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

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