اینترنت

برچسب: the

  • A learning recovery that wasn’t – missed opportunities and the ongoing costs of Covid

    A learning recovery that wasn’t – missed opportunities and the ongoing costs of Covid


    Credit: Alison Yin for EdSource

    Money is running low, and time is short to help America’s students fully regain the learning they lost since the pandemic. Based on their continued academic struggles and mental health challenges, a report released Wednesday concluded most probably won’t.

    The second yearly report by a national education research organization examining the impacts of Covid on K-12 education offered that sobering outlook while highlighting some notable state and local efforts nationwide. It also called for a shift in the mission of high school to make connections for students adrift in the wake of Covid. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis called it “blurring the lines between high school, higher education, and the workforce” in an essay in the report.

    “The State of the American Student: Fall 2023,” produced by the Center on Reinventing Public Education, which is affiliated with Arizona State University, focused on older students — recent graduates or those nearing graduation from high school.

    “We not only owe them restitution for extended school closures and missed proms — we owe them a special sense of urgency, given how little time they have left before transitioning to the next phase of their lives,” wrote Robin Lake, the center’s director.

    Data on younger students has been easier to collect. By some indicators — higher graduation rates and higher grades overall — older students may appear to have rebounded from Covid. But those measures are deceiving, said Morgan Polikoff, an associate professor of education at the USC Rossier School of Education. Nationwide ACT college admission scores, which are the lowest in 30 years, point to grade inflation, and assessments by the company Renaissance Learning point to a steady decline in 10th grade math and reading scores since before the pandemic. Disparities in scores between Latino and Black students and white and Asian students underscore “staggering” inequalities.

    Chronic absence rates are alarming, as are measures of mental health. The proportion of teenage girls reporting persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness rose from 36% to 57%; 30% seriously considered suicide, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2021 report on youth risk behavior.

    “The older the student, the more lingering the impact,” said Gene Kerns, chief academic officer of Renaissance. “The high school data is very alarming. If you’re a junior in high school, you only have one more year. There’s a time clock on this.”

    Source: CD survey cited in CRPE’s T”he State of the American Student: Fall 2023″

    According to the assessment publisher NWEA, it will take the average eighth grader 7.4 months to catch up to pre-pandemic levels in reading and 9.1 months in math. In the hardest-hit communities like Richmond, Virginia, and New Haven, Connecticut, students fell 18 months behind in math. Schools would have had to teach 150% of a typical year’s worth of material for three years in a row just to catch up. “It is magical thinking to expect they will make this happen without a major increase in instructional time,” wrote researchers Thomas Kane of Harvard and Sean Reardon of Stanford.

    Tutoring’s unfilled promise

    For whatever reasons — pandemic fatigue, a lack of state guidance, a labor shortage, the unwillingness of teachers to do after-school tutoring or summer school — districts have not achieved efforts at scale. Despite a consensus among researchers that high-quality, intensive tutoring is the most effective intervention, USC researchers found, based on a survey of 1,600 households, that less than 2% of students are “receiving tutoring that even meets a fairly moderate definition of ‘high-quality.’ And among those who likely need it most — students who receive grades C or lower — less than 4% are receiving high-quality tutoring.”

    The report credited Texas, Tennessee and Colorado for launching “admirable tutoring efforts.” California piloted a tutoring and mentoring program, led by 3,200 college students reaching students in 33 districts through College Corps, a volunteer program, but mainly it’s been every district for itself. Some, like Los Angeles Unified, relied on remote tutoring that was more like homework help, while Oakland turned to the nonprofit Children Rising and to Oakland REACH, a parent empowerment group, to train its own tutors.

    Having not heard crisis warnings from state or local leaders, many parents haven’t recognized the severity of the challenge, the report said. Good grades sent a contrary message; one USC survey found that only 23% of parents were interested in summer school, and 28% were interested in tutoring. Another survey cited in the report found that about 90% of parents, including those in Sacramento, believed their child was working at grade level or above.

    At first, there was no “voice in the back of my head” to raise doubt, said Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union. 

    Rodrigues and others in the report called for states to show more transparency for parents, with report cards that are candid about their children’s learning. It credited a half dozen states, such as Connecticut, for their candor.

    Source: 2023 survey by Learning Heroes cited in CPRE’s “The State of the American Student: Fall 2023”

    Money, labor troubles loom

    Lake called tutoring “a massive missed opportunity” and added, “What also concerned us is that the wind seems to be going out of academic recovery efforts just at a time when we think things are about to get much harder for schools and for teachers.”

    Those headwinds include, according to the report:

    • The Sept. 30, 2024, deadline to commit spending money from the American Rescue Plan, the final and largest chunk of nearly $200 billion in federal Covid relief, about $13.5 billion for California.
    • That, combined with declining enrollments in most states, including the majority of districts in California, will result in a drop in state attendance-based funding. The impact of the expected “fiscal cliff” will vary by district. But some districts, such as San Francisco and West Contra Costa, are already feeling the pinch.
    • A continued staff and teacher shortage in California. Last year was the first reduction in new credentials in eight years. The 16% drop — 3,130 fewer credentialed teachers ­— will compound the difficulty of meeting the demand for elementary and special education teachers.

    In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature’s allocation of $8 billion has the potential to expand mental and physical health programs for students and address academic inequalities — if used effectively. The money is split between creating thousands of community schools, funding six weeks of summer school and extending the day by three hours for low-income schools. 

    Since school budgets for the year are already set, there’s still time for districts to plan a major summer learning effort in 2024, Kane, the faculty director of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard, wrote in his contribution to the report. The Biden administration could be persuaded to extend spending for one more year, although he and Lake agreed it should be restricted to proven strategies, like tutoring, summer learning and salary increases for an extended year.

    “Part of the challenge has been the absence of political leadership,” Kane said. School district officials need the “political cover” to undertake significant reforms needed for students to catch up, he said.

    States and districts need to provide high school students with hope and innovation, the report said. It’s called for federal funds for a “gap year” as an immediate strategy for coming out of the pandemic. An idea usually associated with privileged students who take a year of enrichment before college, this would involve investing in community colleges “to help kids get back on track and help them prepare for their next steps in a really creative and positive way,” the report said. 

    The report also recommended putting more emphasis on adult-student relationships, rethinking high school school-to-career pathways and investing in a “New American High School,” which Lake argues “would connect students to meaningful work in their communities and expert knowledge around the globe.”

    It cited Purdue Polytech High School in Indiana, a public charter school network with higher ed and industry partnerships for careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math, and Seckinger High School, an artificial intelligence-themed high school in Gwinnett County, Georgia. It pointed to Colorado, where about 53% of high school graduates earn college credit or industry credentials through dual and concurrent enrollment; the vision is for every high school student to graduate with an associate degree and an industry-recognized credential.

    None of the examples pointed to California, although in the last several years, the state has funded nearly $1 billion in dual enrollment programs, apprenticeship opportunities and Golden State Pathways, for students to explore college and noncollegiate pathways by 10th grade. The executive order last month to establish a master plan for career education within 13 months should provide a wider vision pulling components together.

    The aim moving forward, the report said, should be “a new definition of student success that focuses more on fulfillment and long-term happiness in careers than college as an end unto itself.”





    Source link

  • Johann Neem: Is the Supreme Court On Track to Outlaw Public Schools?

    Johann Neem: Is the Supreme Court On Track to Outlaw Public Schools?


    Johann Neem is a professor of history at Western Washington University. He is the author of Democracy’s Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America. His essay appeared originally in Education Week. The question Neem poses is this: Should students be allowed to opt out of any discussion of issues that offend their religion? The Supreme Court said yes. Need questions whether this is possible in a school where parents hold very different views.

    He wrote:

    On June 27, the Supreme Court released its decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor. The decision has not received the attention it merits. A close reading of the conservative majority’s opinion suggests that the high court is moving toward determining that public schooling violates the First Amendment of the Constitution. The decision could mean the end of public education in America.

    The case concerned the Montgomery County, Md., board of education’s decision to integrate LGBTQ+ inclusive readings into its literacy curriculum to further its goal of representing diversity. At first, the district permitted parents to opt out their children, but when that policy became unworkable, it decided that parents would no longer be notified when the books were being used.

    In response, several parents sued, arguing that exposing their children to the books threatened their right to raise their children according to their faith.

    The U.S. Supreme Court sided with the parents. The court’s majority opinion concluded that exposing students to progressive ideas about marriage and gender placed an unconstitutional burden on parents’ religious liberties. Writing for the court’s six conservative justices, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. argued that the determining precedent is Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), in which the court decided that a law mandating all children attend high school violated the religious liberties of the Amish community.

    The majority determined that Yoder, far from an isolated case concerning a discrete community, is a general precedent applicable to all parents. In other words, all parents are Amish now, with the right to require the public schools to protect their children from curricula that burdens their capacity to raise their children according to their faith.

    What, then, constitutes a burden on religious freedom? The court first disputed the school board’s claim to be merely exposing students, arguing that the record showed that the school board’s goal was to teach students to support same-sex marriage and gender fluidity.

    If the court had stopped there, that would have been one thing, but Alito makes an additional move, arguing that even exposure to ideas that go against parents’ faith could be unconstitutional. The issue is not whether public schools coerce students’ beliefs but whether introducing an idea might undermine parents’ religious freedom. “We reject this chilling vision of the power of the state to strip away the critical right of parents to guide the religious development of their children,” Alito wrote.

    In her dissent, signed by the three liberal justices, Justice Sonia Sotomayor responds that the court’s majority decision is untenable. “Given the great diversity of religious beliefs in this country,” she writes, “countless interactions that occur every day in public schools might expose children to messages that conflict with a parent’s religious beliefs.”

    Sotomayor predicts the result of the decision will be “chaos for this Nation’s public schools.” “Never, in the context of public schools or elsewhere, has this Court held that mere exposure to concepts inconsistent with one’s religious beliefs could give rise to a First Amendment claim.” Ultimately, Sotomayor concludes, “to presume public schools must be free of all such exposure is to presume public schools out of existence.”

    Sotomayor’s objection is ultimately practical: The majority’s opinion is so broad and its criteria so loose that public schools will not be able to function. Instead of elected school boards working things out locally, courts will ultimately adjudicate all curricular decisions at great cost of time and money.

    Within the court’s majority opinion, however, lies a deeper threat to the existence of public schools. Because the court determined that exposure to objectionable material violates parents’ rights, policies involving that exposure are subject to “strict scrutiny,” the highest standard of judicial review. This level of judicial review requires that the government must demonstrate that the policy in question both serves an interest of the “highest order” and is “narrowly tailored” to achieve that interest.

    The Supreme Court would, no doubt, agree that an educated citizenry is a public interest “of the highest order.” What the court does not address is whether public school systems are “narrowly tailored” to achieve the state’s goals.

    Today, elected officials at the state and local levels choose the curricula that their schools will teach. But in effectively determining that any curriculum will violate parents’ rights, the court took a step toward outlawing public schools.

    What might the court deem a more “narrowly tailored” policy to achieve the state’s goals of an educated citizenry? Although the court does not say so, the answer may be a private school voucher program in which parents choose schools that fit their faith rather than common schools that serve an entire community.

    One cannot exaggerate how dangerous and unhistorical this ruling is. The founding generation considered increasing access to education one of government’s most important functions, enshrining it in the young country’s revolutionary state constitutions. In the 1787 Northwest Ordinance, the federal government even stated that “schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged” and followed through by requiring land be set aside in new territories to generate revenue for public schools.

    Today, every state constitution mandates a public education system, with many explicitly framing education as one of the state’s highest obligations.

    All this history is at risk of being jettisoned. Instead, the court has determined that the need to protect students from being exposed to ideas hostile to their family’s religious beliefs trumps everything else. Under the court’s new rules, no curriculum could ever be constitutional unless parents are always informed in advance and can protect their children from anything objectionable to their specific religious beliefs.

    Given this burden, states may be forced to find a more “narrowly tailored” approach to educating citizens. And before we know it, one of America’s greatest successes, one of the most popular American institutions, and one of the few we still share in common, will be gone.



    Source link

  • More college campuses leveraging the outdoors to support student mental health

    More college campuses leveraging the outdoors to support student mental health


    Students spend time at the turtle pond on the campus of San Diego State University.

    Credit: Noah Lyons/EdSource

    According to a 2018 study published by Frontiers of Public Health, spending time outdoors can aid people in a variety of categories: “attention and cognition, memory, stress and anxiety, sleep, emotional stability and self-perceived welfare or quality of life.”

    Monicka Fosnocht, an associate therapist at San Diego State University with a background in natural public medicine agrees. “For a lot of students that are struggling with mental health, or even students who don’t and are just stressed, it’s really helpful to get a nice, big dose of vitamin D and get outside so that we can get our brains functioning optimally.”

    SDSU has its own outdoor resources. One space in particular, the turtle pond, has become a popular destination for students seeking solace from their academic lives.

    The origins of the turtle pond date back to 1973. The campus community asked for more green spaces, and the school delivered. Koi fish dominated the scene at first, but red-eared slider turtles eventually became the pond’s informal namesake.

    Within this area, there are hammocks, slacklines, trees, ample seating and, of course, the pond itself, all providing students with a mental health boost. 

    The therapeutic effect of being in outdoor spaces is increasingly being noted by mental health professionals, including SDSU counseling and psychological services faculty member Tri Nguyễn. 

    “Therapists are moving a lot more outdoors.” Nguyễn said. “There are providers who do therapy outdoors, by hiking or going on a walk. It’s no longer just within the confines of an office space.”

    While individuals between 15 and 21 years old are significantly more stressed than older generations, they are more likely to report their struggles and seek help. Fosnocht is optimistic that young people can normalize conversations surrounding mental health and find unique ways to address it.

    “I’m really hopeful for Gen Z and the generations to come that are decreasing the stigma around mental health and also connecting it to very accessible things like being in nature, hanging out with the turtles, talking to other people and taking the time to connect with people in person.” 





    Source link

  • Educational rights for youth in the child welfare system | Quick Guide

    Educational rights for youth in the child welfare system | Quick Guide


    Credit: Alison Yin / EdSource

    The story has been updated to clarify that the total number of children and youth in the child welfare system.

    Over 70,000 children and youth in California have an open case in the child welfare system, according to the most recent point-in-time count, with over 51,000 of them also in foster care.

    Many come under supervision of their county Department of Children and Family Services after a reported allegation of child neglect or maltreatment, including physical abuse, sexual abuse, exploitation or emotional abuse; for others, it happens when a parent voluntarily requests support, often due to a child’s behavioral challenges.

    Children in an out-of-home placement in the child welfare system have access to particular educational rights. This is meant to ensure stability for them during a time of uncertainty.

    A child under the supervision of the Department of Children and Family Services often comes into contact with multiple individuals. Depending on the details of their case, this could include social workers, child advocates, police officers, detectives, attorneys, judges and others. If they are removed from their home, they might be placed in foster care. While not all youth in the child welfare system are in foster care, all foster youth are in the child welfare system.

    “When these rights were established, the purpose was to keep children in some kind of consistency, some kind of security, or something that felt just familiar to them,” said Jessica Gonzalez, youth justice program manager at CASA/LA, a national organization of court-appointed special advocates for youth in the child welfare system. CASA volunteers are sometimes appointed as educational rights holders for children. Even when they are not, they often advocate for education rights to be enforced, Gonzalez said.

    A child’s case might also enter the juvenile dependency court. While the primary goal for youth in dependency court is to “preserve the family” by keeping a child either in the home of their parent or a relative, they might be placed in foster care or adopted.

    Child welfare cases are complex, and outcomes depend on a multitude of factors, including the caretaking ability of a parent, whether a relative is able to take in the child, if an appeal is filed, and more.

    This story includes information on whom the educational rights apply to as well as general insight into some of these rights. Many were implemented with the enactment of AB 490 in 2003 yet remain difficult to understand for many families due to the complexity of the child welfare system.

    How many children are in the child welfare system?

    There were 51,339 children and youth with an open case and in foster care as of April 1. The count was published by the California Child Welfare Indicators Project, a data and technical assistance collaboration between the University of California at Berkeley and the California Department of Social Services.

    This point-in-time count includes those who are under the age of 1 up to age 21 and who have “an open child welfare or probation supervised placement episode” in California’s Child Welfare Services/Case Management System. The count peaked in 2016, with nearly 63,000 open cases. The lowest number of open cases occurred this year.

    Allegations of child maltreatment are much higher, however; between April 2022 and April 2023, there were more than 442,000 reported allegations.

    Which children in the system have access to particular educational rights?

    Youth in the child welfare system and in an out-of-home placement have access to specific educational rights. An out-of-home placement can include foster homes, group homes, shelters and hotels through the Department of Children and Family Services, and other similar placements.

    The purpose of these rights is to accommodate the child’s education as much as possible during a time of instability.

    What are some of the educational rights for those in the child welfare system?

    A child in the welfare system and in an out-of-home placement has access to the following rights, among others:

    • School stability. This includes the right to remain enrolled at their school of origin, which is the school they were enrolled in at the time their child welfare case began, and the right to be transported to that school.
    • Enrichment access. Youth have the right to access the same type of enrichment activities as their peers. This can include academic resources and extracurricular activities.
    • Placement in the least restrictive setting. Students have the right to be placed in the academic setting that’s least restrictive, or least strictly controlled, for them to be able to achieve academic progress and success.
    • Immediate enrollment. Regardless of whether a student has all the enrollment documents ready, or has had contact with the juvenile justice system, or has any outstanding fees — they have the right to be immediately enrolled in school.

    Each of the rights above are nuanced and dependent on each child’s case and the decisions of their educational rights holder.

    Additional information for families and children can be found by contacting the county Foster Youth Services Coordinating Program (each county’s contact can be found here) or at the California Foster Youth Education Task Force.

    What does it mean to place a child in the ‘least restrictive’ academic setting?

    While a least restrictive academic setting depends on age and whether a student has disabilities, it’s often considered the academic environment that’s least strictly controlled.

    For a high school student, the least restrictive setting might be a traditional public school where students walk from one classroom to another on their own, with sports and special events such as prom and field trips. A more restrictive academic setting is often a nonpublic school that provides a more strictly controlled environment in an effort to assist students who have specific behavioral, emotional or academic needs.

    As Gonzalez described, students are often pushed out to a more restrictive setting if they exhibit ongoing behavioral challenges — which, she says, are often a result of trauma in that child’s life.

    But students “have the right to be in a setting they feel safe in, they feel comfortable in, and they’re able to learn in,” Gonzalez said. “And so, if the child has demonstrated that they’re able to do this in a very restrictive setting, we have to give that student the opportunity to then be able to practice those skills in a less restrictive setting.”

    Who holds the educational rights for youth in the child welfare system?

    Every child has an educational rights holder with decision-making authority regarding their education. A parent often continues having the right to make educational and developmental decisions for their child even if they lose physical custody. Biological parents lose educational decision-making power only if they are explicitly limited or restricted by the juvenile court, if parental rights have been terminated (i.e., the child is up for adoption), or if the child is in a legal guardianship.

    Parents “are not always encouraged to continue to be a part of their child’s educational journey, so a lot of times what we do as CASA when we’re appointed to a case is facilitate that engagement with a parent to preserve their involvement in the child’s education,” Gonzalez said.

    Most often, organizations like CASA encourage relatives to hold educational rights. This is because once a child welfare case is closed, CASA is no longer the rights holder. Advocating for the biological parents or other relatives to remain as educational rights holders helps provide continuity in the child’s life, according to Gonzalez.

    In the absence of parents or relatives, the educational rights holder role is often filled by a court-appointed special advocate, which is where CASA’s name comes from.

    The person assigned as the educational rights holder is entitled to have “all of the educational decision-making rights normally held by a parent or guardian,” according to a recent fact sheet compiled by the California Foster Youth Education Task Force.

    How are educational decisions made?

    All educational decisions should be made with the child’s best interest in mind.

    For example, a child can remain in their school of origin if they prefer to. But if they’ve been placed far from that school and they would need to spend hours on the road to reach it, then it may be in their best interest to be enrolled in a new school.

    The educational rights holder can request a best-interest determination meeting that would include school district personnel, such as the school psychologist, before finalizing any educational decisions.

    How can an educational rights holder avoid roadblocks in advocating for a child?

    While educational rights are outlined, the rights holder may experience roadblocks in enforcing them.

    For example, information about a child, like academic assessments and individualized education programs, might not have yet been finalized at their school of origin and a new educational rights holder might face pushback from the new school.

    In such cases, children, their families and educational rights holders can contact an education attorney through the Educational Advocacy Unit at the Children’s Law Center. If the child is also in the juvenile justice system, they can contact a juvenile resource attorney through the public defender’s office.

    A significant barrier is that while foster youth liaisons at schools are designated staff members who support students in the child welfare system, they are often overwhelmed by the number of students they serve.

    Gonzalez said, “It’s a lot of just constantly showing up to the school, advocating, contacting, emailing, you know, all of those follow-ups to make sure that we’re getting the right support for each child that we serve.”





    Source link

  • Fresno Unified teachers very likely to strike. Here are the issues

    Fresno Unified teachers very likely to strike. Here are the issues


    More than a thousand members of the Fresno Teachers Association rallied in late May and vowed to strike if the union and school district fail to agree to a contract by Sept. 29, 2023.

    Credit: Courtesy of Fresno Teachers Association

    The state’s third-largest school district, Fresno Unified, and its teachers union have tried since November to agree on a contract that invests in teachers.

    The Fresno Teachers Association says its proposals are classroom-centered ideas to improve public education, including bettering teachers’ working environment, adding academic and social-emotional student support and increasing pay and benefits.

    FTA President Manuel Bonilla said the school district hasn’t responded in a meaningful way, “really showing they have a lack of vision and honor the status quo.”

    Fresno Unified Superintendent Bob Nelson disagrees.

    “One of the things that’s frequently said is, ‘You have no vision,’” said Nelson, regarding FTA’s claims. “Our vision was to sit down and create a new way of bargaining, where we would work collaboratively on the things that really matter.”

    Amid the tug-of-war of negotiations and a looming strike, both sides insist that they want to collaborate but continue to accuse the other side of stalling and impeding progress. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking, and more than 70,000 students who are still dealing with learning loss from the pandemic will inevitably bear the brunt of the fallout.

    While a compromise may be attainable on some issues, others — notably class size caps, lifetime medical benefits after retirement and ways of supporting students outside of class — are still elusive.

    Perhaps pay is negotiable

    The union argues that to recruit and retain high-quality teachers, Fresno Unified — the Central Valley’s largest employer with a $2.3 billion budget — should set the standard for salary and benefits, starting with raising pay to keep pace with rising inflation and the cost of living.

    Bonilla said that the district has been “defunding teachers” for the past decade.

    He cited a union analysis showing that, despite increased funding and a rising number of teachers, the district has invested a smaller portion of the overall budget on teacher salaries over the years. Ten years ago, for instance, the district allocated 41% of its budget to teacher salaries compared with 27% in the most recent budget.

    The school district’s analysis of salary, inflation and cost-of-living paints a different picture.

    District spokesperson Nikki Henry said that the district’s analysis of its salary increases between 2013-14 and 2022-23 shows that all staff have received 32.7% increases. On top of that, teachers received step increases and longevity stipends, amounting to an additional 40%. The salary increases outpace inflation over the same period, which was 30%, according to the district’s analysis.

    The district estimates that the 11% raises it’s offering would put the average teacher salary at over six figures. Despite teachers being at different levels of the pay schedule, Fresno Unified said teachers earn an average of $90,650, in pay alone, for 185 work days, based on a $490 average daily rate — a number Bonilla said is inflated.

    Based on Fresno Unified’s pay schedule, salary currently ranges from $56,013 for new teachers to about $102,000 for teachers with loads of experience, not including those with professional development.

    The district has also agreed to fund medical costs at 100%, Nelson said. But that action stemmed from a health management board vote about the district health care fund, not from negotiations, Bonilla said.

    One-hundred-percent district-funded health care happened, in part, Bonilla said, because there was enough money in the district’s health care fund to do so. The health care fund has a surplus of money, estimated at $47 million this school year, according to a June 2023 document shared with EdSource. At this level, FTA argues, the health fund can cover the costs of its proposal to restart lifetime medical benefits for retirees.

    No agreement on lifetime benefits

    Nelson maintains that restarting lifetime benefits puts the district’s fiscal solvency in jeopardy.

    “I’m not going to make any decisions that I think would put the district in long-term fiscal danger,” he said.

    Fresno Unified ended the practice in 2005, but 300 or so employees, including Superintendent Nelson, had qualified for lifetime benefits before it ended.

    For the hundreds of current employees still eligible for lifetime benefits, Nelson said, estimated future costs total more than $1 billion. And, if lifetime benefits are restored or based on 2020 hire dates as proposed, the future costs will grow by hundreds of millions of dollars.

    “It creates a fiscal cliff … a world of unknowns, none of which you can financially plan for,” he said.

    Class size average vs. class size cap. Caps can lower class sizes, union says

    Though lifetime retiree benefits are the top issue that the district won’t agree to, it’s not the only one.

    Ninety-three percent of Fresno Unified’s 1,800 teachers who responded to an August and September 2022 union poll either strongly agreed or agreed that lowering class sizes would improve student learning.

    Fresno Unified acknowledges the importance of smaller classes but “draws the line” on capping class size as the union proposed, stating that it forces schools to move students out of a class, or even a school, if a class reaches its cap.

    “I can’t rationalize that in any fair way,” Nelson said. Henry added that such stringent measures would split families who attend their neighborhood school.

    District wants contract to address student underperformance

    Bonilla said that Fresno Unified insists on tying student performance to teacher evaluations, which “unfairly penalizes the teacher” for factors out of their control.

    “The teacher could potentially be negatively impacted by that without having the authority to say, ‘We need to change these working conditions,’” Bonilla said about a teacher’s inability to control class size or students’ adverse experiences.

    District officials say that using students’ outcomes in teachers’ evaluations is not meant to be punitive but to help educators grow.

    Based on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress, or CAASPP tests, most Fresno Unified students did not meet state standards in 2022: 67.76% failed to meet the English language arts standards, and 79.18% didn’t reach the math standards.

    The school board is pressuring the district to address students’ underperformance, Nelson said.

    “If kids are not thriving in a setting, for whatever reason, we have an obligation to go figure out why — and unapologetically,” Nelson said.

    Proposals for student support shouldn’t be in the contract, the district argues

    Also on the negotiation table are the union’s ideas for student support, which the district says go beyond teachers’ working conditions and don’t belong in the teacher contract.

    Bonilla said most of the ideas came straight from educators, who work with students directly and know the factors outside the classroom that are impacting students’ ability to learn.

    With clothing closets at nearly two dozen schools, Henry said, Fresno Unified already practices some of the common-good measures. While the staff at those schools started the ventures themselves, she said, the district will offer $10,000 startup costs for other schools wanting to start the initiative.

    Last school year, Fresno Unified also provided new washers and dryers at each of its middle schools, also spearheaded by teachers.

    Nelson questions some of the other student-support ideas proposed by the union, such as utilizing school parking lots to serve the homeless population. “It’s not our area of expertise,” he said, adding that the district is willing to partner with experts serving that population.

    “Is it the school system’s job to fix everything in regards to societal things? Absolutely not,” Bonilla said. Like other districts with 55% or more of students living in poverty, or are English learners, foster youth or homeless, Fresno Unified receives 65% more of its base funding.

    In fact, 87% of Fresno Unified students fall into at least one of those categories, so on top of the more than $650 million in basic educational costs, the district gets over $249 million for its targeted students, according to the district’s Local Control Accountability Plan executive summary.

    Bonilla said the ideas, such as the parking lot for homeless families to park their cars, are meant to start a conversation with district leaders.

    “There are ideas on how we might do it because nobody else is thinking about these things,” he said. “Instead of coming to the table and designing something with us, they’d rather scrutinize the idea and shut down the conversation. Our ideas are not the end all, be all; they are a starting point. And if they have a better idea, let’s do that. But they don’t even want to have a conversation.”

    Ideas or not, it’s a part of FTA’s last, best and final offer, Nelson and Henry said.

    Nelson said the union has not deviated much from that proposal, even in July and September mediations, which to Nelson is an indicator that the union hasn’t moved toward a shared vision for the school district.

    The union shared a similar sentiment about the district, saying that since contract negotiations started in November, Fresno Unified has focused on defending what it currently does in regard to pay and benefits, class size and student support.

    Awaiting fact-finding report, which both sides have preconceived notions about

    Negotiations have led to a May promise to strike, to both sides declaring impasse in July and to failed mediation attempts in July and during a Sept. 5-7 fact-finding.

    “I’m holding out some hope that the fact-finder’s report will get us to a different state,” Nelson said.

    In the fact-finding stage, FTA and Fresno Unified made presentations to a neutral third party, who will make a recommendation.

    “They don’t come into this process trying to improve school systems,” Bonilla said. “They come into this process trying to settle a contract.”

    The fact finder will most likely focus on salary and benefits, Bonilla said, not lowering class size, for example.

    “That should be the leadership’s position of working with teachers in order to figure out how to design those systems,” Bonilla said, adding that Nelson will most likely propose adopting the findings, as-is, like he did in 2017 when teachers voted to strike but averted it. The teachers union, Bonilla said, will not write a “blank check” from someone who doesn’t know teachers’ day-to-day reality.

    Despite the union attempting to “invalidate” the findings, as Henry described it, district leadership remains confident in the report, which is expected early next week.

    If the union and district still don’t agree on a contract 10 days after the fact-finding report, the district must release that report to the public, leaving them with the option to impose a contract and allowing the union to vote to strike.

    FTA had already imposed a Sept. 29 deadline for the school district to agree on a contract or face an Oct. 18 strike vote, which teachers may feel is the only route left to take.

    Is striking the only option left?

    Many teachers, according to Bonilla, do not feel supported and are disappointed by the district’s response — or lack thereof — to what the union considers solution-based methods.

    “We went through the avenues that one should go through,” Bonilla said, noting how more than 100 teachers attended eight school board meetings. “We communicated with board members. We communicated with the superintendent.

    “We’re here because Superintendent Nelson has failed to give vision (and) direction.”

    Nelson’s vision, he said, was to change how bargaining traditionally happened: to be able to sit down and collaborate without a third party mediator having to step in.

    Thinking long term, Nelson continues to believe that coming to — and staying at — the bargaining table is the best route for Fresno Unified.

    “There’s no scenario — even the scenario by which they take the strike vote and actually strike — where you don’t have to sit down and have a productive discussion,” Nelson said.

    If and when that conversation takes place, Bonilla said, the administration must listen to teachers.

    “In many ways, we’re fighting for the heart and soul of this school district,” he said. “This model that doesn’t give voice to those actually in the classroom needs to end if we really want to be a school district that meets the needs of our students.”





    Source link

  • Girls’ STEM skills slipped in California and the nation during Covid: What to do

    Girls’ STEM skills slipped in California and the nation during Covid: What to do


    Credit: Pexels

    For nearly 20 years, academic strategies, support and policies focused on closing long-standing achievement gaps in STEM between boys and girls. These efforts paid off, and by 2019, girls’ achievement in math and science equaled or exceeded boys’. Then the pandemic hit, and the gaps that took two decades to close were back.

    My colleagues and I at NWEA, an education assessment and research company, examined how the pandemic impacted achievement for boys and girls in math and science. We looked at scores from three large national assessments (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, the National Assessment of Educational Progress and NWEA’s MAP Growth). The data highlighted two main trends:

    • The achievement gap in math and science reemerged during the pandemic, once again favoring boys. However, an achievement gap did not resurface in reading, where girls continue to outperform boys.
    • Looking at high-achieving students, boys showed significantly higher scores across assessments than girls in both math and science. For low-achieving students, however, boys’ scores were lower than girls’.

    These trends are not limited to the U.S. Other English-speaking countries show similar gaps, pointing to a broader issue. A similar trend is seen more locally.  On the NAEP assessments, which provide California-specific data for eighth grade math, the results mirror the nation. In 2019, California boys and girls had an average math score that was not significantly different. By 2024, however, boys had an average score that was 6 points higher than girls’ in math.

    Our research also looked at enrollment by boys and girls in eighth grade algebra across 1,300 U.S. schools. Enrollment in this math course is often used as a predictor of future enrollment in higher-level math in high school, as well as a predictor of participation in college and career opportunities in STEM fields. In 2019, girls enrolled at higher levels than boys in eighth grade algebra (26% vs 24%). By 2022, enrollment had declined for both groups, with the drop-off for girls being slightly sharper than for boys. While the decline was experienced by both, enrollment for boys in algebra had bounced back to pre-pandemic levels by 2024.

    Taken together, the results of this research signal that the effects of the pandemic were not felt evenly by boys and girls. More significantly, this data does not provide the “why” for these setbacks and the reemergence of achievement gaps. One area to spotlight is the trend of girls reporting more emotional challenges, like depression and anxiety, during and after the pandemic that may have impacted their learning. Notably, the widening gender gap emerged after students returned to in-person school, pointing to factors in the school environment as potential contributors, like the reports of rising behavioral issues among boys, leading teachers to pay more attention to them in class.

    While many of the concerns in the last few years about gender differences in school have focused on the ways that boys are struggling more than girls, our research has illustrated an overlooked area where girls could use more support. As schools continue to focus on academic recovery and approaches that drive academic outcomes for all students, it’s crucial that those efforts are measured and evaluated effectively to ensure new inequities don’t arise or old ones don’t take permanent root. We have three primary recommendations to address these gaps:

    1. Monitoring participation in STEM milestones by boys and girls, over time, and not just within a single year to gain a better view of trends. For example, eighth grade algebra enrollment in 2024 appears to be balanced by gender, but it overlooks a critical trend that boys’ enrollment has returned to pre-pandemic levels while girls’ enrollment is still below 2019 levels. Analyzing longitudinal trends within each group is key to uncovering and addressing setbacks that may be hidden by a single-point-in-time snapshot.
    2. Providing specific academic and emotional support to students. Girls reported feeling more stress, anxiety and depression than boys, and noted it as an obstacle to their learning during the pandemic. Addressing both the academic needs and emotional needs of students may be critical in closing these emerging gaps in STEM skills.
    3. Evaluating classroom dynamics and instructional practices. If shifts in behavior and teacher attention during the pandemic disproportionately benefited boys in STEM subjects, understanding these shifts may help address the re-emerged achievement gap. Targeted professional learning that promotes equitable participation and inclusive teaching practices in STEM can help ensure all students have equal opportunities to succeed.

    As our schools continue to navigate this long path toward academic recovery, it’s important that those efforts don’t unintentionally grow existing inequities or create new ones. More and more evidence is emerging that the pandemic was not an equal opportunity hitter, and its disruptions affected students differently. For girls in math and science, moving forward will require renewed attention to addressing achievement gaps, targeted support and careful monitoring of progress. Reclosing STEM gaps will take time, but with the right focus, it is possible to not only recover, but to build a more equitable STEM education system that ensures both boys and girls have immense opportunities to succeed.

    •••

    Megan Kuhfeld is the director of growth modeling and analytics for NWEA, a division of the adaptive learning company HMH, which supports students and educators in more than 146 countries through research, assessment solutions, policy and advocacy, and professional learning. 

    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.





    Source link

  • Don’t count on the ‘science of math’ for your answers; it doesn’t exist yet

    Don’t count on the ‘science of math’ for your answers; it doesn’t exist yet


    Credit: Allison Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for American Education

    For folks in the literacy world, the bitter fight over California’s math framework sounded eerily familiar. On one side, proponents of the framework argued that students need to learn to love math, see themselves as math people and grapple with math concepts. On the other, traditionalists argued that the framework spends too much time on unproven, poorly researched ideas that fail to equip students with the foundational knowledge they need to learn more complex math.

    For good measure, there’s even a popular Stanford professor, Jo Boaler, who’s been tagged as the Lucy Calkins of math and whose research has become a lightning rod for criticism from math researchers and educators nationally. Sounds just like the reading wars and the fight between balanced literacy and phonics, doesn’t it?

    For those talking about the new “math wars” and calling for a “science of math,” that’s where the similarities end. Yes, there are serious differences between the two sides of the California framework debate on how to teach math in the elementary grades, when students should take algebra and the importance of calculus. But unlike reading, these pedagogical differences are far from being resolved.

    That’s because the “science of reading” didn’t happen overnight. It was a multidecade movement engaging every sector of our education system including research, media, advocacy, state and local policy and business to tackle an issue — early literacy — that was broadly understood by the public.

    One could argue that the math crisis is far more severe with overall results far behind English and enormous achievement gaps. It is also just as consequential for students, given the connection between early math proficiency and access to higher-level math coursework, post-secondary education and technical careers. To get the attention that math deserves, advocates should learn from the multiyear, multifaceted strategy that’s driven the science of reading movement.

    The first step is articulating how poor math instruction affects a child’s life and harms the most vulnerable students, especially students with dyscalculia, a condition that makes it hard to do math. For years, reading advocates have hammered away at the connection between third grade reading results and the school-to-prison pipeline. Meanwhile, dyslexia advocates showed how poor reading instruction harmed children with reading difficulties. Their efforts expanded public consciousness and led to massive philanthropic and government investments in reading research.

    For years, ways to teach reading with names like “explicit direct instruction,” “whole language and “balanced literacy” fought it out, creating dissension and confusion down to the classroom level. Over the last decade, stunning advances in neuroscience have resolved most of these conflicts. We now know that learning to read is a complex neurological process marked by explicit sequential stages of learning and interlocking skill development. Approaches like early phonics instruction work for the bulk of students, especially kids with reading difficulties like dyslexia while other popular methods like whole language don’t.

    Unfortunately, when it comes to research, math is where reading was 20 years ago, with a similarly animating set of conflicts like the recent California Framework fight pitting “problem-based learning” against procedural knowledge such as memorizing multiplication tables. As we did with reading, we should heavily invest in the neuroscience research that can definitively answer what works in the classroom and what doesn’t.

    Simultaneously, we should build the understanding and the will of state and local policymakers and community leaders about the math crisis, its implications for students and the importance of investing in high-quality math instruction from the earliest grades. This means that school districts shouldn’t wait two years for the state to publish a list of approved materials. Most math curricula in California classrooms are low quality and almost 10 years old. Districts should use the flexibility provided by state law to purchase a new highly rated math curriculum and provide ongoing professional learning and coaching for teachers, especially elementary teachers who are often math averse.

    As we improve our knowledge of the neuroscience of math, state and local leaders shouldn’t sit on their hands. They should build capacity in state and local agencies by creating math departments that rival the size and influence of their literacy departments, hiring senior math administrators and building a cadre of math coaches so that best practices are quickly disseminated to districts and schools. Using current research, they should regularly revisit their math standards to establish a balance between procedural knowledge and problem-based learning. They should adopt the most vigorous quality metrics for math curriculum and intervention materials and require they are up to date, eliminating lags longer than three years between online updates and district adoptions.

    It may be a few years before we have a “science of math” as impactful as the “science of reading.” But with the right focus, research, investments and infrastructure, California can get there with just as many lifelong benefits for our students.

    •••

    Arun Ramanathan is the former CEO of Pivot Learning and the Education Trust—West. 

    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.





    Source link

  • Advocates for English learners and the ‘science of reading’ sign on to joint statement

    Advocates for English learners and the ‘science of reading’ sign on to joint statement


    Two students in a combined second- and third-grade class read together.

    Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education

    English learners need foundational skills like phonics and vocabulary in addition to instruction in speaking and understanding English and connections to their home languages.

    Those are two agreements laid out in a new joint statement Tuesday authored by two organizations, one that advocates for English learners and the other for the “science of reading.” The organizations, the National Committee for Effective Literacy and The Reading League, had previously appeared to have deep differences about how to teach reading.

    The authors hope that the statement dispels the idea that English learners do not need to be taught foundational skills, while also pushing policymakers and curriculum publishers to fully incorporate English learners’ needs.

    “I hope we stop hearing so much about the science of reading being bad for English learners and emergent bilinguals. And I hope that it helps move those who are working to build the knowledge in the science of reading to think of English learners or emergent bilinguals in Chapter 1 rather than Chapter 34,” said Kari Kurto, national science of reading project director at The Reading League.

    “We came together with a common goal: to develop proficient readers and writers in English and, we hope, in other languages,” said Martha Hernandez, executive director of Californians Together, which advocates for English learners in California, and a member of the National Committee for Effective Literacy. “I think we both kind of learned that we had more in common than we didn’t.”

    Several contributors said they hope the statement could help California move past roadblocks to adopt a comprehensive literacy plan to ensure that all children can read by third grade, including important skills for students learning English as a second language.

    “We can stop arguing about whether foundational skills are important. We can stop arguing about whether we value bilingualism in and of itself. We can stop bickering and identify what are the challenges out in the field to make these things happen,” said Claude Goldenberg, professor of education emeritus at Stanford University.

    Only 42% of California’s third graders can read and write at grade level, according to the state’s latest Smarter Balanced test. The state has faced increased pressure to adopt a plan with a clear focus on reading skills known as “foundational” — phonics (connecting letters to sounds), phonemic awareness (identifying distinct units of sound), fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.

    Advocates for English learners had raised concerns that an increased focus on phonics might exclude other critical skills, such as learning to understand and speak the language and connections between English and other languages.





    Source link

  • Lessons from the 1978 teachers strike in Fresno: Bonds, trust will suffer

    Lessons from the 1978 teachers strike in Fresno: Bonds, trust will suffer


    Credit: Thomas Galvez/Flickr

    Nearly 45 years ago, in the fall of 1978, teachers across Fresno Unified stood at the gates of their schools, rather than in front of dozens of students in the classroom. They’d made a decision to participate in what is still the district’s only strike in history.

    Students were no longer with the teachers they’d grown to know. They had to contend with substitute teachers or administrators who gave them packets of work in combined classrooms or in the cafeteria.

    As the two-week-long strike continued, some teachers returned to their classrooms, while others, with signs in hand, remained on strike to demand better working conditions.

    “At many schools, it was very traumatic, especially for the younger ones,” retired teacher Barbara Mendes said. Mendes, 84, was the teachers union representative at Lane Elementary and had been teaching for about three years when she and others went on strike in 1978.

    Each day, Mendes and other Lane Elementary teachers, standing at the school’s perimeter, greeted students in the mornings as they entered school and again in the afternoon as they left.

    “Just to smile,” Mendes said. “Just a smile at the students, so they’d know we were OK and that they’d be OK.”

    That smile, a “hey” or a handshake were subtle ways to mitigate the effects of the strike, which was meant to put pressure on the district but affected students as well.

    Fast forward 40 plus years: Thousands of teachers in the over 70,000-student school district must, once again, choose whether to walk away from their students in a standoff with the district, which must decide if not compromising with teachers on contested issues is what is best for Fresno Unified students.

    Both sides must take steps to bridge a widening communication gap before a heated strike makes matters worse, as it did in 1978.

    While the 1978 strike eventually led to better communication between the district and union — a victory, it also damaged relationships among teachers and shattered whatever trust existed between teachers and administrators.

    40 years later, teachers are fighting for the same issue

    Collective bargaining for teachers in California started in the mid-to-late 1970s, and the 1978 contract that resulted from the strike was the first-ever negotiated agreement between Fresno Unified and its teachers union, according to Nancy Richardson, 78, who was first elected to the school board in 1975. Other employee unions, Richardson said, closely monitored contract negotiations and strike actions with plans to come to the district for “me too” clauses on pay and benefits.

    Back then, the school district had also just desegregated staff and schools, Richardson said, so tensions were already high.

    However, class size was the driving force for the 1978 strike, something current teachers know too well.

    “We just wanted our class size lowered,” Mendes said, whose husband was also a teacher. She can’t recall the exact language of the union’s proposal for reducing class size but said that “anything would’ve been better” than what many teachers had to endure each day.

    “My husband had so many children in his high school classroom, he had some of them sitting on the vents that ran along the window,” she said. “He didn’t have enough desks.”

    Now, in 2023, the teachers union wants class sizes capped, in addition to a change in contract language offering parents the choice of moving their children to smaller classes before the cap is exceeded or giving teachers an increased stipend.

    Strike was ‘devastating’ for staff

    The 1978 strike lasted between eight and 10 days. To this day, people’s recollection of the strike differs because some educators crossed the picket line.

    Some teachers can’t afford to go without the pay, Superintendent Bob Nelson said.

    “They have to make very hard decisions about what they intend to do,” he said. “That puts teachers at odds with one another.”

    It was difficult for Mendes and her husband, who started working in the district office later in his career and who joined the strike, to go 10 days without a salary, and just as hard to watch their colleagues return to work because they had no choice.

    “It was hard on them,” Mendes said. “They had bills to pay. They went back for monetary reasons, not because they changed their minds about the reasons for the strike.”

    Those who returned to their class before the strike ended were often chastised by others for that decision, Mendes and Richardson recall. So during and after the 1978 strike, Mendes worked to mend relationships. While she views her reconciliation efforts at her elementary school as somewhat successful, she admitted that many relationships elsewhere never recovered.

    “There are teachers, to this day, who won’t speak to each other because one struck and the other one didn’t,” Mendes said.

    Richardson summed up the lifelong impact of the strike experience in one word: devastating.

    “Nobody gets out without damage,” she said. “There wasn’t anybody who wasn’t scarred.”

    And that went for administrators too.

    Principals, responsible for keeping schools running, were left with angry teachers divided by the strike, she said.

    As school board president, Richardson was the face of the board, and she was bombarded with angry calls about class size, pay and benefits, and even threatening messages.

    The teachers union at the time posted the school board members’ phone numbers. Messages, such as, “You’re going to pay for this,” made Richardson fear for her children’s safety.

    She graphically detailed how members of the union held a candlelight vigil outside her home and walked up and down her street, frightening her fifth-grade daughter. Richardson’s daughter has distinct memories of that moment, but not any of the reasons behind the strike.

    “Things happened that people never forget,” she said.

    This year’s collapsed negotiations may lead to district’s second strike

    Even though the last teachers strike was 45 years ago, the school district and teachers union have been on the brink a few times. In 2017, teachers voted to strike, but a third party stepped in and negotiated a compromise.

    This time is very different from 2017, both Fresno Unified and the Fresno Teachers Association say.

    Manuel Bonilla, union president since July 2018 and a member of its bargaining team before that, said a strike seems more “urgent and real” to address what has become teachers’ daily work: meeting students’ social-emotional needs.

    “I think people are more upset now by the ignoring of the issues — of the disconnect of the reality of what people are going through,” Bonilla said.

    In a way, teachers shouldered the school system’s burden by going above and beyond their duties during and following the pandemic, he said, but now, teachers feel “undervalued.”

    Superintendent Nelson attributes the differences between now and 2017 to Sacramento City, Los Angeles and Oakland school districts pursuing strikes in line with what he considers a California Teachers Association playbook that unions are following.

    “It feels like what has happened in other school districts up and down the state,” he said.

    In 2017, when teachers voted to strike, teachers hadn’t worked under a contract in 18 months, according to Nelson, who’s been superintendent since 2017. This year, teachers are just over three months out of the previous contract, and teachers are even closer to a strike, he said.

    “We’re just in a different place now (from 2017),” Nelson said.

    The school district and teachers union have declared an impasse in negotiations and failed to reach an agreement despite multiple mediation attempts. In late May, upon giving its last offer, the Fresno Teachers Association imposed a Sept. 29 deadline for the school district to agree on a contract or face an Oct. 18 strike vote.

    The district and union did not meet that deadline.

    Mending relationships, rebuilding trust becomes more challenging if strike happens

    At this point, weeks ahead of a possible strike, scant trust exists between FUSD administration and teachers. This has likely worsened over time, Richardson said.

    “I’m sure they (board members and district leaders) know how extremely problematic it is to get to this point — or go further — because of the erosion of trust,” she said. “And I’m sure they know that whenever there is a strike, anywhere, building back trust takes so long and is so difficult.”

    Mendes, the retired teacher, believes the only way for the district and union to avoid a strike is for the district to “really listen” to teachers and for there to be better communication between them.

    “Listen to what their problems are,” she said over and over. “Don’t tell them what they should be thinking. Just listen to what the teachers are complaining about and promise to do something about it.”

    If it takes a strike for that communication to happen, rebuilding trust becomes an even greater challenge.

    The 1978 strike might’ve lasted longer than it had, if not for communication.

    Richardson, according to Mendes, visited various schools to talk to striking educators.

    “Seeing us on the picket line broke her (Richardson’s) heart,” Mendes said.

    Eventually, Richardson, union leaders and the superintendent met to discuss ways to end the strike.

    “We did that sitting down together,” Richardson said.

    She urges teachers and administrators to consider what could be lost if teachers strike.

    “Think about how it’s going to go afterwards,” she said, “and focus on the kindness and respect it will take for people to work together successfully afterwards.”

    But is a strike worth it?

    The teachers’ strike in 1978 didn’t quite lead to lower class size, Mendes said, but teachers had an impact.

    “I think that it was important to let the teachers know that they could do something that would make an impact, as hard as it was on everybody,” she said.

    Still, four decades later, Mendes isn’t sure if that impact outweighed the trauma and broken relationships.

    “Every strike is questionable,” she said. It was rewarding for those who took part, she said, and it opened lines of communication.

    Even so, was the strike worth it?

    “I don’t know; I really am not sure,” Mendes said. “But it does get the attention (of the school district).”





    Source link

  • We need all hands on deck to ensure students get the financial aid they need for college

    We need all hands on deck to ensure students get the financial aid they need for college


    Parent Raul Zuniga and his daughter Sandy, a senior at La Habra High in Orange County, receive help with financial aid forms from counselor Rosa Sanchez at a “Cash for College” workshop.

    FERMIN LEAL/EDSOURCE TODAY

    California is better off when more people have education and training to power our economy and support thriving communities. Financial aid that reduces or fully covers the cost of college or job training is an investment that benefits all of us.

    About $550 million in federal and state aid goes unused annually when thousands of eligible California students miss out on financial aid. Many are unaware of financial aid, don’t know how to apply or if they qualify, or fear sharing personal information because of their immigration status.

    A new law is helping to ensure that financial aid is not left on the table. Schools must help all high school seniors complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or California Dream Act Application unless the student formally opts out. Students submit one of these applications, depending on their residential status, to access the grants, scholarships, work-study opportunities, student loans and other forms of aid available to help finance postsecondary education or training.

    Providing support for all students as they complete financial aid applications is an equity-driven game changer. This policy encourages students to plan for and attend college or job training programs and ensures that all students and families can make informed plans and decisions about their life after high school.

    Achieving universal participation in this student-centered systemic approach to financial aid requires planning and collaboration among K-12 school leaders, counselors, educators, student groups and community organizations. California’s All in for FAFSA/CA Dream Act campaign supports K-12 education partners as they work to achieve universal FAFSA/CADAA completion. Local progress can be tracked on the state’s Race to Submit dashboard. The data can help target assistance for students who may need extra support and encouragement to complete and submit a financial aid application. It also helps us to identify, learn from and share best practices with schools and districts across the state.

    Since universal participation was required, the number of California students applying for financial aid increased significantly. More than 60% of California’s high school seniors submitted financial aid applications by March 2, the deadline for students planning to attend a four-year college. By Sept. 5, the deadline for students heading to community college, the total FAFSA or CADAA completion rate for the class of 2023 climbed to nearly 75%. More than 24,000 financial aid applications were completed this year compared with the same time a year ago.

    The progress achieved with California’s universal financial aid requirement is due to the hard work of K-12 district leaders, high school principals, counselors and teachers, California Student Opportunity and Access Program counselors, Cash for College workshop coordinators, community-based organizations, and students and their families. They went all in to help more high school students than ever complete financial aid applications.

    In a few months, the U.S. Department of Education will release a revised federal aid application called the Better FAFSA. The good news is that the redesigned application will be easier to complete. The bad news is that the Better FAFSA application window will open two months later than in a typical year. This compressed timeline could most disadvantage students and families who need greater support to complete the aid application — and who have the most to gain from filling out the form.

    We will need all hands on deck at the state, district and high school levels to keep making progress and ensure that students don’t lose ground in this inaugural year of the Better FAFSA. The California Student Aid Commission will continue to support K-12 districts and high schools as they work to meet the universal FAFSA or CADAA requirement. We have confidence that with planning, collaboration with partners, clear communication and purpose, California can ensure that all high school seniors complete the FAFSA or CADAA, and California’s vision of increasing access to higher education for all students will become a reality.

    •••

    Catalina Cifuentes is chair and Marlene Garcia is executive director of the California Student Aid Commission.

    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.





    Source link