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  • LAUSD ordered to hand over records in long-running funding dispute with archdiocese

    LAUSD ordered to hand over records in long-running funding dispute with archdiocese


    Credit: Julie Leopo/EdSource

    Despite Superintendent Alberto Carvalho’s promise two years ago to settle the conflict, Los Angeles Unified continues denying millions of dollars in federal aid that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles argues it is owed for ongoing services to low-income students in Catholic schools. The archdiocese maintains that the district is diverting the money to bolster its students’ funding.

    Both the California and the U.S. departments of education have chastised the district for breaking federal regulations in dealings with the archdiocese. Now, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has ordered the district to turn over documents and data that it withheld.

     That information, which should illuminate the district’s decisions, could either restart stalemated talks or lead the archdiocese to turn to the courts to order a settlement after seven years of fighting.

    “We do not believe further litigation is necessary, and we can achieve equity for non-public school students,” said Paul Escala, the archdiocese’s superintendent of schools. “However, we will pursue all means to see that all students receive their legally entitled services.”

    Title I rules for private schools

    Congress requires that low-income students in private and public schools receive equivalent Title I funding to pay for counseling, tutoring, teacher aides, and learning specialists. The dispute with LAUSD concerns how much money should be allocated for the archdiocese’s schools and how to ensure the funding gets to the students.

    Under Congress’s rules, private and religious schools do not receive Title I funding directly. Instead, districts determine the eligibility of private and religious schools within their borders, administer the funding, and provide the services directly or through vendors after consulting with the schools. Los Angeles Unified, until recently, hired the Title I staff and put them on its payroll (see Frequently Asked Questions by the California Department of Education).

    The system worked amicably for years. Districts can choose from several ways to determine Title I eligibility, and LA Unified picked the fairest and most efficient method for the 100-plus schools within the archdiocese with low-income students, Escala said. The district used census data to determine the number of Title I-eligible students in an attendance area, then awarded a proportionate share of the money to archdiocese schools. Long Beach Unified uses the same method.

    More paperwork, more confusion, less money

    Then in 2018-19 and the following year, coinciding with the new administration of Superintendent Austin Beutner, the district chose another option for calculating private schools’ eligibility — student registrations for the federal school lunch program. Not only did this method require a lot more time, paperwork and verification by the schools, but the district changed the reporting rules several times with little notice and failed “to engage in timely and meaningful consultation,” the California Department of Education concluded in a 58-page report issued in June 2021 in response to a formal complaint by the archdiocese.

    Los Angeles Unified’s Office of Inspector General removed hundreds of students’ eligibility after examining parents’ school lunch forms in the two dozen schools it chose to audit and failed to include any students from other schools it didn’t audit.

    The result was to cut Title I funding to the archdiocese by more than 92%, from about $9.5 million in services 2017-18 for 102 schools to $767,000 for fewer than two dozen schools, according to Escala. In 2023-24, funding crept up to about $2 million for 43 schools. The district cut its total share allocated to private schools from between 2% and 2.6% of about $291 million to 0.5%, according to the California Department of Education.

    ‘Totally unreasonable’ demands 

    The state Department of Education harshly criticized the district. The timetable for demanding documentation was “totally unreasonable,” and the district “engaged in a pattern of arbitrary unilateral decisions” and failed to justify its decisions to the archdiocese, the report said.

    In ignoring the archdiocese’s Public Records Act requests for documentation to justify the cuts, the district took a “hide-the-ball approach (that) breached both the spirit and the letter” of the law, the report said.

    The spirit of Title I, as stated in the law’s preamble, Escala said, is to maximize participation. The intent of other options like surveys and free-lunch verification is for schools to prove they have higher proportions of low-income families than neighboring schools, he said.

    LAUSD is doing the opposite, Escala said.

    “The district’s using these other methods as a way of filtering and screening and reducing participation,” he said. “You’re extracting children you know qualify simply because a “t” wasn’t crossed or an “i” wasn’t dotted. It is beyond reproach, because they (LAUSD officials) don’t apply the same standard to their own schools.” 

    LAUSD had an obligation to give (the Archdiocese) the requested information. LAUSD’s hide-the-ball approach breached both the spirit and the letter of the duty to consult. — The California Department of Education in a June 2021 ruling

    LA Unified declined to comment on the state’s report, and last week, a spokesperson wrote in an email that “Los Angeles Unified does not typically comment on pending or ongoing litigation.”

    Districts have a financial incentive to minimize private schools’ funding eligibility. The federal government awards the total Title I funding to districts, which determine how much should be allocated for services to private and religious school students. Lawyers for the archdiocese point out that the less money that districts award, the more Title I funding they can spend on their own students.

    The district appears to understand this, said Kevin Troy, an attorney for the archdiocese, citing a Jan. 29, 2019, email from the principal auditor of the district’s Office of the Inspector General to the archdiocese, in which the auditor stated that the archdiocese “receives over $10 million of Title I funds from the LAUSD every year — money that could otherwise be allocated to LAUSD schools.”

    “There’s a moral and ethical question on the table,” Escala said.  “You (LA Unified) have got children in need, and you’re not serving them right,” he added, referring to students in archdiocese schools.

    The impact on one high school

    Mark Johnson, principal of Bishop Mora Salesian High School, has seen the effect of the cuts on students. Before the cutback, Title I paid for a reading intervention teacher and part-time aide who worked with 40 to 50 students weekly — about 1 out of 8 students at the all-boy, 400-student school in the low-income Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. Although on the district’s payroll, the teacher fit in like any other staff member, building personal relationships with the students and collaborating with their teachers. 

    “She (the teacher) had her own classroom and was just a regular teacher as far as any of our kids knew,” he said. She would work with the lowest-performing students on basic reading comprehension skills. “If they were working on a tough piece of literature, she would help them break it down so that they could write an analytical paragraph or essay.”

    Pulling out students also reduced the class size for the remaining students, he said. Now, there is only enough money for a two-day-a-week coach from a contractor who sees at most a dozen students a week.

    “We’re serving kids who are significantly behind grade level and families that deal with poverty and all the things that come along with that,” Johnson said. “So this kind of antagonistic relationship that has developed (with the district) ultimately hurts kids.”

    The California Department of Education gave the district 60 days from its June 2021 ruling to consult with the archdiocese to fix deficiencies pointed out in the report and then recalibrate the proportional share of Title I funding for archdiocese schools. It ordered the district to begin providing the increased services for 2020-21, the next school year.

    Instead, the district appealed the decision to the U.S. Department of Education, which issued its own findings in November 2023. In his decision, Adam Schott, deputy assistant secretary for policy and programs, found that the district could justify reducing the eligibility count based on its analysis of parents’ forms. But by doing that, they cut the funding for the dozens of schools that the district did not audit. He credited the district with consulting with the archdiocese to an extent, but said the district’s overall approach in demanding documentation was “inconsistent and confusing.”

    Schott also ruled that the district violated federal regulations by claiming it didn’t have to share data with the archdiocese on how much it spent on Title I services for students and how much was unspent at the end of each year. 

    In December 2021, the archdiocese sued the district in Los Angeles Superior Court for ignoring multiple requests under the state Public Records Act to turn over Title I spending records and other relevant information. The court held off ruling until the complaint process played out.

    On July 16, Judge Curtis Kin ordered the district to turn over all relevant documents, emails and records to the archdiocese by Aug. 20 and to pay $82,141 to the diocese in attorneys’ fees.

    An appeal to Superintendent Carvalho

    Weeks after he started work as Los Angeles Unified superintendent in February 2022, Alberto Carvalho told EdSource he had familiarized himself with the case and added, “I’m going to resolve this issue sooner rather than later.” He declined to elaborate due to litigation.

    “What I can tell you,” he added, “is that we need more objective, transparent tools by which we assess and fund this guaranteed federal entitlement that’s driven by poverty.”

    Escala said he remains hopeful. “I believe that Superintendent Carvalho has the ability to direct his staff towards that outcome. I have a great degree of confidence that when brought to him, this can get adjudicated appropriately.”





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  • Opening of L.A. schools coincides with earthquake

    Opening of L.A. schools coincides with earthquake


    District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho welcomes students back to campus on Aug. 12, 2024.

    Credit: Los Angeles Unified / X

    A light 4.4-magnitude earthquake and an industrial explosion near one school rattled the Los Angeles Unified School District’s first day of school for the 2024-25 academic year on Monday.

    District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said at a news conference on Monday afternoon at Venice High School that no LAUSD buildings were damaged in the temblor, and nobody was injured.

    He was only aware of one school — Woodrow Wilson High School — that had to evacuate. 

    Students elsewhere had to duck under their desks and stay far from windows. Meanwhile, Carvalho said LAUSD is working with the district attorney to investigate the report of a fireball and explosion near Jordan Senior High School on Monday. He said the explosion likely took place at an Atlas metal recycling plant.

    The superintendent also addressed the progress LAUSD made this past year — and provided an overview of his goals for the year to come. School board Vice President Scott Schmerelson also weighed in, along with board members Nick Melvoin and Rocio Rivas, and other district officials. 

    “We know that for some of our students and their teachers that the summer felt too short, but we’re glad you’re here. We’re grateful that you’re in seats,” Melvoin said Monday. 

    “We have a lot of work to do to make this a successful school year and make sure that LA Unified is the greatest urban district, not just in the state, not just in the country, but in the world.” 

    Academics

    On top of improved California Smarter Balanced Assessment scores across the board, Carvalho touted the district’s graduation rate, which he said was nearly 87% and the highest in LAUSD history. 

    He also pointed to the district’s Summer of Learning program, which he said was attended by roughly 120,000 students. 

    Schmerelson also briefly discussed adult education and emphasized the importance of recruiting more women into the district’s airplane mechanics programs. 

    “It’s free to our LAUSD students, and adult ed is free — and adult ed students are our students too,” he said. 

    Melvoin, meanwhile, noted that more than 14,000 students are enrolled in LAUSD’s transitional kindergarten (TK) program this year. 

    School facilities and transportation

    Carvalho said LAUSD made history by having enough bus drivers on the road on the first day of school — with no substitute drivers needed. He added that the district hired more than 100 drivers during the summer. 

    The district also made its single largest acquisition of electric buses, 180. Melvoin added that LAUSD students receive a free Metro pass to help with transportation needs. 

    Carvalho also emphasized the importance of the bond measure the school board recently voted to add to the November ballot. 

    “Today’s earthquake underscores the need for our system to be serious… about seismic resilience,” he said Monday. 

    Melvoin added that the district will also be unveiling a new outdoor education center in January. 

    Staffing 

    Carvalho said on Monday that the district has a fully credentialed, certified teacher in every classroom this school year. Meanwhile, he said the district is currently home to an unprecedented network of health care professionals. 

    “The teachers are so welcoming,” Rivas said. “And the students were just so ready, ready to learn.”





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  • Helping students with mental health struggles may help them return to school

    Helping students with mental health struggles may help them return to school


    Credit: Alison Yin / EdSource

    Students who are chronically absent from school are much more likely to struggle with mental health challenges, with pre-teen boys and teen girls reporting some of the highest signs of distress.

    When students need help, availability of mental health support often depends on the income of families. “As household income increased, so did the availability of mental health services” in children’s schools, University of Southern California researchers found in a survey of 2,500 households nationwide.

    Their findings are part of an in-depth report on the continuing national school absenteeism crisis in which 25% of students, or about 12 million children, across 42 states and Washington, D.C., were chronically absent in the 2022-23 school year. That rate remains higher than the pre-pandemic national rate of 15%.

    EDITORS NOTE

    This in-depth report on chronic absenteeism is part of an EdSource partnership with the Associated Press and Stanford Professor Thomas Dee.

    For earlier coverage, go to EdSource’s Getting Students Back to School.

    — Rose Ciotta, investigations and projects editor

    While California saw a decrease of 5 percentage points in chronic absenteeism during the same school year, to 24.9%, districts statewide are still struggling to get all students back to school.

    “Chronic absenteeism in California is still twice what it was prior to the pandemic, and roughly 1 in 4 kids in public schools are chronically absent. That is just really striking and is a serious barrier to achieving academic recovery for this generation of students who were so harmed by the pandemic,” said Thomas Dee, a Stanford University education professor and economist who gathered nationwide data in collaboration with The Associated Press and the release of the USC research.

    Emotional and behavioral problems also have kept kids home from school. University of Southern California research shared exclusively with AP found strong relationships between absenteeism and poor mental health.

    For example, in the USC study, almost a quarter of chronically absent kids had high levels of emotional or behavioral problems, according to a parent questionnaire, compared with just 7% of kids with good attendance. Emotional symptoms among teen girls were especially linked with missing lots of school.

    Families with the lowest incomes reported a much higher rate of using mental health services if they were offered to their children in school — more than five times higher than those with the highest incomes. And, crucially, the researchers also found that 1 in 5 respondents would have used mental health services if they were made available at their school, with higher rates among Black and Hispanic families who were surveyed.

    “There is tremendous opportunity here for schools to increase the offerings but also, if they have the offerings, to increase the outreach to the kids and the families that need it because there is clearly an unmet need,” said Amie Rapaport, who co-authored the report and is the co-director of Center for Economic and Social Research at USC.

    ‘I had a very bad year’

    If Jennifer Hwang’s son made it to his first grade classroom, it was rarely without a fight.

    He struggled with severe attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and Hwang says his teacher’s habit of discarding art work in front of him would spike his anxiety, leading to violent outbursts and refusing to even get in the car or walk onto campus.

    “I thought I would have a good year in first grade, but I didn’t,” said her son, 8, whose name Hwang declined to share to protect his privacy. “I had a very bad year.”

    The absences began piling up during the second semester of that 2022-23 school year; he started missing two to three days most weeks. He soon became chronically absent, meaning he missed at least 40 days total. That classified him as chronically absent because he had missed at least 10% or more days in one school year. He began to see a therapist outside the L.A. Unified district.

    Hwang tried getting her son an individualized education program (IEP), which would grant him access to school-based counseling services given his ADHD diagnosis. But because her son’s academic performance was up to par, the school said he didn’t need it.

    She also inquired about him seeing a child psychologist who went to his Riverside Drive Charter campus in Sherman Oaks once or twice a week — but the waitlists were too long. Because he was already seeing a therapist outside of school, Hwang gave up on pressing for school resources.

    The USC report published Thursday highlights that pre-teen boys, which includes children ages 5 to 12, are struggling significantly with symptoms of hyperactivity and conduct problems, while teen girls, ages 13 to 17, are struggling most with emotional symptoms, such as depression and anxiety.

    Morgan Polikoff, a co-author of the USC report, said they cannot confirm there is “a cause and effect here,” noting that the correlation between chronic absenteeism and mental health challenges could “go both directions.”

    “In reality, it’s probably both ways. There’s probably some kids for whom increasing anxiety is leading them to stay home, and there’s probably kids who are missing a lot of school and that’s increasing their anxiety. So it probably is bi-directional or multi-directional,” Rapaport agreed.

    Both the USC researchers and Dee advocated for more research to better understand the causes of persistently high chronic absenteeism rates.

    LAUSD’s chronic absenteeism problem

    Last year, for second grade, everything changed, Hwang said, largely thanks to a teacher who adapted assignments to suit her son’s social-emotional needs and incorporated “brain breaks” into the school day, which Hwang’s son said helped him concentrate.

    “She understood him. She knew that he was bright and he felt things much more deeply, and he saw things differently and with a very different perspective,” Hwang said. “She allowed him to feel heard.”

    “One day (his teacher told me), ‘Oh, my goodness, your son just gave me a hug!’ Hwang said. “That doesn’t come cheap because he does not give out hugs very often. So that he actually hugged the teacher … that says a lot.”

    Hwang and her family aren’t sure what third grade will bring, but they were able to at least secure a 504, a type of plan that helps level the playing field for students with disabilities, so her son could have access to a special chair and space to doodle.

    LAUSD, the second-largest school district in the nation, has struggled with high rates of chronic absenteeism since the onset of the pandemic. Nearly 33% of their over 400,000 students were chronically absent during the 2022-23 school year, down from about 40% the previous year.

    Most recently, in 2023-24, preliminary data shows their rate is hovering at 32.3%, a spokesperson said.

    Still not enough

    LAUSD has increased its staffing of social workers and pupil attendance workers, but staffers say it’s just not enough.

    “We have what we can afford at this point — more than ever before — but still not at an appropriate ratio that I think this board, or myself, would feel comfortable,” Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said at a news conference Monday.

    Carvalho described the district’s staffing as “an unprecedented network” but did not specify how much staffing had increased.

    Ofelia Sofia Ryan is one of roughly 400 LAUSD pupil services and attendance workers trying to bring students back to school.
    Credit: Mallika Seshadri / EdSource

    Ofelia Sofia Ryan is one of LAUSD’s roughly 400 pupil services and attendance counselors who are on the front lines helping get chronically absent students connected with mental health resources and Medi-Cal so they can get back to school.

    This year, the 20-year district veteran works in five elementary schools, including Orchard Academies in the city of Bell.

    “Poverty is the No. 1 issue. Financial issues are … second — the inability of a parent to monitor because they are having two jobs, which also relates to the poverty issue,” Ryan said. “Mental health, I would say that will be maybe next.”

    Darlene Rivas, one of the district’s 800 psychiatric social workers (PSWs), is assigned to two East Los Angeles elementary schools: William R. Anton and Lorena Street.

    “We have to be team players because it can’t just be one person,” Rivas said. “I think that’s why you see a lot of exhaustion within PSW professionals.”

    There is a long waitlist for students in need of therapy, she said. If a parent can’t make it to an initial appointment, it can take months to reschedule.

    Adding staffing can come from school funding, but there are competing demands.

    This year Ryan said she started on an LAUSD campus two days a week. At the last minute, “boom,” they dropped a day, she said.

    “That’s very unfair, because (the district tells) you, on one hand, mental health matters, attendance matters. You’re working your butt off to get attendance improved. I improved attendance in all my schools. Everything was done by the book, and then (the school) just took the money away,” said Ryan. “You cannot do anything. You are powerless.”

    Carvalho regularly touts the district’s iAttend program, where he, among others, visits the homes of chronically absent students to coax them back to school. The district made more than 34,000 home visits last school year, contributing to a more than 4 percentage point decrease in chronic absenteeism, according to the district.

    What the public doesn’t know is how much work it takes after the house visit to get the child back in school, Ryan said.

    Local barriers require local solutions

    Researchers like Dee offer advice for lowering chronic absenteeism rates: “Be acutely aware of the problem” and “look to the really local barriers.”

    That advice appears to be playing out successfully farther north, in Placer County, where more and more of Roseville City School District’s 12,000 students are attending school regularly each year.

    Placer’s 2023-24 absenteeism rate is expected to be about 11% — nearly double what it was pre-pandemic. But that is down from 20% in 2022-23 and 26% in 2021-22.

    School staff have found the two main reasons for the absences are “misinformation and a lot of struggle,” said Jessica Hull, the district’s executive director of communication and community engagement. They zeroed in on these top reasons by closely tracking absenteeism over several years with their attendance system plus a notification system managed by a third-party team, SchoolStatus, that they hired specifically to address chronic absences.

    The misinformation largely centers on families being unsure of whether to send a child to school when they are sick, not knowing they can rely on independent study if the family is going on a lengthy vacation, or not understanding the importance of enrolling in pre-kindergarten known as TK.

    Roseville City School District’s attendance roadmap for parents.

    This misinformation is part of what Dee and other researchers are calling “norm erosion.”

    “The learning experiences of families and students during the pandemic, in particular the experience of remote schooling, may have reduced the perceived value of regular school attendance among students and parents,” said Dee.

    He cautioned against blaming parents for the erosion, saying that “we’re in a crisis now that merits immediate attention and perhaps a little less finger-pointing.”

    The struggles that Hull, from Roseville, said families face are often mental health challenges, particularly with middle schoolers, or families with unmet basic needs, such as unstable housing.

    One of their solutions to both barriers has been constant check-ins with those chronically absent students in order to offer resources, such as access to mental health specialists, gas cards to families facing transportation issues, and offering families bags of food from the local food bank.

    Another help is clearly explaining the notices behind their child being absent. “Schools are all about the acronym and all about words that no one else understands, so we start sending letters home and talking about truancy and chronically truant and excused absence and unexcused absence — all of that’s a mess,” Hull said.

    Instead, parents can expect to see at schools half-sheets of card stock paper explaining the terms and printed in five languages from English to Ukrainian to Pashto.

    “It’s really trying to remove that language barrier when we are talking jargon, and they’re just saying, ‘my kid needs help, we need help figuring out how to get them to school,’” Hull said.

    In Oakland, districtwide efforts include creating a sense of belonging. Oakland’s African American Male Achievement project, for example, pairs Black students with Black teachers who offer support.

    Kids who identify with their educators are more likely to attend school, said Michael Gottfried, a University of Pennsylvania professor. According to one study led by Gottfried, California students felt “it’s important for me to see someone who’s like me early on, first thing in the day,” he said.

    The Associated Press contributed to this story.





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  • Stefan Bean’s remarkable journey: Q&A with Orange County’s new superintendent

    Stefan Bean’s remarkable journey: Q&A with Orange County’s new superintendent


    Stefan Bean is sworn in as Orange County’s 12th superintendent of schools on July 3, 2024.

    Credit: Orange County Department of Education

    Families of English learners and students with disabilities in Orange County can find inspiration and an ally in Stefan Bean. Supporters of school choice can find an advocate. In June, the five-member Orange County school board unanimously decided Bean has the perspective and skills they were looking for in a superintendent of the Orange County Department of Education.

    Two years from now, voters will decide if the board made the right choice.

    Bean, 53, was sworn in last month as superintendent to fill out the remaining two years of the term of former Supterintendent Al Mijares, who resigned because of a lengthy battle with cancer. First elected in 2012, Mijares, a past member of the EdSource board of directors, had battled the politically conservative board majority in court and at board meetings. So the board turned to Bean, who lost to Mijares by nearly 10 percentage points in 2022 but promised to consult with them over policies and control of the office’s $380 million budget.

    Stefan Bean is the superintendent of the Orange County Department of Education.
    Credit: Orange County Department of Education.

    Bean has lived a remarkable life and has an unusual resume for a county superintendent. Paralyzed from the waist down from polio as an infant, he was abandoned on the streets of Saigon before being taken in by an orphanage and then airlifted in 1975 to the United States as part of the Operation Babylift rescue during the chaotic end of the Vietnam War.

    Judy and Gregory Bean took him and dozens of other foster children into their San Diego home and later adopted him. A scholarship recipient to USC, Bean became a public elementary school teacher in Fresno and Long Beach, and has spent the last 25 years as a charter school administrator — as the principal, then associate superintendent and superintendent for 11 Aspire Public Schools in Los Angeles.

    Most recently, he served as the executive director of the Irvine International Academy, a Mandarin language immersion charter school.

    Since his wife died of breast cancer in 2020, Bean has raised their four children, ranging from a daughter who has just graduated from USC, to the youngest daughter, who is in middle school.

    EdSource interviewed Bean about his childhood, his perspective on education, and his priorities as county superintendent for two years before an election contest in 2026. His remarks have been edited for length and clarity.

    Superintendent, talk about your upbringing and experiences in school.

    Judy Bean really taught her family to have compassion for the most vulnerable in our community. She and Dad decided they would care for children who were abused, had issues or disabilities. They had two of their own children and adopted 10, several with disabilities. I had three Black sisters, two Latino brothers, and a Latino brother who passed away at 2 because he had suffered so much brain trauma.

    I went to public school in San Diego, where I struggled in elementary school because English was my second language and because IDEA (the landmark federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) just came out in the ‘70s, and schools were still trying to figure out how to educate students with disabilities. I often found myself in small groups out of the classroom. It didn’t really help with my education to isolate me, and it shaped my drive to be inclusive in education.

    I didn’t do very well until I met Donald Geisinger, my sixth-grade teacher. I remain friends with him 43 years later. He saw right through the challenges that I had and said, “Stefan, you’re just going to give oral presentations and skits on the things that you’ve learned — no need to write.” That whole year I just worked on my verbal skills. I spoke Vietnamese quite a bit, and by the end of that year, I began to speak pretty fluent English. From sixth grade on, I began to get straight A’s and (earned) a scholarship to USC.

    His heart for students and his seeing my strengths was a springboard to do other things, such as speaking in front of 15,000 people in Washington, D.C., on behalf of the disabled.

    How did your experiences shape your perspective on education? 

    Mr. Geisinger and my father saw people and students through an asset lens. Whether they’re on the autism spectrum or have a physical disability or emotional disability — sure, these are deficits, but we as educators must see the assets in those students, and then lift them up and empower students.

    Leading from the heart

    When you say lead from the heart again, how does that translate into action?

    You lead with empathy. My mantra has been you involve those who are most affected by decisions. It’s not top-down directed. Obviously there are certain legal and personnel decisions that would have to be made without input. But a lot of decisions that impact educational programming can involve the community and can involve the stakeholders that are impacted by it.

    I assume that would be a particular strength in dealing with parents of English learners and parents of students with disabilities.

    Absolutely. I now represent many students who have traditionally been left behind. I certainly identify with those students, and I hope that they will look to me as a voice for them.

    Your predecessor had a contentious relationship with the board.  Since the board chose you, I assume you are more philosophically in tune with them.  

    I can’t speak on behalf of Dr. Mijares, but I certainly have the utmost respect for his leadership. If I can lead in a collaborative, transparent manner, then I think we can resolve any dispute between the board and the County Department of Education. In my appointment process, I shared my commitment to building collaboration, transparency, and trust and continuing to support our 28 school districts.

    How will you do this?

    It is common for school districts to have committees in which two (out of five members), sometimes three if you have a larger board, can serve on these committees to really give input (without violating the Brown Act governing open meetings) and receive feedback.  

    You have been quoted as saying you want to “further expand” the board’s work supporting charters and open up more parental options for education, including charter schools and home schools.  Is this a matter of using the bully pulpit?  What can and will you do?

    As people have been learning about me and meeting me and hearing my vision, they would say that I’m far from using this as a bullying pulpit. It’s the complete opposite, actually. My vision is to lead from the heart in which we serve our principals and serve our schools in this work. But to answer your question, this board certainly believes in alternative education models and therefore charter schools. I believe that most of the superintendents that I’ve met believe that our students have different needs. Therefore, in the name of equity, we must provide what our students need. 

    How does that work with homeschooling, though?

    Many home schools now are charters, and charters are heavily regulated in all aspects. We support charter schools that do the independent study model, which is a lot like home school. We don’t support the private home school models. We do have within the department an independent study model in which students learn from home.

    County offices can approve countywide charters but don’t charter proposals go through their individual districts for approval?

    A charter school’s initial application goes to a local school district, and then if it’s denied there, they can bring it to their county as a county charter school. That’s one pathway. And then usually, those county charter schools can then later submit to be a countywide charter school. We have over 30 charter schools.

    But don’t county boards have restrictions on when they can overturn a local decision?

    If a district has denied a charter, they of course have to explain the reasons why. Then that charter can take it to the county board of education and say, “OK, this district denied us for A, B and C. And here’s how we have responded to A, B, and C. So now we would like you to authorize the charter.” There are few restrictions. Our county can certainly do that. 

    The importance of social-emotional learning

    What is your view of social-emotional learning (SEL)?

    Social-emotional learning is very important in schools when we do it as a team in a collaborative way. That includes our parents. Social emotional learning is simply helping our students navigate through the challenges of their lives. Helping them to become resilient. That’s exactly what I grew up with. I’ve had many adversities that our students experience. To overcome those, adults, including my parents, teachers, counselors, speech pathologists, special education providers, all of these people helped me to overcome my challenges to become resilient and competent. And that’s what SEL should be doing.

    I have cautioned educators (not) to use it as a political tool to push forward something that may not be protecting our students. For instance, I believe 100% that parental involvement is absolutely critical in our education system. And so, if SEL is being used to exclude some of our parents, then we’ve missed the mark. That’s where I’m critical.

    What are your priorities for the next two years?

    The first priority is just to continue understanding the assets and the values of the department of education throughout Orange County.

    My second vision is to remain at the forefront of 21st century competencies and skills and lead the way for our students through our OC Pathways partnerships with districts and ACCESS (Alternative, Communit​y, and Correctional Education Schools and Services) what we call our 29th school district. We serve thousands of students across our county in an alternative education setting and model.

    Assuming you do want to run in two years, what will you point to and say, “I’ve made this change, and it’s visible and it affects the way students succeed or not.”

    It will be in the areas of where we will lead the nation, in college and career readiness. I wholeheartedly believe in that vision. One of my pushes will be to use some of our reserves to provide grants to our school districts in order to create and promote innovative programming. Three groups I spoke with recently were focused on artificial intelligence, different technical skills and student leadership. Our districts will come up with great ideas, and we will honor them with resources to implement them.





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  • State bailout for California school districts comes with long strings attached

    State bailout for California school districts comes with long strings attached


    Credit: Andrew Reed/EdSource

    Top Takeaways
    •  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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  • SF State drops investments in arms makers in deal with pro-Palestinian students

    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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  • Communication with parents is key to addressing chronic absenteeism, panel says

    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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  • With AI in schools, local leadership matters more than ever

    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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  • California students need more diverse teachers; let’s close the gap with tutors

    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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  • For preschool educator, kids’ paintings give them a deep brush with themselves

    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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