S1: It's time for KPBS roundtable. I'm Andrew Bracken. This week , a wide ranging conversation on the state of education in the San Diego region. What new standardized test results have to say about student performance ? Five years on from the pandemic.
S2: And what we've long seen in education is that socioeconomics plays a massive role.
S1: We take a look at what's been working in schools today and how schools are looking to expand their impact beyond the classroom. That's all ahead on the roundtable. The nation's report card is out. And while standardized tests may not tell us the whole story , they can give us a glimpse into how the nation's students are faring. So what do these results tell us about how San Diego's kids and schools are doing today ? To talk more about it , I'm here with Katie Anastas. She is KPBS education reporter. Hey , Katie. Hi. And I'm also here with Jacob McWhinney. He is the education reporter at the Voice of San Diego.
S2:
S1: Katie , this is your inaugural time on roundtable , so thanks for being here. Welcome. Jacob is more of a vet. He's back again with us , so let's get into it. You know , one of my. And I'm sure my kids favorite subjects tests. Um , I'm wondering if you can each give us a short headline of what these results show us about how students are doing today. Katie.
S3: I'd say for San Diego Unified , my headline would be reading is fine. Math is getting better , but income is still a factor. Jacob.
S1: Jacob.
S2: I think that's a really important thing to consider. Write this income , uh , metric here. Um , I would say something similar , which is that San Diego Unified is doing comparatively better than some other areas , but that's only because those other areas are doing pretty poorly. And so while there is some reason for optimism in San Diego Unified , that is that is. You've got to hedge that optimism quite a bit.
S1: So I want to get more into that kind of economic question and some of the other stuff you're kind of hinting at here.
S2: So the the Nations report card is , is kind of shorthand for the National Assessment of Educational Progress or the test , as it's often referred to. And it is a standardized test that's administered to select districts across the nation. Uh , and it's administered to both fourth and eighth graders. And they test reading and math. Um , and , you know , it's administered every two years. And the long story short is that students nationally are doing pretty poorly. Um , reading scores dropped. Um , you know , with the scores of eighth graders reaching the lowest point in the assessments history. So that's really bad news. Uh , when it comes to math , uh , eighth graders scores , uh , kind of stayed where they were nationally. Um , really , the only bright spot that we have is the scores of fourth graders. Fourth graders in math increased just the tiniest little bit. Um , and it's also important to remember that post-Covid , we were already dealing with a significant drop. Right. So what educators and anyone who really cares about students and education we're hoping to see were signs of recovery. But what they got didn't really look like that.
S1: So , Katie , it sounds like there's kind of , I don't know , a mixed bag there nationally.
S3: Reading for eighth graders and fourth graders both kind of stayed the same compared to 2022. Math did improve a little bit for fourth graders , which is exciting because those were the kids who were in kindergarten when the pandemic started. So I think everybody's been closely awaiting kind of how those kids are doing right now. So I think any improvement among fourth graders is a bright spot. And we saw that a little bit in math.
S2: Yeah , that's absolutely something to to consider , which is , you know , exactly how old these kids were when the pandemic hit. And those fourth graders are , you know , the ones who were the youngest during that pandemic and trying to figure out exactly all of the educational basics that they'll need for the rest of their journey. So it is encouraging to see that that's. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. So , you know , Katie , earlier you mentioned kind of the challenges of economically disadvantaged students and some of the challenges that come out from from these , you know , test results. Can you talk more about that ? Sure.
S3: So , you know , one thing that stood out to me from these results is that San Diego Unified started participating in this test back in 2003. Different districts have kind of joined in at different times , but you can compare the 2024 scores to the 2023 scores. And one thing that's getting worse is the gap between economically disadvantaged students and those who are not economically disadvantaged. And that's grown since 2003. So it's helpful because the National Assessment of Educational Progress puts out kind of examples of what proficiency means. So thinking about fourth grade math , if you're proficient , you understand things like factors in multiples. And you can solve one step equations. And I think those are helpful things to keep in mind. But looking at the economic information , fourth graders who were economically disadvantaged had lower scores than their peers. And for those students , 3 in 10 scored proficient in math. So they know they're factors ? No they're multiples. That's compared to seven and ten who are not economically disadvantaged. So there's still that big difference.
S1: Big difference there. Right. Right. Yeah. Jacob do you have anything to add to that ? Yeah.
S2: Well , I mean , those results , while really disappointing , are not really all that surprising. What we've long seen in education is that socioeconomics plays a massive role , right ? So if you see , if you show me , you know , a school standardized test scores , I can , with a fair degree of accuracy tell you , you know what the level of poverty looks like in the community. As poverty rises , test scores fall. As poverty falls , test scores rise. And so this achievement gap that Katie is describing has been around for a long time. It's something that's plagued education , and it's something that educational leaders still don't know how to solve , even though they've been trying.
S1: So I think around , you know , this conversation around San Diego schools , a lot of times we're it seems like we're talking about San Diego Unified solely. But the fact is there's somewhat 40 other local school districts. Right.
S2: Um , the only real metric that we have to judge how , let's say Lakeside Elementary School District and San Diego Unified , how they compare our statewide test scores and statewide test scores really back up what we've seen at the national level. Um , there were big drops after the pandemic. And while districts like San Diego Unified have slowly started to claw their way back up , they still haven't kind of regained the big losses that that we saw. Uh , and like I mentioned , with socioeconomics , uh , when you look at a Cajon Valley school district , you know , which is , uh , a district with a high level of , of poverty , and you look at a San Diego , um , those districts , uh , perform very differently. And as you would , you know , as you would expect , Sandy Zito does a lot better than Cajon Valley. And a lot of this again , boils down to socioeconomics.
S1: And , Katie , you've done some reporting on some of these more rural school just districts and some of the particular challenges they face that maybe , you know , San Diego Unified with its , you know , larger size may not. How do you see that playing out in , in school performance in , in , you know , in the student , uh , student assessments.
S3: Well , I've focused on , in that reporting focused on kind of capital improvements and construction. And uh , we saw in the last election a lot of districts across the county had bond measures on the ballot , and I think about half of them passed and about half of them didn't. And as we heard throughout the election , kind of household income and your day to day bills played a big role in how you voted this year. here. And that was true for bond measures too. So wealthier districts are much more likely to pass a bond , because those are households that feel like they can handle a slight tax increase in lower income districts. Those families don't feel like they can take that tax increase and so they vote against it. And I visited Ramona Unified , for example , and , uh , talked to folks in the San Isidro school District and in both of those districts , you know , they're just they have too small of a staff to spend the time that it takes , oftentimes to apply for state funding and get in line for state grants and have what takes the work of a full time staffer and add that to the plate of somebody who has , you know , five other roles in in these districts.
S1: And then on the flip side , Jacob , we have San Diego Unified , which you could argue was , you know , so much infinitesimally more larger than these smaller ones.
S2: Right. So San Diego Unified , we think about it , the second largest district in California. 100,000 ish students. It's been dropping for a long time. Um , but that size means that you can essentially operate these economies of scale. Right. So when you look at a San Diego Unified budget and you think about administration , there is less of a percentage of their budget being spent on administration than , say , a DSA , right , which has just a couple of schools and inevitably has to have more , a higher percentage of their staff be administration that can help out. For districts like San Diego Unified , it also means that they have people who whose whole job is basically to , you know , liaise with the state and try to increase funding and try to get their legislative priorities passed so it can make a big difference to have these big districts. And there has long been a conversation of of whether San Diego Unified is too big , whether these small districts are too small. Um , you know , I can't really comment on on exactly how these should these should be put together. But I do think that research shows that a district of a certain size , of a certain larger size tends to deliver better results than super tiny districts , unless that super tiny district is in an area that's very , very wealthy and gets a lot of of of funds from property taxes.
S1: So , Katie , before joining us here at KPBS , you were reporting in Alaska , um , on education issues there. What jumps out to you ? Um , that's different or maybe the same about what you see here in San Diego schools.
S3: I think that speaking of kind of rural versus urban districts or smaller districts versus large districts in Alaska , the smaller districts are often really geographically isolated. My first job was at a station on an island that has a population of about 2000 people. And they're , you know , you're leaving town to get pretty basic medical treatment. You're all of your groceries are getting flown in or , uh , delivered in on a boat. And I think a similarity is that the cost of living is a huge factor for families , for teachers. It influences where people choose to live. Um , an interesting thing that was going on in Alaska when I was there was that the state was coming up with new statewide standards for reading curriculum , and they were in the process of rolling out new rules of , you know , when do you have to decide whether to hold a student back for another year ? And how are you going to communicate that to parents ? Um , and how are you going to fund this mandate that's being put out to students ? So , uh , I think all schools in Alaska are very in tune with what's happening at the state government level. And I think that's something I want to bring to my reporting here is like keeping an eye on how our legislative decisions at the state level playing out at the local level , because that's huge in Alaska.
S1: After the break , we continue our conversation about the state of education in San Diego and beyond. And take a look at what's working in schools today. You're listening to KPBS roundtable. Welcome back to roundtable. I'm Andrew Bracken. I'm here with Katie Anastas from KPBS , along with Jacob McWhinney from Voice of San Diego. And today on the show , we've been talking about how San Diego's school kids are doing. Five years on from pandemic school closures. So now I want to kind of take us back a little bit. We've been kind of talking about these results today , But you know , a couple you know , this has come up a couple of times in our conversation. Just reference to the Covid pandemic. And just really , you know , the signpost that's become for education , right. I think when , you know , seeing these test results , that's often , you know , student performance now versus pre-pandemic levels , I see that kind of reference a lot. And we're reaching this sort of five year mark of of when schools were closed , when the pandemic took hold and really kind of turned , you know , education upside down. And I'm curious , you know , I wanted to kind of throw this to each of you. What do we know now about the pandemic's long term impacts on on kids in schools , Jacob.
S2: Well , I think the big headline is that it really screwed kids up on a whole bunch of levels. I think that socially social , emotional learning really , really took a hit. And then you look at a whole bunch of , you know , economic or educational indicators , whether you want to look at test scores. But for me , one of the primary things that I've been worrying about a lot over the past couple of years is chronic absenteeism. If anybody's read my work , if anybody's heard me on roundtable or KPBS before , I'm often droning on about chronic absenteeism because it is one of the most impactful things that happened over the pandemic.
S1: And it's been one of the sort of top priorities of school districts over the last 2 or 3 years.
S2: Yeah , yeah , absolutely. For a lot of reasons. Right. One of those is that chronic absenteeism , which is when a kid misses at least 10% of days in the school year , is a is a leading indicator of how well they're going to do in school. It's an indicator of whether they're going to drop out. It's even an indicator by those dropout rates of whether or not they're going to have to deal with , you know , infractions in the law later in life. Right. And in addition to that , schools are funded based on on attendance. And so schools are really motivated by that bottom line to make sure that kids are showing up in school. And when we talk about chronic absenteeism , the big , big trend that we saw was from the year before the pandemic to the year after kids got back into school. We saw what was essentially a tripling of chronic absenteeism , which is not a good sign , right ? And so when we have the socioeconomic conversation , we saw this in in chronic absenteeism as well. Right. So even though all schools tended to see their rates of chronic absenteeism triple , what that tripling looked like was very different because schools started at very different places. The example I always use is bird Rock elementary and , uh , Rodriguez Elementary , bird Rock , and kind of the La Jolla area and Rodriguez and kind of the Barrio Logan area. Uh , both of those schools saw their rates of chronic absenteeism triple. But Rodriguez started at 25%. Chronic absenteeism and bird rock started at 3%. Chronic absenteeism.
S1: Coming from very different.
S2: Very , very different , different places. And so despite the fact that they tripled , um , after that tripling , Rodriguez ended up at 75 , 76% of their kids were chronically absent and bedrock ended at around 12%. And that's a really , really difficult thing to try to figure out , especially because why kids are chronically absent can be really , really , really different. And when you look at these socioeconomic factors , it makes a lot of sense , right ? Maybe a parent has to work two jobs , can't give their kid a ride to school. Maybe they don't have a car , or maybe a kid has to stay home and watch their younger sibling. So figuring out how schools can get involved and actually make an impact and make a dent on on how much school kids are missing has been really difficult. But as you said , both schools and the San Diego County Office of Education worked really , really hard to try to make sure that kids are in school , whether they , you know , instituted things like home visits. Um , there were there were a lot of these things called nudge letters that went out that , that , that were letters sent to the homes of parents , of families whose kids were chronically absent , trying to explain first what chronic absenteeism is because there's so much jargon in education. That's not a phrase that most parents understand , but also the impact of chronic absenteeism and that their kid was either chronically absent themselves or in danger of falling into it. And these kinds of strategies , um , showed that that some success.
S1: And earlier you had referred to , you know , you had mentioned saying unified seen enrollment drops , you know , over the past couple of years.
S2: Um , what what San Diego Unified did and will probably see from chronic absenteeism is funding drops because , again , you know , so much of funding is is tied to that. The good news is that all that hard work that schools did , it's it's starting to make a difference. Right. So countywide we saw chronic absenteeism jump from like 10% to 30%. It's now been brought down to about 20%. Um , which again is an improvement , but it's still twice as bad as it was before the pandemic. And so figuring out not only how to fix this in the present , but also in the future when funding sources are less , you know , Bountiful than they were during the pandemic and directly afterwards. That's going to be a big challenge that schools are going to be stuck trying to figure out for years.
S1: And , you know , when I think about , you know , the pandemic and the impact it's had on on schools , technology is a big piece of it. As we know , as schools closed , we went to kind of the virtual classroom. How is that still present in kids lives today ? Katie.
S3: Well , I recently went to Horton Elementary School to to talk to students and teachers after these scores came out. And I spoke to one fourth grader and I said , do you remember how you felt when you got to school in person for the first time ? Like , what was that switch like for you ? And she said , it was really nice because I could actually focus and I wasn't looking at my screen all day. And this was coming from a fourth grader. Like she had this awareness of. My attention is better when I don't have to look at a screen all day. And that really stood out to me , that kind of awareness of that change within herself and her own attention span.
S4: And even though , you know , they had instruction to be on their laptop a certain time and all of that , a lot of them had to be caregivers for their other family members. And so they , you know , they learned to not be as attentive.
S3: That touches on the socioeconomic piece of this. You know , if you're a kid that has a parent still going to work who can't work from home because their job doesn't allow it , you're going to be at home taking care of your little sibling and maybe making it over to your laptop when you can. But sometimes that's low on your priority list. And so I think watching kids go back to school have these kind of in-person learning experiences. At least from Winnie Gonzales , sounds like it's been really good. She said she's been encouraging her students to go pick up hardcover and paperback books , and she's slowly getting them to pick up a real book and not just read something on the screen. And she said , it's slowly working and making kids want to want to read a little bit more. I think it's it's always funny when you hear a kid put something so plainly , kind of a thing we know about ourselves as adults , too. Like , I can focus better if I'm not looking at a screen all day. And so in some cases , kids are starting to seek out kind of that more traditional learning experience after so many years , kind of stuck with a screen as their only option.
S1: Well , and also Jacob , it sounds like , I mean , you know , hearing that reaction , um , it does make me question how valuable maybe learning to read on a screen is versus , you know , in real life , right ? And we've seen I mean , earlier you mentioned the national test scores. We did see some drops in reading. That's fair to say. You know.
S2: I mean , can you even imagine being a first grader and trying to learn to read when your teacher is on a screen ? Can you imagine being a teacher and trying to teach a first grader how to read over zoom ? I mean , it's it's it's mind boggling , right ? Um , and it's it underscores a lot of what we've seen. I mean , even so , one of the the things about chronic absenteeism that we see , there is a lot of this picture that are physical problems , right ? Uh , transportation issues , logistical issues like that. Um , but one of the things that researchers have have , have started to land on , given how kind of sluggish of a recovery. Um , chronic absenteeism has seen , is that families and kids relationships to schools may just be different than it used to be before the pandemic , right ? I think a lot of parents view school as more optional. They're more willing to keep their kid home if they're sick , they're there. They're more willing to listen to their kid. If their kid says , can you call me out ? Can we do this and that ? You know ? Um , and so figuring out exactly how to repair that relationship is going to take a lot of time. And I think it's going to take a lot of , um , a lot of careful , careful work , um , underscoring just how difficult the online teaching experience is. I did some reporting last year about , um , about , uh , virtual schools. And the headline for that of that story literally was just virtual school isn't working. Um , because we see very , very , very clearly through performance data that , um , virtual options tend to leave kids with , um , worse test scores than , than any other option , particularly fully virtual options , and particularly for fully virtual charter schools. Um , by far , kids succeed at a , at a much , much worse rate in those in those schools. And so while sure it may work for some kids and , um , you know , sure , maybe some kids might prefer that it should be a last resort option. Because kids learn better when they're in school. They learn better when their teacher is there , and they learn better when they're part of a learning community as opposed to isolated at home. So if if there's something that we take from the pandemic , I really hope , uh , part of it at least is , is the power of of in-person learning.
S1: I have to , you know , in full disclosure , just say , Jacob , you know , I can't imagine what it was like to be a first grader on the screen , but I can imagine what it was like to be the parent of a first grader on the screen in 2012.
S2: Well , give us that perspective. What did it ? What did it seem like ? Impossible.
S1:
S2: Um , I rest my case.
S1: Our education roundtable continues after the break. You're listening to KPBS Roundtable. Welcome back to roundtable. I'm Andrew Bracken. Today we're talking about the state of education in the San Diego region as new nationwide test results. Tell us a bit more about where students are right now. I'm speaking with KPBS education reporter Katie Anastas , along with Voice of San Diego's Jacob McWhinney. So we've talked a little bit about what we're seeing with the test results today , as well as took a look back at the pandemic and some of the learnings there. Now , I kind of want to look a little bit to what's coming next. Katie , I want to start with you. You know , you've you're fairly new to this education beat here in San Diego.
S3: One , of course , is you know how Latino students are faring right now. Their scores have long been lower than white students , and that's been the case , at least for the Nape scores. It's been the case since the district first started participating. So , um , I'm really interested in particularly dual language immersion programs and , um , especially students who move back and forth between the U.S. and Mexico. Um , how those dual language programs are helping them with both English and Spanish. And , um , I think I'm interested to see kind of how reading curriculum varies at a dual language program to see kind of are they getting the same approach to reading in the two languages , and are there skills in the way that both of those are taught that can kind of lend themselves to English scores ? Another thing that interested me from these recent scores is the is the difference between boys and girls scores. Boys had slightly higher math scores , at least in eighth grade , and girls had slightly higher reading scores. And I'm really interested in learning. I think thinking about , you know , absenteeism during the pandemic and thinking about which kids were caregivers of little siblings during the pandemic , it would make sense that those are likely the girls. And I wonder , then , why are they still doing better at reading than their male peers ? Yeah.
S1: So kind of breaking down some of those differences and what may be underlying them , as you kind of mentioned. I mean , we're talking about schools , but it kind of filters through all these different issues , right ? Jacob , you know , you've been doing some reporting on some schools that have actually been doing pretty well in the wake of , you know , these pandemic challenges that you've kind of been talking about here. Tell us more about these , you know , these success stories in San Diego schools. Yeah.
S2: Yeah. So for everyone that doesn't know , every year Voice of San Diego puts out what we call a Parent's Guide to San Diego schools. The guide kind of walks parents through a whole bunch of need to know stuff , right ? This year , we have a piece about everything you need to know about after school care , kind of how to get involved at schools. And as part of this , we collect a whole lot of data and break that down into things that , again , parents need to know. And every year we're trying to figure out new ways , new things that we can add. And this year , along with our our data partners at UC San Diego's Extended Studies Center for Research and Evaluation , we created a Covid recovery metric. And this basically measured a whether a school was impacted by Covid and b whether if it was impacted if it if it's recovered and see if it was impacted , if uh , whether it um , a if a school was impacted by Covid , B if it was impacted , did it recover and see if it was impacted ? Did it not recover ? And so I kind of got inspired by that metric and did a little bit of a pivot and tried to figure out how many schools had more kids meeting state math standards and English standards than before the pandemic. The list was very short , actually. Of the around 700 schools in San Diego County , only 96 of them , um , had more students meeting state standards in English and math. So it's about 13%. Um , and there were a lot of similarities in terms of what they were focusing on. Um , you know , extended learning opportunities , whether that be before or after school. Um , high dosage tutoring , a reliance on data , uh , to kind of inform what kind of interventions kids need. Interestingly enough , um , one of the schools that that had improved the most was a school called Dual Language Immersion in North County. And one of the principals told me exactly what you just said. That , um. That after the pandemic , they started figuring out ways that , um , you know , they sort of figuring out strategies to tie in learning English with learning Spanish. Uh , and , and they found that this really helped them teach kids both of these languages. So I certainly think there are lots of places that you can you can explore that. Um , but overall , given just how few of these schools are doing better , you know , after the pandemic than before , I think it really kind of begs the question of if what we're looking at even should be understood as a recovery. Um , ultimately , I think and speaking to , uh , UCLA , USC education professor Morgan Polyakov , he kind of dropped this , this , this nugget on me that kind of blew my mind , which is it might not really be all that helpful to think of , of of what schools are working on right now as recovery. Uh , instead , maybe we should just understand this post-pandemic period as a brand new benchmark. And that's and that schools are continuing to work to improve from this point. Instead of trying to to force them to claw back everything they've lost in that in that pandemic period.
S1: So really just treating it like it's a whole new sort of era , new schools. Yeah. Wow. Um , I mean , one potential challenge that it's coming with is it's coming in a very different fiscal environment. Right ? Like , budgets are much different than they were during the pandemic when they had a lot of federal pandemic aid.
S2: Right. San Diego Unified got hundreds of millions in federal aid. And now that those federal aid dollars have dried up , what they're facing is , is really a budget Wake-Up call. So this year , last year they faced a massive budget shortfall. This year , they're facing an even bigger budget shortfall. At one point it was $176 million. They've since found some places to cut. Right. And so they've brought it down to about 110 million or so. But when you look at that , that's $110 million shortfall in a total budget of 1.1 billion. So this is not small potatoes we're talking about , right. Big changes need to be happening , need to happen to kind of prevent this shortfall from rolling over year after year and turning into this massive , you know , systemic deficit that that really could change how we understand schools. Uh , I , you know , I've spoken to school board leaders like Cody Patterson. He's the current board president , and he's insisted that , um , district leaders are not going to be willing to accept small cuts and that they really are going to try to , you know , head off this deficit by making the big , difficult decisions that need to happen. I think the jury is still out on whether or not they will do that , especially given their history. Part of the reason that that the district is in this position is because of decisions they've made , right ? Just last year , even as leaders were projecting these big deficits , the board approved 517 million in teacher raises. That's about a 15% pay increase for teachers. That also is not small potatoes. And you know , while teachers jobs are extremely hard and I don't think anybody would say that we think teachers should be paid less. Decisions like that pay increase played a significant role in where we're at right now and exacerbated the budget crisis. And so those decisions that that board members are going to be facing are all the more important. Uh , luckily for them , uh , California is not facing the kind of deficit that it did in past years. And governor , Governor Gavin Newsom's latest budget proposal doesn't cut school funding , but it also doesn't do them any favors by increasing school funding. Right. So San Diego Unified leaders are going to be on their own , trying to figure out exactly how to to square this budget deficit.
S1: And around all that. Katie. I mean , you recently did a story reporting on how San Diego schools are facing a problem with not having enough special education teachers , and it sounds like they're just simply overwhelmed , right ? They have too many. Their caseloads are way too high. Right.
S3: That's right. The contract between the teachers union and the district sets a limit of the number of students that each education specialist can have , kind of in their caseload. And , uh , it depends on kind of the needs of the students , uh , what that limit looks like. But , uh , across the district , there are education specialists that have , you know , for example , if their cap is 20 , I spoke to a teacher who's had a caseload of 35 students last year , and that's across , you know , if you pick her in elementary school , that's going from kindergarten to fifth grade. You're juggling in your mind all of the needs of these kids going into general education classrooms , sitting with those kids , offering them support , meeting with parents , talking with them about their needs at school and at home , and doing that with 20 students , I would imagine would be difficult. Adding 15 more just seems unimaginable. And I think , uh , in some cases is making people leave the district , which is , of course , the worst case scenario. Um , a lot of the teachers I spoke to made the argument that it's hard to recruit new teachers when the assessment from the current staff is this is really , really difficult. And , um , the district , for its part , is setting up kind of a partnership with local universities to try to recruit special education teachers that way. Uh , in the past , they've helped teachers , uh , get their special education credentials so that they can take those jobs if they open up in the district and want to. Um , so they're looking for ways to kind of build up their teaching staff in special education. Um , but ultimately , you know , day to day , there are a lot of teachers out there in the district right now that are just overwhelmed.
S1: Do we have a clear understanding of what's behind the shortage ? I mean , we've been talking about the impact of the pandemic , and we've heard a lot about , you know , the mental health impacts and how that's had on kids.
S2: Um , but also these are really hard jobs. Uh , as Katie said , um , they require a lot of time. They require a lot of effort and they're very emotionally heavy. In addition to that , they require additional certifications that not all teachers have. And teachers generally are just underpaid compared to other folks who have similar degrees and similar training. And so coming into this field is is , um , not super , uh , it's not super , um , tempting for a lot of folks , right ? Not a lot of people look at this , this reality and say , hey , I want to get paid comparatively less , and I want to do a whole lot of very hard emotional work. Uh , so these shortages , they exist across the state , they exist across the country. And it's particularly in special education. And I think a lot of it is because that work is really damn hard , and teachers don't get paid a whole lot to do it.
S1: Another trend that has been growing in San Diego schools that I know both of you have reported on. The way I'm looking at it is sort of schools role in society increasing , right ? Not just teaching K through 12 kids , but being more involved in people's lives and some of the problems that we face in our community. I'm wondering , Jacob , can you talk a little bit about how that's playing out in our region today ? Yeah.
S2: So , you know , schools have long had this kind of impossible task , right ? Society creates inequality. And then kids go into a classroom and schools are told , now make these kids have an equal education , that that's impossible , right ? A kid goes in , maybe they haven't slept well because they're sleeping on grandma's couch. Or maybe they're hungry because they haven't eaten. Uh , inevitably they will have different results than a kid whose parents can afford a tutor , for example. Uh , and so these kinds of wraparound services that schools are starting to turn , turn to are an effort to kind of , um , you know , bring more equality to education. So one of those examples is community schools. Those are schools that do provide these wraparound services. Uh , and each community school is supposed to look very different , um , depending on what the needs of that community they serve are. So sometimes they may have food pantries. Sometimes they may give eye exams. Sometimes they have additional mental health supports. Um , but all of these things are , again , an attempt to kind of equalize education. Uh , San Diego Unified has really leaned in to community schools , but whether or not they can keep them going will be will be something we have to see , right ? A lot of these were launched with , uh , short term grant funding by the state. And so after five years , that grant funding goes away. So whether San Diego Unified will continue to be able to stand those up , uh , is yet to be seen. Another example of this kind of increased role of public education is , um , Logan Memorial Educational Campus. Uh , San Diego Unified recently opened its first infant care facility there. It's a montessori center for kids , you know , from just a couple months old , up to three and through preschool and in the UK. That's something the district has never done. It's also something the state doesn't provide funding for. Um , part of the district's motivation in launching this is just that they think that kids should have access to free , high quality child care , especially because at least two trustee Richard Barrera. Child care tends to be a bit of a lose lose. Right. It's very expensive for parents , and the people who work in that industry don't get paid enough to live. So increasing the access to it , um , could be a win win. And , uh , in order to advocate for stuff like that at the state , you have to have a successful program. So they're viewing this , this , uh , Montessori Center as something that potentially they can then use , if successful , to advocate for this increased funding. It would also help , potentially , with the long term enrollment issues that schools across the country are dealing with , given that people just are having less kids. Uh , if you expand the number of kids , uh , who are able to go to public school , then your enrollment isn't looking so dicey.
S1: Oh , interesting. So there's an enrollment piece that's kind of coming up. Yeah. And it's the so the enrollment declines. It's not just San Diego Unified or other area school districts kind of facing the same challenges roughly. Yeah.
S2: Yeah. So post um , post Great Recession , uh , people just kind of turned turned it down on having kids. And ever since then , um , we have seen each generation be a little bit smaller than the last. And so what districts are facing is ultimately a smaller and smaller classes , basically for eternity. Right. And so whether or not they , they , they start to contract , um , is it seems pretty inevitable. And certainly there are outliers , you know , places where families are moving in. Maybe it's less expensive than San Diego. Um , and so they , they relocate to Riverside or whatever. Right. But but the the basic challenge is how do we keep enrollment up when there are just less kids to go around.
S1: Katie , you wanted to add something ? Yeah.
S3: So this is making me think of a point that got brought up in a budget meeting for San Diego Unified this week , and they were looking at the projected enrollment numbers for next year. And , uh , they're still going down. And yet there will likely be more students in universal TK because the age range of students that qualify for that is set to expand. So that just speaks to the point of you can expand who qualifies as an enrolled student. And even then , the numbers continue to go down. Wow.
S1: Wow. Even yeah. You add a new grade and it still doesn't help with the numbers. Wow. That's pretty stark. Yeah.
S2: Yeah. Over the past couple of years , the expansion of uke was pretty much the only reason why San Diego Unified didn't see larger , larger drops in enrollment. It's blunted some of that enrollment decline , but it's not erased it.
S1: So a lot of budget questions. And that's not even really kind of getting into what's happening in Washington. I mean , there are rumors that the Department of Education might not necessarily be around next year , right ? Yeah.
S2: So Trump has has explicitly promised that he will eliminate the Department of Education. Whether or not he follows through , I think is an open question. Republicans have long wanted to get rid of the Department of Education. It's actually a fairly new agency that just was created by Carter. Um , and there are just a whole lot of unknowns. One thing I think is important for people to understand is that the vast , vast majority of money that funds schools doesn't come from the federal level in California. Right ? Uh , they the feds provide maybe between 10 and 25% of school funding , depending on the year. Um , it shot up to about 25% over the pandemic because all of the federal relief money. But generally it's closer to that 10%. And so , um , even if the Department of Education is eliminated , that money is likely to be dispersed by other agencies. So public schools , it's not likely that they will lose all that money. It's certainly possible , but it's not likely. Um , what I've been concerned with , though , is , is one of the kind of knock on effects of the elimination of Department of Education. Uh , because the Department of Education isn't just about money. It also performs important , like oversight functions. Right ? Some of which have already been targeted by Trump like protections for trans and LGBTQ plus students. Take federal title nine laws , right , which protects students from discrimination. Um , just last year , the Department of Editors office for Civil Rights , which investigates these title nine claims , released a damning report about San Diego , Unified's years long failure to respond to sexual harassment complaints. That report was vital because it kind of laid bare all of the ways in which the district systems had fallen short , and it required this laundry list of improvements that the district , uh , you know , pledged to make if the Department of Ed were eliminated. Investigations like that would go away. The office for Civil Rights would go bye bye. Right. Leaving the world of school misconduct even murkier than before. Which is not good news , because the world of of of sexual misconduct in schools is already quite murky. And so while I think Trump's goal with all of this is to eliminate what he views as , you know , evil woke Dei stuff , what could end up happening is important oversights that are meant to protect the most vulnerable of students could go away and leave students even more vulnerable.
S1: We're going to have to leave it there. We started talking about tests , but clearly it's so much more going on with , you know , schools and students. Um , I just want to thank both of you for being here and kind of like taking the time to kind of dig into this , because I know as a parent myself , sometimes , you know , you see a headline here or there and you don't know what kind of where things are. So we really appreciate you breaking this down. I've been speaking with KPBS education reporter Katie Anastas , along with Jacob McSweeney , who's the education reporter with the Voice of San Diego. He also does some cool local music reviews. You should check it out. But but thank you both for being here and we got to do this again. Thanks. Anytime.
S3: Anytime. Yeah.
S2: Yeah. Thanks for having me , Andrew.
S1: That'll do it for a roundtable this week. Thanks so much for being here. If you missed any of the show , you can listen to the entire show anytime as a podcast. Roundtable airs on KPBS FM at noon on Fridays again Sundays at 6 a.m.. If you have any thoughts on today's show , you can email us at roundtable at KPBS. You can also leave us a message at (619) 452-0228. Roundtable's technical producer this week was Brandon Truffaut. The show was produced by Ashley Rush. Brooke Ruth is Roundtable's senior producer. I'm Andrew Bracken. Thanks again for listening and have a great weekend.
