In case you wondered, I now call DOGE something else. I call it DOGS, although truthfully that’s not fair to dogs. Dogs are wonderful creatures; In my experience, dogs give you unconditional loyalty and love. These DOGS are loyal to one man, Elon Musk. They are shredding the federal government, destroying the careers and lives of tens of thousands of professional civil servants. They have gathered our personal data. They are embedded in high-level positions across the government. They should all be fired and sent back to Elon Musk.
But the bigger risk to our democracy is Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, one of the most powerful positions in the federal government. He is a self-proclaimed Christian nationalist. He is working in opposition to the Founding Fathers, who made clear their intention to keep religion out of government.
Though Elon Musk is leaving the White House, DOGE isn’t going anywhere.
It appears that Russell Vought — Trump’s budget hawk and one of the chief architects of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 — is stepping in to become DOGE’s new power broker.
With Vought, a self-described Christian nationalist, at the helm, the slash-and-burn effort against the federal government may be on the cusp of an even darker turn.
In many ways, Vought is what Musk is not. After working at public policy organizations for nearly two decades, he has a far better understanding of how the government works — and how its weaknesses can be exploited. Despite advising Trump for almost 10 years, he’s also kept a fairly low profile, rarely giving interviews or speaking in public.
And Vought appears to be motivated first and foremost by creating a Christian nation controlled by an overtly Christian government.
Last year, Vought told undercover journalists with the Centre for Climate Reporting that he wants “to make sure that we can say we are a Christian nation.”
“And my viewpoint is mostly that I would probably be Christian nation-ism,” Vought said. “That’s pretty close to Christian nationalism because I also believe in nationalism.”
To achieve that, Vought said in the interview he seeks to replace the non-partisan and merit-based federal civil service with a bureaucracy in which employment hinges on allegiance to Trump. He said he also seeks to impound congressionally approved funding, help coordinate mass deportations and find ways to let Trump use the military to put down protesters.
As former Trump adviser Steve Bannon recently told The Atlantic, “Russ has got a vision. He’s not an anarchist. He’s a true believer.”
Federal agencies, in particular the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), have already implemented numerous policies that Vought drafted to achieve those goals.
Earlier this year, OPM proposed new regulations that would formally revive Schedule F, a key tool developed by Vought to gut the federal government and replace career public servants with partisan ideologues.
In another move championed by Vought, the personnel office last week also announced a s0-called “Merit Hiring Plan” that would, if implemented, ask prospective hires for the thousands of DOGE-induced vacancies across the federal government to write short essays explaining their levels of patriotism and support for the president’s policies.
“How would you help advance the President’s Executive Orders and policy priorities in this role? Identify one or two relevant Executive Orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired,” reads one of the essay prompts.
Vought, too, has recently taken steps to impound funds.
This week, the White House sent Congress proposed spending cuts — also called a rescission package — that’s been backed by Vought in order to formalize cuts made by DOGE. The $9.4 billion package targets funding for NPR, PBS, the U.S. Agency for International Development and other foreign aid spending.
The rescission process allows a president to avoid spending money on discretionary programs, and since rescission bills only require simple majority approval in the House and Senate, there’s a chance some of the proposed cuts will become law. If they do, they will be the first presidentially proposed rescissions accepted by Congress since 1999.
If Congress doesn’t pass the package, the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, which restricts when and how the president can delay or withhold federal funds, requires Trump to release the funds — that’s assuming that the administration follows the law.
The same day the White House sent Congress the package, Vought threatened that if lawmakers don’t pass the rescissions, the executive branch would find ways to override Congress’ constitutional authority to allocate funding.
“We are dusting off muscle memory that existed for 200 years before President Nixon in the 1970s and Congress acted to try to take away the president’s ability to spend less,” Vought said.
When asked by CNN whether he was attempting to tee up a legal fight to challenge the Impoundment Control Act as unconstitutional, Vought implied he was.
“We’re certainly not taking impoundment off of the table. We’re not in love with the law,” Vought said.
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In 2014, the California State Board of Education adopted the evidence-based and standards-driven English Language Arts/English Language Development Framework (ELA/ELD Framework) — nonbinding guidance that encourages the implementation of a research-informed, comprehensive literacy approach for all students.
The framework was the first in the nation to integrate two sets of standards: English language arts (grade-level literacy for all students) and English language development (progress in learning English for students from different language backgrounds), with a focus on the needs of English learners.
Amid ongoing discussions about how to best teach literacy to English learners, it is critically important to both demonstrate the significance of the ELA/ELD Framework and to renew calls to fully fund and implement this crucial guidance.
We cannot overlook the fact that the framework has never received the necessary funding for district, school and classroom implementation. Lawmakers appropriated $85 million to provide professional learning and support family engagement in mathematics, science and computer science — recognizing the need for support to accompany mathematics and science framework implementation. Without similar funding for English instructional materials, professional development, coaching and support services, the framework will remain nothing more than a collection of good ideas.
A few districts in the state have taken it upon themselves to focus on professional development and instruction on the tenets of the framework. Norma Carvajal Camacho, assistant superintendent of educational services for the Azusa Unified School District, said it has been transformative for their students: “By integrating primary language instruction and ensuring effective designated and integrated ELD, we have created a more inclusive and dynamic learning environment, resulting in significant improvements in language proficiency and overall achievement for our English learners.”
Unfortunately, without funding to back its implementation, most districts have not been able to adopt the framework’s powerful strategies for improving literacy for all students. This lack of funding means many districts are not providing the necessary professional development for teachers, not investing in high-quality instructional materials, and not offering sufficient coaching and support services. As a result, the framework’s potential to improve literacy outcomes remains unrealized in most areas.
The framework should be the cornerstone of any statewide strategy aimed at improving literacy and reading. It centers literacy and seeks to develop fluency, decoding, comprehension and vocabulary. It also takes into account that knowledge about the world, including the aforementioned skills, comes from reading and writing about meaningful and engaging content.
Imagine a classroom where the students don’t just learn reading and writing in isolation, but connect these skills with other content areas. An integrated approach promotes learning environments where students can read, write and discuss scientific experiments, historical events, or even create stories based on what they’ve learned in math. This is an approach in which students are also immersed in reading entire books. The framework uplifts this integrated approach to literacy and language instruction, delineating literacy expectations from transitional kindergarten to 12th grade. It emphasizes the five research-based cross-cutting themes that encompass all facets of the “science of reading”:
Foundational skills: Acknowledges the significance of phonics (the ability to recognize written letters from spoken language), phonemic awareness (the ability to identify individual sounds), and fluency as essential building blocks of literacy.
Meaning making: Encourages critical thinking and comprehension by emphasizing reading, writing, listening, language, motivation and vocabulary development.
Language development: Focuses on nurturing oral and written language skills to express information, ideas, perspectives and questions effectively.
Effective expression: Promotes various modes of communication, such as writing, discussions and presentations to showcase students’ understanding and knowledge.
Content knowledge: Highlights the interconnectedness of content, language and literacy, emphasizing the importance of knowledge about the natural and social world in enhancing text comprehension.
No single element, on its own, makes for a sound approach to reading or literacy — they interdependently bolster one another. Integrating all of these elements, ensuring a coherent and aligned approach over time, and supporting instruction that is responsive to students’ needs will produce better results for English learners and all students.
In California, where students speak more than 140 different languages at home, the framework recognizes the value of cultural diversity, multilingualism and biliteracy as assets to be nurtured and celebrated. The framework also includes a call for all educators to ensure English learners are provided with both integrated and designated English language development instruction.
Without designated instruction for English learners that helps them understand how English works and provides extra practice in speaking and reading, most aspects of learning to read in English become especially challenging. It becomes a struggle to hear and isolate the sounds of English, a challenge to understand the syntax and structure of text, and it becomes increasingly difficult to comprehend and make meaning of vocabulary in a language they haven’t learned.
Included in the framework is guidance for curriculum and instructional planning that is aligned with the standards for integrated English language development occurring throughout the school day in every subject area for every English learner. Our instruction should be responsive to the linguistic demands English learners are facing throughout the curriculum.
There are other efforts underway that are aligned to the ELA/ELD Framework. The Literacy Roadmap, for instance, will help educators apply the framework to classroom instruction and navigate the resources and professional development opportunities available to implement effective literacy instruction. The Literacy Standard and Teaching Performance Expectations for Preliminary Multiple Subject and Single Subject Credentials for teacher candidates are also aligned to the ELA/ELD Framework. These efforts are essential for addressing equity and improving outcomes for all students. Both initiatives will require significant efforts to support teachers, parents and administrators to ensure high-quality literacy instruction.
Our students and teachers need and deserve a significant investment to fully realize the potential of the ELA/ELD Framework. Doing so is necessary for improving literacy outcomes for California’s 1.1 million English learners and all of California’s students. We are ready to work with policymakers to prioritize funding and support its full implementation.
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Martha Hernandez is executive director of Californians Together, a statewide advocacy coalition seeking to better educate English learners by improving California’s schools and promoting equitable educational policy.
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.
LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho applauds the district’s improvement in state test scores.
Credit: Mallika Seshadri
This story has been updated to include more community voices.
The Los Angeles Unified School District celebrated its students’ academic achievement in the 2024 California Smarter Balanced test scores during a press conference Friday. The district’s scores reflect a near realization of Superintendent Alberto Carvalho’s 2022 promise to overcome pandemic learning losses within two school years.
Between the 2022-23 and 2023-24 academic years, scores in English Language Arts increased from roughly 41% of students meeting or exceeding standards to just over 43%.
Math scores also rose. In the 2022-23 academic year, 30.5% of LAUSD students met or exceeded state standards. This past year, that number grew to 32.83%.
“I made a prediction about two years ago that within two years, we would begin to see recovery at a level impacting some subgroups that would hit or exceed pre-pandemic levels,” Carvalho said.
“I am heartened by the fact that the students who historically performed at the lowest levels are actually the ones that have already exceeded pre-pandemic achievement levels.”
Carvalho added that LAUSD’s Black and Latino students outperformed their counterparts throughout the state. Meanwhile, both students with disabilities and English learners performed better than they did before the pandemic.
While district officials say they are prepared to maintain students’ level of performance, they are dealing with the end of the one-time Covid relief money that expired last month and pressing federal and state legislators for more support moving forward.
“I believe that to the bottom of my gut and my heart, that we have to provide the conditions where every child can learn. And that means smaller class sizes. It means more mental health support. It means a nurse at every school. It means [psychiatric social workers] at every school. It means things that right now we can no longer afford because the Covid money is gone,” said LAUSD’s school board president Jackie Goldberg during the event.
“This is remarkable, but if we’re to keep it forward, the state has got to find a way….to do something.”
How did the district’s highest needs students perform?
Students with disabilities showed a roughly 1% increase in scores compared to the previous year. Still, just over 13% of LAUSD students with disabilities met or exceeded California ELA standards, with nearly 11% meeting or exceeding math standards.
Homeless students’ performance remained roughly the same as the previous year — with marginal increases, less than 1% in both subject areas. Foster youth, meanwhile, experienced a slight decline in ELA scores — with just over 20% meeting or exceeding standards — and a slight increase to 13.08% in math.
Migrant students performed better on the 2023-24 tests, and English learners saw a significant jump in improvement.
Between the 2022-23 and 2023-24 academic years, the number of English learners who met or exceeded state ELA standards doubled from 4.44% to 8.88%. Meanwhile, the percentage of English learners who met or exceeded math standards rose from 6.80% to 10.65%.
“Los Angeles is not like the rest of the state of California. The challenges in our community are far greater. The level of poverty is higher. The percentage of students who are English language learners is significantly higher. The percentage of students with disabilities is higher. The percentage of students who are newly arrived international newcomers is significantly higher. The percentage of students experiencing homelessness is unparalleled,” Carvalho said Friday.
“That is why anytime that the unnatural, the almost impossible becomes the inevitable, we ought to come together and celebrate.”
Not everyone agrees. Evelyn Aleman, the organizer of the Facebook group Our Voice/Nuestra Voz, maintained that the district’s scores are still not adequate and that more investments need to be made to support student achievement.
“We cannot be satisfied with substandard scores,” she said, “…especially for vulnerable, high-need, student populations. There are no gains when most of our children aren’t meeting state standards in basic subjects.”
How much variation was there between non-charter and charter schools?
In both English Language Arts and mathematics, LAUSD’s charter schools outperformed non-charters.
Roughly 49% of students in district charters met or exceeded standards in English Language Arts and just above 35% met or exceeded standards in math compared to non-charters where just over 40% met or exceeded English Language Arts standards, and just over 30% met or exceeded standards in math.
How did students perform in science?
While LAUSD’s scores in science rose, they are still lagging behind other subject areas.
In the 2023-24 academic year, nearly 24% of LAUSD students met or exceeded state standards in science in comparison to 22.17% the previous year.
What strategies helped at the local level?
While district officials emphasized that a lot of work is required to sustain and improve this year’s numbers, they also said their growth reflects the hard work of LAUSD’s teachers and employees at every level.
“We’ve [improved our scores] by intention,” said Elesia Watkins, the principal of 54th Street Elementary, “intentionally ignoring the stigma that Black and Brown children cannot achieve greatness.”
Principals from other LAUSD schools with increased scores chimed in, emphasizing the importance of tracking data and making sure students are also aware of where they stand and what they need to work on.
Others stressed the importance of students participating in both lab enrichment classes along with elective courses every day — and even after school hours, if possible.
Student board member Anely Cortez Lopez also applauded the hard work and resilience of the student body.
“I believe it will be wrong with me not to highlight the immense resilience and dedication our students have shown,” she said. “We have seen an unprecedented event occur, many falls….not only academically, but emotionally, physically and spiritually for many of our students. ”
This is the fourth in a series of stories on the challenges impacting California’s efforts to offer high-quality instruction to all 4-year-olds by 2025.
Transitional kindergarten for all 4-year-olds has been touted as a way to boost declining enrollment and offer universal preschool. One major roadblock: Some districts just don’t have the space.
Some districts do not have room to accommodate additional transitional kindergarten, or TK, classes at all schools. Others, especially those in less affluent areas, lack the resources to add toilets and playground equipment made for 4-year-olds. A lack of state funding makes the problem worse.
“We’re going to see inequitable outcomes as a result of the inequitable access to appropriate facilities for transitional kindergarten,” said Jessica Sawko, education director at Children Now, an advocacy organization. “The state needs to continue to invest in the facilities that it has asked school districts to create.”
Some districts, such as Oakland Unified, are losing potential TK students because they don’t have space at all schools. Some elementary schools in Oakland don’t have any TK classrooms, and many have only one. As a result, some children end up on waitlists for their preferred school, and families are opting to wait until kindergarten to enroll their children.
Oakland district spokesperson John Sasaki acknowledged in an email that “there is a general capacity issue as we build out TK-appropriate classroom spaces,” noting that demand also varies between schools.
“School A may have 100 applications for 24 seats and school B may have 15 applications for 24 seats. Those families for school A may not go to school B because it’s far away, etc. and so it’s less that we weren’t able to accommodate, and more about family choice and preference,” Sasaki wrote.
Emily Privot McNamara applied for her 4-year-old son to attend transitional kindergarten in Oakland as soon as the district opened enrollment in 2023.
She was hoping for her son to attend his neighborhood school, Montclair Elementary, less than a two-minute drive from their house. Her neighbors told her getting into Montclair for kindergarten was easy for their children, since the district gives priority to students who live in the neighborhood.
But getting into TK there was different. Montclair has far fewer TK classrooms than kindergarten classrooms; in 2023-24 the school enrolled 28 students in TK, compared to 90 in kindergarten. McNamara’s son didn’t get into Montclair or Thornhill Elementary, another nearby school. Instead, the district offered him a seat at Emerson Elementary, more than 3 miles from their house and a 10-minute drive each way.
The McNamaras considered sending their son to Emerson for TK and then moving him to Montclair for kindergarten, but felt that would be too many transitions.
“We’d had several years of shifts and changes. We wanted to start consistency. The idea was once we got into TK, we could stay there a number of years,” McNamara said.
So the McNamaras declined the spot at Emerson and kept their son in private preschool, paying $1,900 a month for tuition. They stayed on the waitlist for Montclair but were never admitted.
McNamara’s son is one of 143 children who applied to transitional kindergarten in Oakland Unified in 2023-24 but ultimately chose not to enroll, according to Sasaki. That number is equivalent to about 12% of the district’s total transitional kindergarten enrollment that year.
TK enrollment has been lower than expected statewide. According to the California Department of Education, 151,491 students were enrolled in TK in the 2023-24 school year, far below projections. The Learning Policy Institute had estimated that between 159,500 and 199,400 would enroll.
A lot of districts, on paper, they’re under-enrolled. However, the devil’s in the details. … Is there potential extra space where it’s actually needed? And what’s the condition and quality of those spaces?”
Jeff Vincent, Center for Cities+Schools
Oakland Unified and Alum Rock Unified in San Jose are both trying to use empty space creatively, revamping previously closed elementary school campuses and converting them into early childhood centers to serve both TK and younger students in preschool. Oakland gives priority at this center and another early childhood center to students who come from neighborhoods with schools that don’t have a single transitional kindergarten classroom. Yet the situation in Oakland, where some schools are under-enrolled, while others have waitlists, shows that expanding TK is more complicated than simply filling empty classrooms with 4-year-olds, said Jeff Vincent, who co-directs the Center for Cities + Schools at UC Berkeley and has done extensive research on school facilities.
“A lot of districts, on paper, they’re under-enrolled,” said Vincent. “However, the devil’s in the details on that, right? Is there potential extra space where it’s actually needed? And what’s the condition and quality of those spaces, and what would it take to turn them into TK-appropriate classrooms?”
A problem statewide
According to a February 2023 Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) budget brief, 25% of districts said they did not have adequate classroom space to meet projected transitional kindergarten enrollment. Similarly, a survey conducted by the California Department of Education and analyzed by the Learning Policy Institute found that 18% of school districts did not have enough classroom space for transitional kindergarten expansion, and more than a third cited facilities as the biggest challenge.
That report found that school districts will need 946 additional classrooms to enroll all projected transitional kindergarten students in 2025-26. TK has been gradually expanding since 2022 to reach all the state’s 4-year-olds by the 2025-26 school year.
One of the challenges for districts is the requirement for transitional kindergarten classrooms.
State guidelines for TK and kindergarten classrooms are more stringent than for classrooms for older children. New classrooms must include bathrooms with toilets sized for young children, and be at least 1,350 square feet. Renovated classrooms must be at least 1,250 square feet. In contrast, classrooms for grades 1-12 must be at least 960 square feet.
Victoria Wang, one of the authors of the report, said some districts told the Learning Policy Institute that the lack of classrooms has made it difficult to offer full-day TK and that they are instead offering half-day morning and afternoon TK sessions in the same classrooms, in order to accommodate more students. Parents who need a longer program to meet their child care needs are unlikely to enroll in half-day TK.
Many districts cited not being able to provide bathrooms connected to classrooms as a challenge.
“If they don’t have a bathroom that’s in the actual classroom space, a staff member will need to walk with the child to go to the bathroom,” Wang said. “That’s just an additional layer of challenge staffing-wise.”
In San Juan Unified, near Sacramento, lack of classrooms “has been a concern,” said spokesperson Raj Rai. In 2023-24, 16 of the district’s 28 transitional kindergarten classrooms had waitlists, and about 249 students who applied eventually declined to enroll in TK at the schools where they were assigned, she said. The district has been offering spots in state-subsidized preschool to some families on the waitlist.
San Diego Unified and San Francisco Unified also had waitlists at some schools, but they would not share how many of the children who applied did not enroll.
Some districts that wanted to expand to more 4-year-olds faster than the state’s phased timeline for TK expansion could not because of facilities constraints, Wang said. The state required schools to offer TK to all 4-year-olds who would turn 5 before April 2 in 2023-24, and to all 4-year-olds who would turn 5 before June 2 in 2024-25, but districts could enroll younger children if they had room and met stricter rules: a 1:10 adult-child ratio and a maximum class size of 20.
A spokesperson for Garden Grove Unified in Orange County said the district had to place 84 children who were younger than the TK birthday cutoff on a waitlist this year; 25 had been pulled from the list as of mid-September.
Inequitable access to funding
Districts are often forced to choose between renovating current classrooms, demolishing, then reconstructing new transitional kindergarten classrooms, or purchasing portables, said John Rodriguez, facilities planning director for Central Unified, a 16,000-student district in Fresno County.
“What do you do when there’s growth?” he said. “And where’s the money going to come from?”
This year, overall facilities funding was cut by $500 million to address the budget shortfall, and funding set aside for transitional kindergarten facilities has run out. The state had provided $490 million in grants to construct or retrofit early education facilities, including for TK, in 2021-22 and $100 million in 2022-23, but that funding was “oversubscribed,” the LAO budget brief found. Additional promised funding of $550 million for TK facilities was first delayed to 2024-25, then to 2025-26, and ultimately was eliminated from the budget altogether.
“It puts at risk the ability for school districts who do not currently have the right facilities to provide those proper learning environments,” Sawko, from Children Now, said.
The ability to build new classrooms or renovate old ones is often tied to a district’s property wealth, said Sara Hinkley, California program manager for the Center for Cities + Schools at UC Berkeley.
“The only way for districts to do real facility upgrades, like adding bathrooms and reconfiguring a number of classrooms, is by getting capital funding, which means going to their voters or tapping into an existing bond measure, and districts have really different capacities to do that,” said Hinkley. “If they have less property wealth, they just have less ability to tap their voters to pay for those kinds of things.”
Julie Boesch, the administrator for small school district support in Kern County, said some of the county’s small districts don’t have the classrooms to serve transitional kindergartners at all sites, so they bus them all to one school, sometimes far from home. Other superintendents have said they may not offer transitional kindergarten at all, she said.
She said one small school district north of Bakersfield is constructing a new building for transitional kindergarten but could not afford a new playground. Another district was approved for some state funding for a new TK building but had to put it off because it could not afford its portion. The district did not qualify for the state to pay the full share because its total assessed property value was just over the current $5 million limit. That limit for a district to qualify for full financial help would be increased to $15 million in assessed property value if voters pass Proposition 2, the state construction bond.
“People are really struggling with figuring out what to do and having enough money when they do get funding,” Boesch said. “The frustrations are real.”
Winters Joint Unified School District, a small district serving about 1,500 students in Yolo County in the Central Valley, had to divert funds planned for other facilities to meet the urgent demand for TK classroom space. According to Superintendent Rody Boonchouy, voters passed a bond measure in 2020 to address major maintenance issues, including adding a multipurpose room to an elementary school. But then, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation to expand TK to all 4-year-olds.
“It was a big, ‘Uh oh, what do we do?’ Everything came to a halt and everything shifted toward, ‘How do we ensure we have capacity for TK as it expands?’” Boonchouy said.
After a long process that included a demographic study and analysis of all facilities needs, the district is using some of the bond money to build four transitional kindergarten classrooms in a dedicated wing of the elementary school, with its own playground. The district was also able to do some maintenance at other schools, but it no longer has funds for the planned multipurpose room.
Without that bond money, the district wouldn’t be able to build new TK classrooms at all, a situation Boonchouy knows many other districts face.
“Ideally, in a perfect world,” Boonchouy said, “that legislation (expanding transitional kindergarten) would have come with money to build facilities for it.”
Student-run school board candidates’ forum at Fremont High School on Oct. 22, 2024.
Credit: Louis Freedberg / EdSource
While most attention in the United States is focused on the presidential elections today, I’ll be watching two local school board races that will be historic for a completely different reason.
For the first time, young people aged 16 and 17 in Oakland and nearby Berkeley will be voting in school board elections.
Although some smaller communities in Maryland have extended a limited vote to a similar age group, Oakland, with a total population of over 400,000, is the largest community in the nation to do so by far.
The initiative came about as a result of youth organizing that put pressure on their city councils to place measures on the ballot allowing young people aged 16 and over to vote in their local school board elections. Berkeley voters passed a law approving the change in 2017 and Oakland voters in 2020. It has taken years to bring the idea to fruition.
When I heard about this effort, I was deeply skeptical.
After all, school board meetings are, for the most part, sleepy affairs — unless there is a controversy that rouses parents and students, like school closures or political battles over curricula, book bans and other hot-button issues.
It is hard enough to get parents interested in school board politics. It seemed to me even less likely that teenagers would embrace doing so with enough gusto to justify the effort and expense of giving them the vote.
But after attending a school board candidates’ forum organized by students in Oakland two weeks ago — and speaking to the candidates vying for their votes, I now have a different view.
I’m convinced that having young people involved in school board politics and decision-making is more than just a nice idea.
For one thing, we know that the earlier young people participate in the democratic process, the more likely they are to do so as adults. It is also a powerful way to get young people involved in shaping institutions that affect them profoundly, and which they have intimate knowledge of: the schools where they spend much of their time during their adolescence.
The forum itself was a rousing affair, and ran from 5 to 8 p.m. Six of the seven candidates running for the board showed up for the event. (The seventh was out of the country and sent a representative.) There were 200 students, most of whom stayed until the end of the marathon interrogation. Many wore T-shirts with the slogans, “My Vote Will Make History” on the front and, on the back, “Nothing About Us Without Us.”
Each candidate had one minute to respond to a set of questions students projected on a screen. If candidates went over the time limit, their microphones were shut off, so the candidates mostly obeyed the rules. And they answered the questions seriously without being patronizing.
Oakland school board candidates spoke in front of 200 students at Fremont High School on Oct. 22, 2024.Credit: Louis Freedberg / EdSource
These student voters are arguably going to be a lot more informed than most older ones who may not have been inside a school in years. Many adult voters have only the barest idea about current school concerns or what goes on inside their walls.
Let’s be honest: With rare exceptions, votes for school boards are typically the last thing many, if not most, voters pay attention to.
“A lot of adults are making decisions about our schools when they’re not even the ones in the school,” Edamevoh Ajayi, a senior at Oakland Technical High School who has been a leader in the Oakland youth vote project, told me. “So they wouldn’t even know what to change.”
“At least for students, we haven’t really been welcomed,” she said, referring to district governance in general. “It’s kind of been an adult-led space.”
It would be one thing if things were going well in their district, and adult leaders had proven themselves. But once again, the district is in crisis as it copes with declining enrollment, poor attendance, a massive budget deficit, and the prospect of having to close or merge schools next year. There is a real chance of a state takeover — a repeat of what happened 20 years ago when the district had to get a $100 million loan from the state to bail it out.
Getting students’ voices into the mix certainly can’t hurt, and is more likely to help. That’s in addition to the long-term benefits of getting young people involved in our democracy at an earlier age.
As Patrice Berry, a former teacher running for the Oakland school board, told me after facing students at the candidates’ forum, “They’re going to make us better overall.”
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Louis Freedberg is EdSource’s interim executive director.
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.
Student para-planners at the Chico State Financial Wellness Clinic provide the campus community with free financial planning and education services overseen by a licensed financial planner.
Credit: Jessica Bartlett / Chico State
There’s a group of students whose fate has largely been forgotten amid the shifting political and policy landscape of higher education. It’s young people from lower-income backgrounds who are taking classes and studying while also working, caring for their families, and struggling to afford housing and basic needs, such as food.
As the shifts continue, institutions and their allies can step up and do more to ensure these students complete their studies and realize the lifelong benefits of graduating with a bachelor’s degree. And they can do so by prioritizing affordability, recognizing that cost is often a major barrier to student success.
Consider the example of Dejanae Wilson, who graduated from California State University, Chico, last year with a bachelor’s degree in social science. While working toward her degree, she was also caring for three younger siblings.
“I had a lot on my plate trying to manage our finances and keep up with my courses,” she said.
To ensure that Dejanae could graduate on schedule and according to plan, she turned to the recently established Financial Wellness Clinic at Chico State. Thanks to consultations with both a student and a faculty adviser at the clinic, she managed the household budget and connected to campus resources (like the Hungry Wildcat Food Pantry), which offered her family crucial support.
“It’s easy to get caught up in the flow of life, your job, and taking care of people — and not realize there are resources on campus that can help,” Dejanae said.
Across California State University’s 23 campuses, administrators, faculty and students are working diligently to support students like Dejanae to complete their studies on time and according to plan. From expanding mentorship, tutoring, and academic advising, to increasing access to financial counseling, to instituting early warning systems to identify and support struggling students, campuses are piloting a range of promising approaches to support student persistence and success. These approaches often build on existing campus policies and programs, making them impactful and achievable.
The Financial Wellness Clinic at Chico State, led by finance professor Jaycob Arbogast in the university’s College of Business and staffed by finance students, is just one example of these practical and effective strategies. This well-organized and structured program, which seamlessly integrates classroom learning with practical experience to support student needs, was recognized for its effectiveness and bestowed the prestigious Catalyst Fund award by the National Association of Higher Education Systems. The awards recognize replicable programs and strategies that California’s public colleges and universities are pursuing to remove cost as a barrier to higher education.
At CSU Channel Islands, another innovative initiative that received Catalyst Fund support has provided additional resources to students who are struggling academically so they can stay on track and reduce the time (and costs) of earning a degree. Launched in spring 2022, the initiative targets students who have nonpassing or incomplete grades and/or other indicators that they are not progressing academically. The program connects these students to faculty and peer mentors and special, cohort-based activities where they bond with other students and develop skills and mindsets that support their persistence and success.
Early results from the program show that participating students’ average GPAs increased, and the percentage of students who graduated or returned for the following semester was higher than that of the general student population. Interestingly, one of the key benefits students point to is how the program builds connections with peers facing similar challenges. As one student said after participating in the program, “You are able to be part of a group that becomes your family, you learn about the experiences of other students, and realize you are not alone.”
Supporting students to persist in their studies can take several forms. At Sonoma State University, students who are the first in their family to go to college are 47% of all undergraduates. As university officials started to see a decline in retention among these “first-gen” students during the Covid pandemic, they developed an early alert system that pings a student and connects them to their adviser and other support when a faculty member reports low test scores or attendance problems. At the end of the program’s pilot year in 2023-24, 97% of first-year, first-gen students enrolled in the program ended in good academic standing and returned the following fall.
What’s happening at Sonoma State and the other CSU campuses is part of a broader commitment to closing the equity gap in higher education across a university system that, despite its uniquely diverse student population, continues to experience racial disparities in degree completion. It was in response to these disparities that CSU set a goal to increase graduation rates between 2015 and 2025. Thanks to Graduation Initiative 2025, the system has nearly doubled its four-year graduation rate for first-year students, and undergraduates are earning their degrees faster than ever before.
Expanding access to a bachelor’s degree and supporting student persistence and success are core functions of the higher education system. In California and across the nation, campuses are showing it’s possible to do better, even in today’s uncertain political and policy environment. All it takes is creativity and a commitment to students who might otherwise struggle to achieve their college dreams.
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Dilcie Perezis a deputy vice chancellor and chief student affairs officer for the California State University system. Monica Martinez is program director for college success at the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund.
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