Preschool students build a structure from plastic interlocking tubes.
Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education
Author’s original hed: As Universal Preschool Access Expands to Reach More Families of Color, So Do Inequitable Practices Such as Racial Bias, Exclusionary Discipline and Lack of Cultural Representation, Leading to a Crisis for Black Boys
As California progresses toward universal preschool access, the need increases for training, hiring and retaining early childhood male educators who are racially and ethnically representative of the children in their classrooms. A study examining preschool teachers’ implicit biases and expulsion rates found that teachers spent significantly more time watching Black children, especially boys, than other-race children when anticipating problematic behaviors. Further, researchers found that public preschool teachers’ systemic use of exclusionary discipline, such as suspensions and expulsions, disproportionately impacts Black children, with Black boys being expelled more than anyone else.
In efforts to reduce the number of suspensions and expulsions, last year the California Department of Education released a bulletin announcing new requirements for the California State Preschool Program (CSPP) that no longer allowed contractors to suspend, expel, or coerce parents and guardians to pick children up early from school due to their behavior. This is a step in the right direction. However, not all California preschool programs are funded by the state program and, therefore, many do not have to abide by those guidelines.
As a Black woman and a credentialed early childhood educator for more than 15 years in San Joaquin and Sacramento counties, I’ve witnessed Black children aged 3 to 5 years old be sentenced to in-school or out-of-school suspension because a teacher lacked the necessary skills or cultural competencies to work with them. I would often be the one who other teachers would send their children to when they were struggling. Though I did not have any extra or special training, I was often able to successfully help children reset and return to their classrooms at peace. Once, I worked with a Black male teacher who was more effective than I in this aspect, especially when dealing with boys.
Overall, our success was evidence of the mutual understanding and respect that the same-race teacher-child dynamic has. Perhaps from the child’s perspective, there’s a familiarity in our looks or mannerisms. Whatever the reason, such experiences speak to why Black children need educators who they can identify with.
As it stands, in many places the public preschool curriculum, like that of the public K-12, has long ignored Black history and culture. The state preschool curriculum framework developed by the California Department of Education in alignment with the K-12 Common Core State Standards attest to this. Writers of the California Preschool Learning Foundations, Volume 3, History-Social Science admit that “the developmental research on which these foundations are based is full of studies of English-speaking, middle-class European American children” and that “fewer studies focused on children who speak other languages or come from other family, racial, or cultural backgrounds.”
Training and hiring teachers and staff who represent the racial and cultural communities they serve is beneficial because they connect better with the students through incorporating culturally relevant pedagogy, which is generally not offered in typical school curriculum. This was my approach upon opening a child care facility specifically for Black families. I found that children engaged more with the learning content when they could relate to it. For example, children expressed an increased interest in reading materials and spent more time in the classroom library browsing through books when they saw characters they could identify with. And the boys in my program took a special liking to my teenage son.
We cannot ignore the fact that Black children are disproportionately suspended and expelled from preschools. It’s also true their communities are underrepresented in the curricula and with regard to same-race educators. For better social and academic outcomes for this vulnerable group, early childhood educational spaces need more Black male teachers.
This is a call for state agencies and schools to put resources into the community by training and hiring educators who reflect the student population they serve. This is a call for families and community members to volunteer their time at local preschools and early childhood centers.
With universal preschool access becoming a reality in California, the rest of the country is sure to follow. To support all preschool children, diversifying the teaching workforce is of the utmost importance right now.
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Sajdah Asmau is owner of an African-centered child care facility. She is in her first year as doctoral student in education student at UC Davis and serves as a Public Voices fellow on Racial Justice in Early Childhood with the OpEd Project in partnership with the National Black Child Development Institute.
The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
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.
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.
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.
School is back in session. In California, we ended the prior school year with promising data that student attendance rates throughout the state are rising from historic lows during the pandemic. While having students in seats is cause for celebration, we must ensure that we have enough teachers in classrooms.
The initiative we should be champing at the bit to implement is high-impact tutoring: tutoring in one-on-one situations or very small groups meeting at least 30 minutes, three or more times a week. Here’s why this is an effective, scalable way to provide students with high-quality educators:
You can’t argue with data. Research shows that high-dosage tutoring is one of the most effective ways to help students make academic progress. Yet few students actually receive it. A recent study from Stanford University demonstrated the many positive effects of tutoring, including increased reading and math scores, attendance and a feeling of belonging. Teach For America’s (TFA) tutoring program, the Ignite Fellowship, finds and develops tutors who connect virtually with students during the school day. Fellows, who are paid for their work, are supported by a school-based veteran educator to customize instruction. Seventy-one percent of the 3,500 students across the country being tutored by Ignite fellows meet their semester-long reading and math goals.
Tutoring is a pipeline to teaching. Teacher morale is an ongoing issue. Because teaching is so unique, it can be hard to fully prepare aspiring educators for what it’s like to lead a classroom. Tutoring serves as a way for college students to step behind the wheel, with a professional providing roadside assistance before they are given full control. This can be key to teacher recruitment and retention — before people fully enlist in becoming a teacher, they have the opportunity to see if this profession is right for them. AmeriCorps, which also invests in employing young people as tutors to help them jump-start service-oriented careers, has found that more than half of its tutors hope to pursue a career in education after their service. When teachers are more confident stepping into their classrooms, students are the ones who reap the rewards.
Tutors ease the burden for teachers. Tutors can focus on small groups or individual sessions with students — something that lead teachers don’t always have the capacity to do. This way, tutors can address specific learning gaps for individual students, meeting more individual and diverse needs, and allowing students to build authentic relationships with multiple educators/mentors. I have had teachers tell me they wish they could clone themselves so they could work with more students to meet different needs and speeds. In our reality, tutors may be the closest thing we have to clones.
Prioritizing diversity. To provide a diverse experience for our nation’s students, we must have their educators — their role models — reflect them. This means we should prioritize recruiting and retaining teachers of color. Throughout California’s public schools, 77% of the K-12 population is composed of students of color, whereas only 37% of educators identify as people of color. This kind of ratio is true for Los Angeles, where I am based. That’s why I’m excited to be welcoming the Ignite Fellowship to schools throughout Los Angeles (and expanding even further throughout California) this year, helping bring more diverse and locally rooted teachers into classrooms. People of color face historically more hurdles than white people in the workforce, and this is even more extreme in the teaching profession. Tutoring is a way to expand the diversity of the teacher pipeline and can increase students’ access to educators from diverse backgrounds. Virtual programs like Ignite also allow for more flexibility and accessibility, meaning fewer hurdles for aspiring teachers to become tutors, and more opportunities for students to connect with tutors and mentors.
The school year may already be underway, but the reality is that schools will be fighting to staff their classrooms all year. Anything we can do to mitigate the detrimental effects that understaffed schools have on students should be a priority. Investing in tutors is an actionable way to help staff schools with diverse educators, with an added benefit of creating a pipeline of tomorrow’s teachers.
We have the proof that it will help our students, so what are we waiting for?
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Lida Jennings is the executive director of Teach For America Los Angeles and San Diego.
The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. We welcome guest commentaries with diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
Younger Black and Latino teachers are some of the most passionate educators in the Los Angeles Unified School District — and they are also at the highest risk of leaving the profession, according to a new report.
The survey, which involved interviews conducted in early 2024, found that roughly one-third of Gen Z Black and Latino teachers expect to leave their careers in education. Seventy-one percent of those teachers said they expected to do so within two years, either to find a higher paying job or seek a position with a better work-life balance.
“I thought I would be a teacher forever,” said a Latina high school teacher quoted in the survey report. “I feel very confused and sad that I have to consider leaving something that I’m very passionate about and very good at, and I work so hard at.”
LAUSD has made several efforts to boost both pipelines into teaching professions for current students of color and to help teachers already in the district stay where they are, according to Jacob Guthrie, the district’s director of recruitment, selection and retention.
“Having a representative workforce means better outcomes for students,” he said in an interview with EdSource. “And the district is committed to providing pathways and support for our Gen Z educators of color so that they can feel supported and they remain with us as district employees.”
The survey and report were conducted and written primarily by GPSN, a local nonprofit that seeks to help improve public education in Los Angeles, with a focus on students of color and students living in poverty.
The work involved a series of focus group discussions conducted in November 2023, and individual surveys with 400 district educators in early 2024. The teachers surveyed were split into two, 200-person groups: Gen Z Black and Latino teachers and a general educator population, which included teachers of all backgrounds. Their responses to a series of questions were analyzed side by side.
According to the study, providing affordable health care options and improving work-life balance would make the biggest difference in LAUSD keeping its younger Black and Latino teachers.
And advocates say doing so is critical as concerns grow about retention and diversity among the future teacher workforce in Los Angeles Unified.
“If we don’t get really serious about the things that they’re raising … in this report, then we have a gap that we are widening, and we might lose some of some really high-quality teachers in the pipeline,” said Jalisa Evans, the founder and CEO of the Black Educator Advocates Network.
Why are younger Black and Latino teachers less likely to stay in LAUSD?
A quarter of the report’s Black and Latino respondents who are Gen Z, defined as under the age of 30, said they would leave education in pursuit of a higher-paying job. Meanwhile, 27% said they wanted more work-life balance.
Burnout was also of concern for nearly a third of Gen Z Black and Latino teachers, the report found — and Evans said “for folks to be newer into the field and already experiencing burnout is a huge sign that there’s not sustainability.”
“Burnout specifically has been normalized. And so, for more veteran teachers, it is normal for them to take work home. … It is normal to think that you’re actually supposed to lesson plan at home,” Evans said. “And so, I think newer educators, specifically Gen Z, Black and Latino teachers, they’re experiencing this burnout, and it wasn’t their interpretation of what they were getting into.”
In addition to a desire for work-life balance, high costs of housing and living play a key role in younger Black and Latino educators’ desire to leave the district, particularly if they live in an area that is rapidly gentrifying and further from the communities they teach in.
Gina Gray, an English teacher, said the topic of affordability comes up frequently among her fellow teachers — with some who are younger having to live with several families under the same roof to sustain themselves financially.
“With this much education, with this much skill and knowledge, if you go into another field, you will make more money, but we’ve accepted this wage penalty for educators,” Gray said.
“And so to be new and starting out and wanting affordable housing and realizing that the career I’ve chosen has made that where it seems impossible? Do I stay in the career, or do I kind of validate things for myself?”
Does gender have an impact?
While the report did not specifically focus on gender, Ana Teresa Dahan, GPSN’s managing director who helped author the report, noted that gender is tied to retention.
She emphasized that a lot of younger women leave teaching because they no longer feel the job is conducive to having a family; and, because education is still largely female dominated, Dahan said that exodus has a larger impact on the younger workforce as a whole.
“We heard in our focus groups, teachers (saying): “I can’t drop off my kid at school before 7:45, but I have to be at my school by 7:30,’ ” Dahan said. “There’s logistical challenges to being a teacher and then also raising children that I think are being voiced more than previous generations.”
Many have also stressed the need for more male teachers of color in the district.
What positive feedback did Los Angeles Unified receive?
Many have applauded LAUSD for its “grow your own” model of hiring former district students.
Specifically, one-fifth of the teachers surveyed in the GPSN report had formerly attended LAUSD and said they wanted to give back.
“They go off, they go to college … and they see education as a way to transform their community,” Dahan said. “And that’s why they’re becoming teachers, because they want kids in their communities to have the opportunities they did. That, we thought, was really compelling.”
Forty-four percent of Gen Z Black and Latino educators said they wanted to share their love of learning, while 40% wanted to pursue teaching because they were passionate about a subject area.
According to the report, more than 85% of district educators also said they feel their individual identity is reflected in their fellow staff and student populations. Most also noted the district had been supportive and helped them grow professionally.
What are the current supports for younger Black and Latino educators?
Guthrie said LAUSD provides a number of opportunities to support retention and career development, including creating pathways for high school graduates to get a teaching credential and programs that support teachers in getting administrative services credentials at no cost.
This year, the district has also unveiled a program to help increase pathways into careers in education for students at Black Student Achievement Plan campuses.
And for teachers already in the district, Guthrie said LAUSD has been providing special training to administrators on supporting educators of color — and so have career ladder specialists, who can mentor teachers wanting to move up.
He also mentioned that the district formed affinity groups for both Black male and female teachers, which will meet six times this year.
Why is addressing retention important now?
Parents, students and teachers have all stressed the importance of having a body of teachers that reflect their student populations.
Maira Nieto has four children attending LAUSD schools — spanning from fourth through 10th grades. She said having Latino teachers who can be culturally understanding is critical, for both students and for parents who want to be more involved with their children’s education.
“They are young children; they have to feel at home, like they are welcomed,” Nieto said in Spanish. “If a teacher doesn’t provide them with that, the child, I think, loses interest at an academic level.”
Many have also emphasized that younger teachers of color are critical, as they represent the future of Los Angeles’ educator workforce.
“That’s a little frightening,” Gray said, “to think that some students will go through the whole system and possibly not have … a teacher they can identify with.”
What other kinds of workplace support would help?
Providing affordable health care options and improving work-life balance would make the biggest difference in keeping Gen Z Black and Latino educators in LAUSD, according to the report. Other respondents called for receiving incentive bonuses earlier and having improved family leave.
Many teachers in the survey also said they wanted more professional development focused on social-emotional learning strategies, and more than half reported dealing with behavioral issues in the classroom — a burden sometimes disproportionately placed on teachers of color, Evans said.
“Are they being overly used in a way that is just based off of their identity? Are they having to carry the burden of being the school’s disciplinarian?” Evans said.
“And if so, LAUSD should definitely look at their school leadership to think about how they can support all staff members to be able to build relationships with their students and to be competent in this idea of classroom management.”
While LAUSD does provide Black educator networks for both men and women, Gray said affinity spaces provided by the teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles, have really made all the difference.
Meanwhile, Guthrie said he is “not aware” of similar networks for Latino teachers.
“The districts, the school sites, they need to be intentional about retaining teachers of color … making sure that sometimes how our students feel othered, that we don’t feel othered on these same campuses,” Gray said.
“Be intentional with it. Be focused on it. Understand that we need support in order to sustain the career, and we want to stay.”
But what about the teachers who are joining the profession? What motivates Gen Z students to go into teaching today, when it’s seemingly less lucrative and less attractive than ever?
One reason students like Katherine Osajima Pope — a recent University of California Santa Cruz graduate who is earning her master’s degree and teaching credential at Stanford University — decide to become teachers is to effect change. Osajima Pope wants to have a positive impact on her students, and, by extension, her community, “even if that’s one person at a time, or oneclassroom at a time.”
Chloe Decker, a rising senior at UC Berkeley, has noticed an increase in students who approach teaching from an advocacy perspective. As a peer adviser in UC Berkeley’s CalTeach program, through which undergraduates can gain teaching experience and even get their credentials, Decker regularly meets with students considering the teaching profession.
“I have seen so many inspired students excited for student advocacy. They want to change people’s lives, they want to be there for the kids, they want to be one person of influence that can change minds as to how they view education,” Decker said.
CalTeach and other undergraduate and graduate credential programs place a heavy emphasis on the role of teaching in equity and social justice. One of the required courses for CalTeach’s program focuses on equity in urban schools, and the program lists increasing “access, equity, and inclusion for STEM learning” as one of its core principles. Osajima Pope said she was “pleasantly surprised” by Stanford’s commitment to educating its students on anti-racism and equity.
Decker, who aims to become a teacher and then a school social worker, said she has seen a change in “what school actually means.” Beyond “just emphasizing academic requirements,” schools now see themselves as a support and social system for kids — and Decker and many of her peers are excited to engage in this aspect of the job.
“It’s just deeper than having them learn what one plus one is,” she said.
Excited by the idea that educators can do more than teach facts and figures, many future teachers plan to bring their own educational experiences into the classroom, while parting ways with some aspects of traditional pedagogy.
Osajima Pope has been working with children for years, volunteering at schools and libraries since she was a child. She called her educational experience growing up in Oakland “transformative,” and said she wants to go back as an ethnic studies teacher to “teach to the same person that (she) was.”
Susana Espinoza said her high school Spanish teacher exposed her to the world of Chicano/Latino studies, and she wants to similarly broaden students’ horizons. Espinoza, who is currently studying at UC Berkeley, remembers that Spanish class as the first time she saw herself reflected in the classroom, or in “any type of story that was told.”
Espinoza hopes to be “that one steppingstone” that allows students to achieve their dreams, as her teacher did for her.
While equity and access to education are powerful motivators, some future teachers are just as excited by the potential of a job that allows for creative expression and deep interpersonal connections. For Lindsay Gonor, a recent Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo graduate who is now earning a teaching credential there, it was working at a theater camp through her teen years that led her to education. Gonor said the experience contrasted with what she heard from her parents about their jobs, and specifically her father, who was a lawyer.
“I would ask (my dad) how work was, and he’d be like, ‘They don’t call it going to fun.’ And I was like, well, that’s not what I want to do. I work at the theater camp, and work is fun,” Gonor said.
These Gen Z-ers are not ignorant of the challenges that come with teaching. Decker said that each time CalTeach hosts a teacher panel, at least one speaker discourages the students from joining the profession — citing the common problems of low pay and long hours.
Gonor even acknowledged that her credential program is not a good “bang for your buck.” However, Gonor said, “The people that want to be teachers want to be teachers.”
Osajima Pope said she’s confronted with the realities of the job practically every time she tells someone her intended field, and she’s met with resistance. But for her, a part of the desire to teach is intrinsic, and possibly inexplicable.
“For me, my job isn’t about the money I make, it’s about what I feel passionate about,” Osajima Pope said. “It’s definitely hard to explain choosing happiness over money just because those two are equated so frequently, but I guess it was just (that) there’s literally nothing else I could see myself doing. Like, absolutely nothing else.”
Clara Brownstein is a third-year student studying English, Spanish and journalism at UC Berkeley, and a member of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps.
As a former math teacher, every Teacher Appreciation Week reminds me of the math-themed gifts I received from students — from a personalized calculator to a coffee mug adorned with equations.
As I reflect on my time teaching, I realize that alongside these gifts, what would have empowered me most as a math teacher was consistent access to a high-quality curriculum: one that is content-rich, enables each and every student to deeply understand and apply math in meaningful ways, and supports — not replaces — teachers’ professional judgment.
Researchshows that high-quality instructional materials, together with teacher professional learning aligned to them, are a potent combination to help teachers improve math outcomes for students. Plus, high-quality materials save teachers precious time, as teachers spend an average of seven hours per week searching for or creating their own materials.
Ensuring access to high-quality instructional materials aligns with the California Mathematics Council (CMC) mission to support and empower a thriving mathematics community dedicated to fostering effective teaching and learning for every student in California. We believe that mathematical thinking, reasoning, and problem-solving are critical to students’ future success and to our state economy.
We also know that California students and educators have incredible strengths and potential. I have seen firsthand how students and educators thrive when given opportunities to engage with authentic, relevant math content. Unfortunately, though, the most recent Nation’s Report Card shows that California students’ math achievement lags behind national averages and remains below pre-pandemic levels.
Moreover, California trails the nation in how our education leaders understand, identify and use high-quality instructional materials to boost math learning. A recent poll from Gallup found that only 11% of California’s district leaders and school principals are very familiar with high-quality instructional materials, compared to 20% of their peers nationally. Similarly, only 13% of California leaders said their district had an official definition of high-quality instructional materials — significantly lower than the 25% of leaders nationally who said the same. And only 11% of the leaders in our state say all the math professional learning in their school or district is aligned with their math curriculum, compared to 22% nationally.
For high-quality instructional materials to empower teachers to unleash their care, creativity, and knowledge in supporting students’ math learning, California must have a stronger and clearer vision of what constitutes quality in curriculum. This should start at the state level, as Gallup found that more than three in four California district leaders and principals say they look to state guidelines when deciding whether a curriculum is high-quality.
Fortunately, state leaders have an imminent and critical opportunity to lead with a clear definition of quality. This summer, the state will engage teacher-reviewers to evaluate and select instructional materials to include on the state list of recommended math curricula. In advance of the review process, the state’s Instructional Quality Commission should define ‘high quality’ in math curricula and ensure that all of the recommended materials meet this definition. The recommended materials should also align with state standards and include the instructional strategies reflected in the 2023 California Math Framework to promote every student’s access to grade-level content.
Also at the state level, leaders should provide professional learning to support the implementation of these materials and allow teachers to lead this work with integrity and impact. Gov. Gavin Newsom allocated $250 million for math coaches in the budget he proposed in January. It is critical that the Legislature acts on the governor’s proposal and continues to invest in math teachers’ development, including through professional learning and coaching aligned with high-quality materials.
District leaders must also clearly define what high-quality materials mean in their context and use this definition to guide their district’s math materials selection process. This definition from a coalition of organizations committed to high-quality math materials offers more guidance for district leaders as they define their vision.
For both our students and our state to thrive, we must ensure our teachers have high-quality materials to foster achievement and joyful experiences in math. Let’s appreciate California’s teachers — during this Teacher Appreciation Week and every week — by equipping them with the high-quality resources they deserve as they do the indispensable work of nurturing the mathematical understanding of each and every student.
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Ma Bernadette Andres-Salgarino is the president of the California Mathematics Council. She is also the assistant director of iSTEAM at the Santa Clara County Office of Education.
The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
Elk Grove Unified director of elementary school education Jodi Boyle gets tips on how to use a canvassing app before she heads out in support of Measure N, a school facilities bond.
Diana Lambert/EdSource
California school board races, largely ignored by voters until the 2022 election, are again taking center stage. The California Teachers Association(CTA), the California Republican Party and other organizations have significantly ramped up efforts to help their favored candidates win local school board seats on Nov. 5.
On Saturday, teachers and other school employees dropped into the offices of the Elk Grove Education Association to receive last-minute instructions and pick up yard signs and union T-shirts before fanning out across the Sacramento County district to encourage residents to vote for a local school bond and union-supported school board candidates.
It is part of a larger effort by CTA to get its local unions more engaged in school board elections. For the last few months, California teachers have been attending rallies and canvassing neighborhoods to drop off door hangers and knock on doors. County Republican central committees, other conservative organizations, and in some parts of the state, charter school organizations are doing the same.
CTA President David Goldberg said the union is “absolutely” taking this year’s school board elections more seriously than it has in the past, and is counting on the engagement and popularity of its teachers to win local races. It is also trying to change the culture of local unions not being active in elections.
“We know that our popularity as educators and union educators is at an all-time high,” Goldberg said. “And just the words: … ‘I’m an educator in your community, and I’m asking you to vote for this person,’ just that alone, changes elections. I mean that’s the gift we have. So we just have to lean into it and use it much more than we have in the past.”
Before the 2022 election, the Republican Party, and some conservative organizations and churches, spent more than a year recruiting, training and endorsing candidates in an attempt to create a “red wave” to win what are supposed to be nonpartisan seats.
Their goal was to gain seats on California school boards to promote conservative ideas, including fighting educational policies on gender identity and racial equity. Although the effort made some headway, it failed to flip many seats in more liberal areas of the state.
This year, county Republican central committees and conservative groups, like the Leadership Institute, again recruited and trained school board candidates throughout the state with a focus on winning seats in more liberal areas of the state.
Shawn Steel
Conservatives are campaigning even more aggressively than they did two years ago, said Shawn Steel, the Republican National Committee member from California. “There’s been a lot less noise but a lot more action,” he said.
Both sides say power is the issue
Goldberg said that some of the conservative candidates running for school board are self-proclaimed “white Christian nationalists” who are part of a broader movement to dramatically change public education to suit their ideology.
“It’s not an attack on Christianity, what we’re saying,” Goldberg said. “Because this has very little to do with Christianity at all. It’s about power, and it’s about using power to really re-imagine public education in a way that does not include the majority of our students in that vision, but really is a fundamentalist attack on democracy.”
Steel says the teachers unions have too much power and that union members are trying to get candidates elected that they can control.
“You got the union reps that are literally knocking on doors and financing their candidate,” Steel said. “And why are they doing that? It’s not because they want education better, they want better salaries and more power. It should be illegal, in my view.”
How the union supports campaigns
As a rule, the CTA focuses its efforts on statewide races and propositions, while local unions support local races. But local unions can apply for financial support for school board races from the CTA Political Action Committee. The CTA and local teachers unions sometimes share the cost of joint mailers advertising statewide races on one side and local races on the other, Goldberg said.
“We’re never going to have enough money to fund these races,” Goldberg said. “We live in the fifth-largest economy in the world. We have billionaires who frankly could write a bigger check in a single day than 300,000 members could raise in years. So, our real power is our member strength. And our members and educators are trusted more than any other people.”
Over the next several years, the CTA is spending about $60 million so that every union president can be released from the classroom to engage with their members, including encouraging their members to participate in local campaigns, Goldberg said.
California Teachers Association President David Goldberg and local school board presidents at State Council. The union is paying to release all the presidents from their teaching duties so they can engage with their members and promote participation in elections.California Teachers Association
This is the first year Elk Grove Education Association members have canvassed neighborhoods for candidates. Teachers who were campaigning on Saturday credited the leadership of local union President James Sutter for getting Elk Grove teachers excited about supporting union-endorsed candidates and a local school facilities bond in the upcoming election.
Troy Morgan, science teacher at Monterey Trail High School, has been knocking on doors promoting union-endorsed candidates every Saturday since early September. He sometimes goes out after school on weekdays as well.
“I think we just realized how important it is, having a cohesive school board that supports students, and just knows how things should work, or what’s going to work best for students and all staff, not just teachers,” Morgan said Saturday before heading out for more canvassing. “There have been times in the past where it hasn’t been a cohesive kind of board, and we want to make sure that we have the kind of board that is going to be supporting all students.”
Elk Grove Unified teachers, wearing “Yes on N” T-shirts, have collectively knocked on about 7,000 doors since they started hitting the streets each Saturday since September, Sutter said.
Temecula teachers fight back
Goldberg recently walked for union-endorsed candidates running for the Temecula Valley Unified school board. The district in Riverside County has been in the media spotlight for more than a year for everything from rejecting textbooks with materials that included references to gay rights activist Harvey Milk, banning critical race theory and passing a policy requiring teachers and school staff to notify parents if a child appears to be transgender.
“That’s been turning our district a little upside down,” said union President Edgar Diaz. “Most of the board meetings have turned to focusing on these issues, instead of how do we address supporting students who are falling behind on the dashboard, who have IEPs (individualized education programs), who are English language learners? How do we develop systems that help them be successful in the classroom? So, in this election, it’s turned a lot into supporting candidates who believe in good governance.”
Tension over the policies of the conservative majority board led to the recall of board President Joseph Komrosky in June. Komrosky is running for one of the four available seats on the board in the upcoming election.
Two years ago, teachers at Temecula Valley Unified paid little attention to board races and campaigning, Diaz said. That all changed after a conservative majority was elected to the board in 2022. This year, members of the Temecula Valley Educators Association are sending out mailers, making phone calls and texting potential voters.
“Once they were elected and the policies and kind of chaos they brought into school board meetings, that is what got people motivated to do the work,” Diaz said.
The union’s political action committee recruited and interviewed candidates for endorsements and has spent about $60,000 total – $20,000 on each of three endorsed candidates. In 2022, the union spent $18,000 in total helping three candidates get elected.
Local teacher unions fund their PACs with donations primarily from their members. Temecula also received contributions from other union locals as well as money the union got from CTA, Diaz said.
Parental notification still on the ballot
School board policies directing school staff to notify parents if a student asks to use a different pronoun or name than given at birth — often called parental rights policies — continue to be a hot-button issue in some districts this election season, despite a new state law that will make these policies illegal starting in January.
The new state law requires a student’s consent before information about their sexual orientation or gender identity can be given to parents. The law also protects school staff from retaliation if they refuse to notify parents of a child’s gender preference.
In Yuba County, north of Sacramento, members of the Republican Central Committee attended school board meetings to evaluate whether school board trustees supported parent notification policies and, if not, whether they should be replaced in the upcoming election, said Florentina Di Gennaro, the treasurer of the committee.
“We kind of let them know if you’re not going to stand up for these things that we need to start happening in our schools or defending parents’ rights for our children, we are going to find someone to replace you,” Di Gennaro said.
The California Republican Party leaves funding and campaigning for down-ballot races to its county central committees, said Jonathan Zachreson, a candidate for the Roseville City School District board.
The Yuba County committee recruited and endorsed “Mama Bears” and “Papa Bears” to run for school board seats. Committee members wanted people who would push back against the new state law and other policies, Di Gennaro said.
The central committee is also attempting to replace Marysville Joint Unified Superintendent Fal Asrani because she won’t disregard the law. Asrani went on medical leave earlier this month. Di Gennaro said that a committee that will include a member of the GOP Central Committee will soon begin looking for a new superintendent.
Steel doesn’t agree with everything conservative board members have done since the last election. Some of the people elected to school boards in 2022 were wrongly focused on social issues instead of economic issues or fighting against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, he said. Steel said that DEI policies are racist and punish students for their color, but he doesn’t agree with policies focused on LGBTQ+ communities, he said.
“That’s a mistake,” he said. “I think most folks don’t think that the gay community should be targeted and scorned. So, that’s something I think most of the folks have learned this time around, because it’s not something that most folks believe. It’s not a community that should be attacked.”
San Jose union protecting board seat
The San Jose Teachers Association has been recruiting candidates and helping them win elections for years, but this year the 1,500-member union is putting more energy and money into campaigning after seeing conservative organizations recruiting candidates for local school board seats, said Renata Sanchez, union president.
“We shared it (the information) with our smaller locals as well,” Sanchez said. “And we’re like, let’s get ready now because they’re coming for us next year. And now they’re here.”
One candidate running for San Jose Unified is being endorsed by the Santa Clara County branch of Moms for Liberty, a national group that has supported efforts to bar schools from teaching about race, gender and sexuality. Members of the organization and the Silicon Valley Association of Conservative Republicans also are endorsing the candidate, Sanchez said.
“So, we’re making sure that we protect our school board and protect our academic freedom, by making sure that she doesn’t get on,” Sanchez said.
The union is sending out mailers, buying digital advertising and recently launched a mass text-messaging campaign. It also has encouraged teachers to go on “block walks” in the neighborhoods around their campuses after the school day ends to talk to potential voters about union-backed candidates and a facilities bond that includes some funding for workforce housing. Groups of teachers also canvas neighborhoods every Saturday.
“The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been,” Sanchez said.
LA teachers take on charter proponents
Not all hotly contested elections are cultural. In Los Angeles Unified, the teachers union and charter school organizations are also battling over school board seats.
The union is running campaigns in two of the three school board races, endorsing and supporting a UTLA member — who will stop teaching if elected to the paid school board seat — and an incumbent it has endorsed in prior elections, said Julie Van Winkle, vice president of United Teachers Los Angeles. The incumbent is running against another UTLA member who has been an advocate for charter schools and is outspending the union candidate 3-to-1, she said.
“We are always outspent by the charter school candidates, and we anticipate that in our school board election in the Valley, we’re going to be outspent 7-to-1,” Van Winkle said.
The union political action committee that finances campaigns is funded by about $2 million in member contributions and additional funding from the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, she said.
Because funding is limited, Van Winkle said it is more advantageous for UTLA to mobilize its 39,000 members to knock on doors and to talk to residents about the union’s endorsed candidates.
“People value teachers and respect teachers, and so we feel like our best strategy is just getting teachers to donate their time to go out and tell people about why it’s important to vote for our candidates,” Van Winkle said.
Oakland High teacher Rachel Reinhard guides her students through the functions of the legislative branch during a U.S. Government class last week.
Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource
In the months preceding this week’s election, some California history and social studies teachers have proceeded cautiously in covering the presidential campaign, while others have embraced the opportunity confidently and comprehensively. But most included instruction about the presidential election in their courses, according to responses to an EdSource survey of California history and social science teachers.
Their responses underscore that most teachers understood the potential pitfalls of teaching politics in polarized times, compounded by a contagion of misinformation on social media. (Go here to read the questionnaire.)
“A lot of kids are turned off about government and politics. We in the classroom are giving them a sense of access and empowerment,” said Rachel Reinhard, who teaches 12th grade U.S. History and Government at Oakland High School. “We’re showing that elections are ways that individuals can exert power on the system and make sense of an incredibly fast-paced and changing world.”
Yet some teachers have struggled to explain how Republican Donald Trump’s rhetoric, threats of retribution, and vows to expel undocumented immigrants have added anxiety to an unprecedentedly tense and divisive election.
“The dilemma for any responsible teacher right now is to explain the stakes while being nonpartisan,” said Mike Fishback, who teaches seventh- and eighth-grade social studies at Almaden Country Day School, a private school in San Jose.
The California Council for the Social Studies agreed to send EdSource’s survey to its 2,000-member email list, which includes more than 500 active members, most of them teachers. Of those, 64 teachers — about 1 in 8 member teachers — returned the survey by the Oct. 16 deadline. EdSource did not require teachers to submit their names or their schools, although 16 teachers did identify themselves, and many said they were willing to be contacted for an EdSource article.
Among the top-line results of the survey:
More than three-quarters of teachers who answered the survey said they are teaching about the election and the presidential campaign, and most of those who aren’t said it was their choice, not a district mandate.
Asked if they planned to discuss the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, 37% said no, 29% said yes, and 34% said maybe.
Asked if they planned to discuss potential election interference, 39% said no, 23% said yes, and 38% said maybe.
Asked to express their level of concern about student incivility in dealing with the election, 44% said they were slightly or not at all concerned; 23% said they were somewhat concerned; and 15% said they were moderately, very or greatly concerned. An additional 19% said they were neutral on the issue.
Inoculating for incivility
Creating a classroom culture of respect is critical to promoting openness and avoiding disrespect amid disagreements, Barrett Vitol, a U.S. History and Government teacher at Aptos High in Pajaro Valley Unified, told EdSource. He characterized the district as politically and economically diverse with “extreme wealth and hard poverty,” where some students in farmworker families “are genuinely worried” about the outcome of the election.
“When we come together in August, we spend a lot of time helping to build community,” said Vitol, who said he shares with students his own experience as a volunteer for the 2000 Democratic presidential campaign for then Vice President Al Gore.
“You have to role model someone who will be politically active without disrespecting other people,” he said, adding that he also relies on humor to defuse tensions.
Bob Kelly, a U.S. History and Government teacher at the 500-student Minarets High and Charter High School in Chawanakee Unified, also set class norms early in the year, with a “social compact that holds the students accountable to being respectful to each other,” he said. The rural school district abuts Yosemite National Park.
Bruce Aster, who teaches U.S. Government at Carlsbad High School, said that his goal “is to teach civil discourse from day one.” He tells his students, ‘If you demonize your opponent, you will not get their ears.’ That’s a big theme in all my classes.”
Many of the teachers cited guides and resources they drew on to promote civil dialogue, bridge differences of opinion and lay out frameworks for discussions. Popular sources include Braver Angels, a volunteer-led national nonprofit, and Boston-based Facing History and Ourselves, which offers lessons, explainers and activities on teaching the election.
While sources of misinformation have proliferated on the internet, so have tools to expose them. Teachers pointed to sites like adfontesmedia.com, AllSides.com and mediafactcheck.com that analyze news sources’ reliability and point to alternative sources with different political perspectives.
Reinhard refers to encouraging students to seek trustworthy and accurate news sources as building a “muscle memory.”
“I am hoping they would create a habit to counter what they are seeing on social media,” said Reinhard, who is in her second year teaching high school in Oakland after serving as director of the UC Berkeley History-Social Science Project; it supports K-12 teachers in planning for history instruction.
Oakland High teacher Rachel Reinhard interacts with students during a U.S. Government class last week.Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource
Karen Clark Yamamoto, who chairs the history department at Western High in the Anaheim Union High School District, said students found the revelations of bias in their favorite sites enlightening. “They realized, ‘I don’t know as much as I thought I did,’” she said.
To help students clarify their own political views, several teachers had students take the Pew Media Typology Quiz, whose questions reveal whether students have conservative or liberal philosophies.
Classroom priorities and strategies
The EdSource questionnaire asked teachers to describe the focus of their instruction and their plans for covering the election. The consensus was that a teacher should give students the tools to make informed choices about candidates and ballot issues.
James Yates, a teacher at Stellar Charter School in Redding, wrote, “I will teach my students how to investigate each candidate. I want them to look past the rumors and prejudice to see who will really help our country thrive.”
Kelly wrote, “We focus on helping the students make sense of the offices, candidates and propositions by understanding which issues matter to them the most.”
“Essentially, we focus on students informing themselves and using their own ideology to decide what is best,” said Jon Resendez, a U.S. Government and Economics teacher at Portola High in Irvine Unified. He has found that students, unlike some of their parents, are open when forming their political beliefs.
Irvine Unified teacher Jon Resendez discusses the political philosophy of the Declaration of Independence during a recent class at Portola High. Credit: Kaushika (Kaushi) Palliboyina
“It’s normal for teenagers to be more flexible than adults in their perspective as they learn more,” he said. “They adjust their voting behavior.”
Little outside criticism
Slightly more than a third of teachers responded to the question about whether they had experienced any criticism from teaching about the presidential election. The majority — 16 of 23 — said they had not, but five reported being criticized by parents, three by students and two by administrators or other colleagues.
All eight teachers EdSource spoke with said they were unconcerned about parental pressure or criticism.
“No parents are reaching out to express concern,” said Resendez. “Parents assume we will tackle issues head-on.”
Kelly, of Chawanakee Unified, uses his students’ work to inform parents about the elections. His students created election guides that they shared at the school’s back-to-school showcase in late October. It included separate objective profiles of Democrat Kamala Harris and Trump, drafted by students chosen because they didn’t support the candidates, Kelly said, along with summaries of local candidates and statewide ballot propositions.
At his back-to-school night, Fishback, of the Almaden County Day School in San Jose, encourages parents of his middle school students to discuss election issues and candidates with them.
He said that he tells them, “’I need you. If you have not passed along your political values, now is the time to do it. I want them to come to class knowing what families believe and why. My job is to help the students encounter and engage with different perspectives on a variety of contentious issues.’ ”
What the teachers taught and how
The survey asked teachers to check off a list of topics for presenting the presidential election and to add to it. Of 48 teachers who responded to the question, 37 said they reviewed candidates’ positions on key issues and 35 discussed the Electoral College; 28 asked students to explain issues that are important to them and 23 included fact-checking candidates’ claims and statements. Fifteen said they discussed claims that there would be widespread voter fraud.
One teacher included discussing gerrymandering, and another said classes would focus on differences among political parties but not the candidates themselves.
The teachers reported that they approached the topics with different strategies. Some had students participate in the traditional statewide mock election organized by the California Secretary of State or held their own elections. Some teachers held candidates’ debates, while others intentionally did not, focusing instead on objective analyses of candidates’ positions and the accuracy of media coverage.
“I’m not interested in debates,” said Reinhard of Oakland High. “Debates often create false parity. I’m not interested in having students try to win a debate around some information I find problematic.”
Yamamoto asks her students in Anaheim to pick five issues they care about and investigate the positions of the parties and the candidates’ websites to determine which party more closely aligns with their views. Inflation, health care and reproductive rights were among the issues. They did the same process with the 10 state initiatives on the ballot.
Barrett organized a model Congress for his students at Aptos High. Students wrote their own bills and had to persuade committee chairs and each legislative house to pass them. “Extreme” bills on immigration didn’t make the cut; those that did pass include creating affordable health care, limiting homework, requiring those over 70 to take an extra diving test, taxing billionaires, and granting immigrants who pay taxes for five years a path to citizenship, he said.
Some students become deeply invested in their bills, but usually they can control themselves, Barrett said.
Aster, of Carlsbad, and Kelly, of Chawanakee Unified, continued what they have done for years: bringing in outside speakers to represent parties and candidates for a debate run by students. “We seek regular folks, not politicians,” said Aster. “It’s always civil, and students see that you can be gracious while speaking strongly.”
Several teachers said they didn’t avoid controversy, including looking at the rhetoric of the campaign: Trump’s racist language and post-election authoritarian threats and Democrats’ calling him a “fascist” and a “clown.” But students looked at the furor through an analytical lens to keep discussions “from going off the rails,” said Fishback. He asked his students, How would you characterize Trump, and what has been the impact of his language on the campaign?
Most teachers emphasized they kept their own presidential preferences to themselves. “I work hard to be objective; I want it to be a mystery as to my views, though I don’t want them to think I don’t care,” said Aster. Kelly said he would tell students after the election whom he voted for if they asked.
“As much I like to lean into politics, the line I don’t cross is siding with one candidate over another,” said Fishback.
Seeing themselves as voters
Aster has been teaching high school for more than three decades.
“I see part of my job is to be a cheerleader for the American system and to have them look forward to participating in it,” Aster said. “I don’t want them to come away thinking the system is rigged.”
Last spring, when it appeared likely to be Trump vs. Joe Biden, students in Reinhard’s Government class at Oakland High had no interest in the election. “They were deadened by it,” she said. The nomination of Harris, the hometown candidate and a younger woman of color, however, at least sparked interest, she said.
More findings in the EdSource Questionnaire
The teachers were from all regions of the state, with 27% from Southern California, 17% from the Central Valley and Central Coast and 17% from the San Francisco Bay Areas, 14% from the Sacramento area, 10% from Northern California, 9% from the San Diego area and 3% from the Inland Empire of San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
Of the teachers who said they aren’t teaching about the presidential election, only three – two who teach in a largely Democratic district and one from a largely Republican district – said it was their school’s and/or district’s policy not to discuss the subject. Another teacher is discussing the election but not the candidates.
Offered multiple choices to explain their reasons for not teaching the election to their students, the majority said there is too much other course material to get through, especially AP courses in U.S. History and Economics and one semester in Government. However, one-third of the 24 respondents to this question said they were concerned about complaints from parents, and five teachers said they had reservations that students would discuss the election respectfully. Five teachers said they were unsure how to address the subject.
Teachers were evenly split on how much time to spend on the election, with 39% of 49 respondents spending more than one week on it and 39% spending between two days and a week. Several said they spread discussion of the election out over time, based on topics in the courses they were teaching, and another teacher said five to 10 minutes per day.
Most of the respondents were high school teachers who teach multiple subjects; 43% introduced the election in a 12th grade Government course, while 42% taught it in 11th grade American History; 27% taught it in 9th grade Ethnic Studies and 25% introduced it in 10th grade World History. A quarter of respondents were middle school social studies teachers. Individual teachers taught it in AP Psychology, ninth grade Geography, and an English course in persuasive essays.
EdSource file photo courtesy of Oakland School for the Arts
Raising the curtain on California’s landmark arts education initiative, funded by voter approval of Proposition 28 two years ago, has been a highly complex endeavor marked by a lack of arts educators, classroom space and free time in school schedules, according to a new report.
These challenges are among the key issues schools must address to make Proposition 28’s ambitious vision of arts education a reality, according to a new report studying the impact of the groundbreaking statewide initiative on schools in the Los Angeles area. Passed by voters in 2022 by a wide margin, the measure sets aside roughly $1 billion a year toward TK-12 arts education programs statewide.
“Given the historic nature of this investment in arts education, all eyes are on California and our schools, and so we want to make sure that we get it right,” said Ricky Abilez, director of policy and advocacy at Arts for LA, the arts advocacy organization that commissioned the report. “I also know that there are a lot of really tough challenges that schools are facing on the ground.”
Accountability is among the most critical issues in building trust with families, according to this analysis, which focuses on 10 Los Angeles school districts. The report recommends creating a statewide oversight and advisory committee of administrators, teachers, families and community partnersto make sure that arts education funds are properly spent. It also calls for subsidizing teacher credential programs to combat the teacher shortage.
“We hear these resounding calls for transparency from our community members, but many district arts leaders also share those same interests and concerns,” said Lindsey Kunisaki, the Laura Zucker fellow for policy and research, who wrote the report. “They wanted to make sure that they’re putting their best foot forward with Prop 28 implementation, but they also had questions about their peers and neighboring districts and wanted to make sure that ultimately everyone is doing their best work and using these funds responsibly.”
The need to build bridges between schools, communities and families is part of what drives that recommendation. Roughly 66% of respondents to the survey were uncertain whether Proposition 28 was being implemented in their school, according to the report.
“One of the central insights of the report is the link between confidence in Prop 28’s success and public involvement,” said Kunisaki, a research and evaluation specialist at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture’s visual and performing arts education program. “Respondents expressed less skepticism when they believed their communities were actively involved.”
Arts education in schools can help foster a sense of social connection that has frayed in the wake of the pandemic, many experts suggest. The rub is that many community members express passion for arts education (89%) but have not yet gotten involved with their schools for a variety of reasons. Only 20% of respondents have been actively involved.
Districts with vibrant arts advisory councils make it easy to participate, Kunisaki notes, but other paths also exist.
“If it isn’t clear how to get involved,” said Kunisaki, “then even just showing up at a school board meeting, getting to know the school site leaders, principals, that could be a great way to start the conversation.”
Proposition 28 represents an attempt to bring arts education back into California schools after many decades of budget cuts eliminated many such programs. Before this influx of funding, only 11% of California schools offered comprehensive arts education, research suggests. Wealthier schools were far more likely to be able to fundraise enough to foot the bill for arts education.
Spearheaded by former Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Superintendent Austin Beutner, the measure is an attempt to give all students access to the arts, which has long been associated with everything from higher test scores to greater social-emotional learning.
All the money must go to arts education, but that is very broadly defined. The disciplines include, but are not limited to, dance, media arts, music, theater and such visual arts as folk art, painting, sculpture, photography and animation. Film and video pursuits are also encouraged, from script writing to costume design. Each school community is invited to design the program to meet the needs of its students.
The report also notes that some districts are falling behind others. While some districts quickly launched new arts ed programs, from music to dance, others are still in the planning phase, according to the report. Districts with preexisting arts councils and strategic arts plans have the upper hand. Proposition 28 funds are allocated based on enrollment, so larger schools get more money. Also, schools with more low-income students receive extra money.
Uncertainty and confusion about the rules, heightened by a lack of clarity from the California Department of Education (CDE) on spending, have significantly complicated this process, the report suggests.
“One of the recommendations that I heard was basically for CDE to take more of a central leadership role,” said Kunisaki, “especially when it comes to oversight and accountability.”
The long-standing teacher shortage also remains a critical obstacle. In 2022-23, California schools employed about 11,113 full-time arts teachers, primarily teaching music and visual arts. Another new Proposition 28 report, commissioned by the Hewlett Foundation’s Performing Arts Program and conducted by SRI Education, concluded that California must increase the arts teacher workforce by roughly 5,457 teachers to meet the new demand. Many experts estimate a much higher number.
The need for greater transparency in the rollout of Proposition 28 is another key concern. At the core of Proposition 28 is the rule that funds are designed to supplement, and not supplant, existing funding, which means that you can’t use the new money to pay for old programs. Nevertheless, there have been reports of districts using the funds to pay for existing programs. Amid these allegations, State Superintendent Tony Thurmond issued a letterreminding superintendents of the law’s requirements.
One potential fix, the study suggests, would be a statewide oversight committee charged with monitoring the rollout and settling disputes on key issues.
“There’s a real need for CDE to step in here, to create a more formal advisory and oversight committee, and most importantly, to include practitioners,” said Kunisaki.
“That’s administrators at the district level, at the school site level, teachers, parents and guardians, families, students and community partners, because we know how important community involvement is.”
CDE has provided guidance in FAQs and webinars to help districts navigate the rules. Thurmond has also established a new task force to clarify the issues facing the field. It remains unclear whether the task force will provide the depth of oversight that many experts suggest is needed.
“The California Department of Education commends the districts represented in this report who have approached Prop 28 implementation with urgency, care, and a commitment to expanding all students’ access to arts education,” said Elizabeth Sanders, spokesperson for the department. “Especially as California’s local educational agencies are still in the beginning of this implementation process, CDE will continue to provide guidance and technical assistance to support effective and robust implementation.”
Beutner, the former LAUSD Superintendent who authored Proposition 28, is also calling on the department to hold districts accountable for how they spend the money.
“CDE needs to provide more leadership on the proper implementation of Prop 28,” said Beutner. “They’re understaffed to handle the implementation of a new law like this, but some of the confusion and misinterpretation that is happening is because CDE hasn’t been on top of this. CDE should be pursuing public enforcement action now against school districts that are alleged to have violated the law.”
A kindergarten student raises her hand in a dual-language immersion class.
Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education
My post doc after finishing my degree in 1984 was teaching first grade at the bilingual elementary where I had done dissertation research. As I headed out into the real world, a widely admired literacy professor advised, “Just make sure everything you have them read is deeply meaningful.” Sounded about right.
It took me nearly three years to realize how not right that was.
The first hint
I had seen in my research that kindergarten classrooms at the school were almost devoid of children’s direct experiences with print. It was all about “readiness” and “developmental appropriateness.”
So, one of my teacher colleagues and I did a small study using photocopied booklets (“libritos”) we wrote and illustrated for kindergartners in Spanish reading. We thought using engaging little booklets, with opportunities for kids to memorize, “pretend-read,” enjoy, and talk about the little books would help “prepare the ground” for learning to read.
The study went well, and there was great enthusiasm. But we found no differences on any measure of pre-reading or emergent reading between the kindergartners using the libritos and the overall performance of the four comparison classrooms.
A dive into the data, however, showed that not all comparison classrooms were alike.
While scores were low in two of them, the other two, taught by teachers new to the school, had scores that were off our charts. Many of those kindergartners were actually … reading.
I had to visit. What I saw was shocking: classes like well-oiled machines. Kids in small groups rotating efficiently as a bell signaled the end of each 15-minute block.
One group with the teacher doing directed fast-paced instruction on letters, sounds and combining them to read syllables, then words (for the Spanish readers) or cvc words (like “dad” or “pal,” for the English readers), then short phrases or sentences.
Another group on the rug playing literacy games or looking at books. Another engaged in an aide-directed activity, such as dictation. Another working independently, copying then illustrating words or phrases posted on an easel.
This did not fit the child-centered conception of kindergarten I brought with me from graduate school. But children were productively engaged. And those darned study results.
We re-ran the study the following year, using new and better stories and illustrations (upgraded to “Libros”) and involving only Libros classrooms and the two classrooms that did so well the year before. We basically got the same results. In fact, testers commented that children from the two teachers I’d visited were really “into it,” eager to show what they could do with print. Children in the Libros classrooms were more wary.
The second hint
I was teaching first grade while doing this study, and students who had been in these teachers’ classes came into my class the following year. These kids could read. Their reading was syllable by syllable and robotic—e.g., “Pe. pe. da. la. pe. lo. ta.” (“Pepe gives the ball”) but I was able to fix this by using a prompt I’d learned when observing Reading Recovery in New Zealand: “Read it like you’re talking” (“Léelo como si estuvieras hablando”), pointing out the words meant something, and they should read that way.
(I gave the feedback about robotic reading to the two kindergarten teachers. The following year, their kids came in reading like champs.)
These kids had a firm grip on the “alphabetic principle” and decoding. Moving them quickly to more challenging and interesting reading material was pure joy. Students from other kindergarten classrooms … not so much.
The third hint
I had a small, diverse group learning to read in English. They had very little in the way of literacy foundations, so it was up to me to lay them. Still working on the “make sure everything they read is meaningful” premise, I struggled. So did they.
One of my English readers was a diminutive boy who had trouble “getting it.” He tried and was conscientious, but letters and words remained mysteries. One day he was not in class. His family had moved to a nearby district. I was sorry to see him go; he was bright and inquisitive. But I admit (embarrassedly) to being relieved.
A month later, he reappeared. “Ohhh,” I thought, but put on a happy face and welcomed him. “Hey, how you doing? Where you been?” I asked. He told me he had gone to another school, but his family had decided to move back. He didn’t seem to mind. But neither was he particularly enthused.
When reading time came around for the English reading group, he got the reading book he’d been using, opened it, and started reading. I did a double take. “Where’d you learn to read?” I asked.
“My teacher taught me at the other school,” he answered. My teacher taught me at the other school. Daggers to the heart.
“So, what did you do at your other school?” I asked, trying to be as nonchalant as he. “I practiced my spelling words.” “And what else?” I asked. “And learned my letters and read in my book.” He was reading. And better than anyone else in the group.
Fourth — and nailed it
In the last two years of my brief first-grade teaching career, I got a post-doctoral fellowship to pursue my research while continuing to teach half-time. This required finding another teacher to share a classroom.
Our first meeting was not auspicious. She was dedicated to phonics first, while I was still — albeit now a bit wobbly — in the “make it meaningful” camp.
She took Monday, Tuesday and alternating Wednesdays; I had the other Wednesday, then finished the week.
She would handle letters, sounds, phonics, and decoding; I would focus on comprehension, generally trying to make the best of what I was sure would be meager literacy gruel she served up.
Despite our mutual suspicions, we made it work.
I soon saw her foundational focus early in the week helped kids get the foothold needed to read accurately and with confidence. She likewise saw when she returned on Mondays that our students were reading and writing in ways qualitatively different from what she had seen when she taught her own classroom in prior years. Our kids were moving ahead at a fast, but unforced, pace.
Many landed in that happy place I later came to know as “self-teaching”, what teachers sometimes refer to as “the light goes on.” Children suddenly understand the rules of the reading road, and they progress rapidly as new letters, sounds and spelling patterns become absorbed into a growing understanding of how to read. By the end of that year and the next one with our second crop of first graders, we had our kids get further than either of us had ever accomplished individually. I told this story to someone a few years back who said we had created a demonstration site for Scarborough’s rope, a reading-education metaphor that visually depicts the interconnected strands needed for skilled reading.
Whatever it was, we had each learned some lessons.
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Claude Goldenberg is Nomellini & Olivier Professor of Education, emeritus, in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University and a former first grade and junior high teacher.
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