San Diego-area Assemblymember Akilah Weber Pierson wants to assign California educators some new homework: screening kids for math competency. \u00a0<\/p>\n
A new bill authored by Weber<\/a> would require schools to perform math testing for students in kindergarten, first or second grade. It would also require educators to offer extra support to students whose math skills are behind where they should be.\u00a0<\/p>\n A number of safeguards to more narrowly focus the screenings are also written into the bill. Those include the stipulation that scores could not be used to evaluate teachers or identify students for gifted programs. Students\u2019 math skills are already tested in third grade. But in pitching the bill, Weber Pierson argued that disparities begin even earlier than that.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBy that time, many students who are struggling with foundational math skills have already fallen behind,\u201d Weber Pierson said<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The effort is aimed at evening the incredibly uneven playing field of early childhood education. Some kids who enter the public school system may have already had years of more focused math education. Many of those who start behind, stay behind. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cUnless those students get intervention, the gap will widen. It\u2019ll be harder for them to access higher-level math classes later on, and this will have implications for future job opportunities and the economic future of California. It\u2019s a continual closing of opportunities,\u201d Alice Klein, the research director at WestEd told CalMatters.\u00a0<\/p>\n But like the reading curriculum reforms signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom<\/a> late last year, the new math framework could face some stiff opposition. That signing capped years of a contentious back and forth debate<\/a> in Sacramento during which multiple bills aimed at changing how we teach kids to read crumble under pressure. \u00a0<\/p>\n Like some of those earlier literacy bills, the powerful California Teachers Association opposes Weber Pierson\u2019s math bill. In their telling, lawmakers should wait to see how the state\u2019s new math framework impacts student achievement. They also argue that without additional funding to support students who are behind, a screener won\u2019t do much. \u00a0<\/p>\n In any case, both the literacy bill and this latest math bill are responding to real deficiencies. Statewide, California students still haven\u2019t made up pandemic-era losses<\/a> in student performance. Only a little more than a third of students met math standards in statewide tests. That number is even lower for Black and Latino students.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nationwide, the state\u2019s fourth graders were tied for sixth lowest in math proficiency according to 2024\u2019s NAEP tests. In reading, the state\u2019s fourth graders tied for eighth lowest.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s frustrating for people who have worked in the education space and for those who have been looking at these numbers for decades \u2014 a generation \u2014 and seeing that, as a state, we have not prioritized education,\u201d Weber Pierson told California Black Media at a recent press conference. \u201cBut I am grateful that we are taking steps to fix it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n San Diego Unified\u2019s New Motivation Meter Shows Modest Gains, Big Gaps\u00a0<\/p>\n As San Diego Unified continues to embark into the unknown in its attempts to measure student wellness<\/a>, district officials on Tuesday presented the second results of a survey intended to measure student motivation. \u00a0<\/p>\n The survey measured a handful of school-related factors. Those included things like how safe kids feel at school and how good their relationships with teachers are. It also asked about more personal attributes, like whether students demonstrate things like grit or a growth mindset. \u00a0<\/p>\n The results showed modest district-wide gains<\/a> across almost all of the domains, with students\u2019 ability to manage stress and calm themselves seeing the highest increase. Still, the percentage of kids who answered positively in each of the categories lingered in the 50s and 60s. \u00a0<\/p>\n More worryingly, though, Black, Latino and English learner students saw marked decreases across almost all categories surveyed. At Trustee Shana Hazan\u2019s prompting, district officials said they would come back with strategies to turn that trend around. \u00a0<\/p>\n Along with the standard survey, the district collected recorded testimonies from students. Officials then turned to a new tool in the district\u2019s toolkit to make sense of the voice recordings at scale. The AI-powered program, called Impacter Pathway<\/a>, analyzes student responses to prompts and identifies attributes, characteristics or trends that may have been expressed, but not stated outright. \u00a0<\/p>\n District data guru Roman del Rosario and Area Superintendent Erin Richison walked board members and attendees through the system\u2019s analysis of one boy\u2019s statement<\/a>. In the statement, the boy said he came from a family that had struggled and that he wanted to succeed to prove himself. To do that, he sometimes takes on challenges he knows may be too big for him. The program identified the statement as expressing grit and a desire to be pushed. \u00a0<\/p>\n It was an interesting exhibition that clearly resonated with board members, for whom finding ways to divine data from the squishiness of wellness monitoring has been a primary challenge.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0Trustee Cody Petterson acknowledged there will likely be concerns about student privacy, and admitted to being icked out by the prospect of AI in this context. Still, he said he was \u201cdeeply moved.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI always go back to three years ago when we started this process and our consultant said \u2018Hey, you really shouldn\u2019t do this, no one in the country is doing this, we don\u2019t have metrics yet,\u2019\u201d Petterson recalled. \u201cYou are creating the tools to hold ourselves accountable to creating this space of wellness.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Pooch Poo Soils School Fields; Budget Cuts Curtail Caca Cops\u00a0<\/p>\n San Diego Unified\u2019s long-running joint-use program has opened up school facilities all over the district to the public. One of the most popular examples has been the district opening fields to community members after school hours. \u00a0<\/p>\n But the program hasn\u2019t been all sunshine and roses. It\u2019s also featured some holes and a whole lot of poop, courtesy of community members who let their pooches roam the fields off leash and don\u2019t pick up after them. The problem got so bad at some joint-use fields that kids were tumbling into doggy-dug holes and doggy-dealt doodoo. The district even closed some joint-use fields to the public to curb the crappy behavior<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n Now, citywide budget cuts are taking a bite out of what little enforcement existed. \u00a0<\/p>\n The city of San Diego used to contract with the Humane Society to patrol the parks, but that partnership ended last year. Officials confirmed to Axios<\/a> their officers no longer responded to calls reporting off leash dogs at local school fields. And while the city is adding stickers at some school fields directing residents to report bad behavior on the Get it Done app, there\u2019s still no function that allows such reports. \u00a0<\/p>\n Related: A new analysis<\/a> from Mayor Todd Gloria\u2019s office projects that the city will need to make deep cuts to its libraries and rec centers to fill its yawning deficit. The cuts, which will include significant reduction in hours and potential closures, would amount to nearly $8 million in savings. The current deficit stands at nearly $150 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n One More Thing: Just FYI, San Diego Unified\u2019s Board Opposes Iran War\u00a0<\/p>\n In case you were wondering, San Diego Unified trustees are against the Iran war. \u00a0<\/p>\n