last year’s federal financial aid delays.  

    Enrollment at community colleges, a major feeder into Cal State, also slipped during the pandemic, though student headcount has started to recover. Going forward, Cal State will have to grapple with a long-predicted decline in the number of recent high school graduates in California. The Public Policy Institute of California, a think tank, nonetheless projects that CSU enrollment will continue an upward trajectory through 2035, thanks to larger shares of high school students completing college preparatory courses and higher college-going rates. 

    Even in a year when enrollment across the Cal State system rose a modest 1.5%, some campus leaders enjoyed a banner college acceptance season. Cal State Monterey Bay, whose 16% enrollment bump was the system’s largest 2023-24, sold out on-campus housing for the first time in a decade this fall, according to Ben Corpus, its vice president for enrollment management and student affairs. 

    At the other extreme, lower-enrolled CSU campuses must contend with the financial fallout from less revenue from tuition and fees. Sonoma State and Cal State Los Angeles, which notched the largest year-to-year enrollment drop in the system, have instituted hiring freezes and cut course sections to bridge funding gaps.

    Starting this school year, Cal State also has reallocated funding to universities that exceeded enrollment targets or showed they have higher demand and away from those with dropping enrollments. Anticipated cuts in state funding because of overall state budget conditions may have additional ripple effects, even at campuses with flourishing student bodies. 

    Those stakes have not escaped the notice of campuses at both ends of the enrollment yo-yo. EdSource interviewed students, faculty and administrators at Sonoma State and Cal State San Marcos about how they think course offerings, student clubs, construction and, yes, parking are changing as their schools get bigger or smaller. 

    Students walk on the campus of Sonoma State University.
    Credit: Ally Valiente / EdSource

    Sonoma State

    An hour north of San Francisco, Sonoma State University celebrates its location on the edge of the Russian River Valley by naming its dorms for wine varietals and regions from Beaujolais to Zinfandel. 

    But wildfires have destroyed thousands of homes in this region of the state since 2017, a shock from which its population and already expensive housing market are still recovering. That has made it harder to recruit students from other parts of the state, who are a significant part of the student body, officials said. Sonoma State’s enrollment has slid almost 39% since 2015. Cal State’s 2022-23 financial statements put the school’s average residence hall occupancy at just 65%. The university has opened some of its student housing to faculty, staff, students with young children or even people visiting campus for a conference.

    Collapsing enrollment over the decade slowed to a 1% dip this year. Still, the smaller student body has prompted a serious cash crunch. Sonoma State, which has a $130 million operating budget this school year, anticipates a $21 million budget deficit going into 2025-26. 

    “It’s pretty simplistic sort of math: We just don’t have enough students paying the tuition to fully cover all of the expenses we have,” Emily F. Cutrer, the university’s interim president, said at an Oct. 28 town hall to discuss Sonoma State’s budget forecast. 

    Cutrer said the university would have to add more than 3,000 students — a 52% increase over fall 2024 — to cover its current deficit, a goal she estimated is likely three or four years away. The loss of tuition and fee revenue is compounded by rising employee benefits costs, state funding cuts and an estimated $3.6 million that Cal State is expected to reallocate to other campuses.

    Sonoma State is under a hiring freeze and is also pressing pause on some travel. The campus in recent years has offered employees early retirements and buyouts. Part-time and full-time lecturer headcount has fallen almost 25% in the last several years, a spokesperson said. Sonoma State notified the faculty union in October that layoffs could be on the way.    

    “I would ask people to stop asking us to do more with less. It’s exhausting,” Lauren S. Morimoto, who chairs the university’s department of kinesiology, said at the town hall. “We’re demoralized and we’re burnt out.”

    Sonoma State’s struggles are a comedown from a campaign under then-President Ruben Armiñana to bill the university as a “public Ivy” – offering plush new facilities at a state university price – in the 1990s through 2010s. Armiñana’s critics charged that the strategy attracted a wealthier and whiter student body compared with the state’s other public universities. 

    Judy Sakaki succeeded Armiñana in 2016 with the explicit goal of making Sonoma State more accessible and less elitist. Sakaki’s 2022 resignation ushered in a period of leadership turnover; Cutrer is the third person to lead the university since then.      

    Tim Wandling, who chairs the English department and serves on the board of the California Faculty Association at Sonoma State, said he’s concerned about leadership instability on campus. He also worries that the university’s top brass “want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on marketing blitzes and new programs, and what they really need to do is just downsize their administrative staff and focus on keeping the good faculty that they have, the good students they have.” 

    Sonoma State is not alone among Bay Area universities hurting for students. San Francisco State and Cal State East Bay are facing similar declines.

    Sonoma State’s relative distance from major population centers has long encouraged admissions staff to look outside their own backyard for prospective students.

    Sonoma currently draws 35% of its students from its home county, an additional 63% from elsewhere in California and 1.6% from out of state. University administrators and attendees speaking at the October town hall appeared to favor an all-of-the-above recruitment strategy. 

    Locally, the campus has struck guaranteed admissions deals with several of the region’s school districts and community colleges. And looking outside Sonoma State’s immediate region, the university is also recruiting in Southern California, looking at ways of retaining students it already has and bringing back students who do not immediately re-enroll each term.

    Students work at a library on the campus of Cal State San Marcos on Dec. 3, 2024.
    Credit: Amy DiPierro / EdSource

    Cal State San Marcos

    On a mild December afternoon, Cal State San Marcos student Diana Ortega Caballero was reading a book on a terrace overlooking construction cranes. Building sites are among the most visible cues of how the campus is expanding after some pandemic dips.

    Ortega Caballero, a transfer student from MiraCosta Community College in nearby Oceanside, said she had “a really easy transition” to San Marcos. Almost a third of San Marcos students start at a California community college.

    San Marcos is in good company among Southern California’s CSU campuses that have welcomed more students over the past decade due to regional population growth. San Diego State University is leading the system in enrollment gains since 2015, followed closely by Cal Poly Pomona and San Marcos. 

    Campus leaders have also taken concrete steps to steer more students to campus. Administrators have signed a series of guaranteed admissions agreements with school districts and other local education entities. They’ve also coordinated coursework with Murrieta Valley Unified School District and Mt. San Jacinto College to aid students earning software engineering degrees.

    Students interviewed at the campus said they’re largely satisfied with San Marcos. Several noted that the campus feels more accessible than larger CSU campuses. But they conceded experiencing occasional snags as the campus expands, like trouble getting into certain classes or a long wait time to see an academic adviser.

    Jackson Puddy, who is studying business administration, was standing outside the library waiting for students to arrive for a pickup chess game. He hoped the school’s growing enrollment would bring more money, more professors and perhaps even more members for the small chess club he runs. The only con? “The parking situation — it’s not going to get any better,” he said, even if students can now reliably find a space in a dirt lot downhill from the main quad. 

    Students recently approved a $210 per-semester fee increase to fund a new wellness and recreation center. Plans call for a turf field on a rooftop deck, indoor courts, cardio and strength training facilities and 550 beds for student housing. In addition, the campus opened a new dorm for 300 students two years ago and is currently building another one for 500.  

    Cal State system statistics suggest San Marcos has some of the busiest classroom and laboratory space of any school in the CSU system. One of the school’s most urgent goals is to meet surging demand for its engineering program, which began in 2019 with 300 students and has ballooned to 2,000. Campus leaders plan to build a three-story, $110 million building to house its College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The project is expected to break ground in July 2025.

    San Marcos’ growth does not immunize it from the belt-tightening other CSU campuses have begun in anticipation of lower state funding. At a board of trustees meeting in September, President Ellen Neufeldt said a lack of additional faculty could lead to larger class sizes and noted that the school has deferred maintenance on aging electrical systems. 

    “The challenge we now face is that while we are growing, we are unable to hire the essential employees needed to support our mission of student success,” Neufeldt said. “We urgently require more advisers, success coaches, tutors, financial aid specialists and counselors, and the list goes on and on, to assist our amazing students.”

    Ally Valiente, a student at Sonoma State University and a member of the Student Journalism Corps, contributed to this story.





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