Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing $15 million to expand broadband internet to more schools and an additional $1 million to hire a state computer science coordinator as a “down payment” on a comprehensive plan to provide access to computer science classes to all California students.
The sex education recommendations are part of the state's overall health education framework approved by the board and have generated fierce opposition from conservative religious groups.
With the State Board of Education set to vote on new teaching guidelines, groups have launched an aggressive effort to remove recommendations focused on LGBTQ inclusiveness and others they deem too explicit for young students.
Kim Pattillo-Brownson, vice president for policy and strategy at First 5 Los Angeles, and Matt Navo, former superintendent of much studied Sanger Unified, will join the 11 member policy-setting board.
In her first remarks as president of the State Board of Education, Linda Darling-Hammond says that California must prepare kids "to work with knowledge that hasn't been discovered yet, using technologies that haven't been invented yet, solving big problems that we have not yet managed to solve."
Although students will begin taking the California Science Test in March, most school districts have yet to approve textbooks or materials aligned to the new standards adopted six years ago by the State Board of Education. Still, federal law is requiring California to begin testing this year.
The Every Student Succeeds Act requires states to identify and improve student achievement in the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools. Districts with those schools will explain how in a new section of their Local Control and Accountability Plans.
