Voices Against Privatizing Public Education

2 days ago

What elementary schools are slowly learning about screens
Technology came to “optimize” education. Young children pay a heavy price.
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/08/03/screens-change-elementary-school-education/
August 3, 2026 at 7:00 a.m. EDTToday at 7:00 a.m. EDT

A photo illustration of a girl with a backpack standing in front of an ipad and on the screen of the ipad is an image of an elementary school. All on blue background.
(Illustration by Michelle Kondrich/The Washington Post; iStock)
By Sarah Schneider Kavanagh and Katie A. Danielson
Sarah Schneider Kavanagh is an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Katie A. Danielson is an associate professor at the University of Portland School of Education.
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Walk into a second-grade classroom today and it may seem like little has changed over the past few decades: Teachers still greet students at the door. Classrooms still have colorful rugs and educational posters on the walls.
But the picture book the children are listening to isn’t being read by the teacher sitting beside them on the rug — it’s playing on an interactive whiteboard. The book itself isn’t even physically in the room. Instead, its pages (with added animations) are projected on a screen while audio narrates the text. Later, children wear headphones while clicking through individualized reading lessons. After lunch, they each complete their own adaptive math activities on Chromebooks instead of gathering at tiny tables to solve problems together.

These changes happened so gradually (and then so suddenly during the pandemic) that many parents don’t realize how different many aspects of elementary school have become. And it all happened with little public debate. Today, nearly 80 percent of school districts issue kindergarteners, first-graders and second-graders devices or allow them to bring them from home.
Screens are no longer occasional classroom tools. They organize the school day. This isn’t simply a story about technology. It’s a story about what happens when the medium through which children learn reshapes learning itself.
Elementary school always taught more than reading and mathematics. Children learned how to wait for someone else’s idea to be expressed before sharing their own, to negotiate disagreements and explain their thinking. This was an essential aspect of growing up, it wasn’t just a nice byproduct of being in a classroom. When the relational aspect of learning is removed, the conditions that allow these skills to grow are also removed.
Developmental psychologists have spent decades showing that children’s thinking matures through interaction with other people, not just through exposure to information. In many classrooms today, however, children learn individually through personalized software designed to maximize efficiency, and the individualized data it generates is shared with the teachers.

These technological changes in elementary classrooms might look like progress. Classrooms are quieter. Adaptive software promises individualized instruction at exactly the right level. To many, these are real benefits. But every decision involves trade-offs.
When stories are delivered through videos instead of being read aloud by the teacher, something changes about storytelling itself. When mathematics becomes a sequence of individual clicks rather than collective problem-solving, children lose opportunities to hear different ways of thinking.

Even if some technologies improve some learning outcomes under some conditions, is this the type of education young Americans need? Do we want classrooms organized by continuous digital engagement? Or do we want schools where children spend substantial portions of the day interacting and creating?
The skills that will matter most in an artificial-intelligence-powered future may be the ones computers can’t cultivate: attention span, curiosity, judgment, empathy and collaboration. Attention span in particular is weakened when schools prioritize constant stimulation over intellectual endurance. As technology becomes more powerful, distinctly human capacities become more valuable, not less.

Norway, a country that gave all students iPads in 2016, has begun reversing course, following a decline in reading scores. Some U.S. school districts and states are doing the same. Adults are realizing that schools that don’t give devices to children in early grades give them experiences they cannot obtain elsewhere.
Children don’t need school to become more like the digital world. They are already immersed in that world for much of the time outside school hours. They need a place designed for other aims, such as conversation instead of consumption and collaboration instead of personalization. That isn’t resisting the future; it’s preparing children to be fully human in it. … See MoreSee Less

Opinion | What elementary schools are slowly learning about screens

www.washingtonpost.com

Technology came to “optimize” education. Young children pay a heavy price.

Voices Against Privatizing Public Education

1 week ago

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/27/new-york-school-humanoid-robot-plan-paused?fbclid=IwY2xja… … See MoreSee Less

New York school district halts plan to use humanoid robot amid backlash

www.theguardian.com

Salamanca City Central says it is pausing project with Realbotix as it addresses concerns including data privacy

Voices Against Privatizing Public Education

1 week ago

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/25/new-york-humanoid-robot-teachers-school?CMP=fb_gu&utm_med… … See MoreSee Less

‘Really inappropriate’: teachers decry plan for humanoid robot in New York high school

www.theguardian.com

Robot from company that acquired sex doll maker to be introduced in school with large Native American population

Voices Against Privatizing Public Education

2 weeks ago

CA Teachers Demand That CalSTIRS Dump Israeli Bonds Financing Genocide
youtu.be/SnrloquW4wU
California teachers locals representing 200,000 teachers have called for the California State Teachers Retirement System CalSTIRS to divest their investments in Israeli bonds
financing the genocide in Gaza.
Teachers from throughout the state rallied on July 23, 2026 in Millbrae where the CalSTIRS board was meeting to call on it to divest of the fund's investments.
They rallied across the street next to the SFO airport and then marched over to the
meeting to speak out.
For More Info:
www.calstirsdivest.org
Production Of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net … See MoreSee Less

Labor Media – Labor Media

www.labormedia.net

The Rise of Fascism, Racism & General Strikes laborfest.net/2026/event/the-rise-of-fascism-racism-general-strikes/ July 12 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm PDT The fascist racist agenda to re-segregate t…

Voices Against Privatizing Public Education

2 weeks ago

Newsom's Corrupt Board Of CSU Trustees Reward Sexual Abuser
Former CSU campus president accused of harassment to earn $343,920 in new university job
Faculty leaders criticized the compensation
www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-07-22/outgoing-csu-president-accused-of-harassment-will-be-…
High-angle view of people gathered outside a building at Cal State San Bernardino
Cal State San Bernardino’s president announced last year — before a lawsuit was settled — that he was stepping down at the end of the 2025-26 academic year. Above, the campus in 2019. (Allison Zaucha/For The Times)
Los Angeles Times reporter Andrew Khouri
By Andrew Khouri
Staff Writer
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July 22, 2026 5:33 PM PT
By more than $340,000 to outgoing Cal State San Bernardino president Tomás Morales — named in a discrimination and harassment civil suit CSU settled for $12 million — for a yearlong transition post.
Faculty leaders criticized the compensation.
Morales will advise incoming campus president Terri Gomez and receive emeritus status.
The California State University system will pay $343,920 in compensation to the outgoing president of Cal State San Bernardino — who was named in a discrimination and harassment civil suit that CSU settled for $12 million — as part of his one-year “transition” assignment, Chancellor Mildred Garcia announced Wednesday.

Garcia praised President Tomás Morales during a board of trustees meeting for his “outstanding leadership at Cal State San Bernardino and systemwide.” She did not mention the lawsuit.

That suit, filed in 2023 by two former Cal State San Bernardino administrators, accused Morales of gender discrimination and alleged “ranting” at female employees. It also alleged that he failed to approve salaries on-par with male colleagues and created an environment where harassment is “standard operating procedure.” In addition to Morales, the suit named a former dean under him and the CSU Board of Trustees.

The suit said Morales’ alleged actions were reported to then-interim Chancellor Jolene Koester, who “did absolutely nothing,” and that the university allegedly retaliated against the administrators for raising concerns about Morales and the former dean.

Morales did not respond to emailed requests for comment. In court documents Morales, the former dean and the Board of Trustees denied all allegations in the lawsuit.

In a statement sent by CSU spokeswoman Amy Bentley-Smith, the university said the lawsuit against Morales and CSU “did not result in any findings against him individually, and litigation outcomes do not determine an employee’s standing.”

The statement said Morales remains in “good standing,” a classification that makes him eligible for the new transition job.

The university system, which has been dogged by sexual harassment scandals in recent years, settled the case in March. In its statement, CSU denied all wrongdoing and said it “entered into the settlement to avoid further costs of litigation.”

The transition plan for Morales has drawn outrage from faculty leadership groups.

Morales announced last year — before the suit was settled — that he was stepping down as president at the end of the 2025-26 academic year.

On Wednesday, CSU announced the appointment of a new president for the San Bernardino campus. Terri Gomez, a 27-year veteran in higher education and a lifelong resident of the Inland Empire, is currently the provost and vice president for Academic Affairs at Cal Poly Pomona, a university statement said. She is a first-generation college graduate who began her higher education journey at San Bernardino Valley College.

She joined Cal Poly Pomona in 1999 as a faculty member in the Department of Ethnic and Women’s Studies. Her academic leadership roles at the university have included those of interim associate dean, associate vice president for Student Success, and associate provost for Student Success, Equity and Innovation, the statement said.

Morales, as part of his transition job, will be available to advise Gomez. He will also “focus on advancing the CSU’s international engagement and strengthening global partnerships,” Garcia said.

She said Morales’ pay was consistent with the university’s “transition program” for executives that CSU has said helps recruit for high-level posts in a competitive market and ensures institutional knowledge is retained once university leaders step down from their posts.

Andrew Friedman, a lawyer who represented the two former administrators in their lawsuit, called the payout to Morales a “a real shame.”

“CSU has a significant problem when it comes to dealing with gender discrimination and harassment and retaliation and we’ve seen nothing to date to show that it’s taking this issue seriously,” said Friedman, a partner with Helmer Friedman LLP.

In a news release from May, the California Faculty Assn.’s San Bernardino Chapter President Tiffany Jones said rewarding Morales would be a “stunning failure of accountability and a direct betrayal of students, faculty, and staff.”

“At a time when campuses face budget constraints, staffing shortages, and growing student needs, CSU resources must not be used to provide a financial cushion for failed leadership,” Jones said in a news release.

CSU halts program that paid millions to executives after they departed

In 2022, the Times reported that CSU routinely approved transition plans for former executives, including those accused of wrongdoing, that allowed them to collect salaries for a year for work such as providing “advice and counsel” to CSU administrators, but did not track what officials do while being paid.

Following the Times investigation, CSU said it was halting the program until the Board of Trustees reviewed a task force’s recommendations.

The university later decided that executives hired after March 2022 would no longer participate in the program.

CSU spokeswoman Bentley-Smith did not immediately respond to questions about what other reforms, if any, were put into place.

The 2023 lawsuit against Morales also named Jake Zhu, the former dean at Cal State San Bernardino’s Palm Springs campus who reported to Morales. The suit accused Zhu of harassment and fostering environment where harassment was allowed.

After reporting concerns about harassment to Zhu, associate dean Anissa Rogers was forced to resign, the suit alleged.

Zhu could not be reached for comment.

Rogers’ claims went to trial and a jury awarded her $6 million, which was negated by the settlement. Rogers no longer works at CSU.

At Cal State San Bernardino’s main campus, the former Vice Provost of Academic Affairs Clare Weber alleged in the 2023 lawsuit that Morales harassed and discriminated against her and other female employees and was retaliated against when she raised concerns.
Newsom's Corrupt Board Of CSU Trustees Reward Abuser
www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-07-22/outgoing-csu-president-accused-of-harassment-will-be-…
Weber alleged that after she raised concerns about gender pay disparities, she was pressured to resign her vice provost job and was fired when she refused to do so.

The settlement agreement, provided by Weber’s lawyer, required her to resign from her faculty position.

In a written comment to the board of trustees before the Wednesday meeting, both Weber and Rogers called for further scrutiny of Morales’ record.

“I am not clear … how the review for the president being in good standing was conducted,” Weber said in an interview after Morales’ yearly assignment was announced. “It feels like a slap in the face.”

Hours after Garcia announced Morales’ transition job, the Board of Trustees gathered to vote on granting him the honorific title of professor emeritus. Before the vote, Garcia once again praised Morales, called him a lifelong friend and said that during his time leading Cal State San Bernardino, graduation rates rose and “equity gaps” narrowed.

The board then voted unanimously to grant him the emeritus title and gave him a standing ovation. Morales said he was “grateful for this recognition.”

Times staff writer Colleen Shalby contributed to this story. … See MoreSee Less

Former CSU campus president accused of harassment to earn $343,920 in new university job

www.latimes.com

Outgoing Cal State San Bernardino President Tomás Morales will be paid more than $300,000 for a one-year ‘transition’ assignment. Earlier this year, CSU settled for $12 million a lawsuit that alleged…

Voices Against Privatizing Public Education

2 weeks ago

nysfocus.com/2026/07/14/new-york-humanoid-robot-teacher-salamanca-school-district … See MoreSee Less

Rural NY School To Launch Humanoid Robot Teacher

nysfocus.com

Plans to deploy a “lifelike” robot and avatar teaching assistant at Salamanca High School have sparked debate over the role of technology in schools.

Voices Against Privatizing Public Education

2 weeks ago

Shrinking student populations cause spike in public school closures across U.S.
www.washingtonpost.com/education/2026/07/20/school-closures-rising-across-us-pools-students-funds…
Limited funds and low enrollment forced districts to close more than 1,000 schools in 2025-26.
July 20, 2026 at 6:00 a.m. EDTToday at 6:00 a.m. EDT

Alcott Elementary School is one of 12 schools that the Houston Independent School District plans to close. (Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle/Getty Images)
AI Overview
School boards nationwide, including in Houston and Philadelphia, are closing campuses due to declining enrollment. Public school enrollment has been decreasing since 2019. Experts predict more closures as districts face financial challenges and population shifts.

By Todd Wallack
School closures have spiked 35 percent across the country over the past four years, propelled by a shrinking youth population and the end of covid-19 relief funds that had propped up education funding in some places.
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For the fourth year in a row, the number of school closures rose nationally last year, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics released last week. Districts closed more than 1,000 schools in 2025-26, compared with 755 in 2021-22. And more closures are planned, including districts in Houston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Broward County in Florida.

“We call it the big shrink,” said Marguerite Roza, who tracks school funding as director of Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab. “Enrollment at public schools is declining, partly because there are fewer kids in the U.S.”
Public school closures temporarily slowed during the pandemic as administrators focused on dealing with the fallout from covid and tapped relief funds to balance their budgets. But now that the funds have run out, experts say administrators often must close schools to deal with reduced enrollment, which in turn reduces the amount of money they receive from states.

Nationally, federal projections indicate public school enrollment has already started to decline from its peak in 2019 and will continue to do so in coming years. From 2019 to 2031, schools were projected to lose nearly 4 million students. And those estimates were made before the Trump administration made changes to sharply curb immigration, further reducing the number of kids at some schools.
Some districts are also coping with population shifts, as families move to the suburbs or other parts of the country.

In addition, Roza noted that families in some parts of the country, such as Florida, have enrolled their children in private schools, taking advantage of taxpayer-funded vouchers and scholarship programs offered in a growing number of states, or charter schools, which are publicly funded but generally operate with some degree of autonomy.
All that means more closures, sometimes year after year. School administrators acknowledge that the moves can be hard on students, families and neighborhoods.
“It’s very difficult,” said Philadelphia Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. “Public schools have always been anchors of communities.”
The Philadelphia district said schools have 70,000 more seats than are needed because of enrollment declines, and many of its aging school buildings need repairs.
In May, Philadelphia’s school board voted to close 17 schools, rejecting a recommendation to cut even more. Students, teachers and others rallied before the meeting to try to stop the closures.
To ease the burden on families, Watlington said Philadelphia decided to gradually close campuses over the next decade to give students time to graduate from their current schools. The district also created a transition office to help families affected by the changes.

In May, Philadelphia’s school board voted to close 17 schools. To ease the burden on families, the city decided to gradually close campuses over the next decade to give students time to graduate from their current schools. (Matt Rourke/AP)
“We know how hard and how difficult this is for our families,” he said.
Watlington said the district hopes to attract more students from other local schools by improving its academic performance and modernizing 169 remaining buildings.

In Florida, Broward County Public Schools, north of Miami, closed one elementary school last year. The school district voted in January to close six more ahead of the 2026-27 school year and plans to identify additional schools to close or repurpose in the future. In May, the superintendent said he didn’t want to scare the public but thought the district might have to close more than 10 additional schools in 2027-28. The school district said it considered factors including declining enrollment and the operating costs for the buildings when deciding which facilities to shutter.
The Houston Independent School District’s board of managers decided in February to move forward with a plan to close a dozen schools, despite protests from parents and community members. And Pittsburgh Public Schools voted in May to close 12 schools.
Researchers said they expect more school closures in coming years because of declining enrollment.
Sofoklis Goulas, an economist who has studied declining school enrollment and school closures, said it is hard to make precise predictions because of changing immigration patterns and other issues.

One notable factor, he said, is that some students appear to have disappeared from school data in recent years, perhaps due to increases in home schooling or private microschools that are not fully tracked by the government.
“The unaccounted-for student is the most worrisome,” said Goulas, a senior researcher at Foundry10, an education research organization based in Seattle. “We know little about them.”

Meanwhile, many teachers and others have expressed frustration with the closures.
“There is just an overall lack of funding in our public education system,” said Mary Kusler of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest union, representing 3 million educators.
Kusler said efforts to cut taxes in many states have reduced the money available for local schools and made it hard to keep up with inflation.
She also pointed to efforts to expand vouchers and scholarship programs, which help families pay for private schools. Supporters contend those programs create needed competition and provide more options for parents, especially in areas where public schools have struggled. But Kusler argued it also ultimately reduces the pool of money for traditional public schools, which still serve most students.
“There is only so much money to go around,” she said. … See MoreSee Less

Shrinking student populations cause spike in public school closures across U.S.

www.washingtonpost.com

Limited funds and low enrollment forced districts to close more than 1,000 schools in 2025-26.

Voices Against Privatizing Public Education

2 weeks ago

Oakland school closure raises statewide questions over charter renewals
The decision could influence how hundreds of California charter schools are evaluated
www.eastbaytimes.com/2026/07/19/oakland-school-closure-raises-statewide-questions-over-charter-re…

Molly Gibbs is a Bay Area News Group reporter.webp
By MOLLY GIBBS | mgibbs@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: July 19, 2026 at 4:00 AM PDT

A state decision that will force an Oakland charter school to shutter has raised questions about vague standards and left charter advocates concerned that it could have far-reaching implications.

Last week, the 18-year-old Oakland charter school Aspire Golden State College Preparatory Academy requested that the State Board of Education overturn the decisions by Oakland Unified School District and the Alameda County Office of Education to not renew its charter in the first state-level appeal since new charter school legislation, Assembly Bill 1505, passed in 2019.

But the state board voted to “take no action” on the appeal in a 7-2 vote, with one recusal and one abstention, exhausting Aspire GSP’s options for reversing the decision and avoiding closure without litigation — and leaving many charter school leaders across the state with even more questions.

The decision gives the first indication of how the board may treat similar appeals and could influence how hundreds of charter schools are evaluated as they face renewal in the coming years.

“This hearing today is about more than one school. It’s about the message this board sends to every charter school authorizer in California,” said the managing director of regulatory affairs at the California Charter School Association, Nicolas Watson, during the hearing of Aspire GSP’s appeal. “The question today is new to this board and one for which there is no precedent: When is closing a middle track charter school in the best interest of students? Your decision will help define what that standard means for every future renewal.”

Oakland Unified School District’s board denied the charter’s petition for renewal in October in a 4-3 vote, determining that students would be served better in neighborhood schools. The district cited students’ declining math and English language arts proficiency and a drop-off in the number of graduates attending college — despite Oakland Unified Office of Charter Schools staff recommending renewal.

Oakland Unified used the California School Dashboard data to point to a “significant decline” in the charter’s math proficiency and “inconsistent” English language arts proficiency.

According to the dashboard data, Aspire GSP students were 92.6 points below the math standard in 2019 and 144.6 points below the standard in 2024, and students were 36.8 points below the English language arts standard in 2019 and 69.8 points below the standard in 2024.

But Aspire GSP countered that the district’s decision relied on a narrow interpretation of academic performance data and selectively compared the school to other schools that would make Aspire GSP seem weaker. Advocates argued that among socioeconomically disadvantaged youth — 95% of the school’s student population — the charter school actually outperformed Oakland Unified in 5 of 6 metrics, including English Language Arts test scores, English learner progress, college or career readiness, chronic absenteeism and graduation rate.

Under AB 1505, charter school performance is evaluated using the California School Dashboard, which displays the performance of local schools and student groups across a variety of metrics, including academic performance, graduation rates, chronic absenteeism and English learner progress.

The new legislation splits charter schools into three “tiers” — high-performing schools, which are generally streamlined for renewal; low-performing schools, which are generally not renewed; and middle-performing schools, which may be renewed or denied renewal. Local school boards must provide evidence showing the school has failed to make academic progress and that closing the school is in the “best interest of pupils.”

Aspire GSP is one of 916 “middle-performing” charter schools in California, which make up more than 75% of the state’s charter schools.

Former Gov. Jerry Brown criticized AB 1505’s heavy reliance on the California School Dashboard — which Brown helped create and launch in 2017 — as the primary basis for evaluating a charter school’s academic performance.

“This dashboard was to help teachers and families and parents make better decisions and was intended to help schools and help the kids,” Brown said in a phone interview. “Not act as a form of capital punishment. … That’s a complete abuse of the dashboard and totally against what was intended by its authors.”

Brown said the dashboard’s explicit design was to ensure that no single data point can fully capture a school’s impact on students.

“This is an organic institution that has grown up in Oakland, is supported by hundreds of parents and kids, and to abolish it like that, it’s a disgrace. It’s a real tragedy,” Brown said. “A key element in the public school system is charter schools. Both the charters and regular districts should work together in honest and creative competition.”

Upon denial by Oakland Unified, Aspire GSP appealed the decision to the Alameda County Board of Education, which upheld Oakland Unified’s decision in a 5-2 vote.

Running out of options, Aspire GSP turned to the State Board of Education to overturn both denials. But AB 1505 also significantly shifted charter oversight and renewal authority to local school districts, curtailing the power of the State Board of Education to only be able to overturn a local district or county board denial if it finds that local boards “abused their discretion” in denying a charter renewal.

State board members, facing a narrow legal scope and a lack of guidance on how to determine students’ best interests, ultimately voted to take no action on Aspire GSP’s appeal.

“How do we know what’s in the best interest of students? Because that’s at the heart of the criteria for not renewing a charter school,” said board member Sharon Olken. “And at the same time … we have a narrow lane of jurisdiction and one that maybe doesn’t sit well with me.”

“I think we need to raise the questions for those who will be thinking about this down the road about the need for clarification of what really does constitute a fair, open, transparent, evidence-based process,” state board President Linda Darling-Hammond said.

Daniel Soleimani, general counsel for Aspire Public Schools, which operates 32 schools, said the company is considering a lawsuit against Oakland Unified to reverse the decision and hopefully provide guidance for other charter schools that could soon face a similar fate.

“Many other charter schools have reached out to us, very concerned,” Soleimani said. “They don’t know what to do to prepare for renewal. Some of them had actually called in and said, ‘There’s no way for us to predict if we’re going to be renewed or not based on this law.’”

Myrna Castrejόn, president and CEO of the California Charter Schools Association, argued in a letter to the state board members earlier this month that the statutory requirement that closure of a school be “in the best interest of pupils” lacks specific guidance or a statewide precedent.

“This appeal presents an important statewide policy question that extends far beyond a single school,” Castrejόn wrote. “Across California, we are seeing an increasing number of non-renewal decisions involving middle-track charter schools. In many of these cases, local authorizers have interpreted the required finding that ‘closure is in the best interest of pupils’ so broadly that it risks becoming little more than a restatement of the authorizer’s concerns about the school itself.”

Created in 2008, Aspire GSP serves about 403 students in East Oakland in grades 6-12. Many of those students spoke out in support of the charter school at last week’s State Board of Education meeting.

“At GSP, teachers and staff don’t just support our academics; they support us as a whole person. For many students in East Oakland, access to opportunities and supported communities can change the trajectory of our lives,” Michelle Hernandez, a recent graduate of Aspire GSP, said at the meeting. “When decision makers close schools like GSP, it sends a message to students that spaces where we find belonging, encouragement and opportunities can be taken away at any moment.”

Aspire GSP will not reopen in the fall, and families will now have to find a new school for their children, Soleimani said. He said if the charter school decides to pursue litigation, it could be a “multiyear fight.” … See MoreSee Less

Oakland school closure raises statewide questions over charter renewals

www.eastbaytimes.com

Aspire Golden State College Preparatory Academy requested the State Board of Education overturn two levels of denial of its charter renewal in a first-of-its-kind hearing since new charter school legi…