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  • Trump Plans to Revise U.S. History in the Smithsonian and All Other Federal Sites

    Trump Plans to Revise U.S. History in the Smithsonian and All Other Federal Sites


    On March 27, Trump issued an executive order authorizing the cleansing of the Smithsonian Museums and other federal sites of anything that detracts from American greatness and patriotism.

    Trump makes clear that he doesn’t want anything displayed that implies that racism exists. He specifically targets the 21 museums of Smithsonian Institute. He wants all exhibits to remind the public of America’s greatness. Any exhibits that don’t, he says, should be removed.

    The executive order says, in part:

    It is the policy of my Administration to restore Federal sites dedicated to history, including parks and museums, to solemn and uplifting public monuments that remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing.  Museums in our Nation’s capital should be places where individuals go to learn — not to be subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history.

    The executive order assigns to Vice-President JD Vance the job of cleansing the Smithsonian museums and all federal parks and cultural institutions of all derogatory content about our history. In doing this, Vance will be assisted by one Lindsey Halligan, Esq.

    Who is Lindsey Halligan, the woman who will determine which parts of the nation’s story should be told? If you open the link, you will see that she is a beautiful woman with long blond hair. But that’s not all.

    The Washington Post explained:

    The first question is: What is improper ideology, exactly?

    The second: Who is Lindsey Halligan, Esq.?

    We have her on the phone, actually. She’s calling from the White House.

    “I would say that improper ideology would be weaponizing history,” Halligan says. “We don’t need to overemphasize the negative to teach people that certain aspects of our nation’s history may have been bad.” That overemphasis “just makes us grow further and further apart.”

    As for the second question: Halligan, 35, is a Trump attorney who seems to have tasked herself as a sort of commissioner — or expurgator, according to critics — of a premier cultural institution.

    After moving to D.C. just before the inauguration to continue working for Trump as a special assistant and senior associate staff secretary, Halligan visited local cultural institutions, including the Smithsonian museums of Natural History, American History and American Art. She didn’t like everything she saw. Some exhibits, in her view, did not reflect the America she knows and loves.

    “And so I talked to the president about it,” Halligan says, “and suggested an executive order, and he gave me his blessing, and here we are.”

    Here we are: A former Fox News host is leading the Pentagon. A vaccine skeptic is running the Department of Health and Human Services. A former professional wrestling executive is head of the Department of Education.

    And Lindsey Halligan, Esq., could turn a major cultural institution upside down.

    How did she arrive at this point? Halligan grew up in Broomfield, Colorado, and went to a private Catholic high school, Holy Family, where she excelled at softball and basketball. Her parents worked in the audiology industry. Halligan’s sister, Gavin, a family-law attorney in Colorado, ran for a state House seat as a Republican in 2016 in a blue district and lost.

    Halligan attended Regis University, a Jesuit university in Denver, where she studied politics and broadcast journalism. She was always interested in history, she says — particularly the Civil War and the westward expansion of the country.

    She competed in the Miss Colorado USA pageant, making the semifinals in 2009 and earning third runner-up in 2010, according to photos and records of the events. This was back when Trump co-owned the organization that puts on the Miss Universe pageant, for which Miss Colorado USA is a preliminary event.



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  • The sound of music returns to students traumatized by the Eaton fire

    The sound of music returns to students traumatized by the Eaton fire


    Student musicians give a concert for Pasadena Unified.

    credit: Pasadena Unified School District

    An Altadena family with four young children was awakened in the middle of the night by a firefighter’s urgent evacuation order. They fled their house with little more than the pajamas on their backs. The youngest child, a violinist, left her instrument behind. When the family arrived at the evacuation shelter, her greatest worry was whether her violin was going to be safe.

    In the wake of the catastrophic Eaton fire that swept through Los Angeles in January, many people lost their lives, homes and possessions to the flames. Many of the students at Altadena Arts Magnet and Eliot Arts Magnet lost not only their houses but also their school and the cherished musical instruments stored in the band room. 

    To a child, losing an instrument can feel almost like losing a loved one. That’s why it was so transformative when Guitar Center and Sony joined forces to put instruments back in the hands of these children.

    “Children are particularly vulnerable, showing their fears through deep emotional responses to the upheaval,” said Natalie Jackson, executive director of the Harmony Project, a group that gives low-income Los Angeles students access to free music education. Eliot Arts Magnet is among their hubs. “When people support music programming, they are not just funding music lessons, they’re investing in stability, healing and opportunity for children, like our young violinist, who have faced and continue to face immense hardship.”

    Myka Miller, executive director of the Guitar Center Music Foundation, spearheads disaster relief efforts, from Hurricane Helene to the LA fires. An oboist who has been playing since she was 12, Miller believes music can be a balm for crushed spirits, a key to unlocking resilience. 

    “Your instrument is a part of you, it’s an extension of our soul,” said Miller, whose initiative received about 1,000 applications and has given away 450 instruments so far. The Altadena music students have received about $200,000 worth. “You can imagine when you’re in a situation like that and you lose everything, that music is the one thing that’s constant in your life.”

    Student musicians rehearse before a concert at Pasadena Unified School District.
    credit: Pasadena Unified School District

    Music has been a guiding light for Karen Klages, a music specialist for Pasadena Unified School District. While her Altadena home was saved by neighbors heroically battling the flames with garden hoses, the trauma still haunts her and her students. Many of her fifth graders, who are still not back in their homes, remain fearful of the future. Others are fighting worry with grit. A group of her music students banded together every day for three weeks to load and unload relief supplies. They became friends for life, she says. 

    “It’s been difficult for me personally and still is. Seeing my whole town burn down has been a shock to the system,” she said sadly. “Music has been a lifeline for everyone. Our band and orchestra is busy, and we all needed that focus.”

    The arts have also been key to healing for Karen Anderson, the arts and enrichment coordinator for the Pasadena Unified School District, who has only now gotten back into her 1918 Altadena house, which was spared during the blaze. She has just begun the long, slow process of repairing the damage from smoke, soot and ash at her home while she tries to bring the sound of music back to the children.

    “It’s been brutal. We made it through Covid, and then there were the fires,” she said, choking up with emotion. “But we were able to leverage a lot of arts programming for well-being. It’s super important to restore normalcy for children as quickly as possible. We didn’t want families to worry about instruments. We wanted to take care of it for them. One less thing to worry about.”

    Anderson has been bound and determined to replace a cavalcade of instruments, including 74 violins, 39 flutes, 61 clarinets, 68 trumpets, 34 saxophones, 17 trombones, 8 french and baritone horns and one tuba. That’s on top of the rock and mariachi instruments. She also made a special effort to replace one of the arts teacher’s prized vintage guitars, a beloved instrument Eric Gothold lost to the fires, like the rest of his family’s earthly possessions. 

    Students from the Eliot Arts Magnet band received new instruments to replace the ones lost in the fire.

    “He was hugging it and he said, ‘You have no idea how much this means to me.’ I felt like it was the least we could do,” she said.

    Anderson is doing her best to help students regain their equilibrium while still coping with her own pain. Like many of the district’s teachers, she has been so focused on helping others that she hasn’t yet had time to fully digest her own feelings. 

    “I’m grateful that we still have a house, you know?,” she said, tears welling in her eyes. “But there’s a period where you almost feel guilty. Our house survived.”

    Klages says that knowing that people care is helping the student community beat back the grief of coping with so much destruction.

    “It’s all part of the healing process, but frankly, everyone is still in a state of shock over so much loss,” she said. “There are rallying cries coming in from everywhere, and we hang on to that encouragement.”

    The deep emotional reward of helping people in dire straits is something Miller knows well, but helping these children transcend their tragedy has been particularly touching for all involved.

    That’s why Miller, who usually just ships gifts out to recipients, broke with tradition and met with a group of students at the Pasadena Guitar Center store to hand them their new instruments. 

    “There’s really nothing like that experience,” she said. “It’s hard to describe. It was really cool for them to meet all the other people in the same boat as them, and for me just to see all their faces light up. The gratitude was overwhelming.”

    These shiny new instruments, she hopes, may bring the children and their families a note of optimism amid the ashes.

    “Donors are giving students back not only their instruments,” said Jackson, “but their dreams, and a sense of hope that resonates beyond the music room.” 





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  • Why is Trump Killing the Voice of America?

    Why is Trump Killing the Voice of America?


    Yesterday was World Press Freedom Day.

    Press Freedom is at risk in every authoritarian regime, but also in the U.S. Trump has filed frivolous lawsuits against ABC and other news outlets. ABC paid him $15 million to make peace.

    Trump sued CBS for $10 billion for editing a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris and is now in settlement talks. Editing a pre-taped interview is standard practice. The interview may last for an hour, but only 20 minutes is aired. Since Trump won the election, how was he damaged? It is hard to imagine he would win anything in court.

    But Trump’s FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, has the power to destroy CBS. And the owner of CBS–Shari Redstone– is currently negotiating a lucrative deal that needs FCC approval. What will CBS pay Trump?

    Given Trump’s legendary vindictiveness, will he succeed in eviscerating press freedom? Will the media dare criticize him as they have criticized every other president?

    See CNN’s Brian Stelter on the state of press freedom today.

    Now comes Trump’s puzzling vendetta against the Voice of America. In March, he issued an executive order to shut it down, although Republicans have traditionally supported it. On April 22, a federal district court judge overturned Trump’s executive order and demanded the rehiring of VOA staff. They were told they would be back at work in days. But yesterday, a three judge appeals court stayed the lower court’s ruling and VOA’s future is again in doubt. Two of the three appeals court judges were appointed by Trump.

    The Voice of America has a unique responsibility. It brings objective, factual, unbiased news to people around the globe. For millions of people, the Voice of America is their only alternative to either government propaganda or no news at all.

    Why does Donald Trump want to kill the Voice of America.

    He has never explained.

    He has called VOA “radical,” “leftwing,” and “woke,” but there is no factual basis for those attacks. They are talking points, not facts.

    He appointed his devoted friend, Kari Lake, who ran for office in Arizona and lost both times, as the agent of VOA’s demise. She was an on-air commentator, so she knows something about media.

    VOA seems to be in a death spiral, like USAID and the Department of Education.

    The Washington Post reported on the Appeals Court’s ruling. Kari Lake described the decision as a “huge victory for President Trump.”

    Trump has never explained why the Voice of America should be silenced.

    Apparently no one at the VOA understands. I found this interview by Nick Schifrin of PBS (also on Trump’s chopping block), Lisa Curtis, and Michael Abramowitz, Director of VOA:

    • Nick Schifrin: Lisa Curtis is the chair of the board of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and a former senior director on President Trump’s first National Security Council staff.
    • Lisa Curtis: While it’s understandable that President Trump wants to cut down on government waste and fraud, I think this is the wrong organization to be attacking. Russia, Iran, China, these countries are spending billions in their own propaganda, their own anti-American propaganda. So I think it’s critical that the U.S. government is supporting organizations like RFE/RL that are pushing back against that disinformation, misinformation.
    • Nick Schifrin: And she says RFE/RL’s content reaches more than 10 percent of Iranians, many of whom have protested the regime.
    • Lisa Curtis:So I think it really is part of U.S. soft power, but they actually call it the hard edge of soft power because it is so effective in getting out the truth about America, about what’s happening in their local environments. And this is absolutely critical.
    • Nick Schifrin:Curtis said she considers the freeze and their funding illegal because the money is congressionally appropriated and RFE/RL’s mission is congressionally mandated. And they will sue the Trump administration to get it restored.To discuss this, I turn to Michael Abramowitz, who since last year has been the president of Voice of America and before that was the president of Freedom House.Michael Abramowitz, thanks very much. Welcome back to the “News Hour.”As you heard, President Trump in his statement on Friday night referred to VOA as a radical propaganda with a liberal bias. Is it?Michael Abramowitz, Director, Voice of America: I don’t think so.I do think that people at many different news organizations have been accused of bias on both right and left, like many different news organizations. VOA is not perfect, but we’re unusual among news organizations because we are one of the few news organizations that by law has to be fair and balanced.Every year, we look at each of our language services, review it for fairness, for balance. I have been a journalist in this field for a long time, and I think the journalists at VOA stand up very well against people from CNN, FOX, New York Times, et cetera, in terms of the commitment to balance.When we do talk shows, for instance, broadcasting into Iran, we will have Republicans, we will have Democrats. We are presenting the full spectrum of American political opinion, which is required by our charter.
    • Nick Schifrin:You have heard from other administration officials or allies of the president. Ric Grenell, who is a special envoy, called it — quote — “a relic of the past. We don’t need government-paid media outlets.”
    • Elon Musk says:“Shut them down. Nobody listens to them anymore.”Fundamentally, why do you believe taxpayers should pay for VOA journalism?
    • Michael Abramowitz:You know, the media is changing, the world is changing, and the Cold War doesn’t exist anymore.But what is happening around the world is that there is a huge, really, battle over information. The world is awash in propaganda and lies, and our adversaries like Russia and China, Iran are really spreading narratives that directly undermine accurate views about America.And we have to fight back. And VOA in particular has been an incredible asset for fighting back by providing objective news and information in the languages, in 48 languages that people in the local markets we serve. No other news organization does that.
    • Nick Schifrin:Let me ask a little bit about the status of the agency. You and every employee were put on leave over the weekend. Today, all contractors have been terminated. Do you have any notion of what the goal is from the administration? Is it to reform VOA, or is it simply to destroy it?
    • Michael Abramowitz:Candidly, I don’t know.Ms. Kari Lake, who is supposed to be my successor at some point she’s given some interviews, and I think she clearly recognizes in those interviews that VOA serves an important purpose. I think there are a lot of Republicans, in particular, especially on the Hill, who recognize the value of Voice of America, who recognize that, if we shut down, for instance, our program on Iran, which is really an incredible newsroom — we have 100 journalists, most of whom speak Farsi, has a huge audience inside Iran.When the president of Iran, when his helicopter went down over the summer, there was a huge spike in traffic on the VOA Web site because the people of Iran knew that they could not get accurate information about what was going on, so they came to VOA to get it. That’s the kind of thing that we can do.
    • Nick Schifrin:I want to point out, we heard from Lisa Curtis, the chair of the board of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.Voice of America and the Cuba Broadcasting, previously known as Radio Marti — we have got a graphic to show this — those are fully federal networks.(Crosstalk)
    • Nick Schifrin:What RFE/RL is talking about, they are a grantee. They get a grant from the U.S. government. RFE/RL will sue. Does VOA have any recourse today?
    • Michael Abramowitz:Well, I think we are — I mean, there’s a lot of discussion about some lawsuits that different parties are making. I know that the employees may be thinking about that.I think — I’m not sure that litigation in the end is going to be the most productive way. Maybe — I mean, you have to see what happens. But I think what would be really great is if Congress and the administration get together, recognize that this is a very important service, recognize that it’s sorely needed in a world in which our adversaries are spending billions of dollars, like Lisa said, and reformulate VOA to be effective for the modern age.
    • Nick Schifrin:And, finally, how — what’s the impact of this decision and the language that we have heard from the Trump administration on the very idea that information, that journalism sponsored by the U.S. government can support freedom and democracy?
    • Michael Abramowitz:We have been on the air essentially for 83 years through war, 9/11, government shutdown. VOA has kept — has kept its — has kept the lights on, has not been silent.So we’re silenced for the first time in 83 years. That’s devastating to me personally. It’s devastating to the staff. It’s devastating to all the thousands of people who used to work at VOA. I mean, this is a very special and unique news organization. It deserves to live. It doesn’t mean we can’t reform, but it deserves to survive.

    I still don’t understand why Trump wants to close down America’s voice to the world.

    I ask myself, who benefits if the Voice of America is stifled.

    The obvious culprits: America’s enemies, especially Russia.

    During the decades of the Cold War, VOA beamed information to dissenters behind the Iron Curtain. It kept hope alive.

    No one would be happier to see VOA shut down than Putin.



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  • Oakland Unified wrestles with lead in water. Most California schools are in the dark

    Oakland Unified wrestles with lead in water. Most California schools are in the dark


    Oakland students rally for lead-free drinking water in their schools in front of city hall Monday, Sept. 30, 2024.

    Monica Velez

    Este artículo está disponible en Español. Léelo en español.

    Oakland student Hannah Lau said she only discovered there were elevated lead levels in her school’s drinking water this year through her teacher. There wasn’t an announcement from the principal, nor was there an assembly to notify students.

    “I was really shocked and scared,” the 13-year-old said. “How long have we been drinking this water? Is it really bad? Is it in my body? How poisoned am I?”

    The Oakland Unified School District is one of the few districts in California that has continued to test lead levels in drinking water years after it was no longer required by state law. In 2017, an extension to the existing law (AB-746), also known as the California Safe Drinking Water Act, required districts to sample water from at least five faucets in every school and report the findings to the state by July 1, 2019.  State funding for lead testing ended after the deadline.

    The law resulted in school districts getting a snapshot of lead contamination in their drinking water at that time. But because of the one-time requirement that districts test only a small sample of faucets, and exemptions for charter and private schools, there are no statewide records that offer an accurate representation of lead presence in California schools currently.

    Seven years after the law went into effect, school districts and communities, including Oakland, are still grappling with how to keep lead out of drinking water.

    “We know there’s lead in the plumbing, and even if it is a low value (of lead concentration), we know it’s persistent,” said Elin Betanzo, a national drinking water expert and founder of Safe Water Engineering. “If a kid is drinking water every day at school, that lead is always there. That lead can get into any glass. The studies show that the low-level exposures have a disproportionately high impact on the brain.”

    An EdSource analysis of school district data of lead concentrations in Oakland Unified water in 2019 and 2024 shows many inconsistencies. In some cases, the same water fixtures that were tested both years yielded completely different results, with lead concentrations below the state’s threshold of 15 parts per billion (ppb) in 2019, and in 2024, some fixtures reached triple digits. 

    “We know that this happens,” Betanzo said. “We have extensive records of data that if you sample the same tap at a school you can get a low value that would appear safe one day and could get an extremely high, concerning level the next day.”

    Lincoln Elementary School, between downtown Oakland and Lake Merritt, had some of the highest levels of lead in Oakland Unified after the district tested there earlier this year. 

    A drinking fountain at Lincoln with the highest lead concentration tested at 930 ppb in June. That same fountain was tested in 2019 at 2.1 ppb, which is under the state and district threshold for safe water. The Safe Drinking Water Act only required faucets that tested above 15 ppb to be fixed. However, Oakland Unified adopted a stricter policy in 2018 that says if levels are higher than 5 ppb, the issue requires remediation.

    California’s lead action level was set at 15 ppb following the recommendation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s lead and copper rule. On Oct. 8, less than a month before the Nov. 5 election, that limit was lowered to 10 ppb by the Biden administration to ensure that drinking water is safe throughout the country. Some states, but not California, had already adopted lower limits prior to the change.

    Without the district’s follow-up testing in 2024, Oakland Unified officials wouldn’t have discovered the faucet that was once deemed safe is dangerous. It’s not an isolated incident. Another drinking fountain at Lincoln tested 3.3 ppb in 2019 and in June tested at 410 ppb. 

    “This happened in my children’s elementary school,” Betanzo said. “So it does happen. It is normal. We know all about it. And yet the requirements that states have put together for school drinking water don’t acknowledge the science of this.”

    The release of lead in water is sporadic, and testing results from the same fixtures are often inconsistent, Betanzo said. 

    “Schools have been doing these one-time samples, and if they get a low sample (value), they say, ‘Hey, the water is safe,’” Betanzo said. “And that’s not true. We have lead throughout our plumbing,” referring to school districts in general.

    In schools, water doesn’t run for long periods on weekends and during breaks, Betanzo said, and it doesn’t allow the corrosion control that is more common in houses. There needs to be a constant turnover of water for corrosion control to work, she said. 

    Faucets with elevated lead levels have been taken out of service, according to Oakland Unified spokesperson John Sasaki. Often, the faucets are fixed by replacing filters and are retested before they are back in service. 

    “With regard to inconsistencies between lead levels found in 2019 … and now, our estimation is that because most of our schools are relatively old, and the features including the plumbing are old, there has been degradation of some aspects of the systems since 2018, which has led to the elevated levels we have recently found,” Sasaki said in an emailed statement.

    The inconsistencies in lead samplings aren’t unique to Lincoln. Similar examples occurred in Edna Brewer Middle School, Cleveland Elementary, Crocker Highlands Elementary, Horace Mann Elementary, Bella Vista Elementary, and Fruitvale Elementary. The lead levels recorded in 2019 were all either under 5 ppb or 15 ppb at all of these schools and higher in 2024.

    “It’s terrifying at a personal level,” Oakland parent Nate Landry said. “It’s terrifying at a collective level.”

    Failures of the Safe Drinking Water Act

    The state’s drinking water law didn’t require districts to do follow-up testing, which is part of the reason schools that haven’t tested lead levels since 2019 have no way of knowing if students and staff are still being exposed to elevated lead levels in drinking water. 

    The law exempted thousands of private and charter schools on private property from testing for lead levels. Not every faucet or drinking fountain was required to be tested. And schools that were built after 2010 were also not required to test lead levels.

    California has more than 10,000 public schools, including about 1,300 charters, and it’s possible thousands of fixtures have yet to be tested for lead. 

    State law required faucets — not valves — to be changed in fountains with lead levels exceeding 15 ppb, said Kurt Souza, an enforcement coordinator for the division of drinking water at the State Water Resources Control Board, which could be why lead levels were inconsistent between 2019 and 2024. Valves are used to control the water flow and are usually placed under the sink.

    “Never change out an old faucet without changing the valves,” Souza advised.

    Critics of the state drinking water act have said the 15 ppb limit for lead in drinking water was too lenient. Some school districts, including Oakland, have set lower limits. 

    According to the EPA’s website, “There is no safe level of lead exposure. In drinking water, the primary source of lead is from pipes, which can present a risk to the health of children and adults.”

    The EPA has also said the 15 ppb level is not a measure of public health protection, Betanzo said. 

    “15 ppb was selected as an engineering metric,” said Betanzo, who formerly worked at the EPA. “It is an indicator of corrosion control effectiveness. So, if a water system looks at the 90th percentile of its sampling results, and it’s greater than 15 parts per billion, it tells them they have an out-of-control corrosion situation that needs to be addressed.”

    Other districts that have tested for lead levels after 2019 include San Francisco Unified, San Diego Unified, Laguna Beach Unified, Castro Valley Unified, Encinitas Union Elementary, La Mesa Spring-Valley, and San Bruno Park Elementary.

    “Did you find every spot that has a high lead? Probably not,” said Souza. “Some schools probably had a hundred faucets and then we only sampled five of them. I thought it was a really good start, and it showed some schools had problems, which then did more samples and, and did more things to it.”

    There’s currently no directive under the state or the federal Environmental Protection Agency to test lead levels in school drinking water, said Wes Stieringer-Sisneros, a senior environmental scientist for the drinking water division at the State Water Resource Control Board. 

    Since the state requirements for lead testing ended, there have been efforts to pass state legislation that would have required follow-up testing, AB-249, but Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the bill in 2023. The following year, another bill, AB 1851, which would have created a pilot testing program, was introduced but held in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

    “It was another blow,” said Colleen Corrigan, health policy associate for Children Now, a statewide research and advocacy organization that co-sponsored both bills. “We hope that Proposition 2 will pass, and we really want to make sure that that distribution of money is equitable and accessible.”

    Voters passed Proposition 2 on Nov. 5, and that will provide, among other things school-related, up to $115 million to remove lead from drinking water in schools.

    How Oakland is getting the lead out

    Although Oakland district officials have made progress in repairing faucets since the most recent testing results in the spring, some people have lost trust and confidence in the district. 

    Shock waves burst through the Oakland community at the start of the school year when educators, parents, and students discovered the district was withholding testing results that showed elevated levels of lead in water in dozens of schools. Some lead testing results were available in April and families didn’t start to receive notices until August.

    “The scope of their (Oakland Unified) failure to communicate pretty crucial public health information was shocking,” parent Landry said. 

    District officials did acknowledge they did not properly communicate with families about elevated lead levels. 

    During a rally in front of Oakland City Hall last month, parents, students, educators and community organizers urged the school board and City Council to do more to get the lead out of school drinking water, even though the district is already doing more than most.

    The Get the Lead Out of OUSD coalition, which includes the Oakland teachers union and other community partners, has a list of demands, the first being instating a new, highly ambitious threshold of lead levels of zero parts per billion. Other demands include testing all water sources at Oakland schools immediately and annually, testing all playgrounds, gardens and outdoor areas, facilitating free blood testing for students, teachers and community members, and completing infrastructure repairs.

    District officials also said they will continue to do more lead testing through the end of the year and promise more transparency.

    “We have instituted improved protocols to ensure we are more transparent and more consistent in our communication with our families and staff,” a statement said. “We will inform you before any testing begins at your school.”

    A priority has been to install more FloWater machines, which are filtered refillable water stations, the statement said. Most schools have at least two, and 60 additional machines were installed this school year. The district plans to install 88 more.

    Lau said she and her classmates were given reusable water bottles and told to only drink from purification water stations or bottled water. If a student forgets to bring a water bottle to school, there are extras, but not always, she said. The last resort is asking a friend for a drink from their water bottle or purchasing bottled water.

    “Please fix this issue,” Lau said. “I don’t want to be drinking lead. I don’t want lead anywhere near me. I want to be safe; I want to grow up safe.”





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  • Maybe we should get rid of the U.S. Department of Education

    Maybe we should get rid of the U.S. Department of Education


    Credit: Carlos Kosienski/Sipa via AP Images

    In 1994, I was the press secretary for the U.S. Department of Education when Republicans took over Congress and threatened to shut us down. My then boss, Secretary Dick Riley, would joke in almost every speech he gave that each morning his wife would open the newspaper and say, “Hey! looks like they’re trying to fire you again!” He regularly talked about it because it quickly became clear to us that people deeply believed in the Education Department’s mission and that the threats against us were bad politics.

    I was thinking of this when I watched Donald Trump’s 10-point plan for education.  I was struck by its contradictory nature of wanting to dismantle federal involvement in schools, while simultaneously trying to dictate curriculum and impose ideological policies. The department was established in 1979 to ensure resources were being spent on our nation’s poorest children.

    Now, three decades after my time at the department, the same battle is resurfacing with a new twist. At its heart, what Trump’s really proposing is a hollowing out of the department’s founding mission — not a true decentralization of power to states, but a reimagining of federal oversight as a tool for ideological control instead of a protection for our nation’s most vulnerable.  

    But here’s the paradox: Without a Department of Education and federal resources, there’s less leverage to enforce his ideological agenda. As a result, we may be in a bizarre quandary of having to choose between these two opposite visions. Given the choice between a Department of Education that no longer champions equity and no department at all, perhaps it’s time to consider the latter.

    The plan, as I understand it, is to move higher ed funding (Pell Grants and student loans) and education research to other agencies while providing equity-driven K-12 federal funds as block grants to be spent however states want.

    In California, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) ensures that schools serving students with the greatest needs — low-income students, English learners and foster youth — receive additional resources. With LCFF, we’ve built a system that both works and meets this moment (though we may also need to codify our clear commitment to special education). As someone who has spent decades in education policy, I don’t say this lightly — in fact, it breaks my heart. But this moment calls for different thinking.  The U.S. Department of Education has been a force for good in countless lives. But it should not stand if it’s dictated by ideological agendas. Quality education for all children must remain our North Star in California, because when we center our most vulnerable students, we all succeed.

    •••

    Rick Miller is the CEO of CORE Districts, a collaboration of nine large California urban districts. He previously served as press secretary for the U.S. Department of Education and as deputy state superintendent at the California Department 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.





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  • Sacramento State’s Black Honors College aims to be ‘HBCU of the West’

    Sacramento State’s Black Honors College aims to be ‘HBCU of the West’


    Commencement 2024 at Sacramento State.

    Credit: Bibiana Ortiz / Sacramento State

    It’s not every day that California State University students get a specific greeting from a U.S. president. But this year at CSU Sacramento, former President Barack Obama sent a message to the students of the new Black Honors College.

    “As members of the inaugural class of this college, you have a special responsibility to lead by example,” Obama said in the video message, where he encouraged the first cohort of the country’s first Black Honors College to “make life better for folks no matter what they look like, or where they come from.”

    Launched in August, Sac State’s new Black Honors College, which is uniquely and specifically designed for all students interested in Black history, life, and culture —and it has ambitions of becoming one of the nation’s most respected historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

    As the college aims to create a community of productivity and excellence, students in the Black Honors College are required to attend weekly study hours and have active participation in 80% of college events and programs. Among these programs are seminars on economic empowerment, self-determination and courageous leadership.

    Academically, all general education courses will be taken within the college, and every major offered at Sac State is represented in the Black Honors College. 

    According to Sac State President Luke Wood, who founded the Black Honors College, his inspiration stemmed from the fact that while Sac State has the largest population of Black students in the CSU system, the campus’ graduation rate for Black students is only 17.4%, below the 23.4% average across Cal State campuses.

    “No one serves more Black students than we do, and we’re in the bottom third in terms of success rates,” Wood said. “I don’t believe that it’s a function of students, their families and their communities, but of institutions and educators who have not been adequately prepared and designed to serve them. And so the whole goal was to create an institution within an institution that’s specifically designed to serve students who are interested in Black history, life and culture.” 

    Wood explained that the college is doing this by using research-focused initiatives with past success rates, such as structuring the student body as a “cohort” of individuals connected by a “shared learning experience.”

    According to Wood, this shared learning experience includes faculty members with a demonstrated record of success in teaching and serving Black students, adequate resources and space  — including a 6,000-square-foot space on campus made up of lecture rooms, office spaces and a study center — to properly serve these students’ needs, and a curriculum that’s “reflective of their lives and experiences.”

    “This is why everyone in the honors college has a (general education) pathway where they’re taking classes only in the honors college with those faculty members,” Wood said. 

    Transfer students, who won’t have those same foundational courses, are required to take a specialized minor oriented in fields like real estate and development or health services — all in order to ensure upward socioeconomic mobility.

    According to Wood, another “critical” aspect of this is that their curriculum will be “Afro-centric.” Regardless of students’ majors, the first two years in the college require students to take classes with a specialized focus on Black life, culture and community. This enrichment is supplemented by the “entire ecosystem” of faculty, counselors, academic advisers, staff directors and outreach coordinators, via their “commitment to serving the Black community.” 

    Wood noted that the college’s recent commemorative recognition by the Legislative Assembly emphasizes this commitment by acknowledging that it is a “Black-serving institution.”

    “Sac State has always had a very strong community of Black faculty and staff who have essentially created an informal ‘underground railroad’ through the institution,” Wood said. “Part of what the Black Honors College did was (take) that railroad, and instead of it being underground, it became public.” 

    One of the handpicked Sac State professors who is teaching at the Black Honors College this fall is Ayanna Yonemura, a professor of ethnic and African American studies. She plans to use the concentrated environment of vested interest and smaller class sizes to her advantage.

    “Every single week, we are immersed in so much wealth and positivity of Blackness,” Yonemura said. “With every single reading, video, lecture, discussion, podcast, students will learn about the diversity and resilience of Black people, and that is so powerful because … it’s contrary to the dominant messages, images and narratives that have become hegemonic and dominant in our society.” 

    As she teaches introduction to Pan-African studies this fall — one of the general education requirements for the college — Yonemura will also be helping to develop a curriculum unique to the Black Honors College, as it is currently borrowing relevant courses from other departments across campus. 

    “For me, I have a long background of implementing the curriculum around Black history and culture,” Yonemura said. “But what I think is really exciting is how faculty members from disciplines like STEM, which don’t usually center underrepresented groups, are going to be able to develop a curriculum that really centers Black life, history and culture.” 

    One of these STEM professors selected for the Black Honors College is James Reede, a part-time professor of environmental science who has had a long history of involvement in policy work for African American students as the Northern California chairman for the United Negro College Fund. 

    “I’m starting my 22nd year teaching environmental sciences, and I’ve never had more than four or five Black students in my class,” Reede said. “I expect there’s going to be more students that look like me in my classes now that will learn about what we’re doing to our Mother Earth, and be willing to do something about it.”

    Continued Reede, “I want to encourage and inspire them to take a stand by also focusing on environmental injustices to the POC community, like how they suffer the ill effects of pollution sources by their homes.” 

    In the week before the start of the fall semester, the college hosted various community events to welcome students and professors to their first semester at the Black Honors College, according to Wood. These events featured a three-day orientation including guest speakers and community-building for the incoming students, and a pop-up event called “Black on Campus: Pop Up,” with live music and networking with fellow students, staff, faculty and alumni. 

    “The most beautiful thing that I’ve heard from students, and I’ve heard it at least 20 times over the past few days, is ‘I got accepted by six HBCU’s’ and I chose to come to Sacramento State because of what’s happening here,” Wood said. “I even had a student who was a transfer from Howard University because they wanted to be here. … We’re becoming a first-choice institution, the ‘HBCU of the West’, or I like to say ‘the North Star of the West.’”

    According to Wood, this “skyrocketing” spirit of the Black campus community is evident in how applications from Black freshmen are up 20% this year, while Black transfer student rates are up 43%. He expects enrollment numbers to increase by the spring. 

    Additionally, Wood noted that fundraising efforts are just getting started. The college received a quarter-million dollar grant from the CSU system as an “institutional investment,” as well as various donations from private corporations and donors. 

    Wood said that the only growing pain the college has experienced thus far has been the significant number of students it’s had to turn away due to the need for equitable resource distribution. While the original goal was to grow the college to 500 students, the administration has now changed that goal to about 1,000-2,000 students to meet the tidal wave of applications.

    “That has implications for the number of faculty, the space that we’re allocated, the fundraising that we’re going to need to do for scholarships,” Wood said. “But we’re committed. It’s uphill, we’re building a plane (while) flying it, but we’re building it with great people.”

    Wood also noted that other institutions have reached out to Sac State to build their own “Sacramento State-certified Black Honors College” by utilizing the same academic model as the original.

    “My hope is that 10 years from now, you’ll see 30 Black Honors Colleges spread throughout the West and Midwest, so that there’s safe havens for students who identify as Black throughout those spaces,” Wood said. “It allows them to have an experience that provides them with hope and dignity.”

    Emily Hamill is a third-year student at UC Berkeley double-majoring in comparative literature and media studies and minoring in journalism.





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  • Search and compare data from the California School Dashboard, 2024

    Search and compare data from the California School Dashboard, 2024


    On Nov. 21, 2024, the California Department of Education updated the official California School Dashboard with the latest data for schools and districts. You can also view results for 2023, 2019, 2018, and 2017.* The dashboard shows achievement and progress, or lack of it, on multiple measures in color codes tied to performance metrics by the state. Enter a search term in the box to search by school, city, district or county. If a school or district does not appear, it means that no data is available. Detailed test scores are available on cells with an “i” (click to see more). For a full explanation, see the notes below the chart.

    * Missing or incomplete years of data from the California School Dashboard are due to the disruptions caused by the pandemic. 




    School Name, City and County Chronic Absenteeism Rate Suspension Rates English Lang. Arts Performance Math Performance High School Graduation Rate English Learners Link
    School Name, City and County Chronic Absenteeism Rate Suspension Rates English Lang. Arts Performance Math Performance High School Graduation Rate English Learners Link

    Notes to Database

    Color Codes and Ratings: The dashboard includes five color-coded performance levels, based on a combination of current performance level and change over the previous year. The color spectrum ranges from red to orange to yellow to green to blue, with red signifying the lowest performance level and blue the highest.

    More information about how the performance levels were calculated is available at the California Department of Education’s website here.

    Column Headings:

    Chronic Absenteeism: Proportion of students who miss 10 percent or more expected days of attendance in a school year. (For a student enrolled for 180 days, this would be 18 or more days.) Note: This indicator is not reported for high schools.

    Suspension Rates: Based on a combination of current suspension rates and changes in those rates over time.

    English Language Arts Performance: Student performance in Grades 3-8 and 11 on the English Language Arts Smarter Balanced tests administered in the current year, combined with whether scores improved, declined or stayed the same compared to the previous year.

    Math Performance: Student performance in Grades 3-8 and 11 on the math Smarter Balanced tests in the current year combined with whether scores improved, declined or stayed the same compared to the previous year.

    High School Graduation Rate: Combined four-year and five-year graduation rates, including current graduation rate along with whether rates have changed over the previous year.

    For more information about how the performance levels were calculated, go to the California Department of Education’s website here.

    For the full dashboard for each school or district, go here.





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  • Tackling the student mental health crisis in rural Central Valley

    Tackling the student mental health crisis in rural Central Valley


    Credit: Pexels / RDNE Stock project

    Este artículo está disponible en Español. Léelo en español.

    Born and raised in the agricultural foothills of Tulare County in California’s Central Valley, Greg Salcedo attended the only K-8 school and high school serving his rural town of about 3,000 people, where everything seemed out of reach — backpacks and notebooks, teachers and administrators and, in particular, school counselors and social workers. 

    Friends and family, Salcedo said, never spoke about adolescent depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress or suicide, issues that have, for decades, disproportionately affected rural, high-poverty communities in the United States. 

    But after the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated a decades-long mental health problem in Tulare County — with psychiatric hospitalization rates for students 9 to 13 years old climbing 23% during the first year of the pandemic — Salcedo decided to pursue a master’s degree in social work. In his first year as a graduate student, he helped shape the county’s emergency response through Rural Access to Mental Health Professionals, a program that placed him as a student mental health support worker in schools serving his community. 

    “I was able to talk to students and set them up with resources, call parents to set them up for therapy referrals or services with outside agencies [and] do a lot of outreach to promote mental health,” Salcedo said. “Being in this community for so long has helped me have a better sense of empathy and understanding of these kids and what they’re going through.” 

    The program places early-career mental health workers in 33 of Tulare County’s high-poverty school districts. Through the program, Salcedo served a one-year unpaid internship at an elementary and high school in Tulare, after which he was hired full time as a social worker at a high school in the Tulare Joint Union High School District.

    Participants are first- and second-year graduate students in social work who provide education-related services such as interim therapy and student group services, according to Marvin Lopez, executive director at the California Center on Teaching Careers, which helps coordinate the program. Since 2019, the center has supported 50 candidates through a $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education. 

    “In our district alone, we started out with three social workers last year, and now, we have seven new social workers that came on through the grant,” Salcedo said. 

    In 2019, Tulare County had a student-to-counselor ratio of about 870:1 — one of the highest in the state and well exceeding the recommended ratio of 250:1. 

    Since then, the state has embarked on a historic, five-year, $4.6 billion initiative to expand school-based mental health support through programs such as the Certified Wellness Coach workforce and the CalHOPE Student Support and Schools Initiative. 

    Districts in Tulare County have improved shortages of mental health providers using funds from the state. Tulare Joint Union High School District, for example, reported that the district’s student-to-counselor ratio improved significantly from 300 students per counselor in 2019 to 268 students per counselor in 2021. 

    But, few participants could afford to stay in the school-based mental health field after completing their unpaid placements, said Lopez. 

    “It became evident that we needed to support candidates to make sure we retain them,” Lopez said. “We began looking at resources like clinical supervision and additional training, but also financial incentives that can allow them to continue working at school sites.”

    Last year, the center secured a $15 million federal grant to develop Preparing Rural Inclusive Mental Health Educators, a program that pays final-year graduate students a $45,000 stipend for a yearlong internship and a three-year commitment to remain in the field of school-based mental health care. To date, the center has sponsored 23 interns.

    According to Lopez, these candidates are able to offer more long-term, advanced care, such as individual student therapy, group therapy, parent and family consultation and school faculty support. The center intentionally recruits from partner universities closest to Tulare County, such as California State University Bakersfield and Fresno State, whose students largely come from the rural communities they will serve. 

    Jeovany Martin, who completed his master’s in social work at CSU Bakersfield, was an intern in the program at a local elementary school.  Martin was raised in neighboring Kings County by his Mexican immigrant parents, and he applied for the program to serve families whose needs have been shortchanged by language barriers. 

    “I’m able to relate to these students. I speak their language, and I’m able to communicate with parents in their language, which goes a very long way in creating a working relationship with them,” Martin said. 

    Martin said that the program was also his most realistic path to the field of education-based mental health care. Most providers are overworked and underpaid — with nearly 59% of school counselors leaving their positions in their first two years — and non-white, low-income candidates have much less financial and professional support to enter the field. 

    Nationally, most school counselors are overwhelmingly white, and they do not represent the backgrounds of the students they serve. For Tulare County’s student population — where nearly 80% of students are Latino — the two programs address a shortage of cultural competence in mental health support available to students, according to program supervisor Rosie Hernandez. 

    “We’re also having folks who are bilingual be part of our program because it allows families to be a bit more open to services because of that simple fact that they speak their native tongue,” Hernandez said. 

    Most children living in rural, low-income households, Lopez said, are also more likely to experience higher rates of anxiety, depression and behavioral problems, often due to stressors such as food insecurity, parental job loss and geographic isolation. 

    “We’re recruiting, preparing and supporting candidates from our own communities who represent our student population,” Lopez said. “That, in itself, allows our students to connect at a much higher level with our interns to bring them comfort, a space where they can interact and feel safe.”

    A legacy of bias and neglect 

    Martin and Salcedo’s internships in Tulare County also provided the opportunity to tackle a decades-long legacy of mistrust between social workers and immigrant families. 

    “A lot of our families, especially from the Hispanic culture, think of social workers as ‘the people that take away my kids,’” Salcedo said. In his first year, Salcedo felt stifled by the number of permission slips that would have allowed him to help more students, but were returned unsigned. “Our job is also about breaking down that barrier and [explaining] our role for them to understand, ‘This person is here to help my kid with anxiety. They’re not here to judge me as a parent.’” 

    The National Center for Youth Law found that across the country’s child welfare, education and mental health systems, providers and educators have routinely over-referred Latino students for behavioral issues and subjected them to harsher disciplinary measures than white children. Black and Latino children were also found to be removed from their families and into out-of-home care at higher rates, while receiving fewer mental health services, such as psychotherapy and counseling, than white children.

    Families that include at least one undocumented member or non-citizen — 14.3% of Tulare County’s overall population — are also less likely to opt into care if they rely on citizen children to receive basic benefits like food stamps and housing subsidies, which can be jeopardized by family separation. In a county where more than a quarter of residents receive SNAP food assistance, and two-thirds of these recipients are children, signing a permission slip could come down to what some parents feel is a calculation between their child’s mental health and access to basic services. 

    To address fears of bias and neglect, which remain the highest barrier for underserved communities to access to mental health care, program interns adapt a traditionally siloed approach in school counseling to work more directly with parents, caretakers and community support systems. 

    Salcedo, for example, partnered with the local Boys and Girls Club to run a regular backpack drive for students in the neighborhood. He also helped set up a resource closet at his school, where students frequently stop by for necessities such as food, school supplies and personal hygiene products. Most recently, he partnered with a local church to serve boxed meals to students at the end of the school day and to parents on back-to-school nights. 

    “We have this daily check-in routine with our students, where we say, ‘Whether you’re needing to talk to a counselor, or you just need some deodorant, a snack, or pencils, we can provide it,’” Salcedo said. “‘If you’re looking for housing, or babysitting, or transportation to get to an appointment, we can try to help.’”

    Broader post-pandemic challenges

    Martin, who was hired as a social worker after completing his placement, said that the need for broader support has especially spiked for K-8 students in Tulare County, many of whom lost crucial social and cognitive development to remote learning during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many of Salcedo’s high school students, he said, withdrew from their counseling sessions online — some did not have reliable Wi-Fi or could not turn on microphones due to chaotic environments at home, for example. 

    Many also experienced life-altering trauma as a result of the pandemic. They grieved family members, experienced debilitating illness and lost access to basic needs like shelter and food. 

    “That’s why it’s important for us to take a holistic approach,” Martin said. “We might be doing an intervention here at the school for the student, but there might be something going on at home that the family needs extra resources for. We’re able to help bridge those gaps, wherever they might be, for the students and their families.”





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  • Playing the long game in an uncertain education policy climate  

    Playing the long game in an uncertain education policy climate  


    Credit: RDNE stock project

    As California emerges from a divisive national election, it is crucial to remain clear-eyed about the risks ahead while pursuing bold strategies to address them. There are many domains in which state and local leaders can still work to improve the lives of Californians, and education offers one of the clearest examples. Historically, education policy has been shaped at the state and local levels, and California has the tools to lead the nation by championing sensible, evidence-based policies that create better outcomes for children and families. 

    That work has never been more important. California’s education system faces four pressing challenges in the wake of COVID-19. Student achievement continues to lag behind other states, with performance gaps remaining unacceptably wide. Chronic absenteeism is also hindering recovery efforts, as many children and families remain disengaged from schools. Additionally, schools are falling short in equipping students with the skills needed for career readiness, real-world success, and active participation in a complex democracy.  Meanwhile, brutal culture wars are consuming vital attention and resources from addressing these critical issues. Tackling these challenges head-on and developing targeted solutions is essential for driving meaningful progress. 

    Parents care deeply about how their children are learning, and California urgently needs a comprehensive strategy to improve student achievement. Even before Covid-19, the state’s overall performance—and outcomes for students from historically underserved racial and ethnic groups—lagged behind the national average.

    Any improvement strategy must start with every teacher having high quality, comprehensive instructional materials and the training to use them effectively. One clear model for this kind of reform is the “science of reading” movement, which has been adopted by many states but not yet embraced by California.

    One need not agree with every element of the science of reading to recognize that Mississippi’s suite of reforms pushed the state from nearly last in national rankings to above the national average. Their approach offers a model of a state that had a clear instructional point of view, supported that vision with a well-crafted policy, and saw impressive outcomes as a result. California would do well to embrace the idea that state policy can meaningfully shape teaching and learning when implemented with purpose and precision.  

    However, students cannot learn if they are not at school in the first place.  Chronic absenteeism in California more than doubled after the pandemic, rising from 10% to 24% in the 2022-23 school year, affecting over 1.4 million students. It’s a pervasive issue that cuts across all types of schools and students. While the causes of this crisis are not fully understood, several ideas merit policy responses.

    Access to school-based mental health services remains inadequate and disproportionately limited for students of color and those from low-income families. Districts must collaborate across systems to expand these services and ensure they reach those most in need. Additionally, the school violence and bullying epidemic causes parents to question whether sending a child to school is safe. Therefore, efforts should be made to eradicate violence and bullying on school campuses.

    California ranks near the bottom of all states in terms of access to school-site physical health services, making greater access to affordable, quality healthcare for low-income students critical. To tackle this crisis effectively, districts need localized strategies that identify the specific drivers of absenteeism in their communities and implement targeted interventions to support affected students. 

    The goal is not to simply get students to school, but to ensure that their determination to stay translates to strong job opportunities and overall well-being — whether they enroll in college or go directly into the workforce. For districts, paving the way begins well before high school.

    Encouraging progress is being made in the region to expand student access to high-wage, high-interest careers. Public-private partnerships can help districts better equip students with well-paying jobs by developing career pathways in fields like technology and healthcare, progressing from foundational skills to advanced competencies. District administrators can join forces with local colleges to build cross-sector strategies to better prepare students for college success. These efforts should include paid internships in high-demand professions, such as health care, allied health professions, high technology, or green technology.  Notably, several organizations (UniteLA, Growing Inland Achievement) and others are already driving this important work in Southern California, providing a model for other regions to follow. 

    To gain traction on these meaningful issues, advocates, parents, and policymakers must lower the temperature around divisive “culture war” issues that are currently sucking up too much of the air in the room.  Where there are areas of sharp moral disagreement, we must demand civil discussion and respect differing viewpoints. California’s public schools must remain spaces where all parents feel comfortable sending their children. While debates about the goals of education are inevitable — and even vital to a healthy democratic process — allowing school boards and education leaders to be overtaken by partisan, nationalized politics only hinders progress. By focusing efforts on the pressing challenges, we all recognize we can move forward and create solutions to improve our children’s lives.  

    We don’t yet know what the national election portends for California’s schools, and some federal actions could escalate with serious potential consequences for the state’s students and families. In times of uncertainty, it is prudent to focus on local education improvements rooted in strong evidence. By prioritizing proven strategies that advance long-term goals, California can continue to strengthen student learning across the region’s schools and colleges, regardless of broader political shifts. 

    •••

    Patricia Burch is a professor of education at USC Rossier School of Education and faculty co-director of the USC Education Policy Hub.

    Morgan Polikoff is a professor of education at USC Rossier School of Education and faculty co-director of the USC EdPolicy Hub.

    Jon Fullerton is a research professor and executive director of the USC EdPolicy Hub.

    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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  • Native American students miss school at higher rates. It only got worse during the pandemic

    Native American students miss school at higher rates. It only got worse during the pandemic


    Social worker Mary Schmauss, right, greets students as they arrive for school in October Algodones Elementary School in Algodones, New Mexico.

    Credit: Roberto E. Rosales / AP Photo

    After missing 40 days of school last year, Tommy Betom, 10, is on track this year for much better attendance. The importance of showing up has been stressed repeatedly at school — and at home.

    When he went to school last year, he often came home saying the teacher was picking on him and other kids were making fun of his clothes. But Tommy’s grandmother Ethel Marie Betom, who became one of his caregivers after his parents split, said she told him to choose his friends carefully and to behave in class.

    He needs to go to school for the sake of his future, she told him.

    “I didn’t have everything,” said Betom, an enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache tribe. Tommy attends school on the tribe’s reservation in southeastern Arizona. “You have everything. You have running water in the house, bathrooms and a running car.”

    A teacher and a truancy officer also reached out to Tommy’s family to address his attendance. He was one of many. Across the San Carlos Unified School District, 76% of students were chronically absent during the 2022-23 school year, meaning they missed 10% or more of the school year.

    Years after Covid-19 disrupted American schools, nearly every state is still struggling with attendance. But attendance has been worse for Native American and Alaska Native students — a disparity that existed before the pandemic and has since grown, according to data collected by The Associated Press.

    Out of 34 states with data available for the 2022-2023 school year, half had absenteeism rates for Native students that were at least 9 percentage points higher than the state average.

    Many schools serving Native American students have been working to strengthen connections with families who often struggle with higher rates of illness and poverty. Schools also must navigate distrust dating back to the U.S. government’s campaign to break up Native American culture, language and identity by forcing children into abusive boarding schools.

    History “may cause them to not see the investment in a public school education as a good use of their time,” said Dallas Pettigrew, director of Oklahoma University’s Center for Tribal Social Work and a member of the Cherokee Nation.

    With the vast majority of students at Algodones Elementary School in New Mexico residing at San Felipe Pueblo, the school and the Bernalillo school district are making efforts to turn that around the high rates of school absenteeism in Native American communities. Pictured are Kanette Yatsattie , 8 , left, and his classmate Jeremy Candelaria, 10, hanging out by a board depicting the race for best attendance at the school on Tuesday Oct. 1, 2024.
    Credit: Roberto E. Rosales / AP Photo

    On-site health, trauma care helped bring students back

    The San Carlos school system recently introduced care centers that partner with hospitals, dentists and food banks to provide services to students at multiple schools. The work is guided by cultural success coaches — school employees who help families address the kind of challenges that keep students from coming to school.

    Nearly 100% of students in the district are Native, and more than half of families have incomes below the federal poverty level. Many students come from homes that deal with alcoholism and drug abuse, Superintendent Deborah Dennison said.

    Students miss school for reasons ranging from anxiety to unstable living conditions, said Jason Jones, a cultural success coach at San Carlos High School and an enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache tribe. Acknowledging their fears, grief and trauma helps him connect with students, he said.

    “You feel better, you do better,” Jones said. “That’s our job here in the care center is to help the students feel better.”

    Jason Jones, cultural success coach and care center manager, talks about the care center at San Carlos High School on Aug. 27 in San Carlos, Arizona. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
    Credit: Credit: Ross D. Franklin / AP Photo
    The Rice Primary School Care Center in San Carlos, Arizona. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
    Credit: Ross D. Franklin / AP Photo

    In the 2023-2024 school year, the chronic absenteeism rate in the district fell from 76% to 59% — an improvement Dennison attributes partly to efforts to address their communities’ needs.

    “All these connections with the community and the tribe are what’s making a difference for us and making the school a system that fits them rather than something that has been forced upon them, like it has been for over a century of education in Indian Country,” said Dennison, a member of the Navajo Nation.

    In three states — Alaska, Nebraska, and South Dakota — the majority of Native American and Alaska Native students were chronically absent. In some states, it has continued to worsen, even while improving slightly for other students, as in Arizona, where chronic absenteeism for Native students rose from 22% in 2018-19 to 45% in 2022-23.

    AP’s analysis does not include data on schools managed by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Education, which are not run by traditional districts. Less than 10% of Native American students attend BIE schools.

    Schools close on days of Native ceremonial gatherings

    At Algodones Elementary School, which serves a handful of Native American pueblos along New Mexico’s Upper Rio Grande, about two-thirds of students are chronically absent.

    The communities were hit hard by Covid-19, with devastating impacts on elders. Since schools reopened, students have been slow to return. Excused absences for sick days are still piling up — in some cases, Principal Rosangela Montoya suspects, students are stressed about falling behind academically.

    Staff and tribal liaisons have been analyzing every absence and emphasizing connections with parents. By 10 a.m., telephone calls go out to the homes of absent students. Next steps include in-person meetings with those students’ parents.

    “There’s illness, there’s trauma,” Montoya said. “A lot of our grandparents are the ones raising the children so that the parents can be working.”

    About 95% of Algodones’ students are Native American, and the school strives to affirm their identity. It doesn’t open on four days set aside for Native American ceremonial gatherings, and students are excused for absences on other cultural days as designated by the nearby pueblos.

    Second grade teacher Lori Spina taking a photo of her class for her newsletter in October at Algodones Elementary School in Algodones, New Mexico. (AP Photo/Roberto E. Rosales)
    Credit: Roberto E. Rosales / AP Photo
    Principal Rosangela Montoya waves goodbye to parents as students arrive at Algodones Elementary School in Algodones, New .Mexico. (AP Photo/Roberto E. Rosales)
    Credit: Roberto E. Rosales / AP Photo
    With the vast majority of students at Algodones Elementary School in New Mexico residing at San Felipe Pueblo, the school and the Bernalillo school district are making efforts to turn around the high rates of school absenteeism in Native American communities. Pictured is a third grade class in October.
    Credit: Ross D. Franklin / AP Photo

    For Jennifer Tenorio, it makes a difference that the school offers classes in the family’s native language of Keres. She speaks Keres at home, but says that’s not always enough to instill fluency.

    Tenorio said her two oldest children, now in their 20s, were discouraged from speaking Keres when they were in the federal Head Start educational program — a system that now promotes native language preservation — and they struggled academically.

    “It was sad to see with my own eyes,” said Tenorio, a single parent and administrative assistant who has used the school’s food bank. “In Algodones, I saw a big difference to where the teachers were really there for the students, and for all the kids, to help them learn.”

    Over a lunch of strawberry milk and enchiladas on a recent school day, her 8-year-old son, Cameron Tenorio, said he likes math and wants to be a policeman.

    “He’s inspired,” Tenorio said. “He tells me every day what he learns.”

    Home visits change perception of school

    Velma Kitcheyan, a third grade teacher at Rice Intermediate School, instructs her students in San Carlos, Arizona. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
    Credit: Ross D. Franklin / AP Photo
    Rice Intermediate School Principal Nicholas Ferro walks to a classroom at Rice Intermediate School in San Carlos, Arizona.
    Credit: Ross D. Franklin / AP Photo

    In Arizona, Rice Intermediate School Principal Nicholas Ferro said better communication with families, including Tommy Betom’s, has helped improve attendance. Since many parents are without working phones, he said, that often means home visits.

    Lillian Curtis said she was impressed by Rice Intermediate’s student activities on family night. Her granddaughter, Brylee Lupe, 10, missed 10 days of school by mid-October last year but had missed just two days by the same time this year.

    “The kids always want to go — they are anxious to go to school now. And Brylee is much more excited,” said Curtis, who takes care of her grandchildren.

    Curtis said she tells Brylee that skipping school is not an option.

    “I just told her that you need to be in school, because who is going to be supporting you?” Curtis said. “You’ve got to do it on your own. You got to make something of yourself.”

    The district has made gains because it is changing the perception of school and what it can offer, said Dennison, the superintendent. Its efforts have helped not just with attendance but also morale, especially at the high school, she said.

    “Education was a weapon for the U.S. government back in the past,” she said. “We work to decolonize our school system.”

    Lee reported from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Lurye reported from New Orleans. Alia Wong of The Associated Press and Felix Clary of ICT contributed to this report.





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