ACSA Board Member Blanca Cavazos (Region 11) will be inducted into the CSU Bakersfield alumni Hall of Fame, which recognizes alumni whose accomplishments and careers have brought honor and distinction to the university. In her nearly 40-year career as a teacher and administrator in schools throughout Kern County, Cavazos has knocked down educational barriers while navigating the challenges of educating students. As a Mexican-born student in Arvin, Cavazos was punished for speaking Spanish at school and often told she didn’t have much of a future. She earned three degrees from CSUB, including a bachelor’s degree in liberal studies and two education-related master’s degrees, plus a doctorate in educational leadership from Fresno State. Her career began in 1981 as a bilingual first-grade teacher in Arvin. After working as the college coordinator for the California Mini-Corps Program at CSUB, she returned to teach at her alma mater, Arvin High, eventually becoming the first female and minority principal at the high school. She was chief instructional officer at the Kern County Superintendent of Schools office before ascending to superintendent of the Taft Union High School District in 2013. Cavazos was named Administrator of the Year by ACSA Region 11 in 1995, 2004, 2015 and 2019; received the migrant alumni award from the California Department of Education in 2012; and was a finalist for National Superintendent of the Year honors this year. The university will recognize the 2020 inductees at a black-tie dinner Friday, Feb. 21 at the Stockdale Country Club. 

More than half of traditional elementary teacher preparation programs now embrace reading science, according to a new analysis from the National Council on Teacher Quality. In a review of 1,000 teacher prep programs, 51 percent earned an A or B grade for their coverage of the key components of the science of reading, up from just 35 percent seven years ago. The review also found California teacher prep programs had increased their average performance in early reading “significantly” from 2016 to 2020. The latest findings are a positive sign for newly energized movement across the nation to bring down notoriously high rates of illiteracy in the United States. Each year, well over a million public school students arriving in the fourth grade are added to the nation’s ranks of nonreaders. Two-thirds are black and Hispanic children struggling in the face of an inequitable education system. Reading ability is a key predictor of future educational gains and life success, making successful reading instruction essential to achieving educational equity. “The progress being made by programs comes as a real shot in the arm,” said Kate Walsh, president of NCTQ. “The resistance to teaching what is scientifically based has been so formidable. The scale is now tipping in favor of science, and the real winners here are the students who will learn to read.” Now in its fourth edition, the Teacher Prep Review assigns a team of literacy experts to examine every course a program requires in early reading and look for clear evidence of dedicated course time, as well as measures where aspiring teachers must demonstrate their knowledge of the five key components of the science of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.  “Where, when, and how we teach reading says more about us, than it does the students,” shared Kareem Weaver, member of the Oakland NAACP Education Committee. “Explicitly teaching and leveraging the science allows us to overcome our blind spots, assumptions and biases which impact every aspect of instruction. In other words, the quest to fortify our society and its institutions begins with preparing our teachers to apply the science of reading and reach all students. That’s the way to save us from ourselves and avoid a permanent underclass filling our correctional institutions as prisoners of the ‘reading wars.’”

California Department of Education staff are reviewing thousands of public comments on the state’s draft Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum in anticipation of presenting recommended revisions to the Instructional Quality Commission this spring. Following the passage of Assembly Bill 2016, the IQC was charged with developing an Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum to guide school districts in adapting their courses to better reflect the pupil demographics in their communities.  At the IQC meeting last month, CDE recommended that revisions to the draft follow the State Board of Education guidelines and AB 2016. This will ensure that the curriculum is written to encourage cultural understanding of how different groups have struggled and worked together, as well as highlight core ethnic studies concepts such as equality, justice, race, ethnicity and indigeneity. CDE also recommended that it be written in language that is inclusive and supportive of multiple users. In October, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond hosted a panel discussion that included subject matter experts, as well as legislators. The panel provided different perspectives on ethnic studies implementation at the K–12 level.  Since the draft’s release in summer 2019, CDE staff have used this time to review, analyze, and synthesize the more than 20,000 public comments to make recommendations to the IQC. WestEd is currently conducting focus groups for the CDE that are comprised of teachers with ethnic studies experience as well as teachers who have not taught ethnic studies but may in the future. CDE is also working with districts that have implemented ethnic studies to utilize their learnings. The model curriculum that the IQC is charged with developing will serve as a guidance document to schools that choose to implement ethnic studies in the K–12 system. Over the course of history, both in the state and nationally, specific ethnic groups have had unjust treatment even from respected institutions of authority. The curriculum taught in schools has not done enough to highlight and preserve the contributions of people of color and has actually minimized the importance of their role.  As of now, the legislation allows that a final draft will go to the State Board of Education for adoption in March 2021.

Most online supplemental instructional materials are “mediocre” or “probably not worth using” according to a new study of three of the most popular online sites used by teachers. “The Supplemental-Curriculum Bazaar: Is What’s Online Any Good?” examines more than 300 of the most downloaded materials from Teachers Pay Teachers, ReadWriteThink and Share My Lesson in the area of high school English language arts. Among the nine findings, the reviewers determined that the quality of the texts referenced in the materials are generally good, but clarity and instructional guidance for teachers are weak. These findings reveal a major mismatch between what content experts think educators should use in classrooms and what teachers, hungry for instructional resources, are choosing to download.  In response to the study, the websites said their resources help teachers save valuable time and help differentiate their instruction for various learners and settings. Read the study at .