Wait a Minute! - Part 2

Blog readers will recall our post a couple of weeks ago about an Academic Senate decision to hold off on any requirement for ethnic studies in the high schools until more was known about the governor's budget proposal and whether it would fund such a requirement.*

EdSource provides some information on what the budget proposal included, or - more importantly - what it did not include:

...One much anticipated question was whether Newsom would include funding to implement a high school ethnic studies course. He did not. A spokesperson from the Department of Finance said that there were many demands for spending with limited resources. Ethnic studies was not among the priorities.

A lack of funding to pay for teachers’ time and materials would delay the Legislature’s 2021 mandate for all high schools to offer a semester course in ethnic studies, starting in 2025-26 and to require that all students take it in order to graduate from high school, starting in 2029-30.

After multiple drafts and thousands of public comments, the State Board of Education adopted a voluntary framework for teaching ethnic studies in 2021. Since then, there have been conflicts and lawsuits over districts that have adopted curriculums promoted by the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium. Without naming the Liberated version, the ethnic studies law said that districts should not adopt elements of it “due to concerns related to bias, bigotry, and discrimination.” Without funding, that warning also would not take effect.

A lack of funding also might short-circuit a proposal pushed by UC ethnic studies faculty to require a high school ethnic studies course as an admission requirement with course criteria that UC would create. In December, the UC Academic Senate postponed a vote on the proposal until April; one reason was the uncertain status of California’s ethnic studies mandate...

Full story at https://edsource.org/2025/gov-newsom-proposes-stable-school-funding-in-2025-26-with-an-ominous-warning/724853.

Of course, the legislature could provide funding even if the governor does not propose it. But there won't be a vote on the budget until June. The governor could also change his proposal, but that typically won't happen until the May Revise. So all the Academic Senate will likely know in April is that there is no funding proposed by the governor, i.e., what the Senate already knows.

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2024/12/wait-minute.html.