The Learning Curve: A Push for More School Funding

On a gloomy Tuesday morning San Diego County educators gathered on a noisy stretch of Main Street in front of Perkins K-8. The educators, many of whom were clad in red, were member of the unions representing teachers at both San Diego Unified and National City’s National Elementary School District.  

They were there to announce the launch of a coordinated statewide contract campaign called “We Can’t Wait.” The primary priorities for the 32 California districts involved are securing higher teacher pay, increased staffing at schools (including more mental health support staff), providing more resources to families and ending the yearly layoff cycle common in many districts.  

“While we have pushed our district to establish a budget where a good chunk … is going towards our schools and towards those working closest with students, it’s not enough,” San Diego Education Association President Kyle Weinberg told the cameras gathered at Perkins. “Our schools are understaffed. Our teachers can’t afford to live in the communities that we serve, and our students continue to be destabilized by budget cuts.”  

Those demands probably don’t sound controversial at first blush, but given public education in California has been under extreme financial strain since the expiration of Covid relief funds, they are likely unrealistic. San Diego Unified, for example, is facing down a roughly $112 million budget deficit. That comes less than two years after granting staff a 15 percent raise that likely contributed to that deficit.  

That bleak fiscal reality is partly why Weinberg and his union compatriots’ push isn’t just about negotiations at the local level. Part of the motivation to flex the power of the 77,000 educators across the 32 districts taking part in the coordinated campaign is to put pressure on leaders in Sacramento to put more money into education. 

“We need a coordinated statewide approach coming together as unions, families and community organizations to send a message that Sacramento cannot ignore,” Weinberg said. “It is criminal that in the wealthiest state in the country we are still funding schools below the national average. We need to look at new revenue sources at the state level.”  

What Weinberg and other union representatives want to see is the state focused on taxing corporations and using that money to increase education funding.  Advocates hope the unprecedented coordination of this campaign will move the needle.  

The jury is out on whether the state will bite, but given the distraction-rich political environment, it doesn’t seem wise to hold your breath. 

The CSU System Is Going All In on AI  

Tuesday brought the latest – and perhaps the most impactful – development in artificial intelligence’s continued encroachment on education. 

Mildred Garcia, chancellor of the California State University System, made a big announcement – the system was launching a “first-of-its kind public-private initiative to establish the CSU as the nation’s first and largest AI-powered public university system to serve its entire community.” 

The rising tide of AI tools has sparked both fear and optimism. On one hand, the flood of untested technologies has inundated an industry ill-equipped to stop the deluge, let alone predict the long-term impacts. Educators worry the tech may replace them or degrade students’ ability to think critically by making cheating even easier, meanwhile students worry the technology may cheapen what it means to get an education. On the other hand, the shiny new tools have promised to revolutionize the educational experience and provide personalized help to all students. 

In any case, the CSU system is diving into the deep end.  

In the email, sent to all CSU staff, Garcia announced that AI tools, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT software, would be made available to all students and employees of the system’s 23 universities. Leaders at OpenAI have boasted the initiative is the “largest deployment of ChatGPT to date.” She also announced that CSU leaders are collaborating on the initiative with a who’s who of Silicon Valley companies like Alphabet, Amazon’s Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Adobe. 

The initiative will not only provide access to AI platforms, but also professional development, training opportunities and additional resources to students and employees. CSU leaders, alongside corporate leaders of companies hawking AI technologies, will also be part of a new AI Workforce Acceleration Board that will identify skills students may need in the workplace, the email read.  

This initiative, which surpasses any existing university model in both scale and impact, positions the CSU as a global leader among higher education systems in the impactful, responsible and equitable adoption of artificial intelligence,” Garcia wrote. 

All of these steps would help CSU schools better equip its students for “California’s future AI-driven economy.” 

What We’re Writing 

• Only 13 percent of San Diego County schools had higher English and math test scores last year than they did during the 2018-19 school year. Those results highlight the bleak post-pandemic recovery at many schools. Here’s why leaders at three schools think they fared better. 
• The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress test scores have been released, and San Diego Unified fared comparatively well. Even so, the test, which is administered to students nationwide, showed little progress for local students. The big difference is that their performance didn’t worsen like that of students at many other districts. 
• San Diego Unified opened its first infant care facility late last year. The facility, a Montessori center at the district’s Logan Memorial Educational Campus, may be a sign of things to come. 
• More than 18 months ago, San Diego Unified pitched the city of San Diego leaders on a plan: The district would offer up its former Central Elementary campus for a safe parking lot for homeless families if the city could get a contractor to run it. Despite the fanfare, that project now looks dead.