Broadband gets a major boost in California budget revision | EdSource

Broadband gets a major boost in California budget revision   | EdSource

Broadband gets a major boost in California budget revision  

Big funding also for community schools, tutoring and college savings accounts

Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to inject $7 billion into California’s spotty broadband infrastructure.

The funding was announced Friday alongside a sweeping set of proposals for K-12 education in California as part of the annual May revision of the governor’s budget proposal. Altogether, K-12 education spending in the current budget proposal totals $121.7 billion, the highest level in California’s history.

Education looked drastically different during the 2020-21 school year as most California schools kept buildings closed and offered distance learning during the pandemic. But even now, as only 16% of students are back in class full-time, thousands of students still don’t have access to their own computers at home to log into online classes, and even more lack affordable high-speed internet that they can rely on regularly to log into class.

Newsom’s $7 billion investment in broadband, which comes from President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act, would be spent over three years and is aimed at expanding broadband access and building fiber networks, making internet more affordable and increasing access to high-speed service.

Only 52.4% of Californians are using broadband at 100 Mbps, according to the budget summary, which is the typical speed required for video conferencing and other basic uses.

“This is an opportunity… to finally close this digital divide and do justice,” Newsom said Friday. “Let’s get this done once and for all. This is what the federal stimulus from my perspective was all about, catalytic investments to make generational CONTINUE READING: Broadband gets a major boost in California budget revision   | EdSource

Linda Darling-Hammond and Ted Mitchell on President Biden’s plans for education | EdSource

Linda Darling-Hammond and Ted Mitchell on President Biden’s plans for education | EdSource

Linda Darling-Hammond and Ted Mitchell on President Biden's plans for education

EdSource · Linda Daring-Hammond and Ted Mitchell on what Joe Biden will do for education

January 22, 2021

President Joe Biden wasted no time: Inaugurated at noon Wednesday, by the end of the day he had, among other things, extended a moratorium on student loan repayment and affirmed the existence of the DACA program, and by Thursday, he had issued a sweeping plan for reopening schools during the pandemic.  He called on Congress to approve $130 billion for K-12 and $35 billion for higher ed in immediate Covid relief.

This week, we turn to two nationally known education leaders, Linda Darling-Hammond and Ted Mitchell, to give their views on President Biden’s immediate and post-pandemic priorities for schools and colleges and the potential impact for California. Darling-Hammond, president of the Learning Policy Institute, is also president of the California State Board of Education.  She headed up President-elect education  transition team.  Mitchell, who was  undersecretary of education during the Obama administration as well as a former president of the State Board of Education, is president of the American Council on Education.

For background on these issues, check out the following:

• Immigration reform proposed by Biden could alleviate anxiety, fear for thousands of California children
• Inconsistent vaccine supply, lack of state coordination complicate teacher vaccinations
• In inaugural address, Biden says it is possible to teach children ‘in safe schools’

Also:

• Executive Order on Supporting the Reopening and Continuing Operation of Schools and Early Childhood Education Providers
• National Strategy for the COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness

Linda Darling-Hammond and Ted Mitchell on President Biden’s plans for education | EdSource

Safe or unsafe to reopen schools now? Two contrasting views | EdSource

Safe or unsafe to reopen schools now? Two contrasting views | EdSource

Safe or unsafe to reopen schools now? Two contrasting views

EdSource · Safe or unsafe to reopen schools now? Two contrasting views

January 15, 2021

This week, two people involved in the debate over Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to provide $2 billion in incentives to school districts that agree to bring back elementary school students in February and March offer different perspectives.

Fresno Unified Superintendent Bob Nelson, who joined six other large urban superintendents in criticizing the strategy, said the timeline is too compressed to reach a deal with teachers who have agreed to reopen when Covid infection rates are lower than Newsom proposes and the plan doesn’t consider the worries of parents in urban areas with high infection rates.

Dr. Jeanne Noble, a physician who directs the Covid response for the UCSF Emergency Department, says that data from schools open in Marin County and in North Carolina show schools can be operated safely for all students and kept safe for adults by ensuring that students wear masks, keep socially distant and, along with staff, are tested CONTINUE READING: Safe or unsafe to reopen schools now? Two contrasting views | EdSource

JOHN FENSTERWALD: Large urban districts object to Gov. Newsom’s school reopening plan | EdSource

Large urban districts object to Gov. Newsom’s school reopening plan | EdSource

Large urban districts object to Gov. Newsom’s school reopening plan

They cite funding inequities and want the state to cover the full costs of  testing

Superintendents of seven urban school districts, including the state’s four largest, are strongly criticizing Gov. Gavin funding plan to allow districts to reopen classrooms as soon as Feb. 15.

They are urging the governor to design a different funding plan that considers their unique needs and warn: “If nothing changes, many students in high-need communities are at risk of being left behind.”

Their criticisms, in a Jan. 6 letter, indicate they won’t pursue the funding incentives for school reopening that Newsom tied to a series of requirements as proposed. The unified districts are Los Angeles, San Diego, Long Beach, Fresno, Oakland, San Francisco and Sacramento City.

“A funding model which supports only schools in communities less impacted by the virus is at odds with California’s long-standing efforts to provide more support to students from low-income families,” they argue. “It also reverses a decade-long CONTINUE READING: Large urban districts object to Gov. Newsom’s school reopening plan | EdSource

Newsom offers $2 billion plan to bring back in-person instruction in elementary grades | EdSource

Newsom offers $2 billion plan to bring back in-person instruction in elementary grades | EdSource

Newsom offers $2 billion plan to bring back in-person instruction in elementary grades

Gov. Gavin Newsom presented a $2 billion proposal for financial incentives Wednesday to prod school districts to bring back elementary school students for in-person instruction, starting in mid-February.

School districts would receive extra funding — from $450 to about $700 per student — if they agreed to a timetable for reopening schools, a rigorous regimen of testing both students and staff for the virus, and a strict health and safety plan that teachers and employee unions would have to consent to. Newsom said more details would be available with the state budget next week.

Districts would receive a minimum of $450 for every student in the district, plus additional money per student, based on the Local Control Funding Formula. It provides extra money for English learners, homeless, foster and low-income students.

Districts would receive the funding if they offered in-person instruction from transitional kindergarten (TK) to second grade in the first phase, starting Feb. 15, and for third to sixth-graders in the second phase, a month later. Districts would get full funding, regardless of how many parents decided to continue with distance learning. They would also have to agree to bring back small cohorts of students of all ages with the most needs, including homeless and foster children and students with CONTINUE READING: Newsom offers $2 billion plan to bring back in-person instruction in elementary grades | EdSource

WATCH VIDEO: Fauci puts priority on getting teachers vaccinated and a return to in-person classes | EdSource

Fauci puts priority on getting teachers vaccinated and a return to in-person classes | EdSource

Fauci puts priority on getting teachers vaccinated and a return to in-person classes

CSU Chancellor Tim White hosts virtual Q&A event with Dr. Anthony Fauci 

hen Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, takes on his new role as President-elect Biden’s chief medical adviser, one of his top priorities will be reopening schools safely and getting teachers vaccinated for the coronavirus.

In a wide-ranging interview with California State University Chancellor Tim White Friday, Fauci expressed optimism for getting most of the United States’ population vaccinated and reopening schools and college campuses to in-person instruction. (Watch the full interview here.)

“The only way we’re going to end this epidemic is if we get a range of 70% to 85% of the population vaccinated,” he said. “We could essentially end this outbreak in this country … It would be tragic to think that now that we have in our hands vaccines that are 94% to 95% effective, and we don’t get as many people as we possibly can to utilize that.”

Fauci predicted that just about anyone can get vaccinated later this spring once vaccines are given to essential workers, people with underlying conditions and the elderly between now and March. By April, “I would call that more like open season, where anyone, even those who don’t have underlying conditions,” can start getting vaccinated, Fauci said.

Under those conditions, then by the Fall 2021 term, “I think we could be in good shape, and I am cautiously optimistic that we can do that and get back to some form of normality,” he said.

White hosted Fauci at a virtual Q & A event for the 23 campus presidents. The event was live-streamed for the campus community and featured questions from four CSU presidents.

Fauci said teachers must be at the front of the line for the vaccine.

“It’s extremely important to get children back in school and kept in school,” Fauci CONTINUE READING: Fauci puts priority on getting teachers vaccinated and a return to in-person classes | EdSource