Hello to listeners of This Week in California Education.

We’re pleased to introduce EdSource’s new podcast, Education Beat: Getting to the heart of California schools.

Join us each week as we cover everything from preschool to college, bringing you the personal stories behind the headlines.

As California students and teachers head back to in-person school this fall, we’ll be looking at how schools are preparing to help students with grief and loss caused by the pandemic, why it matters that California will be offering free school lunch to everyone and how teachers are preparing for their first day of class.

We’ll visit with freshmen starting their first year of college under the yoke of Covid. We’ll hear how one woman in Oakland adopted a whole class of first graders and helped get them to college. And how a college student in the Central Valley cut short her education to help her family, when her dad’s green card application was denied and he was stuck in Mexico.

We want you to hear the voices that are too often drowned out in the broader conversation: parents, teachers, and the students themselves.

Look for the first episode of Education Beat the first week of August, and please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

This week, Anne Vasquez, EdSource’s new executive director, outlines her vision for the organization. She reflects on how growing up in Miami — the daughter of immigrants fleeing Cuba penniless under Fidel Castro — shaped her perspectives on education and the dual roles of equity and merit in providing opportunities for all of California’s children.

The veteran journalist, newspaper executive and former chief digital officer for Tribune Publishing discusses how strengthening storytelling can widen EdSource’s audience of teachers and parents.

She was interviewed by podcast host John Fensterwald

Recent EdSource columns by Anne Vasquez:

Note: Our podcast will take a short hiatus and return later this summer with some exciting changes. Stay tuned for more details. 

At the end of April, Louis Freedberg stepped down after serving as EdSource’s executive director for a decade. During his tenure, EdSource broadened its mission to include education reporting, expanded its coverage to include early education and higher education, and increased its audience and impact significantly.

In his last podcast as co-host of “This Week in California Education”  – the 200th episode! – Freedberg reflects on how growing up in South Africa shaped his views of race relations and education in America. He discusses the challenges of education reporting in California during an era of local control,  and offers his perspective on the shifts in education policy and the ambitious agendas of governors Brown and Newsom. He outlines what his next writing project might be.

He was interviewed by co-host John Fensterwald.

The U.S. is confronting the rise of white supremacy, disinformation, and extreme threats to democracy — while a global pandemic has created the worst health and economic emergency of our time. How can educators cultivate the informed, engaged, and effective citizenry we desperately need to ensure the strengthening of a socially just democracy? Research shows that teaching controversial issues leads to students’ increased political knowledge, interest and engagement, but for a range of reasons educators often avoid it.

Events this week were a reminder of the controversial issues that teachers and students could take on, but often don’t. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict took another deadly turn, Republican leaders blocked efforts to set up bipartisan commission to look into the Jan. 6 invasion of the Capitol, and the U.S. Supreme Court took on a case that could further erode a woman’s right to an abortion.

Hosted by Louis Freedberg, we  devote this week’s podcast to this critically important issue. Our guests are:

Going Deeper: 

Resources for Educators

Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to spark the postsecondary aspirations of all families by creating $500 college savings accounts for all current low income public school students and future ones as they enter the 1st grade, with extra amounts for foster and homeless children, at a cost of $2 billion. The proposal was a surprise piece of his $20 billion, 5-year “transformational” package for preK-12 schools in the May state budget revision that he presented this week.

College savings accounts are not a new concept but they’ve never been done on this scale. We discuss the merits and specifics with two leaders of Oakland Promise, an organization that already has an extensive college savings plan and college readiness programs in place.

Also, we speak with UC Berkeley Law professor Christopher Edley, Jr. about why he wants to lead Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education for the next two years. Edley, a long-time advocate for education equity, will become the school’s interim dean in July, replacing Dean Prudence Carter who is stepping down.

John Fensterwald and Louis Freedberg are the co-hosts. Our guests are:

For background, read these EdSource stories:

Like a Category 4 hurricane, Covid-19 has undermined the state’s newly built California School Dashboard and system of state and county support for schools deemed to need help for poor performance. It could be a few years before the system is fully back up and running.

Meanwhile, school districts and charter schools are getting tens of billions of dollars in state and federal Covid relief to spend. Advocates for low-income students are thrilled about the prospects for post-pandemic help for students but also worry a once-in-a-generation opportunity will be missed if money isn’t spent effectively.

This week, we explore these issues with:

For background, read these EdSource stories:

Also of interest:

This week, Los Angeles Unified Supt. Austin Beutner announced his resignation, effective June 30, after 3 years in charge. (On Friday, the school board named Megan Reilly, the districts current deputy superintendent of business services and operations, to be interim superintendent.) We discuss the pressures and tensions of leading the nation’s second largest school district during the pandemic and the challenges lying ahead.

Also this week, California released data showing a 2.6% decline in K-12 enrollment, the largest drop in 20-plus years. More than a third was in kindergarten. We examine what districts must do to help our youngest students catch up with lost reading and socializing skills.

John Fensterwald and Louis Freedberg are the cohosts. Our guests are:

For background, read these EdSource stories:

Also:

Pivot Learning’s Resources for Getting Students Back on Track

Gov. Gavin Newsom said this week that school districts and the state’s 2- and 4-year colleges and universities should reopen to full in-person instruction after June 15. The California Department of Public Health announced the state would end the color-coded tier system that restricted openings of businesses and schools.  The combined announcements signal a big step toward normalcy.

In this week’s podcast, we explore the impact of Newsom’s pronouncement on the fall for K-12 schools and community colleges. A key positive takeaway said the chief lobbyist for the Association of California School Administrators, is that hybrid instruction (combining in-person and remote learning) won’t be necessary, and districts should plan with that in mind. Community colleges welcomed the message but some will phase in reopening cautiously, with an eye on vaccination numbers and Covid-19 trends this summer, said the president of a San Diego area college and the chancellor of the community college system. Both said they expect to be able to reverse the steep decline in enrollment at many of the system’s 115 colleges that offer on-campus instruction.

John Fensterwald and Louis Freedberg are the cohosts. Our guests are:

For background, read these EdSource stories:

After an enervating school year reeling from Covid, many students are looking at the prospect of a mind-numbing summer school with dread. To entice them and their teachers back to the classroom, some school districts are redesigning summer programs, recognizing that unpressured and engaging activities, combining tutoring and physical exercise, may provide a needed transition to reopening in the fall – particularly for students set back most by the pandemic.

For weary district administrators, the timing is tough, but the need is unprecedented, as is the money — billions of new federal and state dollars waiting to be spent.

This week, we look at opportunities and options of expanded summer learning. We speak with the head of a nonprofit that’s been promoting innovative programs for two decades and the program director in a district that has been successful in building community partnerships.

John Fensterwald and Louis Freedberg are the cohosts. The guests are:

For background, read these EdSource stories:

Also of interest:

This week, we look at the future of ethnic studies in California high schools. Earlier this month, the State Board of Education adopted an ethnic studies framework after two years of rewriting and contentious public hearings generating tens of thousands of comments. Though called a model curriculum, it’s not a blueprint or mandate; instead, it consists of principles goals, guides for instruction and sample lessons.

Disagreements remain over how ethnic studies should be taught and what course content should look like, and districts now have the challenge of providing the answers. This week’s guests express strong and contrasting views on what ethnic studies should and should not be in a state as diverse as California.

John Fensterwald and Louis Freedberg are the co-hosts. Guests are:

For background, read these EdSource stories:

In addition, check out these related cites: