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State bailout for California school districts comes with long strings attached
Credit: Andrew Reed/EdSource
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Plumas Unified in northeast California, with an enrollment of about 2,000 students, will be the first district in over a dozen years to seek a state bailout.

California’s system of financial oversight of school districts has mostly worked, having kept all but nine of them from seeking a state bailout loan to avert insolvency.

The key to keeping school districts from financial disaster has been close oversight by county offices of education and monitoring by the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team.
Plumas Unified, a small school district in the Sierra Nevada in far northeast California, is on track to become the first district in over a dozen years to join nine others that have had to get a bailout loan from the state to avert bankruptcy.

In the last week of April, its school board voted to request an emergency state loan of up to $20 million, explaining that it has “exhausted all of its sources of alternative liquidity and any external sources of short-term cash.”

The district joins a select group of districts that no one wants to belong to.

A state bailout is accompanied by rigorous state and county oversight, loss of local control, extra expenses in paying off the loan, and other conditions that last for years.

“Manage your finances because you don’t want this,” said James Morris, the administrator appointed to oversee Inglewood Unified in Los Angeles County, which has been in state receivership for 13 years.

Carl Cohn, a leading educator who was superintendent in Long Beach Unified and San Diego Unified, and a former member of the State Board of Education, says getting a state bailout is a fate to be avoided at all costs.

“It’s really important to maintain that sense of an empowered community through locally elected officials,” he said.

From the state’s perspective, “There’s no way the state is itching to get its hands on these districts either,” said Richard Whitmore, the first state-appointed administrator at Compton Unified after it got an emergency bailout loan in 1993.

“It’s bad for public education to have these districts fall into what is essentially bankruptcy,” said Whitmore. “It costs the state a ton of money to intervene and do all this work, which they are not well-prepared to execute, so they have to go into crisis mode when it happens.”

On the face of it, however, it is remarkable that fewer than 10 school districts, out of close to a thousand in California, have had to submit to state receivership in return for getting a bailout.

It suggests that the state’s system of oversight is mostly working as planned.

Districts Placed Under State Receivership

West Contra Costa Unified, 1990*
Loan amount: $28.5 million.
Low-income students: 63%**

Coachella Valley Unified, 1992
Loan amount: $7.3 million.
Low-income students: 92.4%

Compton Unified, 1995
Loan amount: $19.9 million
Low-income students: 93%

Emery Unified, 2001
Loan amount $1.3 million.
Low-income students: 52%

Oakland Unified, 2003
Loan amount: $100 million
Low-income students: 80%

West Fresno Elementary: 2003***
Loan amount: $1.3 million
Low-income students: 86%

South Monterey County Joint Union High, 2009
Loan Amount: $13 million

Low-income students: 85%

Vallejo City Unified 2004
Loan amount: $60 million
Low-income students: 85%

Inglewood Unified, 2012
Loan amount: $29 million
Low-income students: 87 pct.

*Date refers to the year the loan was awarded.

**Low-income refers to the percentage of students qualifying for free and reduced price meals.

***District merged with Washington Unified; low-income figure is for Washington Unified.

That system came into existence in response to West Contra Costa Unified’s insolvency in 1990, when it became the first district to get a bailout from the state.

Assembly Bill 1200 in 1991 decreed that, as a condition of receiving a loan, the state superintendent of public instruction must appoint an administrator to oversee the district. Under 2018 legislation (AB 1840), it is now the county superintendent of schools who appoints the administrator.

The 1991 legislation also established an independent fiscal oversight agency, the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, or FCMAT (universally pronounced “Fickmat” in education circles).

One reason only a small number of districts have had to turn to the state for a bailout has been the effectiveness of FCMAT, and the stability of its leadership. Since its founding, it has had only two CEOs, Joel Montero and Michael Fine, its current leader. Both are highly regarded in education circles.

Another factor is that school districts must submit their budgets to county superintendents for review at least three times during the year, known as the first and second interim budgets, and the final budget, which must be approved by July 1.

“They’re the early warning system,” said Karen Stapf Walters, executive director of California County Superintendents, referring to the school superintendents in all 58 counties. “When they see a district going south, they jump in with body and soul and give a district whatever it needs to get back on track.”

Fine said FCMAT’s role is to steer school boards to the point that they ultimately sit down and do what they need to do when they need to do it.”

But getting out of receivership is an arduous process. Districts have to meet over 150 standards set by FCMAT, in areas such as financial management, pupil achievement, personnel and facilities management, governance and community relations.

Even after it meets those standards, and the administrator leaves, the district is likely to be paying off its loan still. The county superintendent then appoints a trustee with fewer powers than the administrator, but who can still veto financial decisions made by the elected school board until the last loan payment is made.

Many school leaders say the funds and years that districts spent paying off a loan could have supported current education programs. “The children sitting in classrooms in Inglewood today are paying for mistakes made, many of them before they were even born, by folks who are not here any longer,” said Inglewood’s Morris.

In West Contra Costa’s case, it took 21 years to pay off its bailout loan of $28.5 million, plus $19 million in interest and fees.

When the district paid its final installment in 2012, then-board member Madeline Kronenberg called it “Independence Day” for the district. But she regretted that years of loan payments meant “thousands and thousands of children were unable to get what other districts provide.”

And yet, enduring years of state receivership doesn’t necessarily translate into a district’s long-term financial health.

Just the opposite. Of the nine school districts that have been through state receivership — all serving mostly low-income students — at least five are still experiencing severe financial difficulties.

Coachella Valley Unified, which got a bailout loan in 1992, is cutting hundreds of jobs as it tries to close a $6 million shortfall. Inglewood Unified is about to close five schools, including its storied Morningside High School.

In what should be cause for celebration in Vallejo and Oakland, both will pay off their state loans next month and regain full control of their districts for the first time in 20 years.

But both districts still face major financial challenges. Vallejo City Unified, dealing with a budget shortfall of $36 million, is on the verge of closing two schools. Oakland is similarly struggling, with considerations of another insolvency not yet off the table.

West Contra Costa, whose budget just received a “positive certification” from the county office of education, is still operating with a structural deficit and will rely on reserves to get through the next two years.

At times, the underlying conditions that got districts into trouble persist, such as declining enrollments and the absence of strong fiscal leadership by subsequent school boards or superintendents. Too often, the lessons learned from earlier financial meltdowns are forgotten or ignored.

One district that has turned around is Compton Unified, which, under the leadership of Superintendent Darin Brawley, has made significant improvements not only on the academic front but also in achieving financial stability.

Brawley said he only calculates his budgets based on funds actually in district coffers, not on funds it is slated to receive. In addition, he made cuts gradually over the years as conditions warranted, and did not wait until the district was in crisis.

He says district officials are too often “conflict-averse,” and “rather than make the tough choices, and what may be the right decisions to remain fiscally stable, they will oftentimes not make decisions, and then the problem balloons into a much bigger issue.”

Now it’s Plumas Unified’s turn to cede control to the state. In late April, facing an $8 million deficit on its $42 million budget, Plumas Unified’s board called a special meeting to request a state bailout loan.

The district covers 2,600 square miles, a vast area in the Sierra Nevada, providing schooling for about 2,000 students with few other options.

How did it escape the oversight system that has, over the past dozen years, kept every other district but nine from having to turn to the state to bail them out?

“Plumas unfortunately came up on the radar too late for us to help them,” said FCMAT’s Fine. One reason, he said, is because “I don’t think they were being 100% honest about their numbers.”

For example, the district awarded staff a 14% pay increase, without having a viable way to calculate its costs, he said. “Without reliable numbers, it is difficult to know the condition of a district and thus to get in early enough to assist.”

Editor’s note: Richard Whitmore is a member of the EdSource board of directors.

Next Week: Inglewood Unified’s unfinished journey to get out of state receivership
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16/05/2025
SF State drops investments in arms makers in deal with pro-Palestinian students

A Cease Fire Now sign hangs on a tent on the grass as tents are set up in The Quad during a Students for Gaza rally at San Francisco State University on April 29, 2024.

Credit: Lea Suzuki/San Francisco Chronicle via AP

San Francisco State has pulled investments from three companies it says don’t meet its human rights standards following pressure from pro-Palestinian student activists.

The moves resulted in changes to the university’s $163 million investment portfolio.

SF State Foundation confirmed Wednesday that it has sold its Lockheed Martin corporate bond position and stock positions in Leonardo, an Italian multinational defense company, and Palantir Technologies, a U.S.-based data analysis firm that has worked with the Israeli Defense Ministry.

The foundation also screened out a fourth company, the construction equipment manufacturer Caterpillar, based on a pre-existing policy that steers the foundation away from investments in fossil fuels. The company has become a target of groups advocating divestment from Israel. They claim Caterpillar’s heavy equipment has been turned into weapons by Israel in the Palestinian territory.

College students around the country have pushed universities to remove companies aligned with Israel from investment portfolios. Student activists have met resistance from California State University system officials, who have said they won’t tinker with investment policies in reaction to the Israel-Hamas conflict. Instead, students on some campuses have focused their energy on school-level foundation endowments, but say their goal remains to influence the entire system’s investment policies.

San Francisco State students made headway by training their attention on the university foundation’s investment screens, standards used to make sure investments are consistent with the school’s values, like racial justice, social justice and climate change. The SF State Foundation shed investments in the four companies as the result of implementing those screens and not because it agreed to sell specific companies.

The changes come following a summer of Zoom meetings held by a work group composed of representatives from Students for Gaza, SF State Foundation investment committee, faculty and administrators.

The work group proposed a revised investment policy that says the foundation will not invest in arms makers and will “strive not to invest in companies that consistently, knowingly and directly facilitate or enable severe violations of international law and human rights.” The draft does not name any specific country or conflict.

The proposed policy is slated for a final vote in December. The foundation’s investment committee decided to act on the suggested revisions in the meantime, identifying the investments in Lockheed Martin, Leonardo and Palantir under the human rights screens.

The foundation also will unveil a new website disclosing more information about its endowment by the end of September.

“Through the work of the many students involved in GUPS (General Union of Palestine Students) at SFSU and SFG (Students for Gaza), we have been able to successfully ensure our money is not funding GENOCIDE ‼️” an Aug. 27 announcement on Instagram by the group Students for Gaza at San Francisco State said.

Sheldon Gen, a faculty representative to the SF State Foundation, said the work group landed on draft policy language that aligns the university’s investment policies with its values, without singling out a specific conflict, country or geographic area.

“What we did at San Francisco State isn’t going to end the conflict in Gaza, but we did find some space where students can have agency and be heard ― and not only that, but really, honestly improve our university,” he said.

Jeff Jackanicz, the president of the SF State Foundation, thanked students who participated in the work group in an Aug. 22 email to the campus outlining proposed changes to the foundation’s environmental, social and governance, or ESG, strategies.

“We have been lauded for being a leader in ESG investment before, and with credit to Students for Gaza, our revised policy affirms our leading role in values-driven advising,” Jackanicz wrote.

Students for Gaza scheduled a rally and news conference Thursday at 12:15 p.m. in San Francisco State’s Malcolm X Plaza to announce the investment changes.

A ‘tangible’ bid for divestment

The decision to tighten investment screens at San Francisco State follows a wave of campus protests calling on Israel to end an assault on Gaza that has killed more than 40,000 people, according to the local health ministry. The current fighting started on Oct. 7 when Hamas and other militants attacked Israel, killing more than 1,000 people and abducting hundreds more.

Rama Ali Kased, an associate professor of race and resistance studies and an adviser to students in the work group, said some on her campus were surprised to learn the university had any investments in arms makers. Asking the university to cut ties with those firms was “tangible and understandable,” she said — which made the case to drop those investments easier.

The SF State Foundation is the auxiliary organization responsible for raising private funding for the university and managing the university’s endowment, money the university funnels into facilities, scholarships and other university programs.

The foundation’s endowment spent $8.9 million of its income across the university in the 2022-23 fiscal year, according to Cal State records, and ranked as the seventh-largest in the Cal State system by market value.

This is not the first time that SF State has revised its foundation investment criteria following feedback from student activists. In 2013, the foundation limited direct investments in coal and tar sands, a step Cal State says was a first among U.S. public universities.

Each of the 23 campuses in the California State University system, as well as the Chancellor’s Office, has a separate endowment managed by an auxiliary organization. Together, the CSU endowments had a market value of $2.5 billion in the 2022-23 fiscal year, growing roughly 8.7% year-over-year.

The Chancellor’s Office on April 30 released a statement saying that Cal State “does not intend to alter existing investment policies related to Israel or the Israel-Hamas conflict” because such divestment “impinges on the academic freedom of our students and faculty and the unfettered exchange of ideas on our campuses.”

Campus leaders nonetheless have some flexibility to manage their own endowments.

Sacramento State on May 8 announced new investment policy language as a concession to pro-Palestinian student groups. That language does not mention Israel specifically but instead directs the school’s foundation “to investigate socially responsible investment strategies which include not having direct investments in corporations and funds that profit from genocide, ethnic cleansing, and activities that violate fundamental human rights.”

Less than a week after the Sacramento State announcement, SF State agreed to revise its investment policies in consultation with student encampment representatives, setting in motion this summer’s work group.

But an incident at another Cal State campus suggests there are limits to how much leeway campus leaders have to negotiate with student protesters.

Mike Lee, then-president of Sonoma State University, announced on May 14 that he had reached an accord with protesters to review the school foundation’s investments and form an advisory council that would include a local chapter of the group Students for Justice in Palestine.

Lee was forced to backpedal soon afterward. The CSU placed him on administrative leave the following day, saying he announced the agreement without proper approvals. Lee decided to go back into retirement soon afterward.

The path to a deal

To Lynn Mahoney, the president of San Francisco State University, the student encampment pitched on her campus for roughly two weeks this spring had roots in a range of student concerns, from dizzying Bay Area housing costs to the climate change crisis.

“If these young people aren’t angry, they’re not paying attention,” Mahoney said.

That perspective shaped the way Mahoney responded when students organized protests in April. Mahoney agreed to participate in an open bargaining session held in the school’s Malcolm X Plaza, fielding questions from students and sharing information about the university’s investment practices.

“I just strongly urge presidents: Approach the students with respect, even if they’re out there hollering horrible things about you,” she said. “Approach them with respect. They’re your students.”

Kased said that by meeting with students at the encampment this spring, Mahoney and student protest leaders set a tone that allowed for the work group to continue over the summer.

“That move provided a space for students to feel empowered, but to say, ‘Look, we may not agree with President Mahoney on everything, but we’re going to sit down,’” Kased said.

The summer’s work group also benefited from a governance structure students developed during the spring encampment, Kased said, when students elected leaders to represent them and similarly identified faculty to act as spokespeople and liaisons in negotiations with the administration.

People who attended the meetings said they tended to be collegial rather than confrontational, and that rare moments of tension between students and campus officials were quickly quelled.

“These were tough discussions,” Gen said. “It’s the kind of discussion that professors aspire to have with their students in classes, quite honestly — challenging ones, where they raise tough questions, explore implications of perspectives and, most importantly, find some route for agency.”

Gen said the discussions with students this summer echoed previous debates within the foundation’s investment committee regarding whether to divest from specific countries due to their records on human rights. The committee has avoided naming specific countries in its policies, he said, instead articulating values its investments should reflect.

“We have a diversity of students who are on all sides of this specific issue here, too, and we weren’t going to alienate one student group for another,” he said. “They’re all our students.”

‘Not about money’

Some foundation investments are easier to screen than others.

Noam Perry, who works with activists leading divestment campaigns as part of his role at the American Friends Service Committee, acted as a de facto translator between San Francisco State students and university officials this summer.

He said one place where the work group made progress was by identifying specific investments held in separately managed accounts, an investment vehicle tailored to the university.

A foundation document dated Aug. 14 says the foundation will screen out “any company deriving more [than] 5% of revenue from weapons manufacturing, involved in the private prison industry, or engaging in detention at borders” from separately managed accounts.

But it can be harder to get a clear picture of other investment vehicles. Perry said that the foundation works with some asset managers that apply quantitative investment strategies. That means the manager buys and sells stocks dynamically — and the stock holdings change every day.

“That’s where conversations became really tense,” said Perry. “Because from the students’ perspective … this is unacceptable, because there’s no way that this vendor could ever be aligned with the responsible investment policy that the university is seeking. And from the university’s perspective, that’s where there’s revenue to be lost. They never said they had zero tolerance for having these companies. It’s always about minimizing exposure and reducing the risk that they’re invested in these (companies).”

Perry said how the foundation should handle such investments in the future remains an open question.

Jackanicz’s Aug. 22 email to the campus said the university’s “commingled investment strategies already align strongly with core environmental, social and governance (ESG) values.” He said the foundation believes “we can engage with fund managers over time to discuss changes that could have further positive impacts.”

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14/05/2025
Communication with parents is key to addressing chronic absenteeism, panel says

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q12tG9pvhpM

Students who are missing too much school might be facing mental health issues, poverty and housing insecurity — issues that might seem daunting if not impossible for the school system to tackle by itself.

But relatively simple strategies, such as improved communication with parents via phone calls, emails or postcards, can be effective while costing little, according to a panel convened by EdSource on Wednesday called “Getting students back to school: Addressing chronic absenteeism.” Communication alone can motivate parents to improve their children’s attendance — and it can also help schools understand the causes of chronic absenteeism.

“Engagement is mostly free,” said Jessica Hull, executive director of communication and community engagement for Roseville City School District in Placer County. “It doesn’t take any money to sit and listen to the barriers that exist for our families.”

Researchers and educators know what a serious problem chronic absenteeism is, but parents don’t, according to Amie Rapaport, co-director of the Center for Applied Research in Education at University of Southern California (USC). Rapaport calls this the “parent/expert disconnect.”

“If parents don’t know that their children are struggling in school, then they’re not going to be seeking intervention or support for their child,” Rapaport said.

That appears to be what is happening. Rapaport’s research as part of a new USC report on school absenteeism found that fewer than half of the parents of chronically absent students were worried or concerned about it. But research has found that chronic absenteeism can cause a cascade of academic problems for students throughout their schooling.

The pandemic played a role in diminishing parents’ belief that school attendance is valuable, according to Thomas S. Dee, professor of education at Stanford University Graduate School of Education. He said this “norm erosion” has been a national phenomenon.

“Over the past few years, we’ve seen nearly 20 years of test score gains evaporate,” Dee said. “We’ve seen an accelerating youth mental health crisis that’s attested by a declaration from the American Academy of Pediatrics, (and) a rare public health advisory from the U.S. Surgeon General.”

Schools are still seeing the effects of the pandemic on their students, even as federal funding to address those problems is drying up, Dee noted. For schools to address this crisis, they need interventions that are easy to scale and don’t cost a lot of money — and have research to back it.

“I think if I were to encourage people to leave today’s webinar with one piece of information, it’s that most promising (intervention) is low cost, scalable parent engagement through outreach, through texting, through postcards,” Dee said.

The way that educators frame the problem to parents is important, according to Hull. That can mean celebrating when a student who has been absent returns to school. But it can also mean explaining why missing a couple of days each month can take a toll on a student. Avoiding jargon or confusing language is also key.

When confronted with a chronic absenteeism rate that soared to 26% from a prepandemic level of 6%, Roseville City School District began a campaign to educate parents about the importance of attendance. One piece of that was designing an infographic, in parents’ home language, that explained what chronic absenteeism is and the consequences of too many unexcused or even excused absences.

Dee said that the state could also play a role by integrating data about attendance with a text messaging system, for instance, alerting parents that their student is missing too much school.

“But California’s a place that’s put a heavy emphasis on local control, and so it’s down to our many districts and schools to navigate those challenges,” Dee said.

Some schools might see that certain issues — such as school safety, transportation or economic or health barriers — are especially prevalent in their communities, Dee said. Understanding what those issues are from the community is important. That, too, requires parent engagement.

Communication needs to be a two-way street, according to Jennifer Hwang, a Los Angeles Unified parent. LAUSD educators initially brushed Hwang’s concerns aside when she told them her son was struggling with attendance, due to anxiety and neurodivergence. Hwang wishes that her school had simply listened to her concerns when she first raised them.

“It took a while for me to just go in constantly, reach out to the teacher and reach out to the school. If that initial reaction would have been much more helpful, then I don’t think that he would have been as absent as he was,” Hwang said.

Zaia Vera, an education consultant with Sown To Grown, credits conversations with students for inspiring a novel way of addressing attendance. Students said they were struggling with money and that they needed adults who cared about them. So Oakland Unified conducted an experiment while Vera was the head of social-emotional learning.

For 10 weeks, the district provided mentors and $50 a week to encourage students to improve their attendance. It paid off with improved attendance that continued well beyond the experiment.

“The key finding here was that the money incentivized the students to come to school, but it was the relationships that they built that kept them there, and coming back,” Vera said.

Research demonstrates that good relationships with teachers are key for encouraging students to come to school — and so are factors such as the school environment and the quality of instruction, Dee said.

But Dee cautions schools to not get too overwhelmed trying to tackle all the problems that can exacerbate chronic absenteeism, especially at a time when school finances are tight.

“The notion that (schools) should do all the things seems really problematic,” he said. “I’m seeing things like, ‘Well, maybe to promote attendance, you should fix housing and security or solve the American health/healthare system.’ I think that’s great advice for a state legislator or federal legislator, but not appropriate for districts and schools.”

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14/05/2025
With AI in schools, local leadership matters more than ever
Credit: Julie Leopo/EdSource

Last week, the Trump administration’s draft executive order to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into K-12 schools made national headlines. The order, still in flux, would direct federal agencies to embed AI in classrooms and partner with private companies to create new educational programs. The move comes as China, Singapore and other nations ramp up their AI education initiatives, fueling talk of a new “AI space race.” But as the world’s biggest players push for rapid adoption, the real question for American education isn’t whether AI is coming — it’s who will shape its role in our schools, and on whose terms.

AI is not simply the next classroom gadget or software subscription. It represents a fundamentally new kind of disruptor in the education space — one that doesn’t just supplement public education but is increasingly building parallel systems alongside it. These AI-powered platforms, often funded by public dollars through vouchers or direct-to-consumer models, can operate outside the traditional oversight and values of public schools. The stakes are high: AI is already influencing what counts as education, who delivers it and how it is governed.

This transformation is happening fast. For example, in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) the district’s ambitious “AI friend” chatbot project, meant to support students and families, collapsed when its startup partner folded, exposing the risks of investing public funds in untested AI ventures. Meanwhile, major tech firms are pitching AI as a “tutor for every learner and a TA for every teacher,” promising to personalize learning and free up educators’ time. The reality is more complex: AI’s promise is real, but so are its pitfalls, especially when it bypasses local voices and democratic control.

The rise of AI in education is reshaping three core principles: agency, accountability and equity.
- Agency: Traditionally, public education has empowered teachers, students and communities to shape learning. Now, AI platforms — sometimes chosen by parents or delivered through private providers — can shift decision-making from classrooms to opaque algorithms. Teachers may find themselves implementing AI-generated lessons, while students’ learning paths are increasingly set by proprietary systems. If local educators and families aren’t at the table, agency risks becoming fragmented and individualized, eroding the collective mission of public schooling.
- Accountability: In public schools, accountability means clear lines of responsibility and public oversight. But when AI tools misclassify students or private micro-schools underperform, it’s unclear who is answerable: the vendor, the parent, the state, or the algorithm? This diffusion of responsibility can undermine public trust and make it harder to ensure quality and fairness.
- Equity: AI has the potential to personalize learning and expand access, but its benefits often flow unevenly. Wealthier families and districts are more likely to access cutting-edge tools, while under-resourced students risk being left behind. As AI-powered platforms grow outside of traditional systems, the risk is that public funds flow to private, less accountable alternatives, deepening educational divides.
It’s tempting to see AI as an unstoppable force, destined to either save or doom public education. But that narrative misses the most important variable: us. AI is not inherently good or bad. Its impact will depend on how — and by whom — it is implemented.

The U.S. education system’s greatest strength is its tradition of local control and community engagement. As national and global pressures mount, local leaders — school boards, district administrators, teachers, and parents — must drive how AI is used. That means:
- Demanding transparency from vendors about how AI systems work and how data is used.
- Prioritizing investments in teacher training and professional development, so educators can use AI as a tool for empowerment, not replacement.
- Insisting that AI tools align with local values and needs, rather than accepting one-size-fits-all solutions from distant tech companies or federal mandates.
- Building coalitions across districts and states to share expertise and advocate for policies that center agency, accountability, and equity.
As Dallas schools Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde put it, “It’s irresponsible to not teach (AI). We have to. We are preparing kids for their future”. But preparing students for the future doesn’t mean ceding control to algorithms or outside interests. It means harnessing AI’s potential while holding fast to the public values that define American education.

The choices we make now — especially at the local level — will determine whether AI becomes a tool for equity and empowerment, or a force for further privatization and exclusion. Policymakers should focus less on top-down mandates and more on empowering local communities to lead. AI can strengthen public education, but only if we ensure that the people closest to students — teachers, families and local leaders — have the authority and resources to shape its use.

The world is changing fast. Let’s make sure our schools change on our terms.

•••

Patricia Burch is a professor at the USC Rossier School of Education and author of “Hidden Markets: The New Educational Privatization” (2009, 2020).

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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14/05/2025
California students need more diverse teachers; let’s close the gap with tutors

Courtesy: Teach for America

School is back in session. In California, we ended the prior school year with promising data that student attendance rates throughout the state are rising from historic lows during the pandemic. While having students in seats is cause for celebration, we must ensure that we have enough teachers in classrooms.

California has a long way to go. We rank 47th in the country for student-teacher ratio. Our elected officials are making investments in school staffing, yet there are further measures we should be taking to make sure students receive the quality education they deserve. And there’s no time to waste.

The initiative we should be champing at the bit to implement is high-impact tutoring: tutoring in one-on-one situations or very small groups meeting at least 30 minutes, three or more times a week. Here’s why this is an effective, scalable way to provide students with high-quality educators:

You can’t argue with data. Research shows that high-dosage tutoring is one of the most effective ways to help students make academic progress. Yet few students actually receive it. A recent study from Stanford University demonstrated the many positive effects of tutoring, including increased reading and math scores, attendance and a feeling of belonging. Teach For America’s (TFA) tutoring program, the Ignite Fellowship, finds and develops tutors who connect virtually with students during the school day. Fellows, who are paid for their work, are supported by a school-based veteran educator to customize instruction. Seventy-one percent of the 3,500 students across the country being tutored by Ignite fellows meet their semester-long reading and math goals.

Tutoring is a pipeline to teaching. Teacher morale is an ongoing issue. Because teaching is so unique, it can be hard to fully prepare aspiring educators for what it’s like to lead a classroom. Tutoring serves as a way for college students to step behind the wheel, with a professional providing roadside assistance before they are given full control. This can be key to teacher recruitment and retention — before people fully enlist in becoming a teacher, they have the opportunity to see if this profession is right for them. AmeriCorps, which also invests in employing young people as tutors to help them jump-start service-oriented careers, has found that more than half of its tutors hope to pursue a career in education after their service. When teachers are more confident stepping into their classrooms, students are the ones who reap the rewards.

Tutors ease the burden for teachers. Tutors can focus on small groups or individual sessions with students — something that lead teachers don’t always have the capacity to do. This way, tutors can address specific learning gaps for individual students, meeting more individual and diverse needs, and allowing students to build authentic relationships with multiple educators/mentors. I have had teachers tell me they wish they could clone themselves so they could work with more students to meet different needs and speeds. In our reality, tutors may be the closest thing we have to clones.

Prioritizing diversity. To provide a diverse experience for our nation’s students, we must have their educators — their role models — reflect them. This means we should prioritize recruiting and retaining teachers of color. Throughout California’s public schools, 77% of the K-12 population is composed of students of color, whereas only 37% of educators identify as people of color. This kind of ratio is true for Los Angeles, where I am based. That’s why I’m excited to be welcoming the Ignite Fellowship to schools throughout Los Angeles (and expanding even further throughout California) this year, helping bring more diverse and locally rooted teachers into classrooms. People of color face historically more hurdles than white people in the workforce, and this is even more extreme in the teaching profession. Tutoring is a way to expand the diversity of the teacher pipeline and can increase students’ access to educators from diverse backgrounds. Virtual programs like Ignite also allow for more flexibility and accessibility, meaning fewer hurdles for aspiring teachers to become tutors, and more opportunities for students to connect with tutors and mentors.

The school year may already be underway, but the reality is that schools will be fighting to staff their classrooms all year. Anything we can do to mitigate the detrimental effects that understaffed schools have on students should be a priority. Investing in tutors is an actionable way to help staff schools with diverse educators, with an added benefit of creating a pipeline of tomorrow’s teachers.

We have the proof that it will help our students, so what are we waiting for?

•••

Lida Jennings is the executive director of Teach For America Los Angeles and San Diego.

The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. We welcome guest commentaries with diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.

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11/05/2025
For preschool educator, kids’ paintings give them a deep brush with themselves

Credit: Courtesy of Daniel Mendoza

Daniel Mendoza makes his own paintbrushes. It may have started out as a way to save money, but it also reflects his aesthetic as a veteran preschool teacher who uses painting to engage pint-sized students.

“The brushes happened out of a necessity of wanting to make things big,” said the child development specialist who is also a painter. “If you’re familiar with preschool teachers, we make super low salaries starting out. I had to stay on a budget.”

Daniel Mendoza uses art as a way to spark engagement in preschool.
Credit: Daniel Mendoza

Instead of downsizing his plans to teach small children how to create epic murals or Jackson Pollock-style canvases, Mendoza got creative. The brushes became a symbol of his DIY vibe.

“I came up with this mop-style brush,” said the 44-year-old, with customary modesty. “It really allowed me to feel even more connected to this work and a part of who I am and what I’m trying to convey, down to the materials themselves.”

While he started out as a musician and now works primarily in visual arts, he says the leap to education was a no-brainer for him.

“It wasn’t really a stretch for me to move worlds,” said Mendoza, the program administrator for the Placer County Office of Education early childhood education department. “Music and visual arts are so interconnected. Even education is the same in ways. It takes thinking in that creative mindset.”

Much like the preschoolers he spent 10 years teaching, Mendoza embraces big messes. One of the first things students saw when they came into his classroom was a drippy, paint-splattered canvas.

Now, he teaches other educators how to unleash the power of creativity in the classroom. Some teachers are afraid of making a big mess, but he relishes it.

“Art is intrinsic to who we are as humans,” he said. “It’s tied to our identity and our outlook on how we view the world. Think about the aesthetics of art, and how that is tied to everyday life. What we like to wear, eat, listen to … We want to create, it’s deep in who we are.”

Mendoza, who grew up on a pistachio farm, seeing nature as his playground, believes that children are naturally artists. They love to get down-and-dirty, and they often focus more on the process than the product. Sometimes a child will concentrate so hard on a piece they seem to lose themselves in the work, only to run off as soon as it’s finished.

“They love making the art,” he quips, “not putting their name on it.”

Little children think outside the box by default, experts say. The challenge is how to let them grow that impulse even as they grow up.

“Preschoolers live in their creative mindset, all the time. It’s the perfect space for me,” he said. “Art gives children a voice. It opens the door for them to share their feelings, their thoughts, their ideas.”

Having grown up in a low-income immigrant family, Mendoza is passionate about making sure all children have the same exposure to the arts that high-income families often take for granted.

“I was a Head Start kid, I know what it’s like to struggle,” said Mendoza. “It’s sad because when we think about the circle, generational poverty or generational addiction as opposed to generational wealth and prosperity. Some of these children will stay in this lower socioeconomic status as they grow into adults. That’s how they exist. Giving them tools like art, dancing, painting, gives them an understanding of freedom, of expression, of identity.”

Mendoza views teaching as an art form of its own, cultivating his pedagogy with the same depth of dedication as his mixed-medium artworks.

“He approaches his work like an artist — with creativity,” said Letty Kraus, director of the California County Superintendents Statewide Arts Initiative, “but also with an educator’s understanding of how to remove enough limitations to engage in play and art-making both individually and collectively.”

Preschool teacher Daniel Mendoza with some of his students.
credit: Daniel Mendoza

Sometimes Mendoza worries that no matter how much headway he makes in the early years, encouraging children to think for themselves and embrace their creativity, that it all gets lost by middle school, when the intense pressure on achieving high test scores can diminish the love of learning.

“I feel that so many don’t see that connection, the connection art has to culture, individuality and community,” he says ruefully. “It might be a lack of education or awareness, but this conversation is missing. Helping connect what is seen as a ‘luxury’ to those learning goals and foundations that are important to families, gives us an opportunity to show the massive impact the arts have on children’s learning and ability to reach their maximum potential in school and throughout life. We all need the arts, not just children.”

He partly blames the laser focus on numeracy and literacy for creating a more stressful environment for children that also hasn’t moved the needle academically.

“Math scores are down,” he notes. “We have done math all day, and then we did this after-school math program, and now we’re sending math homework home, and that’s still not working. So now we’re going to double down and kids are going to do math on the weekends. I’ve watched a lot of baseball. That’s three strikes right there.”

By contrast, art teaches focus, he says. It demands that you slow your roll, pay attention and then reflect on the nuance. That depth of concentration and perception pays off in all the other subject areas, experts say.

“He has the seamless ability to integrate the arts with other content areas,” said Jennifer Hicks, assistant superintendent of educational services at the Placer County Office of Education. “When children experience art with Daniel, they are experiencing math, they are experiencing literacy, they are experiencing science.”

Mendoza says he almost got arrested once at the old Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in Las Vegas for spending too much time looking at a painting. The lights turned off, and when security guards appeared, they assumed he was up to no good.

“Art is an invitation to have an inner dialogue,” he said. “To examine yourself, what you think, what you feel.”

Credit: Courtesy of Daniel Mendoza

One of the most noticeable things about Mendoza is his exuberance for art and learning for their own sake. That’s partly why small children often gravitate to him, even when he and his wife are just out shopping at Target, because he radiates warmth.

“Daniel is joyful,” said Hicks. “ His passion for early education is apparent in everything he does. He’s always ready to take on a new project or implement an innovative idea. He has a magical way of communicating with children, teaching them language, expression and how to be good humans.”

While his time is jam-packed with training preschool teachers, painting and teaching about the creative process in children at Sierra College, when he needs to recharge creatively, he always heads back into the classroom to the little ones who are his muses.

“If my tank is low, I go hang out at one of our classrooms,” he said. “The children are always so awesome at refilling that creative tank for me.”

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11/05/2025
Free-range parenting: A chat with Lenore Skenazy

Let Grow after school play clubs encourage children to make their own fun and games, to gain independence and learn social skills.

credit: Kevin Stinehart

Lenore Skenazy was once reviled as the worst mom in America for letting her 9-year-old son Izzy take the subway by himself. He got hassled so often that he began carrying a printout of the transit rules stating anybody over 8 could ride alone.

The newspaper columnist turned author has since become a champion of the “free-range kids” parenting style and helped spark a national movement, “Let Grow,” which encourages parents to gradually give their children the kind of small freedoms they were allowed as children, such as walking to school or to the park.

Skenazy recently took a few moments to chat about what she sees as the serious developmental impacts of curtailing the natural impulse for free play and how we went from a country where it was normal for children to ride the bus to a nation where parents try to manage their college kid’s schedule.

Amid the deepening youth mental health crisis, Skenazy suggests that free play is a serious matter for human development. She suggests that coddling our kids may limit their cognitive potential, holding them back from peak educational experiences, pointing to research showing a link between lower independence and higher anxiety. Independence, she says, is the key to developing happy, well-adjusted children.

Free range parenting pioneer Lenore Skenazy
credit: Evan Mann

Do you think that giving kids more independence can help fight anxiety?

Everybody’s worried about this and people are wondering, what should we do? And sometimes the answer is, let’s have a yoga room at school so they can center their feelings. Let’s do breathing exercises. And my answer is, if what has happened is we took out all their independence and all the time that they would just be playing with each other and laughing and figuring out what to do and changing the rules and arguing and compromising, OK, we’ll do it your way, but then next tomorrow we’ve got to play it my way. All that stuff. That is how children have grown up since the dawn of time, right? We’ve just taken these things out in the last few generations. You were allowed to play outside as kids, weren’t you? We were allowed to have free time after school. Our kids aren’t. You were allowed to be unsupervised sometimes, and our kids aren’t. If all that has resulted in a massive downturn in child mental health, how about we reverse engineer it? Wouldn’t that involve giving them back some independence and free play?

Tell me about the Let Grow play clubs after school.

What we’re trying to do is basically create a wildlife refuge, only for kids, a place where life goes on as if things haven’t all changed beyond the borders. There’s a bunch of kids together. There’s chalk, there’s balls, there’s cardboard boxes, and there’s an adult there. But they’re not organizing the games, they’re not solving the arguments. They’re just there like a lifeguard in case something goes really wrong. So the kids at first are awkward, like what are we supposed to do? And we say, what do you want us to do? It’s up to you. And remember, they are still human. And one of them says, well, let’s play football. And the other one says, I’m going to draw a tic-tac-toe. And then everybody starts playing. And then you hear the laughs and the smiles and the kids are interacting. So, by the time they have to go and ask the lady at McDonald’s for a spoon, it is not the end of the world.

Why do kids need time interacting with their peers face to face?

You want kids to be off their phones, learning how to interact, learning how to make things happen, learning how to deal with frustration because you can’t all be first. And also learning empathy, the older kids helping the younger kids and learning a little bit of maturity, because the little kids don’t want to look like babies. These cool older kids, you need to have them interacting like humans. Playing. That’s how they have always interacted and that’s how they make friends. We’re worried about loneliness. How do kids make friends? They make friends because they play with them. This is the way kids used to spend their entire childhoods.

How do you convince parents to let their children do the things they took for granted?

There’s something called the Let Grow Experience. And it’s just a homework assignment that teachers give their students, and it says, go home and do something new on your own without your parents. They could do anything from make pancakes to walk to school to walk the dog or use a sharp knife.

Does that help parents feel empowered as well as kids? Does it give all of us more agency?

The reason we love this project so much is that once your kid goes and does something on their own, parents are generally so excited and so thrilled that that rewires you. You are excited to send them out again. And then the kid gets rewired because, instead of my mom loves me, but she doesn’t think I can go to the store, she knows I’ll screw it up, or I’m too shy or whatever. Then the kid says, wait, no, my mom believes in me. I can do this. And knowing that somebody believes in you turns out to be the greatest gift to a kid’s psyche because, sometimes, somebody has to believe in you for you to believe in yourself.

Let Grow after-school play clubs allow kids “free play” — without screens and with each other.
credit: Kevin Stinehart

How do you feel about the proliferation of ed-tech in the classroom? A lot of schools are deeply invested in ed-tech as a way to make kids smarter. This is the opposite of that. Is it hard to make an argument for the relationship between free play and intellectual development?

It’s really easy to make the argument. It doesn’t necessarily land, but the argument is this: The brain comes ready to be wired, right? How do you learn to deal with somebody who’s annoying? How do you learn to come up with an idea? How do you learn to innovate? How do you learn to solve a problem? You have to do all these things to learn how. They’re delightful to do. People love solving problems and love coming up with ideas and love playing. And Mother Nature put the play drive into kids so they would become the kind of geniuses who have gotten us to this point in human history. Ed-tech did not get us to this place in human history.

The rub is that taking the screens away is a really hard thing to do.

You can’t just take the screens away and leave them staring at blank walls. But if you have become the entertainment center, you’ve goofed. The world is actually more entertaining than the phones because you can smell it, taste it, feel it. So you just have to give them back the real world. Take away the phone and open the door.

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11/05/2025
My anxiety as a teacher rises with every school shooting

Students at Clairemont High School in San Diego participate in a national school walkout in 2018 to demand gun control — almost two decades after Columbine.

David Washburn / EdSource

“Four dead in shooting at Georgia high school, 14-year-old suspect in custody.” The ABC News headline blasts across my Apple Watch.

I am in the middle of teaching ninth graders how to draw inferences to support an interpretation of Roald Dahl’s “Lamb to the Slaughter.” They’re captivated by housewife Mary Maloney’s stoic demeanor as she covers up her violent retaliation against her husband. I pause midstory to read the headline to myself, and without reacting, go back to modeling annotations as we uncover how Mary gets away with murder. The students are engaged, but I struggle to keep my own mind focused on the lesson, knowing classes are now canceled in another school, this time in Georgia.

Afterward, I sit at my desk surveying my classroom. I mentally map out safety spots, rehearsing scenarios for a lockdown. I wonder, “What will I do if we are at lunch? Or if there is a shooting between passing periods?” My thoughts teeter between precautionary mental plans and prayers of relief: t wasn’t us. I imagine many teachers, administrators and parents around the country are breathing that same sigh; thank goodness it wasn’t my classroom, my colleagues, my students, my child.

The cry for gun control and stricter safety measures seems to fade in the quiet period after a shooting, with little to no change after the national mourning. My anxiety as a teacher takes a hit every time we revisit this repetitive headline. It is personal and desperately frustrating to grapple with school shootings time and again. Amid the helplessness I feel in the aftermath, I start to think of ways to help my students and colleagues navigate through this repeated collective trauma. What can we do, within our community power, to process these tragedies?

Upon hearing that the shooter is 14 years old, my initial reaction is that school districts need to prioritize regular emotional check-ins for both students and staff. The research on the importance of social and emotional learning is clear: student perceptions of school safety and inclusion significantly improve with this support.

The age of the Georgia shooter underscores the urgency of this idea; an intentional emphasis on mental health in schools as a proactive measure can be instrumental in identifying those who may be struggling with psychological challenges. What violence markers were observed beforehand? How could this have been prevented? This is a challenging balance to navigate: ensuring that schools do not overstep in identifying potentially violent individuals while also teaching emotional intelligence as a preventive measure for students to handle stress. While fostering social and emotional learning within school curriculums cannot entirely eliminate the risk, mandating this is a proactive, researched step toward school safety.

School personnel also need proper professional development on how to handle trauma. When we see signs of stress, what do we do? We know students now, more than previous generations, buckle more frequently under emotional loads that impact their ability to learn, and teachers often feel ill-equipped to respond. We need structured systems of correspondence when we notice signs that someone — student or colleague — is struggling. Just as school safety plans are mandatory, there is a need for trauma-response systems and appropriate annual training.

One issue that has repeatedly surfaced in my classroom is the significant impact cyberbullying and social media have on today’s teenagers. How has technology hindered our efforts to keep students focused and, more importantly, to keep them safe? How has living in a virtual world affected students’ ability to navigate real-life interactions? While I recognize that school violence existed long before every teenager had a cellphone or access to social media, I can’t help but suspect a link between the rise in school-related violence and the fact that much of children’s social interaction now takes place in an impersonal, virtual environment.

As we respond emotionally to the shooting, the uncomfortably large elephant in the classroom is the urgent need for systemic change. Apalachee, Georgia, has been added to the list of communities grappling with the pain of government inaction. In the aftermath, schools across the nation are managing trauma response and reviewing their safety procedures, hoping to withstand a potential repeat event on their own campuses.

Wanting students and faculty to come home safely from school should not be a political issue; it is a basic expectation. The overwhelming responsibility for student safety falls on me and my colleagues to find creative ways to ensure our own safety. Instead, this pressure should fall squarely on our elected officials. While we wait for legislative action, we map our modes of escape, pay heed to the emotional toll these events have on our school communities, and pray fervently that we don’t ever experience our own versions of “Lamb to the Slaughter.” The shooting in Georgia is a reminder to check our own locks and security measures in case we become the unlucky next.

•••

Emily Garrison is an English teacher in Northwest Arkansas. She is a Teach Plus Senior Writing Fellow.

The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. We welcome guest commentaries with diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.

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10/05/2025
Heather Cox Richardson: The New Pope’s Clash with MAGA

Heather Cox Richardson recounts the important exchanges between the new Pope, Leo XIV, and JD Vance, on the subject of immigrants. Vance, a convert to Catholicism, described Catholic doctrine and was quickly rebuffed at the time both by Pope Francis and by the future Pope. So, JD Vance has the dubious distinction of being rebuffed by two Popes!

She writes:

Today, on the second day of the papal conclave, the cardinal electors—133 members of the College of Cardinals who were under the age of 80 when Pope Francis died on April 21—elected a new pope. They chose 69-year-old Cardinal Robert Prevost, who was born in Chicago, thus making him the first pope chosen from the United States. But he spent much of his ministry in Peru and became a citizen of Peru in 2015, making him the first pope from Peru, as well.

New popes choose a papal name to signify the direction of their papacy, and Prevost has chosen to be known as Pope Leo XIV. This is an important nod to Pope Leo XIII, who led the church from 1878 to 1903 and was the father of modern Catholic social teaching. He called for the church to address social and economic issues, and emphasized the dignity of individuals, the common good, community, and taking care of marginalized individuals.

In the midst of the Gilded Age, Leo XIII defended the rights of workers and said that the church had not just the duty to speak about justice and fairness, but also the responsibility to make sure that such equities were accomplished. In his famous 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, translated as “Of New Things,” Leo XIII rejected both socialism and unregulated capitalism, and called for the state to protect the rights of individuals.

Prevost’s choice of the name Leo invokes the principles of both Leo XIII and his predecessor, Pope Francis. In his own lifetime he has aligned himself with many of Francis’s social reforms, and his election appears to be a rejection of hard-line right-wing Catholics in the U.S. and elsewhere who have used their religion to support far-right politics.

In the U.S., Vice-President J.D. Vance is one of those hard-line right-wing Catholics. Shortly after taking office in January, Vance began to talk of the concept of ordo amoris, or “order of love,” articulated by Catholic St. Augustine, claiming it justified the MAGA emphasis on family and tribalism and suggesting it justified the mass expulsion of migrants.

Vance told Sean Hannity of the Fox News Channel, “[Y]ou love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then, after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that.” When right-wing influencer Jack Posobiec, who is Catholic, posted Vance’s interview approvingly, Vance added: “Just google ‘ordo amoris.’ Aside from that, the idea that there isn’t a hierarchy of obligations violates basic common sense.”

On February 10, Pope Francis responded in a letter to American bishops. He corrected Vance’s assertion as a false interpretation of Catholic theology. “Christians know very well that it is only by affirming the infinite dignity of all that our own identity as persons and as communities reaches its maturity,” he wrote. “Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups…. The true ordo amoristhat must be promoted is that which we discover by…meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”

“[W]orrying about personal, community or national identity, apart from these considerations, easily introduces an ideological criterion that distorts social life and imposes the will of the strongest as the criterion of truth,” Pope Francis wrote. He acknowledged “the right of a nation to defend itself and keep communities safe from those who have committed violent or serious crimes while in the country or prior to arrival,” but defended the fundamental dignity of every human being and the fundamental rights of migrants, noting that the “rightly formed conscience” would disagree with any program that “identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality.” He continued: “I exhort all the faithful of the Catholic Church, and all men and women of good will, not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters.”

The next day, Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, who said he was “a lifelong Catholic,” told reporters at the White House, “I’ve got harsh words for the Pope…. He ought to fix the Catholic Church and concentrate on his work and leave border enforcement to us.”

Cardinal Prevost was close to Pope Francis, and during this controversy he posted on X after Vance’s assertion but before Pope Francis’s answer: “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.” After the pope published his letter, Prevost reposted it with the comment: “Pope Francis’ letter, JD Vance’s ‘ordo amoris’ and what the Gospel asks of all of us on immigration.”

On April 14, Prevost reposted: “As Trump & [Salvadoran president Nayib] Bukele use Oval to [laugh at] Feds’ illicit deportation of a US resident [Kilmar Abrego Garcia], once an undoc[ument]ed Salvadorean himself, [Bishop Evelio Menjivar] asks, ‘Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed? How can you stay quiet?’”

The new Pope Leo XIV greeted the world today in Italian and Spanish as he thanked Pope Francis and the other cardinals, and called for the church to “be a missionary Church, building bridges, dialogue, always open to receiving with open arms for everyone…, open to all, to all who need our charity, our presence, dialogue, love…, especially to those who are suffering.”

As an American-born pope in the model of Pope Francis, Pope Leo XIV might be able to appeal to American far-right Catholics and bring them back into the fold. But today, MAGAs responded to the new pope with fury. Right-wing influencer Laura Loomer, who is close to Trump, called Pope Leo “another Marxist puppet in the Vatican.” Influencer Charlie Kirk suggested he was an “[o]pen borders globalist installed to counter Trump.”

In the U.S., President Donald Trump, who said he would like to be pope and then posted a picture of himself dressed as a pope on May 2, prompting an angry backlash against those who thought it was disrespectful, posted on social media that the election of the first pope from the United States was “a Great Honor for our Country” and that he looks forward to meeting him. ‘It will be a very meaningful moment!” he added.

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10/05/2025
AI can free up time for principals to engage with staff and students

Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education

Imagine a school where the principal spends less time buried in paperwork and more time in classrooms, supporting teachers and fostering an inclusive learning environment for students with disabilities.

Embracing artificial intelligence (AI) can make this vision a reality.

AI holds the potential to revolutionize school leadership by alleviating the administrative burden on principals. Principals are essential to developing school culture and steering our schools toward more inclusive practices. Their guidance and decision-making for professional learning, promoting specific desired outcomes, and allocating budgets and resources directly impact students’ experiences.

When a school leader is passionate about creating inclusive learning environments and ensuring students have more access to the general education curriculum, little can stop them — except, of course, the ever-increasing tasks and paperwork that keep them in their offices and away from the classrooms.

Just this past year, the Association of California School Administrators (ACSA) targeted the growing number of duplicative mandates that district and school leaders are spending valuable time on as one of their platforms for Legislative Action Day. Nearly 400 education leaders came together in Sacramento this past April to demand change in a handful of areas, including streamlined accountability: calling for less time spent on writing separate plans and reports for the many (often redundant or overlapping) state and federal programs, so more time can be spent in classrooms.

Not only are principals responsible for numerous plans required by the state, they also have school site plans, emergency plans, loads of evaluations to write, newsletters to the community, emails to respond to, websites to keep up-to-date, data to review and analyze, the list goes on and on. The workload on principals has dramatically increased over the years, and we should be concerned if we want effective leadership in our schools.

In much of my work with administrators on creating more inclusive schools, I address these issues through ideas like sharing responsibilities, delegating tasks and inventorying initiatives to help streamline resources, including time; and now I’m adding a new one: Embrace AI!

New tools, including AI virtual assistants, or SchoolAI and TeachAI, can automate routine administrative tasks like scheduling, attendance tracking, data analysis, and report generation. Tools like ChatGPT, Grammarly, and Co-Pilot can summarize our notes, edit our writing, and be thought partners when our brains are fried. Just this week I have used AI tools to help with rewording and editing my writing, drafting an agenda, and creating original pictures to use in presentations without having to search the web for what I need, all in all, saving me a few hours.

And imagine what our principals could be doing with a few extra hours a week — observing classrooms, providing instructional feedback and greeting students. At the Inclusive Leadership Center at Chapman University, I work with K-12 school administrators supporting their strategic planning and providing professional development. We hear again and again that one of the biggest barriers administrators face in creating inclusive environments for students with disabilities is a lack of time — so let’s remove this barrier.

As we work on improving the quality of education for students with disabilities, leveraging technology and AI to achieve this is a no-brainer. So why not use it as a tool for administrators and not just for our students?

In addition to taking on some of the mundane tasks, AI can even assist in identifying trends and areas for improvement through data analysis, helping principals make informed decisions that support all students. Once administrators embrace AI, think of how teachers can use it. The possibilities are endless and time-saving.

Of course, there are valid concerns about artificial intelligence, such as data privacy and the fear of technology replacing human roles. We need to think about AI as a tool to enhance human capabilities, not replace them. We need proper safeguards to address privacy concerns, but solving these issues should not stop us from using AI to the advantage of our communities and students. I am not advocating for AI to take over all our school leaders’ tasks, like generating all school communication, teacher evaluations, and individualized education plans. But it can assist through editing, clarifying and summarizing through the drafting process, even helping with communicating to specific audiences and tone. Most administrators, including myself, have sent an email we later wished we could have asked AI to check first.

By embracing AI, schools can empower their leaders to spend more time fostering an inclusive, supportive and effective learning environment. It’s time for education to harness the power of AI to benefit all students.

•••

Kari Adams directs the Inclusive Leadership Center at the Thompson Policy Institute on Disability at Chapman University and leads the Coalition of Inclusive School Leaders. She previously was a public school special education administrator.

The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. We welcome guest commentaries with diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.

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10/05/2025