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  • Thom Hartmann: Time for Progressives to Become Active In the Democratic Party

    Thom Hartmann: Time for Progressives to Become Active In the Democratic Party


    Thom Hartmann, accomplished author, blogger, and podcaster, urges progressives to learn from the success of the radical Right. The ultra-Right as for many years a fringe group, far from the power center of the Republican Party. Now the extremists control the Republican Party. Hartmann explains how they accomplished this feat and why progressives should do the same.

    He writes:

    What if, lacking an organized resistance to fascism like we have had in previous eras (the civil rights movement, SDS, BLM, the Wobbly’s) the Democratic Party itself could play the role of producing radical, positive transformation across America?

    Sound crazy? It’s actually happened twice.

    The first time was in the 1930s, when Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal literally flipped our politics and the American economy upside down, turning us from a raw, harsh capitalist system to a democratic socialist system with Social Security, legalized unions, unemployment insurance, a minimum wage, workplace safety rules, massive infrastructure construction, and millions of Americans being employed directly by the government to end poverty.

    It happened again in the 1960s, with Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, producing Medicare, Medicaid, the civil rights act, the voting rights act, food stamps, low income housing, National Public Radio, a transformation of our educational system for the better, USAID, Job Corps, VISTA, Head Start, a major Social Security expansion, The National Endowment for the Arts, and what was essentially free college.

    Sunday, I was on Ali Velshi’s show on MSNBC a conversation about protest movements. I pointed out that back in the 60s, when I was in SDS, there were a number of groups that were quite active, particularly on college campuses, but today most of them have been gutted or banned. 

    Black Lives Matter has disintegrated, the movement against Israel’s slaughter in Gaza has led to universities rolling over and capitulating, and the #MeToo and abortion rights movements are essentially leaderless.

    Which leaves the Democratic Party, as I mentioned on Ali’s show. Billionaires and racists turned the Republican Party into a neofascist protest party over the past decade; progressives and those of us who want to preserve democracy in America need to similarly says control of and radicalize the Democratic Party in the tradition of FDR and LBJ.

    There is a vital lesson progressives must learn, which is how the far right took control of the Republican Party over a decade ago and forced the entire Conservative establishment to lurch so far to the Right that they’ve even dumped people like Liz Cheney and George W. Bush.

    If progressives hope to have any shot at influencing today’s Democratic Party and kicking out the corporate sellout Democrats and replacing them with real-deal progressives, then we need to get to work right now to do exactly what the Tea Party did a decade and a half ago to take power.

    And it starts in our own backyards.

    Let me introduce you to the now-defunct Concord Project, a right-wing organization that, a decade ago, was in charge of helping the Tea Party’s Successful effort to take over and radicalize the GOP.

    The Concord Project expanded their get-out-the-vote strategy beyond just traditional phone banking, canvassing, and putting up “vote Republican” signs. Instead, they decided to infiltrate local politics by encouraging Tea Partiers and conservatives more generally to become “Precinct Committee Members.”

    Here’s their pitch in their own words from one of their Obama-era YouTube training videos:

    “What’s the most powerful political office in the world? It is not the President of the United States. It’s Precinct Committeeman.”

    So why is a Precinct Committeeman (or person) so important?

    “First, because precinct committeemen and only precinct committeemen get to elect the leaders of the political parties; if you want to elect the leadership of one of the two major political parties in this country, then you have to become a precinct committeeman.”

    As in the oldest and most basic governing reality in a republic: true and effective political power flows up from the bottom.

    It starts with Precinct Committeemen and women — people who are either appointed or win local elections with very few votes at stake, in some cases only 10 or 20 votes — to gain positions that pretty much anyone can hold but which wield enormous power.

    It’s Precinct Committee Persons who elect district, county, and state party officials and delegates, who choose primary nominees that then go on to hold elected office, and who help draft a party’s platform.

    They’re also generally the first people who elected officials meet with when they come back into the district. And those officials listen carefully to what Precinct Committee persons have to say. 

    So, the Concord folks told their people, if far right Tea Partiers moved in and took over Precinct Committee seats then they’d also be able to nominate a slew of Tea Partiers to hold higher offices within the Republican Party and for primaries.

    And those Tea Party Republican Party primary candidates would then be winnowed down in the primary to one Tea Party Republican to run against the Democrat in the general election. This way, Tea Partiers would end up dominating the GOP.

    That was their pitch: take over the party from the inside, from the bottom up. And it worked….

    Open the link to finish reading.



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  • CSU tuition hike creates more debt, longer time to graduate for neediest students

    CSU tuition hike creates more debt, longer time to graduate for neediest students


    Credit: Baona / iStock_

    The graduation stage at all California State University (CSU) campuses are vibrant tableaus of dreams achieved. Each cap and gown tell a unique tale of persistence, ambition, and hope. But beneath the prestige and pride lies a sobering reality. For many students, obtaining a diploma also means accumulating debt.

    The CSU’s recent decision to increase tuition by 34% over five years, at an annual rate of 6%, might intensify these disparities, potentially impacting the trajectory of many students’ dreams and futures.

    While the CSU cites fiscal imperatives for the increase, it’s crucial to consider its effects on students, particularly those from marginalized backgrounds. Higher education, once the beacon of hope and socio-economic mobility, is slowly being priced out of reach for many. Making this path more expensive threatens to sideline those who are meant to benefit from it the most.

    The data doesn’t lie, so let’s dive into it. Our recent collaborative report with The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS) on the CSU system illuminates disturbing trends. While the CSU’s efforts to boost graduation rates are commendable, the cost of these achievements disproportionately impacts students from racially marginalized communities. We found that from the academic year 2021-22 a disconcerting 63% of Black bachelor’s degree recipients are grappling with student debt. In contrast, only about a third of their white and Asian peers face similar financial burdens. Moreover, only 48% of Black students secure their degree within six years. As these stats indicate, the increase in tuition could threaten the very essence of CSU, known for its diversity and inclusivity.

    The data tells a story that reaches far beyond mere statistics. Picture the path of a first-generation college student from a marginalized background. They step onto campus, buoyed by dreams and shouldering the weight of their family’s expectations. As they navigate the academic world, they confront both systemic obstacles and personal challenges.

    Yet, as graduation draws near, a looming debt casts a shadow over their achievements. Each loan statement they receive isn’t merely an invoice; it’s a stark reminder of the price of ambition, of wanting to change your life for the better.  These are dreams recalibrated or paused, not because of a lack of drive, capability, passion, or talent but for the sake of survival. Thus, the narrative shifts from higher education being a bridge to dreams to a poignant query: Is the investment truly worth its promise?

    Add to this the ramifications of the CSU’s recent decision. Annual tuition increases totaling 34% can lead to longer work hours, fewer academic credits, or even postponed semesters. Each subsequent loan statement, irrespective of graduation status, serves as a somber reminder of the tangible costs of dreams and the yearning for a brighter future. Such decisions don’t just delay dreams; they risk derailing them.

    At this defining moment, the CSU must introspectively reassess its foundational principles. The recent tuition hike decision has resonated like an unsettling alarm throughout the CSU community. While certain factions might view this as a necessary step to counteract fiscal deficits, for many students, it’s an added layer to an already challenging academic climb. To paint a clearer picture, on most campuses, our most economically disadvantaged students would need to clock in twenty or even upwards of thirty hours of paid work a week, in certain regions, just to afford the cost of attendance.

    Beyond individual concerns, society must recognize wider ramifications. Those students we’re most committed to elevating may increasingly feel academia’s gates slowly creaking shut. If financial burdens eclipse the dream of higher education, the entire society loses out. We risk sidelining tomorrow’s innovators, thinkers, leaders, and agents of societal change. The budding poet, poised to inspire an era, might remain silent; the aspiring scientist, on the brink of groundbreaking discoveries might opt for more immediate financial gains by taking a job instead. The community advocates, starting their journey in student leadership and deeply attuned to their community’s historical narratives, might never fully realize their potential to uplift and lead.

    This is a rallying cry for unity. As the CSU system charts its course, it is vital that policymakers, educators, students, and the wider community actively participate in this critical dialogue. We must also confront the sobering truth that members of our community will disproportionately bear the inequitable burden of a college degree. It’s crucial that we safeguard against making the pursuit of dreams financially untenable. After all, dreams cultivated within the halls of academia should ignite, illuminate, and elevate – not ensnare.

    •••

    Dominic Quan Treseler is president of the Cal State Student Association and a political science major at San Jose State University. 

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





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  • It’s time to repair our fractured math system

    It’s time to repair our fractured math system


    A teacher helps a student with a math problem.

    Credit: Sarah Tully /EdSource

    Deep, active learning of mathematics for all students.

    We applaud this goal of California’s new math framework, an increasingly urgent priority in our data-rich, technology-enhanced age. However, the framework is only a guideline. Ensuring that schools and classrooms have the resources — including appropriate policies and high-quality teachers — to achieve the goal entails repairing fractures in our education landscape.

    Consider high school graduation requirements, which are literally all over the map:

    • Students in San Francisco and Palo Alto complete a minimum of three math courses, including Algebra II. Elsewhere in the Bay Area, East Palo Alto students attending Sequoia Union high schools can finish with just two years of math, and just one year of algebra. So can students in Sacramento.
    • Los Angeles has a three-year math requirement and permits Algebra II alternatives for the third year. In nearby Long Beach, all graduates complete four years of math, including Algebra II.

    This disarray is possible because California requires just two years of math to graduate from high school. It is one of only three states with such a low requirement. Admission to the state’s public universities, however, requires at least three years of math, preferably four. A majority of districts have set a higher bar that matches or approaches college admission criteria.

    But for many California students, the framework’s vision of all students completing three or four years of math remains just that — a vision, not a reality. Too many of them are being left out of the math opportunities that are increasingly important for participating in 21st-century professions and civic life. Research links taking four years of high school math to college access and success. But a quarter of California seniors take no math at all.

    The gap in requirements, however, is just one barrier to deep math learning — one that won’t be solved without bridging a second gap, a teacher gap. Doing that demands a commitment from our public universities.

    Two decades ago, California State University and University of California teacher preparation programs collectively enrolled more than 38,000 would-be teachers per year. The two systems now produce fewer than 10,000 teachers a year. Teacher preparation enrollments declined by 76% from 2001 to 2014 and have not recovered since.

    The Covid-19 pandemic didn’t help keep teachers in math classrooms. In a 2021 national survey of 1,200 school and district leaders, 46% of districts reported shortages of qualified secondary mathematics teachers. In California, nearly half of new math teachers enter the classroom without a credential, according to teacher supply reports.

    These shortages fall hardest on poor schools — those serving students with the greatest needs — which have 40% more teachers lacking qualifications than the richest schools do. One of us has witnessed this firsthand as a teacher, coach and professional development leader. In Los Angeles, some schools have few to no permanent mathematics teachers. In one middle school, for example, every math teacher was a long-term substitute. Students had multiple teachers each school year, sometimes for three years in a row. This continual churn of uncertified teachers virtually guarantees that little math will be learned and exerts a devastating impact on students’ preparedness for college,

    Confronting the crisis directly means building a teacher pipeline and investing in high-quality, ongoing professional development. A range of strategies would support this goal. They include expanding Golden State teacher fellowships and teacher residences dedicated to science and math teachers. Districts can also consider signing bonuses and retention bonuses for qualified math teachers as well as protection from potential layoffs. Teaching institutes, such as those the state funded in 2001, would also help ensure more and better math instruction.

    Instead, the latest contentious debates have focused on narrower issues, often centering on university admission requirements. In 2019, it was CSU’s proposal to add a year of math or quantitative reasoning coursework to admission requirements. It was ultimately shelved.

    Then it was the question—raised by an earlier draft of the framework — of middle school math acceleration. Without starting Algebra I in middle school, it is difficult for students to have calculus on their transcripts, which many perceive as a disadvantage in applying to selective universities. However, acceleration policies have traditionally contributed to tracking, in which Black and brown students have been assigned to lower-value math sequences. Vocal San Francisco parents — who objected to San Francisco Unified’s experiment and insisted that students be able to take Algebra I in middle school — are one reason the framework now leaves that decision up to local districts.

    A current dispute centers on including options such as statistics and data science — in addition to Algebra II — on the UC system’s list of math courses that fulfill the three-year requirement. After initially supporting expanding options, UC’s admissions board recently reversed itself.

    Those are important issues, but the skirmishes detract from more fundamental issues. When students take Algebra I and which math courses they are allowed to take in high school is immaterial if they take only two years of math or if they lack qualified teachers, period. Ultimately, ensuring math opportunity for students means investing in quality teachers. They hold the keys to deeper math learning.

    •••

    Kyndall Brown is the executive director of the California Math Project, which is mandated to implement California’s math standards with a focus on supporting low-performing schools. 

    Pamela Burdman is the executive director of Just Equations, a policy institute that works to rethink the role of math in education equity.

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





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  • Time to retire the tainted, unfair basic skills test for teachers

    Time to retire the tainted, unfair basic skills test for teachers


    Photo courtesy Woodleywonderworks / Flickr

    One morning, some 20 years ago, I took an anonymous phone call that stunned me. Years had passed since our decadelong federal class action discrimination lawsuit against the CBEST had ended with only partial reforms in 2000. From its origins in 1982, the California Basic Educational Skills Test, which purports to measure the universal reading, writing and math skills needed to perform in all the varied public school jobs requiring credentials, has been controversial for deterring tens of thousands of educators of color from entering the public school workforce. The horrific first-time pass rates — 38% for Blacks; 49% for Latinos, and 53% Asians vs. 80% for whites — improved, but only modestly, after 1995 changes instigated by our lawsuit.

    The caller had personal knowledge that a recently deceased former employee of the defendant Commission on Teacher Credentialing had examined the CBEST for her doctoral dissertation and concluded it was racially and culturally biased. The Commission suppressed the study, including when our lawsuit specifically requested such reports. Instead of producing it or making us and our judge aware of it, the commission’s lawyers quietly procured a protective order from a state judge to keep the study out of the federal case.

    From its inception, the racial and cultural bias undergirding the CBEST — like the phantom study — has been suppressed, lurking, just beneath the surface. The sickening pass rates — rather than spurring reform — have been used to support the worst kind of circular reasoning: If it’s failing that many people, especially Black and brown people who’ve been subjected to inferior public education in California, the state’s lawyer repeatedly told the court, it must be working.

    Federal guidelines dictate that a test and its passing levels should correspond to “normal expectations of proficiency within the workforce.” Yet there has never been evidence that over half of all Black college graduates (or a fifth of whites, for that matter), are graduating lacking basic reading, writing and math skills.

    Rather, the CBEST’s passing scores, and to some extent its math content, have always been set arbitrarily high, bent more on failing many to justify itself politically than on fairly assessing educators on the minimum level of basic skills needed for their jobs.

    The CBEST ran off track from its inception. Rather than being created by employment-testing experts like a civil service exam, it was a high-profile political showpiece, divorced from critical employment testing standards and processes. When employment tests have a substantial adverse impact on diverse candidates, “job-relatedness” requires that assumptions about what skills are needed must be proven by analyzing each job tested. Likewise, untested desires for high performance on partial job elements must be scrutinized. Insisting that all your players sink 90% of their free throws may sound good, but that unexamined standard would fail legions of hall of famers.

    Documents uncovered during the case acknowledged that in 1982, California chose the faster and cheaper development plan from Educational Testing Service that specifically rejected making the test “job-related.” Even so, ETS’s initial validity study undertook the most careful and extensive examination to date of where to establish passing scores, for, as required, “minimally competent” (not high or average-performing) educators. Relying on the professional judgment of some 289 educators and academics, that study recommended relatively modest passing scores. A typical employment exam process would likely have called it a day. Instead, a much smaller, politically appointed advisory board of 11 recommended substantially higher passing scores, which were further one-upped by then-State Superintendent of Public Instruction Bill Honig. Spurred on by “campaign promises to raise [teacher] quality,” Honig set yet higher passing scores without regard to job-relatedness. The final effect reduced Black, Latino and Asian first-time pass rates from 63%, 69% and 76% if the 289 ETS panelists had been followed to 38%, 49% and 53%, respectively.

    Enter Public Advocates’ litigation 10 years later. The state defendants were blindsided when the courts held the CBEST is an employment exam for public school educators which must be “job-related.” The pre-litigation validity studies admittedly had never taken the essential first step for employment tests — a job analysis of all those educator jobs. When the commission finally attempted one in 1994, its own expert advised that most of the math test — the algebra and geometry portions used since 1982 — was not job-related, that those items should be removed and the test re-scored to pass unfairly failed candidates.

    Did the state and the commission acknowledge the harm caused and right the wrong? No. They doubled down on protecting the CBEST and its racially discriminatory failure rates.

    The policymakers had their expert “reconsider” and then delete that recommendation. Then, they engineered a revised CBEST that imported the difficulty level and high failure rates for people of color of the prior invalid test by removing much less of the math content than called for, swapping in relatively difficult “lower order” math items and — when test-takers still performed better — raising the math passing score.

    In 2000, six judges on a deeply fractured 11-judge federal appellate panel looked the other way and accepted the “revised” CBEST. But state decision-makers don’t have to continue to do so. At its meeting this week, the commission is examining whether to renew the CBEST contract with its vendor. After 40 years, it’s time to retire the CBEST. In a post-George Floyd era of racial reckoning, we should be working to overturn the harms against people of color caused by unnecessary, biased, standardized tests. In 2015, California dropped another discriminatory, misguided “accountability” measure from a bygone era, the High School Exit Exam. The University of California and California State University have dropped the SAT from their admissions processes, and the state has essentially halted community colleges from using questionable exams to place students from marginalized communities in dead-end remedial classes disproportionately. Oregon, the only other state that used the CBEST, phased out administering it years ago, concerned with its redundancy and adverse impacts.

    There are more than enough entry requirements to ensure credential candidates possess job-related basic skills. These include requiring a bachelor’s degree, subject matter competency, the California Teaching Performance Assessment, the Reading Instruction Competence Assessment or RICA and, since 2000, transcript reviews of basic skills proficiency as an alternative to the CBEST. It’s time for the credentialing commission and the state to drop the tainted CBEST. It’s also time for some reconciliation. The commission can start by releasing that long-suppressed study of the CBEST’s racial and cultural bias.

    •••

    John Affeldt is a managing attorney at Public Advocates, a public-interest law firm in San Francisco, where he focuses on educational equity issues.

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





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  • It’s time to end high-stakes testing

    It’s time to end high-stakes testing


    Students in Megan Thiele Strong’s Sociology of Higher Education work in small groups.

    Credit: Courtesy of Megan Thiele Strong

    We are in midterms — the season when many students realize their course participation is already subpar. Every semester, a handful of students in my courses do not “make it.” When grades are due, there are F’s.

    The terrain of higher education is replete with obstacles. Many students are anxious and lack hope for their futures. California State University tuition hikes add to their unease.

    Students are stressed. As professors, it is on us to help shift this dynamic in the classroom.

    Last year, CSU dropped the SAT/ACT tests from its admissions criteria following research showing high-stakes exams are racist, classist, sexist and stressful. It is past time to integrate this approach into our schools and remove traditional high-stakes testing at the classroom level as well. 

    I have taught university-level courses to thousands of students in the University of California and CSU systems in my 15-year career. I currently teach several courses at San José State University, including a course on quantitative research methods.

    In fall 2020, as we moved our courses online because of Covid, I was inspired to experiment, and I eliminated high-stakes exams, both midterms and finals in all my classes. I had been considering this shift for a long time as a way to mitigate harm and boost student investment. It felt like a big step. I could hear the critics: that eliminating exams caters to weakness, gives students a free pass, makes their education worth less. And yet, I knew I could rearrange the classroom from “teaching to the test” to teaching to the students in front of me. And, in so doing, also build marketable strengths like critical, analytical and creative thinking, leadership, curiosity and love of learning. 

    I also had a hunch that learning experiences such as orating course content are every bit as effective for knowledge retention as checking boxes and regurgitating the points of an essay response. Does every student pass my class? Nope. And, I have seen immense benefits since I  transitioned away from high-stakes testing.

    How do I prioritize the student over the exam?

    First, I center dialogue in my teaching experiences. This oral engagement piece is worth nearly 20% of the student grade and I give time for it every class. It takes a variety of forms: I facilitate group conversation among students. I ask for volunteers to answer questions or discuss content with the group at large. Sometimes, I use a random number generator to call on students. Other times, I have every student answer a prompt to the full group. And, instead of student presentations, we do student facilitations where students create a version of chat stations with prompts and questions about the course content and facilitate a conversation with a small group of their peers.

    I also create outside-of-class assignments, such as students hosting watch parties with a required post-viewing discussion segment or asking them to talk to someone about particular course content and report on it. The benefits of dialogue for our students and our society span educational, social and economic realms. I have found this approach helps students build their capacity for thought, engagement and discourse both in and outside the classroom.

    Second, I adjusted my assessment strategy, moving from high-stakes exams to smaller, lower-stakes assessments; up to 35 graded learning experiences per student, per course, per semester. I incorporate content from my past exams into learning experiences, open-book quizzes and self-grade assignments. I construct my courses with varying levels of low-stakes opportunities for them to demonstrate proficiency in a topic — a video game mentality of earning points to level up, to build their investment in the course. It also makes it easier for the student — and professor — to spot gaps in understanding early, when there’s still time to address them.

    Third, and following the logic that options boost student buy-in, I increase student choice in our curriculum. Where possible, students choose content. If there are larger edited volumes on a course topic, students choose the chapters they read. In Statistics, it’s choosing which graphs from The New York Times they want to analyze.

    Fourth, I increase student agency by encouraging students to opt out of some of the curriculum. By constructing my courses with varying levels of low-stakes opportunities that build student buy-in, it feels responsible and empowering to make some content optional. As part of this strategy, I began to offer extra credit opportunities and other very low-stakes options, including learning experiences worth less than 1% of the total points. 

    Finally, and most importantly, having witnessed students in crisis over the years, and based on personal experience, I include content focused on student mental health. For example, I include optional student check-ins, where students can earn a few points by describing their experience both in and outside the classroom. I ask them, “Are you OK?”  These experiences bring to the forefront how deeply valuable and vulnerable our classroom space is.

    I trust my students, and I work to gain their trust not only by how I interact with them, but also through curricular decisions that constitute their classroom experience. Even if high-stakes testing is appealing to some students, even if it maintains a tradition that feels endemic to higher education, we know it devalues nontraditional student experience, perpetuates the wealth test as a proxy for merit, is a part of the racialized school-to-prison pipeline and is anathema to imagination.

    Students are having learning experiences, for better or for worse, in our classrooms. Education should not be a burden to bear, a hazing experience, nor an obstacle to individual worth, even if that has been its tradition. 

    If the California State University system can forgo long-standing traditions of high-stakes assessment across 23 campuses, we can do it in our university classrooms. 

    •••

    Megan Thiele Strong, Ph.D., is a professor at San José State University and a 2023-24 Public Voices Fellow at the TheOpEdProject.

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





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  • It is time to support high school journalism

    It is time to support high school journalism


    Students working to distribute the February 2022 edition of the Lowell high school paper.

    Credit: Courtesy Rae Wymer

    My career in journalism has been a serendipitous path, which began because of a sabbatical. 

    The architecture teacher in my high school had taken the year off, and I was left with a gaping hole in my course register at 10 a.m. Demoralized and hoping for a reprieve from algebra and biology, I sought out the advice of my counselor, who recommended an introductory journalism course as a possible mitigation. I had never reported before or considered a career in the news industry. 

    I took her advice and enrolled, taking to the work of the news industry almost instantly. A year later I was interning for KQED in San Francisco, the local NPR affiliate, and four years later I would graduate as editor-in-chief of a publication I stumbled my way into joining. If it wasn’t for my high school’s publication, I probably would never have found my love of reporting as soon as I did. 

    I may have never even pursued journalism. 

    As college publications have stepped into the limelight in recent years, the news industry has begun singing the praises of college reporters; but it is impossible to celebrate the work of local journalists without recognizing the importance of high school publications to provide the foundation for many college reporters. 

    College publications do professional work, reminding us that the main difference between student journalists and their professional counterparts is that students are balancing school and reporting. Some key examples of stellar work include Michigan State’s The State News exposing abuse by Larry Nasser and North by Northwestern’s coverage of racist allegations against Northwestern’s football coach. It is this work and the daily coverage by publications that builds a foundation of solid reporting, teaching many students the tools necessary for future employment. 

    For schools, the importance of journalism is only growing. Journalism is an important part of education, especially when controversy arises on a local level, as seen in Temecula Valley Unified. When covering controversies, student journalists have unfettered access to the thoughts, opinions and fears of high school students. Students may be more willing to discuss the realities of what goes on behind school doors from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. with someone they have physics with than an adult reporter. 

    San Francisco, my hometown, has around 17 public high schools — yet when the city hosted the JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention in April, not a single public school attended. Only two public high schools in San Francisco have newspapers, and another two have smaller programs. This is sadly not an anomaly for urban public schools because producing a paper is expensive and requires an adviser with journalism experience. 

    Personally, Lowell High School, my alma mater, provided no funding for the newspaper. Our publication was funded entirely by grants, alumni donations, advertisements and extensive bake sales. Beyond school site support, the district provides no funds for establishing these programs. There are no established incentives for school districts to support the creation of high school publications. 

    High school papers, especially in low-income or urban districts, are in short supply. A lack of student publications can exacerbate potential news deserts in smaller districts where schools and communities rely on a dwindling number of local newsrooms for coverage; it places the burden of reporting on larger circulation papers. 

    It is local high school publications that are the unsung heroes of the journalism industry — they help teach future generations of reporters. Many of my fellow college journalists got their start in high school with a newspaper or yearbook. It is not just the job of colleges to maintain their newspapers; there is also an onus on high schools to provide the opportunity for their students to try their hand at journalism. 

    There is something special about the work done by high school publications. In many ways, it is a commitment and an enduring love for their school that produces this work. I am still proud of the work my friends and I did for our high school paper, and I wish more students had this type of opportunity. 

    Good high school journalism can change lives. I know it changed mine. 

    •••

    Rae Wymer is a second-year urban studies major at UC Berkeley, minoring in journalism and a member of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps.

    The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • It’s time to fix the fatal flaw in California education funding formula

    It’s time to fix the fatal flaw in California education funding formula


    Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education

    California’s way of funding schools, the Local Control Funding Formula, was not designed to be perfect. That’s because most legislation requires a series of compromises necessary to minimize opposition, maximize support and win the necessary votes for passage. 

    In LCFF’s case, one of those compromises, the creation of the Local Control Accountability Plan, or LCAP, could eventually doom the reform.

    To understand why, it’s important to revisit the initial rationale for LCFF — replacing a complex, inequitable funding model with a simpler model that targeted grants based on student need and concentrated poverty.

    The old funding model was managed from Sacramento and included popular grants for the arts and music, English learners, career and technical education and more. Large and/or politically connected districts, nonprofits and statewide groups would lobby sympathetic lawmakers for their own grants. Over time, this model grew increasingly complex, limiting local discretion over spending and stifling innovation. Despite these problems, it had remarkable political resiliency. Lawmakers were incentivized to protect existing grants and got political credit for creating new ones. Very few stakeholders were interested in changing this dynamic and risk losing their favorite grants and programs.

    So, it wasn’t enough for the Brown administration to argue that LCFF was better because it was simpler, more equitable and gave districts more control over their money. They had to prove that it would fund many of the same programs as the existing model.

    Most education advocacy groups believed that this could be achieved by requiring districts to use the grants generated by high-need students to fund services that addressed their needs. But education groups representing labor and management wanted complete financial flexibility. To avoid this requirement, the education establishment collaborated with a few legal advocacy groups to create the Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP), arguing that it would accurately document how they were spending money on programs and services.

    The last decade has provided strong evidence that this decision was based on flawed assumptions, beginning with the presumption that school districts are the best recipients of funding for high-need students. While district bureaucracies are certainly closer to students than Sacramento policymakers, they aren’t as close as principals and teachers. Unlike schools, district leaders face powerful interest groups that lobby them for spending like higher salaries and districtwide programs. That’s why most targeted grants like federal Title I funding are sent to districts but then quickly distributed to high-poverty schools. Without similar requirements, it’s likely that billons in LCFF dollars that could have funded school-based services were spent on district-level costs such as salaries, benefits, pension obligations and more.   

    Second, policymakers assumed that districts would accurately document spending on services in the LCAP. But LCAPs were never formally connected to school district budgets, which include ongoing costs like salaries and benefits. In fact, the processes for developing LCAPs and budgets occur separately on different timelines. Almost every analysis of LCAPs has found that their financial and programmatic information cannot be verified and the documents themselves are largely incomprehensible.

    Third, they believed that districts would focus on improving student outcomes without clear state-level goals and metrics to guide their decision-making. Instead of big, important goals — like grade-level math achievement — policymakers created a mishmash of state priority areas (many of which can’t be measured) and told districts to include them in their LCAPs. Predictably, most districts paid lip service to these priorities in their LCAPs and then wrote separate strategic plans. At this point, most district leaders probably can’t remember what the state priorities are. If everything is a priority, nothing is.

    Finally, and most importantly, they assumed that all of this would improve outcomes for the most vulnerable students. Here, the evidence is limited, especially given the size of the funding increases. Given the persistently low academic performance of most high-poverty districts and the state’s sizable achievement gaps, today’s elected officials can fairly ask whether our state has seen a commensurate return on these massive education investments.

    It’s no wonder that over the last several years, elements of the previous school finance regime have roared back. Elected officials who didn’t create LCFF and are suspicious of “local control” have created a whole new set of targeted grants like the governor’s community schools grant. Districts are now subject to far more onerous legalistic requirements for their LCAPs, which are intended to show that they’re using their funding for high-need students.

    District leaders have bitterly complained about these shifts. On one level, they are right that the advocates and policymakers focused on the LCAP are just doubling down on a failed strategy. But they haven’t offered any alternative, other than “leave us alone.”

    The danger for them is threefold. Increasing levels of scrutiny and regulation; ever more targeted grants that limit their discretion; and, as the years pass, the belief that local control has failed high-need students, requiring more aggressive state and county oversight. A few years from now, they could end up with the worst aspects of the old finance model and the new one.

    There is another way.

    A decade later, we have a lot of evidence on how to make the formula better. Perhaps a substantial portion of LCFF funding, such as concentration grants (for schools with more than 55% high-needs students) should flow directly to schools based on their poverty level, like Title I funds do. State leaders could establish a few measurable academic and social-emotional priorities that districts would address in strategic plans rather than LCAPs. Instead of a potpourri of grants that limit local discretion or new LCAP compliance requirements, lawmakers could create incentives, such as additional weighted funding for districts willing to create new programs such as language immersion schools. They could even establish financial rewards for districts based on student outcomes.

    There are many possibilities, but for the Local Control Funding Formula to survive over the long term, it must always be able to answer a very basic question: What is it doing to improve the education of California’s highest-need 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.





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  • More time with subs is the wrong response to teacher shortages

    More time with subs is the wrong response to teacher shortages


    Middle school history teachers discuss their lesson plans for teaching about the Great Depression.

    Credit: Allison Shelley / American Education

    Twenty-five years ago, when pastor Sweetie Williams asked his 12-year-old son, Eli, why he never had homework, the answer exposed scandalous conditions that would reshape California education forever. Eli’s San Francisco middle school — like many of the 20% of California public schools then serving the greatest number of Black, Latino and low-income students — lacked books, operating bathrooms, proper heating and enough qualified teachers to permanently staff classrooms. The historic litigation that followed in May 2000, Williams v. California, established new laws guaranteeing every student three fundamental rights: permanent, qualified teachers; sufficient instructional materials; and clean, safe facilities.

    Today, as Assembly Bill 1224 (Valencia) races toward a Senate hearing, we’re witnessing some of the same staffing chaos that prompted the Williams lawsuit. In the West Contra Costa Unified School District, parent Darrell Washington watched his rising fifth grader endure what he called “a chaotic game of musical chairs” with two or three different teachers in a single year. At Stege Elementary, third grade teacher Sam Cleare saw students arrive in her classroom, where she was often “their first credentialed teacher for the entire year.”

    In response to teacher shortages, are legislators rising to meet the challenge? Are they grappling with how to raise teacher compensation and improve working conditions to attract and retain educators? Are they seeking to compel those districts stuck on autopilot to do more to recruit new teachers or to place in the classroom their fully certified staff who aren’t currently teaching before turning to short-term substitutes? No.

    The principal response of legislators has been AB 1224, which would double the time untrained substitute teachers can remain in any one classroom — from 30 to 60 days, a full third of the school year. The bill thereby lowers teacher standards for the state’s most disadvantaged students, essentially abandoning our children’s rights to equal educational opportunity to accommodate district requests for administrative convenience.

    When a teacher vacancy exists, districts are supposed to prioritize assigning the most qualified candidates: fully credentialed teachers first, then interns who have the subject matter training but are still learning how to teach it, followed by emergency-style permits that allow those with partial subject matter competence and teacher training to teach for the year under close supervision, and finally waivers, which permit individuals to teach for a year by waiving unmet certification requirements with state approval if the district can demonstrate the candidate is the best person available.

    Williams requires all classrooms to be staffed by a single, designated permanent teacher who is at least minimally certified to teach the whole year, according to one of these bases. That puts the onus on districts to figure out well before the school year begins how they will staff each classroom with a state-qualified teacher.

    Thirty-day substitutes — those affected by AB 1224 — are nowhere in this hierarchy precisely because they are not qualified to serve as the teacher of record for any classroom. They receive zero subject matter training and zero instruction on how to teach a subject, so they have no understanding of lesson planning, classroom management, assessing learning, or differentiating learning for special ed students or English learners. They’re educational placeholders, not teachers. 

    Teachers represent the single most important school-based factor in learning outcomes. When we park unqualified staff in classrooms for months, we’re not solving teacher shortages; we’re creating educational voids that harm student progress for years to come. Our students need qualified educators who provide continuity, expertise and genuine care, not “continuity” with unqualified caretakers.

    Statewide teacher assignment data reveals exactly how this policy will worsen existing inequities. While 84% of California’s teachers are fully trained, this drops to just 76% in districts serving working-class communities like West Contra Costa, but rises to 89% in affluent areas.

    Schools serving larger populations of low-income students, English learners and foster children are already twice as likely to rely on emergency-style permits. AB 1224 will systematically widen these gaps, exacerbating a two-tiered system where privileged students get qualified teachers while vulnerable students get warm bodies. 

    Meanwhile, AB 1224’s “accountability” measures provide legislative lip service. The bill relies on existing legal requirements that districts make “reasonable efforts” to recruit more qualified personnel before turning to long-term substitutes. Yet we know from our experiences with West Contra Costa Unified and elsewhere that districts typically make no particular efforts if an obvious candidate is not already in front of them and there is no outside enforcement of the hiring hierarchy. AB 1224 does nothing to change this. The bill does not define “reasonable,” has no documentation requirements, and has no oversight or accountability measures. 

    And while this same expanded access to substitutes was temporarily allowed during the pandemic, frankly, the whole system was in chaos then, and many virtual classrooms were providing little more than day care, even with qualified teachers. Yet, AB 1224 provides no sunset date like that exception did. To the contrary, the pending proposal is for a permanent change in law, a permanent authorized dilution of instructional quality, a permanent permission for districts to avoid the hard work of recruiting and retaining qualified educators — all to be disproportionately visited upon the most disadvantaged students in the state. 

    The response to teacher shortages must not be to lower standards, but the opposite. As if our collective hair were on fire, the state and districts need to be doubling down on bringing back the fully certified teachers who have left the classroom (more than enough to cover the shortages). Likewise, the state and districts need to work harder to develop the next generation of diverse and fully prepared educators. Since the pandemic, California has invested over $2 billion in evidence-based solutions: the National Board Certification Incentive Program, Golden State Teacher Grant Program, teacher residencies, a grow-your-own program, and Educator Effectiveness grants — all designed to increase supply and retention in high-need schools. The latest annual Teacher Supply Report from the Commission on Teacher Credentialing suggests the state is starting to turn a corner as a result of these efforts. New teaching credentials issued in 2023-24 were up over 18% — the first surge in new credentials since the pandemic in 2020-21. 

    In the meantime, districts have existing tools: emergency permits for at least provisionally qualified candidates, intern teachers and residents, teachers with permits to cover those on statutory leave, and experienced “career substitutes” who already are allowed to teach in a single classroom for 60 days. And before even turning to these substandard options, districts’ “reasonable efforts” must include returning fully credentialed teachers to a district’s highest priority: classroom instruction. When Superintendent Alberto Carvalho took the helm of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) in late 2021, one of his first actions was to fill some 700 vacancies with certified educators who had been serving in the district office and various non-teaching roles. 

    That’s 700 classrooms and several thousand students’ educational lives that were not sacrificed for administrative convenience. Today’s Eli Williamses deserve no less.

    •••

    John Affeldt, who was one of the lead counsels on Williams v. California, is a managing attorney at Public Advocates, a public interest law firm in San Francisco, where he focuses on educational equity issues.

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





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  • Students need more time for lunch

    Students need more time for lunch


    Photo: Amanda Mills/Pixnio

    As a former public school kid who grew up in Southern California, I recall racing through the lunch line to quickly grab a cardboard tray and scarf down a soggy, plastic-wrapped meal in the scant time available to me. By the time the bell rang, there were often many students still waiting in the lunch line, having to rush back to class with a slice of pizza in hand.

    These seemingly small memories may have a big impact on behavior, with research from the University of Michigan showing that 1 in 8 American adults show signs of food addictions.

    Universal school lunch programs are now active in eight states, including California, with many more looking to follow. This is a huge stride forward in increasing nutrition access for public school students. But there is a notable gap in that there are no federal regulations mandating a minimum amount of time for school meals. Students across the country, including at California public schools, have been stuck dumping their meals out and rushing back to class.

    Schools play a pivotal role in shaping young minds, but how effective are school lunch programs if children are left hungry waiting in a meal line or rushed through their meals?

    To try to achieve equity in K-12 schools, policymakers and educators have rightfully prioritized the need for food access in schools. This movement could extend the positive effects in a low-cost way by implementing sufficient time for lunch in school. There’s plenty of research on how food can improve test scores, and a 2021 study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that middle school students given 20 seated minutes for lunch ate more fruits and vegetables.

    Time is a critical aspect of food — time to eat, digest and engage in a social, communal experience that extends beyond just a full stomach. Think of iconic scenes in iconic movies like “Mean Girls” and “The Breakfast Club” that take place during cafeteria time — these are hallmarks of youth that deserve ample time. Food is vital to culture and relationship-building, teaching kids important lessons of socialization and connection that endure for life. Although planning school schedules can be a crunch to ensure required instructional minutes are met, cutting lunch times short is not a sufficient or sustainable solution for students.

    By establishing a minimum duration for school meals, schools will acknowledge that fostering a healthy relationship with food is important to setting kids up for a positive future. There may not be one right solution for all schools, but the California Department of Education has suggested making sure lunch is at least 20 minutes, having recess before lunch, requiring a specific amount of time sitting, and ensuring students can get through the food lines quickly.

    The interplay of cafeteria, community and classroom (the 3 Cs) reflects how K-12 schools extend beyond students’ desks. Young students are sponges of knowledge, and giving them the building blocks of mindful eating by encouraging longer lunch times can enhance efforts to help students live healthy lives and impact their lifelong eating habits. As mental health advocates call for increased mindfulness in our educational institutions, this philosophy must be extended to the cafeteria.

    Now is the perfect time for schools to become environments where students feel empowered to make smart choices about the food they consume. Even with universal free school lunches, parents should continue investigating and asking their children about the food they are getting in school — and whether they’re able to spend time eating it.

    Let’s bridge the gap between educational equity and nutritional equity, pushing for a system that enables well-nourished, mindful students to embrace learning during their time at school.

    ●●●

    Julia Ransom is a senior at Stanford University studying human biology.

    The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • Time to eliminate high-stakes tests for prospective California teachers

    Time to eliminate high-stakes tests for prospective California teachers


    A sixth grade math teacher helps two students during a lesson about math and music.

    Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education

    Becoming a public school teacher is a calling. It’s incredible to see students learn and grow and achieve their dreams. Many see this as a rewarding career and want to pursue it, which raises the question — why would anyone be in favor of unnecessary hurdles for these aspiring educators?

    In my work as an educator, with more than 30 years in the classroom and as vice president of the California Teachers Association (CTA), I’ve seen firsthand and heard from educators up and down the state about the deeply problematic Teaching Performance Assessments (TPAs). These assessments were enacted to measure the teaching performance of prospective teachers.  

    There is no shortage of horror stories about the TPAs. We hear from talented teachers constantly that they are long and time-consuming. They are full of low-value tasks, and they come at a very busy time for new educators. They do not prepare teachers for the classroom and detract from programs with proven success.

    Aspiring teachers can better learn the teaching craft in the real world. Vital preparation for new educators includes working with mentors to improve their instruction, having time to concentrate on developing quality lesson plans, and learning how to apply knowledge gained from a credential program in real classrooms. These programs consistently assess student teachers. They ensure we meet California’s high teaching standards.

    The TPAs also keep talented educators out of the profession of public education. This is especially true for Black, Indigenous and people of color working to become teachers. Educators of color have raised concerns about biases undermining their success at passing the TPAs. Moreover, aspiring teachers must pay $300 out-of-pocket to take these assessments. After spending thousands of dollars on a degree, one can see how this costly assessment becomes an impossible hurdle for too many. 

    This is why CTA is sponsoring Senate Bill 1263 to eliminate the TPAs, alongside Sen. Josh Newman.

    Two years ago, I began leading a CTA work group with educators from across the state. We met to study the teacher shortage. We aimed to find ways to ease the problem and increase teacher diversity. Our group determined that these assessments hurt teacher training. They harm our new teacher pipeline and hinder efforts to diversify public education careers.

    We compiled this data and analysis from educators and practitioners, including a survey of educators. We took this information to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) and noted the disproportionate impact on educator candidates (see page 33). This issue was first raised three years ago by the California Alliance of Researchers for Equity in Education when the group asked the commission to end high-stakes testing in teacher education, citing concerns with “validity, reliability, fairness and bias.”

    At the meeting, Commissioner Christopher Davis underscored the TPA’s “disproportionate harm” to teaching candidates from diverse backgrounds: “We continue to struggle with the reality that our state, through these examinations, is systematically discriminating against the very diversity it alleges it wants to track into our workforce.”

    In December, the commission heard our call, adopting a secondary passing standard in the event an educator did not complete the TPA requirement. This allows teacher candidates who met all other credential requirements a path to a credential if they demonstrate Teacher Performance Expectations (TPE) through classroom observations, course projects and similar avenues.

    This is a step in the right direction. More than 1,500 aspiring California educators who did not pass the TPA would have met the secondary standard in 2022-23, meaning they would be spared the cost and extreme stress of retaking the TPA.

    Our work continues. As Sen. Newman said, the issue is simple: “One key to improving the educator pipeline is removing barriers that may be dissuading otherwise talented and qualified prospective people from pursuing a career as an educator.”

    We must end the unnecessary TPA and evolve our state system of educator preparation to better equip teachers to bridge California’s diverse students to bright futures. This is becoming a national standard. Other states including New York, New Jersey, Georgia and even Texas have already eliminated the TPA requirement. It’s time for California to take this step forward and improve the path for aspiring educators on their way to the classroom.

    ●●●

    Leslie Littman is vice president of the California Teachers Association. She previously taught AP U.S. history, economics and government at Hart High School in the William S. Hart Union School District in Santa Clarita.

    The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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