California education news: What’s the latest?

The House of Representatives Committee on Education issued a subpoena Thursday requiring the Biden administration to submit documents about the FAFSA rollout by Aug. 8, according to USA Today.

Changes to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form caused a huge delay for many students to find out whether they qualified for financial aid this year.

Committee Chair Virginia Foxx, R-North Carolin, said the U.S. Department of Education was not fully cooperating with federal investigations. USA Today added that many congressional Republicans also support cutting funding from the office that oversees the FAFSA.

The Department of Education said staffers have provided hundreds of documents to comply with oversight requests from Congress and the Government Accountability Office, which has launched two separate investigations into the rollout.

Emily F. Cutrer, the president emerita of Texas A&M University-Texarkana, will take over as the interim president of Sonoma State University during a moment of “enormous financial pressures,” the California State University announced.

Cutrer immediately follows Nathan Evans, who has served as acting president since May. Evans filled a vacancy left by the university’s previous president, Mike Lee, who retired in May after he was placed on administrative leave by the university system following a memo in which he announced reaching an agreement on divestment from Israel with protesters.

Cutrer previously served in academic affairs roles at California State University San Marcos. She is expected to hold her new role at Sonoma State starting Aug. 1 while the board of trustees seeks a permanent president over the next year.

In a statement announcing the appointment, CSU Chancellor Mildred García said a combination of falling enrollment and increasing labor and general operating costs had strained Sonoma State’s finances. García said she has instructed Cutrer to find ways to reduce the school’s costs.

“Thus, I have directed interim President Cutrer — an innovative leader with long-demonstrated expertise in developing programmatic synergies and administrative efficiencies — to take steps to bring the university’s academic programs and administrative infrastructure in line with its financial resources,” she said. “To this end, I have asked her to immediately establish agreements to enable the administrative infrastructure of Sonoma State to be offered through CSU shared services to reduce operating costs. I have also directed her to evaluate Sonoma State’s academic programs within the context of the university’s financial reality, while maintaining the programs’ academic excellence.”

Cutrer will receive a $381,408 salary and a monthly housing allowance of $5,000, the same as the previous president. She will also receive a $1,000 per month auto allowance as well as other benefits and reimbursements.

California’s newly expanded transitional kindergarten program is growing, but it’s also sapping resources from other early childhood programs, a new study shows, leading to declining enrollment.

“As the governor’s signature program expands — free transitional kindergarten for all,” said Bruce Fuller, professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley.  other “pre-K programs now show tepid growth or decline in children enrolling, despite Gov. Newsom’s earnest effort to widen access.”

Transitional kindergarten has grown by about 51,000 children since the pandemic, a 52% bump in enrollment, researchers note. However, federal Head Start centers have lost about 43,000 California preschoolers. There were also 9,000 fewer 4-year-olds enrolled in the California State Preschool Program in 2023, compared with 2021 numbers.

Before the pandemic, some experts had warned that TK, which will eventually serve all 4-year-olds, would likely compete with other programs for both students and teachers, since it is free to students and often pays teachers better than other early childhood programs. 

“What’s key is that the governor boasts of growing his prized program, TK, while it’s competing and taking kids from Head Start and state pre-K’s,” said Fuller, co-author of the study. “That’s not widening access for more families … as the governor and legislative leaders had intended.” 

Berkeley researchers also found some communities in which no major pre-K programs exist, particularly in the Central Valley, central coast and inland.

There are also broader social factors at work, Fuller suggests, including the declining birth rate and the rise of alternative schooling, that may be diminishing the overall number of preschoolers. 

“We see it as a combination of forces, on the demand side: parents working remotely, birth rate falling steadily and some families worried about ‘public places’ and institutions.”

An elementary school in the West Contra Costa Unified School District will be closing this summer for repairs after “environmental hazards” were found, according to a message Superintendent Chris Hurst sent families Tuesday evening. 

Students and staff at Stege Elementary will be relocated this upcoming school year, Hurst said, to ensure safety and for the rebuild to start earlier than planned. It’s unknown where students and teachers will be relocated. 

“WCCUSD will implement a contingency plan until Stege students and staff are able to return to their newly remodeled campus,” Hurst said. “We will provide more updates as we continue to solidify the particulars of the contingency plan.”

The closure of Stege Elementary comes days after the district was sued for failing to address and remedy 45 complaints of poor building conditions at the school. The lawsuit, filed late Friday, alleges the school has moldy walls, broken tiles, and classrooms exceeding 90 degrees with windows that won’t open.

Stege Elementary, which mostly serves students of color, has been battling teacher vacancies, dwindling enrollment, and a long-awaited renovation for nearly five years. The building was slated to be remodeled by the 2020-21 school year, but there have been delays.

The lawsuit also alleges West Contra Costa failed to fill teacher vacancies at three schools, including Stege, after complaints were filed in January. 

BroadwaySF, which presents Broadway shows in San Francisco, has announced the launch of the BroadwaySF High School Musical Theatre Awards, a regional awards program designed to recognize outstanding achievement in high school musical theater.

Part of the National High School Musical Theatre Awards (NHSMTA) program — known as The Jimmy Awards — the BroadwaySF High School Musical Theatre Awards celebrates artistic excellence in high schools throughout Northern California, as does Broadway San Jose’s Rita Moreno Awards in the South Bay.

Starting in the 2024-25 school year, the BroadwaySF High School Musical Theatre Awards will be accessible to students from the Bay Area to the state’s northernmost counties. The Rita Moreno Awards, hosted by Broadway San Jose, are open to students from San Mateo County down to Kern County. Both regional awards programs will sponsor two student representatives to participate in the Jimmy Awards taking place each June in New York City. Click here to learn more. 

Eighth graders are roughly one school year behind pre-pandemic levels in math and reading, The 74 reported, according to new test scores that paint a grim portrait of the efficacy of federal recovery efforts in the wake of Covid.   

This data from 7.7 million students who took the widely used MAP Growth tests from NWEA bodes ill for teenagers entering high school in the fall. Completing  fourth grade when the pandemic hit, many students not only lost at least a year of in-person learning, but also graduated to middle school amid the disruptions of teacher vacancies and soaring absenteeism.  

Older students don’t catch up as quickly as younger kids and have to work harder to do so, researchers noted. At the same time, the effects of the pandemic “continue to reverberate” for children in the early elementary grades, many of whom missed out on preschool because of Covid.

“It’s not fun to continue to bring this bad news to the education community, and I certainly wish it was a brighter story to tell,” said Karyn Lewis, director of research and policy partnerships for NWEA, The 74 reported. “It is pretty frustrating for us, and I’m sure very disheartening for folks on the ground that are still working very hard to help kids recover.”

From creating a new Principal Academy to providing free eye care, Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho unveiled several of the district’s 48 new initiatives for the coming academic year at Tuesday’s Opening of Schools Address at The Music Center’s Walt Disney Concert Hall. 

“The cosmos are not bound by limits, just as our students are not bound by limits of what society thinks they can achieve,” Carvalho said Tuesday. 

“Our students will lead our schools. They will begin their journey toward their infinite possibilities.” 

Two of the initiatives Carvalho unveiled Tuesday have to do with adult education. The first is a Principal’s Academy to empower other school administrators to move up. The second is a new training program that will be located at the Port of Los Angeles to help those currently employed work with new and emerging technology.

In the technological sphere, Carvalho said the district would add iDream and Esports labs, to provide students “hands-on, immersive and gamified learning experiences.” 

Beyond the classroom, LAUSD has said they will provide students with eye care — from assessments, to diagnosis to prescription glasses — along with digital wellness plans. 

Carvalho also announced a project called “5,000 role models of excellence,” which is specifically designed to support male students of color. 

Other initiatives include a partnership with the University of Southern California to promote technology literacy, a partnership with the SoLA foundation, an effort to provide 130,000 new devices and a safety program called Safe Kids Alliance. 

Attendance rates, which hit historical lows after pandemic school closures during the 2021-22 school years, continued to recover last school year.

Overall attendance increased 1.18 percentage points last school year, although rates are still down 2.17 percentage points compared with 2019-20, according to a report from School Services of California, a private resource for education agencies.

Attendance rates in elementary school districts increased from 92.28% in the 2022-23 school year to 93.76% last school year, while high school school district attendance went from 91.17% to 91.77%, and unified district attendance went from 91.27% to 92.46% during the same period, according to the report.

“Studies unequivocally show that student learning is greatest when the student is physically present, and poor attendance has consistently been correlated with multiple adverse academic and well-being outcomes,” according to School Services.

School attendance is recorded each day to ensure there is compliance with compulsory attendance laws and to determine the amount of state funding schools receive based on average daily attendance.

The youngest students had the largest increases in attendance. Students in kindergarten through third grade had a 1.63 point increase in attendance, bringing their attendance rate to 92.66% last school year. Fourth through sixth graders had a 1.26 point increase in attendance, with a 94.12% attendance rate, and seventh and eighth graders had  1.09 point increase in attendance bringing their attendance to 93.13% last school year. High school students had the lowest increase — 0 .76 points — bringing their attendance rate to 91.37%.

Tehama County Superintendent of Schools Richard DuVarney is the new president of the California County Superintendents, an association supporting and advocating for the state’s county superintendents. His term began July 1.

DuVarney has led the Tehama County Office of Education for eight years. Previously, he was the Lassen County superintendent of schools. 

“I have  dedicated my entire career to public education, and look forward to serving students in this new statewide role, where I have the honor and great responsibility to advocate for all students in our state,” DuVarney said. “My experiences from small and rural communities will help strengthen the voice of students from these areas across the state, to ensure that every student has the same opportunity regardless of where they call home.”

Joining DuVarney on the 2024-25 Executive Committee is President-elect Todd Finnell, Imperial County superintendent of schools. Gayle Garbolino-Mojica, Placer County superintendennt, is the immediate past president.

More than 3,100 individuals were arrested following pro-Palestinian protests at campuses across the country this spring, including hundreds in California, according to The New York Times.

Most of those people were charged with trespassing or disturbing the peace, though some face more serious charges, the Times reported. The charges have since been dropped in many cases, but students could still face other discipline, such as having their diplomas withheld, the Times reported.

In California, the highest number of arrests occurred at UCLA, where 271 people were charged. Another 124 individuals were arrested at the University of California, Santa Cruz. There were also 93 arrests at the University of Southern California, 64 at UC San Diego and 60 at Cal Poly Humboldt.

According to the Times, protesters were arrested at more than 70 campuses across 30 states.

Parents of LAUSD students with special needs say they are facing backlash after the district attempted to pull out members of a panel that advocates for the students’ needs, the 74 reported. 

The Community Advisory Committee — made up of roughly 20 teachers, parents and members of the community — proposed the Improving Special Education Resolution. They have since advocated for more parental communication and more support for students. 

Parents have claimed that after the resolution was proposed, LAUSD tried to remove committee members focused on special education. The effort was not successful, but parents have still questioned LAUSD’s priorities. 

“I think that especially under superintendent (Alberto) Carvalho, they are cracking down on attempts to empower families to ask for what they want,” Ariel Harman-Holmes, the committee chair, told the 74. 

“We used to have, as a committee, excellent open communication with…[the district]…now all we get is canned commentary where it’s clear they have a very small number of talking points.”

An LAUSD spokesperson declined to comment. 

Two members of the Sunol Glen Unified School District school board have been recalled after pushing to ban pride flags, the East Bay Times reported. 

Fifty-two percent voted to recall the board’s president Ryan Jergensen and trustee Linda Hurley. 

Last September, Jergensen and Hurley proposed that the district would only display the United States and California flags. With Pride flags no longer allowed, the resolution resulted in community backlash, and many accused the board members of censorship and bigotry, the East Bay Times reported. 

The recall puts “an end to the chaos the board majority brought to the community and set the district on a path that refocuses on the wellbeing of Sunol Glen School and its students,” United for Sunol Glen, which organized the recall, told the East Bay Times. 

The Alameda County Board of Education is slated to appoint a temporary replacement for at least one of the two recalled board members. 

The University of California, San Diego will build a 6,000-bed village to address the university’s housing shortage, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. 

Unprecedented enrollment growth and a lack of affordable off-campus housing in La Jolla and University City have caused the chronic housing shortage, according to the Union-Tribune.

Enrollment numbers and the demand for on-campus housing are already outpacing space. This upcoming semester, 22,000 students will be living in campus housing, still leaving nearly 2,800 on waiting lists.  

The housing village, estimated to cost $2 billion, will be the largest in the UC system’s history,  the Union-Tribune reported. Construction of the first 2,000 beds could start as early as 2026.

Chancellor Pradeep Khosla told the Union-Tribune that UC San Diego will eventually be able to offer four-year housing guarantees to undergraduate students because of the village.

California was one of 37 states to launch SUN Bucks, a federal program to provide children from low-income families with food assistance over the summer, but in some states, families won’t receive the Summer EBT (electronic benefits transfer) cards until the summer is over, Chalkbeat reported. 

The aid is $120 per school-aged child, many of whom rely on school meals. With the Summer EBT, families can buy groceries. 

Delays and challenges implementing the program have left numerous families across the country still waiting for the cards to arrive and millions more not expected to receive them until the summer is almost over in six states or until school resumes in three states, according to Chalkbeat. 

Reasons for the complications vary, Chalkbeat reported. Colorado was one of many states that identified more eligible students than it originally estimated. The Nevada legislature didn’t approve funding for the administrative costs to run the program until last month. 

In contrast, California established the California Department of Social Services in July 2023 to lead implementation of the program, which started this year. 

According to the governor’s office in a Thursday statement, California has provided over 3.2 million children with the benefit, resulting in $162 million in food purchases so far.

More than 900 San Francisco Unified School District employees have applied for just 135 new apartments the city will open this fall, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The apartments, built on a former school site, are San Francisco’s first-ever affordable housing for school district employees. The newspaper reports that the effort to build teacher housing has taken more than two decades.

An estimated 10% of the district’s teachers leave each year, in part due to the high cost of living in the city.

Sacramento State announced it is hiring 17 new faculty members with expertise working with Latino students, after criticism and concerns that the university is not fully addressing Latino student needs, according to The Sacramento Bee.

Much of the criticism has focused on the underrepresentation of Latino faculty. Sacramento State’s student population is 37% Hispanic or Latino, but only 9.6% of faculty are Latino, and the majority are lecturers, the paper reports.

Some research shows that universities with diverse faculty have seen higher retention rates, graduation rates and improved student satisfaction, according to the Bee.

However, Sacramento State’s hiring of new faculty members is not focused on only Latino candidates, but on faculty with expertise in working with Latino students. Consideration of race, sex or ethnicity as criteria of employment is prohibited at public universities, under California law.

Gov. Gavin Newsom took to social media last night to fire back at the conservative Liberty Justice Center, which had just announced it had filed a legal challenge against Assembly Bill 1955, known as the SAFETY Act.

The Support Academic Futures and Educators for Today’s Youth Act will prohibit school districts from requiring staff to disclose to parents information related to a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity, and will protect school staff from retaliation if they refuse to notify parents of a child’s gender preference.

“This is a deeply unserious lawsuit, seemingly designed to stoke the dumpster fire on this website rather than surface legitimate legal claims,” Newsom posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the Chino Valley Unified School District and several parents, contends that students are too young to make decisions about gender identity without their parents and that school officials do not have the right to keep secrets from parents.

 “#AB1955 preserves the child-parent relationship, California law ensures minors can’t legally change their name or gender without parental consent and parents continue to have guaranteed and full access to their student’s educational records consistent with federal law,” Newsom said in his post.

California school districts can no longer adopt parental notification policies that require teachers to inform parents if their child asks to use a name or pronoun different than what was assigned at birth, or if they engage in activities and use spaces designed for the opposite sex.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1955, the Support Academic Futures and Educators for Today’s Youth, or SAFETY Act Monday, in response to at least seven school districts passing parent notification policies in the last year.

The parent notification policies have their origin in Assembly Bill 1314, which was denied a hearing in early 2023. Eight states have passed similar laws requiring school districts to inform parents if their children ask to use names or pronouns associated with another gender, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The new legislation, authored by Chris Ward, D-San Diego, also requires that the California Department of Education provide resources to parents and students to help them discuss gender and identity, according to the news article.

Enrollment in transitional kindergarten classes in California has doubled in the last two years, according to state enrollment data.

Transitional kindergarten enrollment grew from 75,465 in 2021-22 to 152,491 in 2023-24, according to the state. 

The grade level, which precedes kindergarten, was expanded to include all 4-year-olds by legislation signed in 2021. The state expects the program, called Universal Pre-Kindergarten, to be fully implemented by 2025.

“California is investing in students’ early education and increasing access to TK across the state,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom in a statement. “Through the state’s efforts to add a whole new grade, we have created more opportunities for kids to begin learning at an earlier age.”

A podcast exploring a man’s journey from prison to student at UC Irvine won first place for EdSource in California News Publishers Association journalism awards.

Another EdSource podcast, on a family’s reunion following four years of separation due to Trump era immigration policies, placed second statewide. The family’s saga was also honored in three other categories.

The awards, announced Saturday during a gala in Los Angeles, honored media of all sizes and formats across California. All winner results can be found here.

EdSource won 25 awards including the statewide honor and seven other first place awards in its circulation division.

The first-place podcast win featured former EdSource reporter Ashley Smith as moderator interviewing reporter Betty Márquez Rosales and Patrick Acuña, who spent 30 years behind bars advocating for higher education: PODCAST: Incarcerated for decades, this UC Irvine student transformed his life with education.

Despite having several learning disabilities, Acuña found that education was the path forward to repairing his life and helping his community. The podcast was part of a multi-part series on college in prison that included another podcast, a story, a documentary and a video interview with Acuña.

The second-place podcast, hosted by EdSourcce reporter Zaidee Stavely, featured members of the Ruiz family describing their four-year separation and their joyful reunion.

Both podcasts were produced by Coby McDonald. EdSource’s podcast, “Education Beat,” posts weekly on Thursdays.

The Ruiz family podcast was also part of a multimedia package on the family’s story, which included a story by Stavely and video by Jennifer Molina that placed first among media in four circulation divisions in immigration reporting.

The video also placed fourth statewide, and the multimedia package placed second in EdSource’s circulation division in the features category.

Other first place winners for EdSource honored a wide range of reporting and special projects in these categories: labor, music, immigration, breaking news, enterprise, homelessness and in-depth.

A recent survey of college students demonstrates that they are graduating “without even a rudimentary grasp of America’s history and political system,” according to the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA).

The organization, which advocates for all universities and colleges to require a course in U.S. history and government, commissioned the survey conducted by College Pulse. It surveyed over 3,000 undergraduate students on more than 35 questions.

The survey, entitled Losing America’s Memory 2.0, found:

• 60% of students do not know the term lengths of members of the U.S Congress.
• Just 35% know that Mike Johnson is the speaker of the House of Representatives.
• Only 37% know that John Roberts is the Supreme Court’s chief justice.
• Just 27% correctly identify Kamala Harris as the president of the U.S. Senate. (Twenty-eight  percent believed it was Joe Biden.)
• Just 28% of students correctly identify the 13th Amendment as being responsible for ending slavery.
• Only 32% know that a trial of impeachment takes place before the Senate.

“The dismal results of our survey show that current students and recent college graduates have little idea of the American past or its core principles and values, no guide to take them through the roiling controversies facing us today or to enable them to defend and protect the free institutions that are the glory of our nation and an inspiration to the world,” ACTA President Michael Poliakoff said in a statement.

Some University of California regents and other officials say they won’t tolerate pro-Palestinian encampments this fall when students return to campuses, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“I am confident that encampments won’t be tolerated,” regent Rich Leib told the Times. “I’m confident the regents feel we need to enforce the rules.” Until recently, Leib was chair of UC’s board of regents.

UC officials are also facing pressure from lawmakers. According to the Times, UC must notify students across the system’s campuses, before the fall term begins, about the system’s rules for free speech activities, student codes of conduct and nondiscrimination policies.

Lawmakers have asked UC President Michael Drake to develop a framework for consistently enforcing those rules and are withholding $25 million in state funding until he submits a report on those plans, the Times reported. The report is due Oct. 1.

Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, D-Encino, pushed for that requirement and told the Times that lawmakers want the framework to explain how UC plans to “prevent a repeat of last year’s violence and chaos.” Gabriel is chair of the Assembly’s budget committee and co-chair of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus.

The Biden administration’s revised Title IX rules are set to take effect in August, but at least eight lawsuits are challenging the changes, Education Week reported. 

The revised Title IX regulations by the Education Department add federal law protections for LGBTQ+ students. 

Based on an Education Week analysis, 26 states are a part of the eight lawsuits with 14 states blocking the rules during litigation. A school district, two students and five conservative advocacy groups are also a part of the lawsuits. 

The legal challenges mean that the new rules won’t take effect in all states and, in some cases, not at all schools and colleges in states where judges haven’t made a decision or stopped the rule’s implementation, according to Education Week. 

Title IX, the 1972 landmark civil rights law prohibiting discrimination based on sex in education that applies to colleges and schools receiving federal money, doesn’t directly address LGBTQ+ rights. The revised Title IX clarifies that the law forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.  

But the lawsuits argue that the national education department’s decision to expand the scope of sex discrimination to include “gender identity” is too vague to be included in the regulation. 

There are no legal challenges in California. 

Nationwide, there was an 11.6% decline in the number of students who filled out the revised Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) this year, Chalkbeat reported on data from the National College Attainment Network. 

The Department of Education changed the FAFSA, an application for high school seniors and college students to apply for financial aid, to be a simplified form. Typically launched in October, FAFSA rollout was delayed by months due to the changes. 

Across the country, 46% of graduating seniors completed the form by June 28, according to Chalkbeat. In more than a dozen states, less than 40% of high schoolers filled out the form. 

States with legislation that require FAFSA completion to graduate saw higher percentages, Chalkbeat reported. That includes California, which has required FAFSA completion since 2022 and had 50.4% of its high schoolers do the application. Though higher than other states, California’s completion was still an 11% decline from last year.  

Colleges make financial aid offers and incoming college students decide which school to attend based on the FAFSA, making it a key indicator of college enrollment. 

According to Chalkbeat, because of the “flawed FAFSA rollout” many advocates fear that students will skip college and miss out on the potential for higher-paying jobs. 

An Arabic language program at Western High School in Anaheim Union High School District is slated to be cut, sparking community protest, according to the Voice of OC.

The Arabic program began in 2017-18, but the district says there is not enough enrollment to keep it alive. District officials said they have 50-75 students enrolled in the program, when normal class loads for teachers are 190 students. So the district plans to cut Arabic 1 this coming school year, and gradually phase out the other classes. Students currently enrolled in Arabic classes could continue, but no new students could begin the program.

“The district did everything they can to support the teacher, and it’s just the numbers are not there to justify it,” said district Superintendent Mike Matsuda.

Community members have sent more than 1,300 letters to the district, asking to keep the Arabic classes, according to an online petition.

“There’s a lot of misconceptions and hate against Arabs and Palestinians and a misunderstanding of our culture and our people, so it’s unfortunate to see a program like this go,” said Rashad Al-Dabbagh, executive director and founder of the Arab American Civic Council. “Times like these require that we do more education, more language programs.”

The superintendent of Los Angeles Unified, Alberto Carvalho, said in an interview with the L.A. Times that the district will move forward with artificial intelligence, despite controversy over leaked data and the collapse of the company that designed its chatbot.

The district stopped working with the company AllHere in June, and deactivated the chatbot it had designed, after finding out that the company had laid off most of its workers because of financial collapse. The district had already spent $3 million for completed work in a contract for up to $6 million over five years.

Carvalho told the L.A. Times that the district will replace AllHere that designed its chatbot, restore the chatbot and roll out the artificial intelligence platform to all schools.

Parents have raised concerns about private student data leaked and available online. Carvalho said the district is not aware of any data breach connected to the company.

Amid the deepening child care crisis, the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing Monday on the state of the child care industry and the struggles of both working-class families and child care workers.

The sector has long been marked by a brutal economic tug-of-war in which most families can’t afford the escalating cost of child care, while many child care workers can’t survive on their pay. The pandemic deepened the sense of crisis. There is some bipartisan consensus that the crisis is real. 

“Many Americans rely on some form of child care, which not only allows parents to remain in the workforce, but also provides children with critical social and educational development opportunities,” said Mike Crapo, (R-Idaho), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee,  during the hearing. “Unfortunately, for some families, child care is either unaffordable or unavailable.”

However, while Democrats support investing in child care as a public good akin to elementary school, many conservatives view it as a private expense or a matter best left to the state level. 

“Federal government mandates on child care provider wages or approved sites of service are not the answer,” Crapo said. “In fact, spending billions of hardworking taxpayer dollars on these approaches would likely only exacerbate costs, placing child care options even further out of reach for families.” 

The rub is studies show that nearly 90% of brain growth happens before children start kindergarten. That’s why experts say high-quality care is so vital for small children. It’s also why the Biden administration has tried to address the issue on a national scale. Such efforts have been consistently blocked by conservative opposition. 

“The tax code is another big tool in the Finance Committee’s toolbox that can help give working families a fair shake. Democrats want to put it to work,” said Chair Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, in his remarks. “In 2021 we expanded the child tax credit and cut child poverty in half. It was a game-changer for tens of millions of families. But that ended when the expanded CTC expired and Republicans blocked its renewal.” 

Amid a numeracy crisis in TK-12 education, California earmarked millions of dollars in 2022 to create a program to help students pursue degrees in science, technology, engineering and math  (STEM) at community colleges, Cal Matters reported.

So far, 91 out of 115 campuses have such programs, with more on the way. The state hopes this expansion will reduce barriers to STEM jobs for “underserved and underrepresented” students. However, as the initiative rolls out, questions arise about how long the funding will last and how well the programs track if they work.  

To enroll, students must be both low-income and first-generation college students. Right now, less than 1 in 5 community college students who want to transfer to a university succeed in doing so within four years, according to a report from the Public Policy Institute of California. For Black and Latino students, matters are even worse. The numbers drop to 13%  for Black students and 16% for Latinos.

Beyond beefing up transfers, the ambitions for these programs include boosting the engagement of Black people, Latinos, and Native Americans in STEM industries. In 2021, only 9% of STEM workers nationwide were Black, while 15% were Latino, according to a report from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. 

“The community needs people to be in these positions as doctors, as scientists, as engineers, as computer scientists who actually understand the community that is being served,” said Edrina Rashidi, the officer of advocacy for the Community College Association of MESA Directors, Cal Matters reported.

Parents, teachers and advocates at a Santa Rosa middle school are raising the alarm about a culture of bullying against LGBTQ students that has prompted at least three students to leave, according to the The Press Democrat.

One student, identified as H., told The Press Democrat that within the span of less than two days he was misgendered or harassed over his appearance by a substitute teacher and students in four separate incidents at Willowside Middle School in the Oak Grove Union School District. He never returned to school due to depression and suicidal ideation, his mother said.

Advocates have heard that there is a problem with bullying that involves often racist and homophobic language, according to Drew Crawford, an education and training manager at Positive Images, a Santa Rosa-based nonprofit which supports and advocates for the North Bay’s LGBTQIA+ community. For at least three years the school district has declined offers to provide free teacher and student training and workshops on LGBTQIA+ competency.

“We get a lot of calls from these parents who don’t know where to turn because their schools have discounted their child’s experiences as typical development patterns by saying things like ‘boys will be boys’ or ‘young people are just curious about other people’s identity’ when in fact they’re committing assault and also sexual harassment,” Crawford said.

Andrea Loveday-Brown switched her child Juniper Loveday-Brown earlier this year after the district mishandled homophobic and racist bullying, including children throwing apples at students during lunch. Juniper said they were also distraught that the school district refused to allow the pride flag to be flown.

Superintendent Amber Stringfellow in a statement to The San Francisco Chronicle that the decision to ban the flag from school flagpoles “should in no way be interpreted as a lack of commitment to inclusivity,” she said, adding that teachers and staff members are encouraged to display it.

A study found that when asked to grade essays, artificial intelligence tended to rate essays by Asian American and Pacific Islander students much lower when compared to humans. Researchers aren’t sure why.

The Hechinger Report says that this study was conducted by the research and development arm of Educational Testing Service (ETS), which administers the SAT. It used one of the latest versions of the model that powers ChatGPT, called GPT 4 Omni or GPT-40.

The study compared the way humans and machines evaluated the essays of over 13,000 students grades eight through 12. Their assignment was to write an essay, such as “Should students be allowed to use cell phones in school?”

Both AI and humans tended to rate the essays of Asian American and Pacific Islander students the highest. On a scale of one to six, humans rated these essays on average 4.25, while ChatGPT rated them 3.19, a differential of -1.16. ChatGPT tended to score essays lower than humans, but for white, Black and Latino students the differential tended to be about -0.9.

Researchers aren’t sure why this is the case.

“Clearly, this doesn’t seem fair,” wrote researchers Matt Johnson and Mo Zhang, in an unpublished report. They describe AI system as a “huge black box” of algorithms that operate in ways “not fully understood by their own developers.”

The Hechinger Report noted one reason could be that ChatGPT tended to be stingy about handing out perfect scores, compared to humans.

Zhang cautioned teachers who might use AI to help them with grading: “Take a little bit of caution and do some evaluation of the scores before presenting them to students.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to limit cellphones  in schools — and districts across the Bay Area have varying opinions, The Mercury News reported. 

“I look forward to working with the legislature to restrict the use of smartphones during the school day,” Newsom said in a statement, according to The Mercury News. “When children and teens are in school, they should be focused on their studies – not their screens.”

Some experts have called smartphones an “epidemic of mental illness,” while others have maintained that there is little connection between using digital technology and poorer mental health, The Mercury News reported. 

Several Bay Area districts already reduce student smartphone use — but still allow devices not during instructional time. 

“Cellphones are part of our culture and for many students and families, a necessary vessel of communication around transportation, extracurricular activities, childcare and the monitoring of students’ medical conditions,” Michelle Dawson, a spokesperson for Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District, said in a statement to The Mercury News. “Our focus is on educating students on how to use their cellphones respectfully, responsibly and within the boundaries of our established policy.”

In the Fremont Unified School District, the rules depend on how old the students are — with more restrictions placed on elementary school students. 

“Banning phones … improves academic performance, encourages more face-to-face interaction (and) decreases cyberbullying,” Cheryl Matthews, the executive director California for Safe Technology, told The Mercury News. “It promotes healthier habits and ensures academic integrity because kids can’t cheat on assignments.”

San Mateo High School was early to take a stand and banned students from using cellphones in 2019. 

The California School Boards Association has maintained that district leaders should ultimately decide. 

This story has been updated to reflect a correction in the original source’s story. 

Conservative school board members who gained momentum roughly two years ago are facing an increasing amount of backlash — and six have been recalled this year alone, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. 

Many of those recalled have focused on a so-called “parental rights” agenda, which many have argued is a guise for anti-LGBTQ stances and policies. 

In addition to six conservative board members being recalled throughout California, an effort to put parental rights on the November ballot failed to qualify due to a lack of signatures. Meanwhile, the state will likely ban policies that require schools to notify parents if their child is transgender. 

“We have a lot of proof points now across the state that the average voter is not happy with what extremists are doing with our school boards,” Kristi Hirst, co-founder of Our Schools USA, told the Chronicle. 

“They’re willing to take our tax dollars and use them to advance political crusades, and they’re doing this at the detriment of good governance … .It’s hurting our students and public school systems, and voters are not happy with it,” she added. 

Assembly Member Bill Essayli, R-Riverside, told roughly 100 California Republican Party convention last year attendees that the focus in 2024 should be on parental rights. 

“You’re seeing something of a pushback throughout California,” Lawrence Rosenthal, chair of the Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies, told the Chronicle. “Whether that pushback has a kind of a national weight, I don’t know.”

Pandemic babies, toddlers and preschoolers are now becoming school-age, and the impact of Covid disruptions on them has become undeniable. Many show signs of being developmentally behind, The New York Times reported, which hurts academic ability.

Early childhood experts, teachers and parents describe a generation less likely to have age-appropriate skills such as being able to hold a pencil, communicate their needs, identify shapes and letters, manage their emotions and solve problems with peers.

Scientific evidence suggests the stress and isolation of the pandemic has affected some young children’s early development and that boys may have been more affected than girls, studies have found.

“I definitely think children born then have had developmental challenges compared to prior years,” said Dr. Jaime Peterson, a pediatrician at Oregon Health and Science University, whose research is on kindergarten readiness. “We asked them to wear masks, not see adults, not play with kids. We really severed those interactions, and you don’t get that time back for kids.”

The early years, particularly the first five, are most critical for brain development. Many aspects of pandemic disruptions severely impacted young children, experts say, including parental stress, less exposure to people, more time on screens and less time playing, the traditional province of childhood.

The littlest learners represent “a pandemic tsunami” headed for the American education system, said Joel Ryan, who works with a network of Head Start and state preschool centers in Washington state, where he reports a spike in speech delays and behavior issues, the Times reported.

One concerned mom has gone viral on TikTok sharing her opinion that children’s sports have “gone too far,” Newsweek reported, creating unnecessary stress and expense for kids and families.

The benefits of engaging in sports have been exhaustively reported. According to the University of San Diego, sports boost children’s physical, mental and emotional well-being. One study shows that children who participate in sports from a young age are five to six times more active during adulthood.

However, in our highly competitive culture, some parents and coaches may be taking the pursuit of victory too far, some worry. This mom of four has questioned the value of high stakes sports at at age 6, which she says could deter children from enjoying being active and exploring new sports.

In a video that has raked in 217,200 views and 22,400 likes, the mom said she was concerned after receiving two separate emails asking her daughter to seriously commit to joining two teams. That requires a level of discipline that may not be developmentally appropriate for a kindergartner. It also means going to multiple practices a week, traveling to competitions and entering in a rat-race of athletic achievement. 

“I believe it is a large commitment for kids who want to learn and explore different activities,” said Paige Connell from Massachusetts,  Newsweek reported. “I do not love the pressure we put on kids to make a decision about which sport they should stick with when they are this young and should be focusing on fun and finding out what they do and do not like,” she said.

The majority of California’s counties were granted a combined $56 million on Tuesday to aid in the prevention of homelessness among current and former foster youth, according to a press release from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office.

Young adults exiting the foster care or probation systems face a disproportionate risk of homelessness. The awards announced Tuesday will be provided via the state’s three Transitional Age Youth, or TAY, programs which are administered by the California Department of Housing and Community Development, or HCD. County data shows that the three programs offer housing support and other services to young adults who are experiencing homelessness, in the foster care or probation system, or identify as LGBTQIA+, per the press release.

More than 5,700 transitional aged-youth have received services from the state’s TAY programs since 2020, according to the press release, and the funding for 52 counties announced Tuesday is expected to increase that number of youth to 8,075.

“Housing stability is the most basic foundation every young person needs to be able to build a better future,” HCD Director Gustavo Velasquez said in the press release. “The young adults assisted by HCD’s TAY programs—especially those aging out of the foster care system—too often have nowhere else to turn and face the very real risk of becoming homeless.”

The University of California announced that Janet Reilly is the next chair of the system’s board of regents and Maria Anguiano is the board’s new vice chair. The terms for both began on Monday.

Reilly was originally appointed as a regent in 2019. She was formerly an executive producer and on-air host for KNTV, the NBC affiliate in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received her bachelor’s degree from UCLA before getting a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University.

“My journey with UC began as a student at UCLA, and it is this personal connection that has deepened my belief in the transformative power of this institution,” Reilly said in a statement. “I am both humbled and excited to take on the role of chair of the UC Board of Regents, and I am eager to continue working with the many talented colleagues who make up this remarkable community.”

Anguiano has served as a regent since 2017 and has had several other roles at UC, including in the system’s central office of the president and as vice chancellor of planning and budget at UC Riverside.

“In my role as vice chair of the Board of Regents, I am eager to collaborate across UC to explore innovative ways to increase access for the Californians we serve and provide opportunities to the state’s diverse community,” Anguiano said in a statement.

The U.S. Department of Education can move forward with its plan to lower monthly student loan payments for millions of borrowers after a federal appeals court ruled in the department’s favor, the Associated Press reported.

The ruling came from the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It keeps in place a plan to lower the amount that some borrowers need to pay to 5% of their discretionary income instead of 10%.

Last week, federal judges in Kansas and Missouri blocked much of the department’s student loan repayment plan, but the ruling from the appeals court means the department can go forward with the reduced payment rules while it appeals.

U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said the Biden administration is committed “to our work to fix a broken student loan system and make college more affordable for more Americans,” the Associated Press reported.

California State University Chancellor Mildred García expressed gratitude that the university system will receive increased funding in this year’s budget “despite the state’s severe and ongoing budget deficit,” according to a written statement.

But García warned that the university faces a $200 million funding gap going into 2024-25. She also flagged planned funding cuts and deferrals in the coming years, saying they would “exacerbate our significant fiscal challenges and further complicate the already difficult cost-savings measures.”

The CSU news release said the university system will net about $165 million in new operating budget funding in the final 2024-25 state budget. That’s because while the CSU is receiving a 5% state funding increase because of a multiyear compact agreement, the state budget also calls for a one-time reduction of $75 million.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration in 2022 announced compacts agreeing to provide both the CSU and the University of California with 5% funding increases to their base funding each year through 2026‑27. In exchange, the two systems are expected to work toward graduation rate and affordability goals.

State budgets outlined for future years suggest more belt-tightening could be on the way.

The CSU would face a 7.95% cut in funding to its operating budget in 2025-2026 per those plans, a reduction of $397 million, according to the news release. The plan would also defer $252 million in 2025-26 compact funding to 2026-27 and $264 million in 2026-27 compact funding to 2027-28.

In the statement, García said the CSU “remains one of California’s best investments” and that she looks forward to working with state leaders “to ensure that our nearly half a million diverse, talented students are not harmed by budget cuts and will continue to thrive.”

A report published Monday by the Legislative Analyst’s Office provides an assessment of the California Community College’s in-prison education programs.

The report’s authors found the programs to be anecdotally positive by both staff and students, particularly those offered in person. They also found that “students sentenced to death or life without the possibility of parole represent a slightly higher share of CCC enrollment compared to their share of the overall CDCR prison population.” The statistic is based on a snapshot of about 8,500 incarcerated students attending CCC courses during the spring of 2023.

The authors recommend a number of evaluations and data collection be implemented by both the community colleges and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, or CDCR. It includes the following, among others:

• a CDCR report on space utilization inside California prisons to determine if more in-person courses can be offered
• an report by CDCR evaluating recidivism, employment, and wage outcomes of incarcerated students
• a joint report on ongoing pilot programs offering online coursework to students who are currently incarcerated

A copy of the report can be found at this link.

Despite owning more than 3,200 parcels of land, the Los Angeles Unified School District is exempt from following the state’s stormwater regulations. Environmental groups are trying to change, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The groups have specifically argued that California’s water regulations should include LAUSD’s K-12 campuses because it would help mitigate pollution in the region, while supporting the water supply. 

“Once again, exempting K-12 schools from the [permit] will allow the wholly inadequate regulation of runoff from schools to continue for years more, and this lack of regulation will not provide the needed pressure to bring school districts like LAUSD to the table to pursue green stormwater projects in a significant and meaningful way,” read a letter to the State Water Resources Control Board from a coalition of various groups. 

According to the coalition, urban and stormwater is one of the biggest sources of contaminants. They also noted that schools often have large amounts of asphalt and other surfaces that prevent water from entering the ground. The same surfaces, they claim, also contribute to warmer temperatures.

[Schools] don’t have to worry about it at all, and so it doesn’t put the pressure on them to try to do more greening,” Bruce Reznik, the executive director of the Los Angeles Waterkeeper, told the Los Angeles Times. 

However, LAUSD’s chief eco-sustainability officer, Christos Chrysiliou, told the Times that the district does comply with California’s stormwater pollution prevention plan. He also said the district has developed internal guidelines that apply to any new facilities or redevelopments. 

“We do care about the environment and the students and staff that we serve, so we always try to not just do what’s required, but try to do the best that we can for the environment,” Chrysiliou told the Times. “We believe that this is an ongoing and future commitment that can be effectively carried out by the school district.” 

The San Diego Unified School District and the city are working together to create a parking lot with 50 spaces for homeless community members with children to sleep in their cars, the San Diego Union Tribune reported.

If the city proceeds with the project, the lot would become San Diego’s fifth specifically for the homeless community; and, the school district would lease the lot to the city for free.

The parking lot would sit on the old Central Elementary school — which was recently moved to another shared campus. Meanwhile, that older campus is being developed into hundreds of affordable apartments.

At least 6,400 students in the school district are homeless, the Union Tribune reported.

“The issue of homelessness is obviously something that is growing in San Diego, and schools can’t simply bury their heads in the sand and not pay attention to the issues that students are dealing with outside of school,” school board Trustee Richard Barrera told the Union Tribune.

Sam Nejabat is the latest appointment to the California State University Board of Trustees. The role requires Senate confirmation.

Nejabat, a Democrat, has served as senior advisor of business affairs at the California Department of Justice since 2023 and previously held positions in the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, according to a press release from Newsom’s office.  Nejabat sits on the San Diego Convention Center Corporation Board of Directors and the 22nd District Agricultural Association Board of Directors. He was the president of San Diego-based real estate company SJN Properties from 2008 to 2020.

Nejabat received a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, a master’s degree from Dartmouth College and a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, according to the announcement.

University of California officials said the graduate worker strike across six UC schools has ended, the Orange County Register reported. 

Representing about 48,000 teaching assistants, tutors, researchers and other academic workers, the union, United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 4811 started a rolling strike at UC Santa Cruz in May, followed by UCLA, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara and UC San Diego, to protest how the University of California system handled pro-Palestinian protests on campuses across the system. 

Even though UC’s attempt to end the strike via an injunction from the state labor board failed, an Orange County Superior Court judge issued a temporary restraining order, halting the strike from June 7 to Thursday, according to the Orange County Register. 

The university system and union agreed to extend the restraining order until June 30, the date union members had authorized the strike to, the Register reported. 

San Diego Unified, the state’s second-largest school district, adopted a $1.1 billion unrestricted budget with a $114 million deficit, despite already making multimillion dollar staffing cuts, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.  

This spring, the 90,000-student district made $94 million in staffing cuts by laying off five dozen non-teaching staff and eliminating over 550 other positions from central office, classrooms including teachers, special education services and English learner support, the Union-Tribune reported. 

Much like other districts across California, San Diego Unified’s budget woes ahead of the 2024-25 school year are a result of the upcoming expiration of pandemic relief and the state’s decline in revenue, the Union-Tribune reported. The school district also blames chronically declining enrollment, lower student attendance that determines funding in California and increasing special education costs. On top of declining revenue and funding, the district gave all its employees a 15% raise last year, which was estimated to cost an additional $208 million annually. 

According to the Union-Tribune, the district will cover the shortfall by depleting its reserves from $158 million to $43 million, possibly complicating district operations and its fiscal solvency for future school years. 

Still, San Diego Unified must find a way to cut $176 million in the 2025-26 school year and projects the need to reduce the 2026-27 budget by $230 million, according to the Union-Tribune.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an agreement Thursday making personal financial literacy a required course to graduate high school in California, according to a news release from the governor’s office.

“We need to help Californians prepare for their financial futures as early as possible. Saving for the future, making investments, and spending wisely are lifelong skills that young adults need to learn before they start their careers, not after,” Newsom said in the release.

The semester-long course must be offered to all California high school students by the 2027-28 school year and be part of the graduation requirements for the class of 2031.

The agreement to require the personal finance course was also signed by Senate President pro Tempore Mike McGuire (D-North Coast), Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Salinas), and NGPF Mission 2030, which is a national financial literacy non-profit.

Per reporting by The Economist, California joins a list of at least 25 other states that have made personal financial literacy a required course for high school students.

Months after facing a civil rights complaint alleging discrimination against Jewish students, Berkeley Unified now faces another complaint of discrimination against Arab, Muslim and Palestinian students.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the U.S. Department of Education is investigating the claim, made by the Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, that the district did not respond to harassment of students.

The complaint alleged that a student’s hijab was ripped off during class, that Arab and Muslim students reported being taunted as “terrorists,” and that Arab-speaking parents were not given needed translations.

Previously, the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the Anti-Defamation League filed a complaint of antisemitism in the Berkeley Unified School District, which is also being investigated.

Gen Z students gave their schools a C-plus on teaching relevant skills and career readiness in a new poll, The 74 reported. 

In a survey conducted by Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation, more than 2,000 students, ages 12 to 19, gave their schools an overall grade of B-minus overall, but lower-income students had a less rosy view than higher-income students. 

“At a time where we need an education experience to be anything but average, we continue to see students give their schools neutral scores on the metrics that matter most,” said Stephanie Marken, Gallup senior partner for research, adding that such remarks, particularly from lower income students, are a cause for concern,  The 74 reported.