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  • Is There a Collaborative Middle Ground Between Mergers and Consortia for the Sustainability of Small Independent Institutions?

    Is There a Collaborative Middle Ground Between Mergers and Consortia for the Sustainability of Small Independent Institutions?


    July 28, 2025, by Dr. Chet Haskell: The headlines are full of uncertainty for American higher education. “Crisis” is a common descriptor. Federal investigations of major institutions are underway. Severe cuts to university research funding have been announced. The elimination of the Department of Education is moving ahead. Revisions to accreditation processes are being floated. Reductions in student support for educational grants and loans are now law. International students are being restricted.

    These uncertainties and pressures affect all higher education, not just targeted elite institutions. In particular, they are likely to exacerbate the fragility of smaller, independent non-profit institutions already under enormous stress. Such institutions, some well-known, others known only locally, will be hard hit particularly hard by the combination of Trump Administration pressures and the developing national demographic decline for traditional-age students.(https://www.highereddive.com/news/decline-high-school-graduates-demographic-cliff-wiche-charts/738281/) These small colleges have been a key element of the American higher education scene, as well as for numerous local communities, for many decades.

    It is widely understood that the vibrancy of American higher education comes, in part, from the diversity of its institutions and educational goals. The rich mixture of American colleges and universities is a strength that many other nations lack. Students have opportunities to start and stop their educations, to change directions and academic goals, to move among different types of institutions.

    Smaller undergraduate colleges play important roles in this non-systemic system. They provide focused educational opportunities for younger adults, where they can build their lives on broad principles. Impressively large percentages of small college graduates go on to graduate education for various professions. Small colleges provide large numbers of graduates who enter PhD programs and eventually enter the professorate.

    There are approximately 1179 accredited private institutions with enrollments of fewer than 3000 students. Of these, 185 have between 3000 and 2000 students. Another 329 have enrollments below 2000 but above 1000. A final 650 institutions have enrollments below 1000. These 1179 institutions students include few wealthy colleges such as Williams, Amherst, Carleton or Pomona, as well as numerous struggling, relatively unknowns.

    A basic problem is one of scale. In the absence of significant endowments or other external support, it is very difficult to manage small institutions in a cost effective manner. Institutions with enrollments below 1000 are particularly challenged in this regard. The fundamental economics of small institutions are always challenging, as most are almost completely dependent on student enrollments, a situation getting worse with the coming decline of traditional college age students. There are limited options available to offset this decline. Renewed attention to student retention is one. Another is adding limited graduate programs. However, both take investment, appropriate faculty and staff capacity and time, all of which are often scarce.

    These institutions have small endowments measured either in total or per student value. Of the 1179. There are only 80 with total endowments in excess of $200 million. While a handful have per student endowments that rival the largest private universities, (Williams, Amherst and Pomona all have per student endowments in excess of $1.8 million), the vast majority have per student endowments in the $40,000 range and many far less.

    Most of these schools have high tuition discount rates, often over 50%, so their net tuition revenue is a fraction of posted expense.  They are all limited by size – economies of scale are difficult to achieve. And most operate in highly competitive markets, where the competition is not only other small schools, but also a range of public institutions.

    So, what is the underendowed, under resourced small college to do?

    The most common initiatives designed to address these sorts of challenges are consortia, collaborative arrangements among institutions designed to increase student options and to share expenses. There are numerous such arrangements, examples being the Colleges of the Fenway in Boston, the Five Colleges of Western Massachusetts, the Washington DC Metropolitan Area Consortium, and the Claremont Colleges in California, among others.

    The particulars of each of these groups differ, but there are commonalities. Most are geographically oriented, seeking to take advantage from being near each other. Typically, these groups want to provide more opportunities for students through allowing cross-registrations, sharing certain academic programs or joint student activities. They usually have arrangements for cost-sharing or cost reductions through shared services  for costs like security services, IT, HR, risk management options, pooled purchasing and the like. In other cases (like the Claremont Consortium) they may share libraries or student athletic facilities. Done well, these arrangements can indeed reduce costs while also attracting potential students through wider access to academic options.

    However, it is unlikely that such initiatives, no matter how successful, can fundamentally change the basic financial situation of an independent small college. Such shared services savings are necessary and useful, but usually not sufficient to offset the basic enrollment challenge. The financial impact of most consortia is at the margins.

    Furthermore, participating institutions have to be on a solid enough financial basis to take part in the first place. Indeed, a consortium like Claremont is based on financial strength. Two of the members have endowments in excess of $1.2 billion (Pomona’s is $2.8 billion.) The endowments of the others range from a low of $67 million (Keck Graduate with 617 students) to Scripps with $460 million for 1100 students.) The Consortium is of clear value to its members, but none of these institutions is on the brink of failure. Rather, all have strong reputations, a fact that provides another important enrollment advantage.

    One important factor in these consortia arrangements is that the participating institutions do not have to give up their independence or modify their missions. Their finances, alumni and accreditation are separate.  And while the nature of the arrangement indicates certain levels of compromise and collaboration, their governance remains basically unchanged with independent fiduciary boards.

    At the other end of the spectrum are two radically different situations. One is merging with or being acquired by another institution. Prep Scholar counts 33 such events since 2015. (https://blog.prepscholar.com/permanently-closed-colleges-list). Lacking the resources for financial sustainability, many colleges have had no choice but to take such steps.

    Merging or being acquired by a financially stronger institution has many advantages. Faculty and staff jobs may be protected. Students can continue with their studies. The institution being acquired may be able to provide continuity in some fashion within the care of the new owner. Endowed funds may continue. The institution’s name may continue as part of an “institute” or “center” within the new owner’s structure. Alumni records can be maintained. Real estate can be transferred. Debts may be paid off and so forth. There are multiple examples of the acquiring institution doing everything possible along these lines.

    But some things end. Independent governance and accreditation cease as those functions are subsumed by the acquiring institution. Administrative and admissions staffs are integrated and some programs, people and activities are shed. Operational leadership changes. And over time, what was once a beloved independent institution may well fade away.

    The second situation is, bluntly, oblivion. While there are cases of loyal alumni trying to keep an institution alive with new funding, the landscape is replete with institutions that have failed to be financially sustainable.https://www.insidehighered.com/news/governance/executive-leadership/2025/03/27/how-sweet-briar-college-defied-odds-closure. At least 170 smaller institutions have closed in the past two decades. Significantly, it looks like the rate of closure is increasing, in part because of pressures experienced during the pandemic and in part because of continuing enrollment declines.(https://www.highereddive.com/news/how-many-colleges-and-universities-have-closed-since-2016/539379/)

    The end of a college is a very sad thing for all involved and, indeed, for society in general. Often a college is an anchor institution in a small community and the loss is felt widely. The closure of a college is akin to the closure of a local factory. As Dean Hoke and others have noted, this is a particular problem for rural communities.

    Are there other possible avenues, something between a consortium and a merger or outright closure?

    One relatively new model has been organized by two quite different independent institutions, Otterbein University and Antioch University, that came together in 2022 to create the Coalition for the Common Good. Designed to be more than a simple bilateral partnership, the vision of the Coalition is eventually to include several institutions in different locations linked by a common mission and the capacity to grow collective enrollments.

    At its core, the Coalition is based on academic symbiosis. Otterbein is a good example of the high-quality traditional undergraduate residential liberal arts institution. It has been well-run and has modest financial resources. Facing the demographic challenges noted earlier (in a state like Ohio that boasts dozens of such institutions), it developed a set of well-regarded graduate programs, notably in nursing and health-related fields, along with locally based teacher education programs and an MBA. However, despite modest success, they faced the limitations of adult programs largely offered in an on-campus model. Regardless of quality, they lacked the capacity to expand such programs beyond Central Ohio.

    Antioch University, originally based in Ohio, had evolved over the past 40 years into a more national institution with locations in California, Washington State and New Hampshire offering a set of graduate professional programs to older adults mostly through distance modalities in hybrid or low-residency forms. Antioch, however, was hampered by limited resources including a very small endowment. It had demonstrated the capacity to offer new programs in different areas and fields but lacked the funds necessary for investment to do so.

    Within the Coalition, the fundamental arrangement is for Antioch to take over Otterbein’s graduate programs and, with Otterbein financial support, to expand them in other parts of the country. The goal is significant aggregate enrollment growth and sharing of new revenues. While they plan a shared services operation to improve efficiencies and organizational effectiveness, their primary objective is growth. Antioch seeks to build on Otterbein’s successes, particularly with nursing programs. It already has considerable experience in managing academic programs at a distance, a fact that will be central as it develops the Otterbein nursing and health care programs in a new Antioch Graduate School of Nursing and Health Professions.

    It is assumed that additional new members of the Coalition will resemble Otterbein in form, thus further increasing opportunities for growth through enhanced reach and greater scale. New members in other geographic locations will provide additional opportunities for expansion. One early success of the Coalition has been the capacity to offer existing Antioch programs in Central Ohio, including joint partnerships with local organizations, health care and educational systems. Crucially, both institutions remain separately accredited with separate governance and leadership under a Coalition joint  “umbrella” structure.

    This is not to assert that this model would work for many other institutions. First, many schools with limited graduate programs will be reluctant to “give up” some or all these programs to another partner in the same fashion as Otterbein has with Antioch. Others may not fit geographically, being too remote for expansion of existing programs. Still others may not wish to join a group with an avowed social justice mission.  Finally, as with some consortia, the Coalition arrangement assumes a certain degree of institutional financial stability – it cannot work for institutions on the brink of financial disaster, lest the weakest institution drag down the others.

    Are there other organizational variants that are more integrated than consortia, but allow the retention of their independence in ways impossible in a merger or acquisition model? What can be learned from the Coalition initiative that might help others? How might such middle-ground collaboration models be encouraged and supported?

    How can philanthropy help?

    This is an opportunity for the segments of the philanthropic world to consider possible new initiatives to support the small college elements of the education sector. While there will always be efforts to gain foundation support for individual colleges, there will never be enough money to buttress even a small portion of deserving institutions that face the financial troubles discussed above

    Philanthropy should take a sectoral perspective. One key goal should be to find ways to support  smaller institutions in general. Instead of focusing on gifts to particular institutions, those interested in supporting higher education should look at the multiple opportunities for forms of collaborative or collective action. Central to this effort should be exploration of ways of supporting diverse collaborative initiatives. One example would be to provide sufficient backing to a struggling HBCU or women’s college to enable it to be sufficiently stable to participate in a multi-institutional partnership.

    As noted, institutional consortia are well established as one avenue for such collaboration. Consortia have existed for many years. There are consortia-based associations that encourage and support consortia efforts. However, every consortium is unique in its own ways, as participating institutions have crafted a specific initiative of a general model to meet their particular situations and need. Consortia can be important structures for many institutions and should be encouraged.

    But there is a large middle ground between consortia arrangements and mergers and acquisitions. The Coalition for the Common Good is but one such arrangement and it is still in its early stages. What has been learned from the experience thus far that might be of use to other institutions and groups? How might this middle ground be explored further for the benefit of other institutions?

    One thing learned from the Coalition is the complexity of developing a new model for collective action.  Antioch and Otterbein separately pursued individual explorations of options for two or more years before determining that their partnership together should move forward. It then took a full year to get to the point of announcing their plans and another year to complete negotiations and sign completed legal documents and to obtain the necessary accreditor, regulator and Department of Education approvals. The actual implementation of their plans is still in a relatively early stage. In short, it takes time.

    It also takes tremendous effort by leadership on both sides, as they must work closely together while continuing to address the daily challenges of their separate institutions. Everyone ends up with at least two major jobs. Communication is vital. Boards must continue to be supportive. The engagement of faculty and staff takes time and can be costly.

    What is often referred to as “fit” – the melding of cultures and attitudes at both the institutional and individual levels – is essential. People must be able to work together for shared goals. The burdens of accreditation, while necessary, are time-consuming and multifaceted. There are many things that can go wrong. Indeed, there are examples of planned and announced mergers or collaborations that fall apart before completion.

    Philanthropic institutions could support this work in numerous ways, first for specific initiatives and then for the sector, by providing funding and expertise to facilitate new forms of coalitions. These could include:

    • Providing financial support for the collaborative entity. While participating institutions eventually share the costs of creating the new arrangement, modest dedicated support funding could be immensely useful for mitigating the impact of legal expenses, due diligence requirements, initial management of shared efforts and expanded websites.
    • Providing support for expert advice. The leaders of two institutions seeking partnership need objective counsel on matters financial, legal, organizational, accreditation and more. Provision of expertise for distance education models is often a high priority, since many small colleges have limited experience with these.
    • Funding research. There are multiple opportunities for research and its dissemination. What works? What does not? How can lessons learned by disseminated?
    • Supporting communication through publications, workshops, conferences and other venues.
    • Developing training workshops for boards, leadership, staff and faculty in institutions considering collaborations.
    • Crafting a series of institutional incentives through seed grant awards to provide support for institutions just beginning to consider these options.
    • These types of initiatives might be separate, or they might be clustered into a national center to support and promote collaboration.

    These and other ideas could be most helpful to many institutions exploring collaboration. Above all, it is important to undertake such explorations before it is too late, before the financial situation becomes so dire that there are few, if any, choices.

    Conclusions

    This middle ground is not a panacea. The harsh reality is that not all institutions can be saved. It takes a certain degree of stability and a sufficient financial base to even consider consortia or middle ground arrangements like the Coalition for the Common Good. Merging with or being acquired by stronger institutions is not a worst-case scenario – there are often plenty of reasons, not just financial, that this form of change makes great sense for a smaller, weaker institution.

    It is also important for almost all institutions, even those with significant endowment resources, to be thinking about possible options. The stronger the institution, the stronger the resistance to such perspectives is likely to be. There are examples of wealthy undergraduate institutions with $1 billion endowments that are losing significant sums annually in their operating budgets. Such endowments often act like a giant pillow, absorbing the institutional challenges and preventing boards and leaders from facing difficult decisions until it may be too late. Every board should be considering possible future options.

    In the face of likely government rollbacks of support, the ongoing demographic challenges for smaller institutions and the general uncertainties in some circle about the importance of higher education itself, independent private higher education must be more creative and assertive about its future. Also, it is essential to remember that the existential financial challenges facing these institutions predate the current Presidential Administration and certainly will remain once it has passed into history.

    Just trying to compete more effectively for enrollments will not be sufficient. Neither will simply reducing expense budgets. New collaborative models are needed. Consortia have roles to play. The example of the Coalition for the Common Good may show new directions forward. Anyone who supports the diversity of American higher education institutions should work to find new ways of assuring financial stability while adhering to academic principles and core missions.

    Chet Haskell is an independent higher education consultant. Most recently, he was Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and University Provost at Antioch University and Vice President for Graduate Programs of the Coalition for the Common Good.



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  • Paul L. Thomas: There Is No Reading “Crisis!

    Paul L. Thomas: There Is No Reading “Crisis!


    Paul L. Thomas was a high school teacher in South Carolina for nearly twenty years, then became an English professor at Furman University, a small liberal arts college in South Carolina. He is a clear thinker and a straight talker.

    He wrote this article for The Washington Post. He tackles one of my pet peeves: the misuse and abuse of NAEP proficiency levels. Politicians and pundits like to use NAEP “proficiency” to mean”grade level.” There is always a “crisis” because most students do not score “proficient.” Of course not! NAEP proficient is not grade level! NAEP publications warn readers not to make that error. NAEP proficient is equivalent to an A. If most students were rated that high, the media would complain that the tests were too easy. NAEP Basic is akin to grade level.

    He writes:

    After her controversial appointment, U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon posted this apparently uncontroversial claim on social media: “When 70% of 8th graders in the U.S. can’t read proficiently, it’s not the students who are failing — it’s the education system that’s failing them.”

    Americans are used to hearing about the nation’s reading crisis. In 2018, journalist Emily Hanford popularized the current “crisis” in her article “Hard Words,” writing, “More than 60 percent of American fourth-graders are not proficient readers, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and it’s been that way since testing began in the 1990s.”

    Five years later, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof repeated that statistic: “One of the most bearish statistics for the future of the United States is this: Two-thirds of fourth graders in the United States are not proficient in reading.”

    Each of these statements about student reading achievement, though probably well-meaning, is misleading if not outright false. There is no reading crisis in the U.S. But there are major discrepancies between how the federal government and states define reading proficiency.

    At the center of this confusion is the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a congressionally mandated assessment of student performance known also as the “nation’s report card.” The NAEP has three achievement levels: “basic,” “proficient” and “advanced.”

    The disconnect lies with the second benchmark, “proficient.” According to the NAEP, students performing “at or above the NAEP Proficient level … demonstrate solid academic performance and competency over challenging subject matter.” But this statement includes a significant clarification: “The NAEP Proficient achievement level does not represent grade level proficiency as determined by other assessment standards (e.g., state or district assessments).”

    In almost every state, “grade level” proficiency on state testing correlates with the NAEP’s “basic” level; in 2022, 45 states set their standard for reading proficiency in the NAEP’s “basic” range. Therefore, it is inaccurate to say that nearly two-thirds of fourth-graders are not capable readers.

    The NAEP has been a key mechanism for holding states accountable for student achievement for over 30 years. Yet, educators have expressed doubt over the assessment’s utility. In 2004, an analysis by the American Federation of Teachers raised concerns about the NAEP’s achievement levels: “The proficient level on NAEP for grade 4 and 8 reading is set at almost the 70th percentile,” the union wrote. “It would not be unreasonable to think that the proficiency levels on NAEP represent a standard of achievement that is more commonly associated with fairly advanced students.”

    The NAEP has set unrealistic goals for student achievement, fueling alarm about a reading crisis in the United States that is overblown. The common misreading of NAEP data has allowed the country to ignore what is urgent: addressing the opportunity gap that negatively impacts Black and Brown students, impoverished students, multilingual learners, and students with disabilities.

    To redirect our focus to these vulnerable populations, the departments of education at both the federal and state levels should adopt a unified set of achievement terms among the NAEP and state-level testing. For over three decades, one-third of students have been below NAEP “basic” — a figure that is concerning but does not constitute a widespread reading crisis. The government’s challenge will be to provide clearer data — instead of hyperbolic rhetoric — to determine a reasonable threshold for grade-level proficiency.

    What’s more, federal and state governments should consider redesigning achievement terms altogether. Identifying strengths and weaknesses in student reading would be better served by achievement levels determined by age, such as “below age level,” “age level” and “above age level.”

    Age-level proficiency might be more accurate for policy and classroom instruction. As an example, we can look to Britain, where phonics instruction has been policy since 2006. Annual phonics assessments show score increases by birth month, suggesting the key role of age development in reading achievement.

    In the United States, only the NAEP Long-Term Trend Assessment is age-based. Testing by age avoids having the sample of students corrupted by harmful policies such as grade retention, which removes the lowest-performing students from the test pool and then reintroduces them when they are older. Grade retention is punitive: It is disproportionately applied to students of color, students in poverty, multilingual learners and students with disabilities — the exact students most likely to struggle as readers.

    Some evidence suggests that grade retention correlates with higher test scores. In a study of U.S. reading policy, education researchers John Westall and Amy Cummings concluded states that mandated third-grade retention based on state testing saw increases in reading scores.

    However, the pair acknowledge that these were short-term benefits: For example, third-grade retention states such as Mississippi and Florida had exceptional NAEP reading scores among fourth-graders but scores fell back into the bottom 25 percent of all states among eighth-graders.

    The researchers also caution that the available data does not prove whether test score increases are the result of grade retention or other state-sponsored learning interventions, such as high-dosage tutoring. Without stronger evidence, states might be tempted to trade higher test scores for punishing vulnerable students, all without permanent improvement in reading proficiency.

    Hyperbole about a reading crisis ultimately fails the students who need education policy grounded in more credible evidence. Reforming achievement levels nationwide might be one step toward a more accurate and useful story about reading proficiency.

    The article has many links. Rather than copying each one by hand, tedious process, I invite you to open the link and read the article.

    As I was writing up this article, Mike Petrilli sent me the following graph from the 2024 NAEP. There was a decline in the scores of White, Black, and Hispanic fourth grade students “above basic.”

    70% of White fourth-graders scored at or above grade level.

    About 48% of Hispanics did.

    About 43% of Blacks did.

    The decline started before the pandemic. Was it the Common Core? Social media? Something else?

    Should we be concerned? Yes. Should we use “crisis” language? What should we do?

    Reduce class sizes so teachers can give more time to students who need it.

    Do what is necessary to raise the prestige of the teaching profession: higher salaries, greater autonomy in the classroom. Legislators should stop telling teachers how to teach, stop assigning them grades, stop micromanaging the classroom.



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  • There are no bad kids: How educators can protect students against harmful diagnoses

    There are no bad kids: How educators can protect students against harmful diagnoses


    Credit: iStock- Tobiaschu

    The first time I met Micah, a Black elementary school student, I was struck by his cherubic face, bright eyes and nonstop knock-knock jokes that had me laughing out loud. He was warm and polite. His grandmother — his guardian — sat close by during the visit, gently encouraging his respectful tone. She described him as responsible and kind, and everything I saw affirmed that.

    So, I was puzzled — then troubled — by his school’s mental health referral. Teachers had described Micah as a “behavior challenge” and asked for help managing his “defiance.” His school records even falsely claimed his mother was a “cocaine addict.” None of it matched the child in front of me.

    As I got to know him, the real story came out: Micah had just watched his father collapse and die after he tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate him. My heart sank as my evaluation revealed that his grief had been misread as misconduct, his pain distorted through the lens of pathology. Frustrated by repeated suspensions and missed learning, his grandmother eventually transferred him to another school.

    As a child psychiatrist, I’ve seen how often Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous children, like Micah, are unfairly mislabeled and misunderstood. One diagnosis keeps showing up in ways that harm these children: oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) — a common childhood behavioral disorder characterized by anger, defiance and vindictiveness. 

    Too often, ODD becomes a “bad kid” label, punishing racially minoritized children for behaviors rooted in trauma, racism or structural inequities, rather than addressing the hardships they face.

    Oppositional defiant disorder is overdiagnosed in Black, Hispanic and Indigenous children because of biased behavior assessments. Adultification bias leads Black children to be seen as older, stronger and less innocent than they are. Anger bias results in Black students being perceived as angry even when they’re not.

    This overdiagnosis often ignores what’s really going on. Anger or irritability can be signs of anxiety or depression, while defiance can be an adaptive response to trauma or discrimination. Gender-nonconforming students of color are at special risk of being labeled defiant when they are simply resisting mistreatment or bullying. 

    But instead of getting support, these kids are too often punished and criminalized. 

    Since racially minoritized children already face higher rates of suspension, expulsion and police involvement, an improper diagnosis reinforces exclusion, pushing them out of school and into the justice system. 

    An ODD diagnosis doesn’t explain a child’s behavior. It blames them for it.

    In 2013, California began to ban suspension for willful defiance, eventually in all grades K-12. This measure reduced overall suspensions, but racial disparities in discipline remain stark. Black and Indigenous students are suspended earlier and more often, with Black students with disabilities most affected in middle school. 

    Disciplinary codes that remain — like “disruption,” “defiance” and “profanity” — are vague and subjective, leaving room for racial bias. In one California school district, Black students with disabilities accounted for three-quarters of all suspensions for these offenses. 

    While students can’t be suspended from school for willful defiance anymore, teachers can still suspend students from class for it. An oppositional defiant disorder diagnosis can still justify exclusion — through special education placements, psychiatric referrals, or other punitive measures — serving as a backdoor for exclusionary discipline. 

    There is no denying that educators face enormous challenges in classroom management, and that they often don’t have the best tools and resources to help. Restorative justice and trauma-informed approaches, for instance, can be difficult to implement because of limited staffing and administrative support. But it’s also true that questioning the “bad kid” label with ODD or defiance can lead to more just outcomes.

    How? Here are four things educators and other adults can do:

    Recognize bias in discipline and mental health diagnoses
    A Black student questioning authority may be labeled defiant, while a white student is called assertive for the same behavior. Bias training and reflective practice are key to addressing these misperceptions. While California has introduced implicit bias training as part of teacher professional development, none of these initiatives specifically address diagnostic bias.

    Contextualize student behavior
    Before labeling a child oppositional, ask: 

    • Are they facing hunger, housing instability or bullying? 
    • Are they reacting to discrimination or past trauma? 

    Building strong relationships with students and families helps uncover the full story.

    Support, don’t punish
    Because they address the root causes of distress, behavioral interventions that teach emotional regulation and restorative practices that repair relationships can be more effective than exclusion.

    Be skeptical of mental health referrals
    Referrals don’t guarantee unbiased care. Psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists aren’t required to account for racism or the school-to-prison pipeline when diagnosing oppositional defiant disorder. California’s medical and behavioral health boards don’t mandate an antiracist approach, meaning students are often assessed without consideration of systemic factors. 

    ODD’s overdiagnosis among Black, Hispanic and Indigenous students reflects a deeper problem, where certain children’s emotions are pathologized and punished, while the emotions of others receive understanding and support.

    By questioning bias and shifting from labels to solutions, schools can ensure every child gets the support they need to thrive.

    For Micah, the Black elementary school student grieving his father’s death, the solution wasn’t medication or behavior interventions. It was removing the ODD label and validating his grandmother’s sense that the school was mistreating him. What helped was switching schools and witnessing his grandmother go to bat for him. These actions gave him what he truly needed: love, support and a sense of belonging.

    There are no bad kids. There are only systems that fail them. Let’s lift them up, not push them out.

    •••

    Dr. Rupinder K. Legha is a double board-certified psychiatrist based in Los Angeles who specializes in child, adolescent and adult mental health.

    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 commentary guidelines and contact us.





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  • ‘There was a lot of fear’: Central Valley immigration raids drive up absences in schools, study finds

    ‘There was a lot of fear’: Central Valley immigration raids drive up absences in schools, study finds


    Credit: AP Photo/Brittainy Newman, File

    Top Takeaways
    • Absentee rates in five districts cumulatively increased 22% after immigration raids in the Central Valley earlier this year.
    • Raids increase stress levels in school communities, making it difficult for students to learn.
    • Fewer students in class means less funding for schools, which rely on average daily attendance to pay for general expenses.

    Immigration raids in California’s Central Valley earlier this year caused enough fear to keep nearly a quarter of the students in five districts home from school, according to a report released Monday by Stanford University. 

    The study evaluated daily student attendance in the districts over three school years and found a 22% increase in absences after immigration raids in the region in January and February.

    Empty seats in classrooms impact student education and reduce districts’ funding for general expenses, which are tied to average daily attendance. The financial losses are especially difficult now because districts are already grappling with lost funding due to declining enrollment.

    “The first and most obvious interpretation of the results is that students are missing school, and that means lost learning opportunities,” said Thomas Dee, a Stanford professor of education and author of the report. “But I think these results are a harbinger of much more than that. I mean, they’re really a leading indicator of the distress that these raids place on families and children.”

    The raids in the Central Valley began in January as part of “Operation Return to Sender.” U.S. Border Patrol agents targeted immigrants at gas stations and restaurants, and pulled over farmworkers traveling to work, observers reported.

    All five districts analyzed in the study — Bakersfield City School District, Southern Kern Unified, Tehachapi Unified, Kerman Unified and Fresno Unified — are in or near agricultural regions that were impacted by the operation. The districts closest to the raids had the highest absentee rates, Dee said.

    It is unclear how many people were actually arrested during the four-day operation. Border Patrol officials have claimed 78 people were arrested, while observers say it was closer to 1,000, according to the study.

    Raids keep kids out of school

    But whatever the number of arrests, fewer students in these districts attended school in the wake of the raids. The results of the study also suggest that absentee rates in California schools could continue to increase if the raids persist.

    In the Stanford report, Dee cited studies, including one he co-wrote, that found that prior instances of immigration enforcement have negatively impacted grade retention, high school completion, test scores and anxiety disorders. The climate of fear and mistrust caused by the raids impacts children even if their parents are not undocumented, according to the report. 

    An estimated 1 in 10, or 1 million, children in California have at least one undocumented parent. And while most of the children of undocumented parents in the United States are U.S. citizens, approximately 133,000 California children are undocumented themselves, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

    Of the more than 112,500 students attending the five districts studied, almost 82,000 are Hispanic, according to state data. 

    Not all districts impacted by the raids were studied, however. Big Local News, a journalism lab at Stanford University, approached multiple districts to request data. These five districts responded, according to Dee.

    The school’s youngest students were the most likely to miss school because of immigration raids, according to the report. That trend is expected to continue because younger children are more likely to have undocumented parents, Dee said. Parents are also more protective of their younger children, he said.

    “I think it just makes sense that if you’re concerned about family separation, it is a uniquely sharp concern if your kids are particularly young,” Dee said. 

    Family separation has been a constant fear since the Central Valley raids, agrees Mario Gonzalez, executive director of the Education & Leadership Foundation. The nonprofit provides immigration support and educational services to the community, including tutoring in 30 Fresno Unified schools. 

    Gonzalez said the foundation saw a decrease in the number of families participating in onsite services, such as legal consultations, beginning with the first reported immigration raids in Bakersfield in January, and a decrease in school attendance. 

    High school students told the foundation staff that their friends were afraid to come to school.

    Fresno Unified attendance dipped

    Attendance in Fresno Unified — the state’s third-largest district — dropped immediately after the Jan. 20 inauguration of President Donald Trump, said Noreida Perez, the district’s attendance and social emotional manager. Based on internal calculations, a decline in average daily attendance continued until March, with attendance rates decreasing by more than 4% in one week in February, compared to the same time in 2024.  

    Families reported keeping their children home because they were afraid that immigration enforcement officials would be allowed on campus or that parents would be unsafe traveling to and from school for drop-off and pickup, Perez said.

    “There was a lot of fear during that time,” she said. “There’s a lot of stress that’s associated with the threats of something like this happening.”

    Families concerned about sending their children to school have reached out to the Education & Leadership Foundation to ask how their kids can continue to receive services, including bilingual instruction, reading and math intervention, and mentoring. Some wanted to learn about the district’s virtual academy, which Superintendent Misty Her had promoted during her home visits to address increased absenteeism. 

    The fear of immigration operations has also impacted the students who attend classes.

    “If a student is worried about this happening to their parents or to somebody that they love, it makes it really hard to focus on learning or to be present with their peers or with their teacher,” said Perez, who is also a licensed clinical social worker. “If it feels like I might not be safe at school, or I don’t know what I’m going to come home to, that supersedes my ability to really focus and learn.”

    Compensating schools

    Ongoing declining enrollment is causing financial pressure in many school districts. In the 2024-25 school year, enrollment statewide declined by 31,469 students, or 0.54%, compared to last year. The previous school year, attendance declined by 0.25%, according to state data. Immigration raids could make a bad situation worse.

    The issue is so concerning for school districts that the California Legislature is considering a bill that would allow the state to fund districts for the loss of daily state attendance revenue if parents keep their children at home out of fear of a federal immigration raid in their neighborhood. 

    Assembly Bill 1348, authored by Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, D-Delano, would allow the state to credit a district with the attendance numbers and funding they would have received had there not been immigration enforcement activity in their community.

    To receive compensation, a district will have to provide data attributing a decline in attendance in a school — of at least 10% — to fear of federal immigration enforcement. The district must also provide remote learning as an option to families who keep their children home for this reason.

    “When attendance drops, funding disappears, and when funding disappears, all students suffer — regardless of immigration status,” said Bains in a statement after the Assembly passed the bill 62-13 on June 2.

    John Fensterwald and Emma Gallegos contributed to this report.





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