Our education coverage examines the inequities students face in Bay Area and California schools, and reports on what it will take to educate the next generation.
Oakland Unified Faces Civil Rights Complaint Over Programs for Latino Youth
Will We Still Learn Languages When Machines Can Translate? (with Abby Walker)
A Historically Black College in Oakland? A Task Force Is Dreaming
Conservative Group Claims Oakland Unified Programs Discriminate Against White Students
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Should California Backfill Science Funding After Trump Cuts? Voters Could Decide in 2028
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Based in Arlington, Virginia, the nonprofit group cites the district’s Latino men and boys program, a Latinx mentoring and achievement program, professional development to help preschool teachers support the development of boys of color, and various other programs designed to support students of color. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The group, founded in 2021 to fight what it sees a “political bias” in the nation’s public schools and backed by major conservative philanthropies, is asking the Department of Education to open a civil rights investigation into OUSD for violating Title VI, which prohibits racial discrimination; Title IX, prohibiting sex discrimination; and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251205-OUSDVIOLENCEINTERRUPTER-37-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12066525\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251205-OUSDVIOLENCEINTERRUPTER-37-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251205-OUSDVIOLENCEINTERRUPTER-37-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251205-OUSDVIOLENCEINTERRUPTER-37-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Castlemont High School in Oakland on Dec. 5, 2025. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“In a ham-fisted attempt to guarantee student ‘equity’ outcomes, Oakland USD has sponsored a multitude of programs geared toward only one race or sex in violation of federal law,” Sarah Parshall Perry, Defending Education’s vice president and senior legal fellow, said in a statement. “Cash stipends, tutoring assistance, wellness programs and food and housing benefits for only one group of students, to the exclusion of others, are just the tip of the iceberg in one of California’s largest school districts.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>OUSD did not respond to a request for comment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In Oakland Unified, about 33% of students meet grade level standards in reading and 27% in math. For Latino students, that number is far lower — 22% are proficient in reading and 15% in math — as is it for Black students — at 21% and 13%, respectively, according to state standardized tests. In 2024, the graduation rate for OUSD’s Latino students was 68%, compared with 74% of students overall. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The district contracts with the \u003ca href=\"https://unitycouncil.org/\">Unity Council\u003c/a>, a Fruitvale organization, to run the Latino men and boys program at four OUSD middle schools and two OUSD high schools; and the Latinx mentoring program at three OUSD high schools. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The programs are part of the district’s effort to increase the graduation rates for Latino youth and to support their mental and physical health, and their higher education and career planning. The Latinx mentoring program grew out of the Latino men and boys program, which expanded to include girls and nonbinary youth in 2019. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Unity Council declined to comment on the complaint.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Those programs and others are hallmarks of \u003ca href=\"https://www.ousd.org/equity\">OUSD’s Office of Equity\u003c/a>, which was established in 2016 to address persistent racial inequities in academic achievement in Oakland schools. The office has programs supporting African American, Arab American, Pacific Islander and Latino students. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Race-neutral approaches are not sufficient to repair the damage that’s come as a result of a long history of race-based discrimination, exclusion and miseducation — in our nation as well as inside of Oakland Unified School District,” a \u003ca href=\"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1756410916/ousdorg/fhzostizel2h0hkk1zcs/OUSD-Office-of-Equity-ImpactReport-WEB.pdf\">2025 report\u003c/a> from the Office of Equity found. “In order to heal past harms and close gaps in access and opportunity — which lead to gaps in academic outcomes — we must take intentional, tailored, targeted measures.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The programs have shown extraordinary impact. In January 2024, for example, 78% of students in OUSD’s \u003ca href=\"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1736276490/ousdorg/nlioddpcvbcqtunukugr/OUSDOfficeofEquity-FactSheet-LSA.pdf\">Latino student achievement programs\u003c/a> had attendance rates of 95% or higher, compared with 39% of Latino students overall. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12042892\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Oakland Unified School District Board listens to public comment during a meeting at La Escuelita Elementary School in Oakland, California, on Dec. 11, 2024. Students, families, educators, and community members raised their concerns about a proposed merger of their schools. (Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s not the first time the district has faced a backlash over its \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2023/09/15/ousd-oakland-chabot-diversity-equity-inclusion-pta-committees/\">diversity and inclusion programs\u003c/a>. In 2023, for example, after a notice for a playgroup for students of color at Chabot Elementary School was shared online, the playgroup’s organizers received racist emails and a \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2023/08/29/chabot-elementary-evacuated-school-canceled-due-to-bomb-threat/\">bomb threat was called into the school\u003c/a>, forcing classes to be canceled for the day. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Defending Education has also brought complaints against other East Bay districts and organizations. Last year, the group alleged that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028442/san-leandro-schools-tried-uplift-black-boys-now-they-face-discrimination-complaint\">San Leandro schools\u003c/a> had violated civil rights laws with programs supporting Black boys through partnerships with the \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2026/07/23/kingmakers-oakland-artificial-intelligence-sankofa-kings/\">Kingmakers of Oakland organization\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The New York Times found that the Office of Civil Rights has \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/26/us/politics/defending-education-smith-transgender.html\">opened nearly a dozen federal investigations\u003c/a> in response to complaints from Defending Education over school diversity programs and school policies protecting the rights of transgender students.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Office of Civil Rights currently has an open investigation into OUSD over allegations that an unsanctioned pro-Palestinian teach-in held in December 2023 was tantamount to \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2024/01/25/palestine-teach-in-prompts-civil-rights-probe-of-oakland-schools/\">discrimination against Jewish students\u003c/a>. The California Department of Education also filed a lawsuit against OUSD earlier this year, alleging that the district failed to remedy \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2025/10/31/state-finds-oakland-unified-discriminated-against-jewish-students/\">discriminatory environments for Jewish students\u003c/a> in several incidents, including the teach-in, the distribution of a map of the Middle East that did not include Israel, and the decision by one high school to briefly fly the Palestinian flag from the school flagpole.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The organization Defending Education with the federal Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights filed the \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Oakland-Complaint_Letterhead_Exhibits_Final_9.10.26.pdf\">complaint\u003c/a>. Based in Arlington, Virginia, the nonprofit group cites the district’s Latino men and boys program, a Latinx mentoring and achievement program, professional development to help preschool teachers support the development of boys of color, and various other programs designed to support students of color. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The group, founded in 2021 to fight what it sees a “political bias” in the nation’s public schools and backed by major conservative philanthropies, is asking the Department of Education to open a civil rights investigation into OUSD for violating Title VI, which prohibits racial discrimination; Title IX, prohibiting sex discrimination; and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“In a ham-fisted attempt to guarantee student ‘equity’ outcomes, Oakland USD has sponsored a multitude of programs geared toward only one race or sex in violation of federal law,” Sarah Parshall Perry, Defending Education’s vice president and senior legal fellow, said in a statement. “Cash stipends, tutoring assistance, wellness programs and food and housing benefits for only one group of students, to the exclusion of others, are just the tip of the iceberg in one of California’s largest school districts.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“In a ham-fisted attempt to guarantee student ‘equity’ outcomes, Oakland USD has sponsored a multitude of programs geared toward only one race or sex in violation of federal law,” Sarah Parshall Perry, Defending Education’s vice president and senior legal fellow, said in a statement. “Cash stipends, tutoring assistance, wellness programs and food and housing benefits for only one group of students, to the exclusion of others, are just the tip of the iceberg in one of California’s largest school districts.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In Oakland Unified, about 33% of students meet grade level standards in reading and 27% in math. For Latino students, that number is far lower — 22% are proficient in reading and 15% in math — as is it for Black students — at 21% and 13%, respectively, according to state standardized tests. In 2024, the graduation rate for OUSD’s Latino students was 68%, compared with 74% of students overall. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In Oakland Unified, about 33% of students meet grade level standards in reading and 27% in math. For Latino students, that number is far lower — 22% are proficient in reading and 15% in math — as is it for Black students — at 21% and 13%, respectively, according to state standardized tests. In 2024, the graduation rate for OUSD’s Latino students was 68%, compared with 74% of students overall. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The district contracts with the \u003ca href=\"https://unitycouncil.org/\">Unity Council\u003c/a>, a Fruitvale organization, to run the Latino men and boys program at four OUSD middle schools and two OUSD high schools; and the Latinx mentoring program at three OUSD high schools. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The district contracts with the \u003ca href=\"https://unitycouncil.org/\">Unity Council\u003c/a>, a Fruitvale organization, to run the Latino men and boys program at four OUSD middle schools and two OUSD high schools; and the Latinx mentoring program at three OUSD high schools. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The programs are part of the district’s effort to increase the graduation rates for Latino youth and to support their mental and physical health, and their higher education and career planning. The Latinx mentoring program grew out of the Latino men and boys program, which expanded to include girls and nonbinary youth in 2019. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The programs are part of the district’s effort to increase the graduation rates for Latino youth and to support their mental and physical health, and their higher education and career planning. The Latinx mentoring program grew out of the Latino men and boys program, which expanded to include girls and nonbinary youth in 2019. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The Unity Council declined to comment on the complaint.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Those programs and others are hallmarks of \u003ca href=\"https://www.ousd.org/equity\">OUSD’s Office of Equity\u003c/a>, which was established in 2016 to address persistent racial inequities in academic achievement in Oakland schools. The office has programs supporting African American, Arab American, Pacific Islander and Latino students. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Those programs and others are hallmarks of \u003ca href=\"https://www.ousd.org/equity\">OUSD’s Office of Equity\u003c/a>, which was established in 2016 to address persistent racial inequities in academic achievement in Oakland schools. The office has programs supporting African American, Arab American, Pacific Islander and Latino students. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Race-neutral approaches are not sufficient to repair the damage that’s come as a result of a long history of race-based discrimination, exclusion and miseducation — in our nation as well as inside of Oakland Unified School District,” a \u003ca href=\"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1756410916/ousdorg/fhzostizel2h0hkk1zcs/OUSD-Office-of-Equity-ImpactReport-WEB.pdf\">2025 report\u003c/a> from the Office of Equity found. “In order to heal past harms and close gaps in access and opportunity — which lead to gaps in academic outcomes — we must take intentional, tailored, targeted measures.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“Race-neutral approaches are not sufficient to repair the damage that’s come as a result of a long history of race-based discrimination, exclusion and miseducation — in our nation as well as inside of Oakland Unified School District,” a \u003ca href=\"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1756410916/ousdorg/fhzostizel2h0hkk1zcs/OUSD-Office-of-Equity-ImpactReport-WEB.pdf\">2025 report\u003c/a> from the Office of Equity found. “In order to heal past harms and close gaps in access and opportunity — which lead to gaps in academic outcomes — we must take intentional, tailored, targeted measures.” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The programs have shown extraordinary impact. In January 2024, for example, 78% of students in OUSD’s \u003ca href=\"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1736276490/ousdorg/nlioddpcvbcqtunukugr/OUSDOfficeofEquity-FactSheet-LSA.pdf\">Latino student achievement programs\u003c/a> had attendance rates of 95% or higher, compared with 39% of Latino students overall. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The programs have shown extraordinary impact. In January 2024, for example, 78% of students in OUSD’s \u003ca href=\"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1736276490/ousdorg/nlioddpcvbcqtunukugr/OUSDOfficeofEquity-FactSheet-LSA.pdf\">Latino student achievement programs\u003c/a> had attendance rates of 95% or higher, compared with 39% of Latino students overall. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Defending Education has also brought complaints against other East Bay districts and organizations. Last year, the group alleged that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028442/san-leandro-schools-tried-uplift-black-boys-now-they-face-discrimination-complaint\">San Leandro schools\u003c/a> had violated civil rights laws with programs supporting Black boys through partnerships with the \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2026/07/23/kingmakers-oakland-artificial-intelligence-sankofa-kings/\">Kingmakers of Oakland organization\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The New York Times found that the Office of Civil Rights has \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/26/us/politics/defending-education-smith-transgender.html\">opened nearly a dozen federal investigations\u003c/a> in response to complaints from Defending Education over school diversity programs and school policies protecting the rights of transgender students.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The Office of Civil Rights currently has an open investigation into OUSD over allegations that an unsanctioned pro-Palestinian teach-in held in December 2023 was tantamount to \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2024/01/25/palestine-teach-in-prompts-civil-rights-probe-of-oakland-schools/\">discrimination against Jewish students\u003c/a>. The California Department of Education also filed a lawsuit against OUSD earlier this year, alleging that the district failed to remedy \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2025/10/31/state-finds-oakland-unified-discriminated-against-jewish-students/\">discriminatory environments for Jewish students\u003c/a> in several incidents, including the teach-in, the distribution of a map of the Middle East that did not include Israel, and the decision by one high school to briefly fly the Palestinian flag from the school flagpole.\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The programs were designed to close academic achievement gaps. Conservative parent group Defending Education wants a federal investigation, claiming the programs constitute racial discrimination.",
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"title": "Oakland Unified Faces Civil Rights Complaint Over Programs for Latino Youth | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>A conservative parents’ group known for targeting diversity and equity programs in schools has filed a federal civil rights complaint against Oakland Unified School District, claiming the district discriminates on the basis of race and sex by offering targeted programs for Latino boys and youth of color.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The organization Defending Education with the federal Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights filed the \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Oakland-Complaint_Letterhead_Exhibits_Final_9.10.26.pdf\">complaint\u003c/a>. Based in Arlington, Virginia, the nonprofit group cites the district’s Latino men and boys program, a Latinx mentoring and achievement program, professional development to help preschool teachers support the development of boys of color, and various other programs designed to support students of color. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The group, founded in 2021 to fight what it sees a “political bias” in the nation’s public schools and backed by major conservative philanthropies, is asking the Department of Education to open a civil rights investigation into OUSD for violating Title VI, which prohibits racial discrimination; Title IX, prohibiting sex discrimination; and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251205-OUSDVIOLENCEINTERRUPTER-37-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12066525\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251205-OUSDVIOLENCEINTERRUPTER-37-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251205-OUSDVIOLENCEINTERRUPTER-37-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251205-OUSDVIOLENCEINTERRUPTER-37-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Castlemont High School in Oakland on Dec. 5, 2025. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“In a ham-fisted attempt to guarantee student ‘equity’ outcomes, Oakland USD has sponsored a multitude of programs geared toward only one race or sex in violation of federal law,” Sarah Parshall Perry, Defending Education’s vice president and senior legal fellow, said in a statement. “Cash stipends, tutoring assistance, wellness programs and food and housing benefits for only one group of students, to the exclusion of others, are just the tip of the iceberg in one of California’s largest school districts.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>OUSD did not respond to a request for comment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In Oakland Unified, about 33% of students meet grade level standards in reading and 27% in math. For Latino students, that number is far lower — 22% are proficient in reading and 15% in math — as is it for Black students — at 21% and 13%, respectively, according to state standardized tests. In 2024, the graduation rate for OUSD’s Latino students was 68%, compared with 74% of students overall. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The district contracts with the \u003ca href=\"https://unitycouncil.org/\">Unity Council\u003c/a>, a Fruitvale organization, to run the Latino men and boys program at four OUSD middle schools and two OUSD high schools; and the Latinx mentoring program at three OUSD high schools. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The programs are part of the district’s effort to increase the graduation rates for Latino youth and to support their mental and physical health, and their higher education and career planning. The Latinx mentoring program grew out of the Latino men and boys program, which expanded to include girls and nonbinary youth in 2019. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Unity Council declined to comment on the complaint.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Those programs and others are hallmarks of \u003ca href=\"https://www.ousd.org/equity\">OUSD’s Office of Equity\u003c/a>, which was established in 2016 to address persistent racial inequities in academic achievement in Oakland schools. The office has programs supporting African American, Arab American, Pacific Islander and Latino students. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Race-neutral approaches are not sufficient to repair the damage that’s come as a result of a long history of race-based discrimination, exclusion and miseducation — in our nation as well as inside of Oakland Unified School District,” a \u003ca href=\"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1756410916/ousdorg/fhzostizel2h0hkk1zcs/OUSD-Office-of-Equity-ImpactReport-WEB.pdf\">2025 report\u003c/a> from the Office of Equity found. “In order to heal past harms and close gaps in access and opportunity — which lead to gaps in academic outcomes — we must take intentional, tailored, targeted measures.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The programs have shown extraordinary impact. In January 2024, for example, 78% of students in OUSD’s \u003ca href=\"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1736276490/ousdorg/nlioddpcvbcqtunukugr/OUSDOfficeofEquity-FactSheet-LSA.pdf\">Latino student achievement programs\u003c/a> had attendance rates of 95% or higher, compared with 39% of Latino students overall. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12042892\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Oakland Unified School District Board listens to public comment during a meeting at La Escuelita Elementary School in Oakland, California, on Dec. 11, 2024. Students, families, educators, and community members raised their concerns about a proposed merger of their schools. (Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s not the first time the district has faced a backlash over its \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2023/09/15/ousd-oakland-chabot-diversity-equity-inclusion-pta-committees/\">diversity and inclusion programs\u003c/a>. In 2023, for example, after a notice for a playgroup for students of color at Chabot Elementary School was shared online, the playgroup’s organizers received racist emails and a \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2023/08/29/chabot-elementary-evacuated-school-canceled-due-to-bomb-threat/\">bomb threat was called into the school\u003c/a>, forcing classes to be canceled for the day. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Defending Education has also brought complaints against other East Bay districts and organizations. Last year, the group alleged that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028442/san-leandro-schools-tried-uplift-black-boys-now-they-face-discrimination-complaint\">San Leandro schools\u003c/a> had violated civil rights laws with programs supporting Black boys through partnerships with the \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2026/07/23/kingmakers-oakland-artificial-intelligence-sankofa-kings/\">Kingmakers of Oakland organization\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The New York Times found that the Office of Civil Rights has \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/26/us/politics/defending-education-smith-transgender.html\">opened nearly a dozen federal investigations\u003c/a> in response to complaints from Defending Education over school diversity programs and school policies protecting the rights of transgender students.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Office of Civil Rights currently has an open investigation into OUSD over allegations that an unsanctioned pro-Palestinian teach-in held in December 2023 was tantamount to \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2024/01/25/palestine-teach-in-prompts-civil-rights-probe-of-oakland-schools/\">discrimination against Jewish students\u003c/a>. The California Department of Education also filed a lawsuit against OUSD earlier this year, alleging that the district failed to remedy \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2025/10/31/state-finds-oakland-unified-discriminated-against-jewish-students/\">discriminatory environments for Jewish students\u003c/a> in several incidents, including the teach-in, the distribution of a map of the Middle East that did not include Israel, and the decision by one high school to briefly fly the Palestinian flag from the school flagpole.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "will-we-still-learn-languages-when-machines-can-translate-with-abby-walker",
"title": "Will We Still Learn Languages When Machines Can Translate? (with Abby Walker)",
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"headTitle": "Will We Still Learn Languages When Machines Can Translate? (with Abby Walker) | KQED",
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"content": "\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#Transcript\">View Full Episode Transcript\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Live AI translation tools are making it easier to converse across languages without a human translator, a phrasebook, or years of study. So will we all just stop taking Spanish or Mandarin classes? Sociolinguist \u003ca href=\"https://liberalarts.vt.edu/departments-and-schools/department-of-english/faculty/abby-walker.html\">Abby Walker\u003c/a> doesn’t think so. She shares the many reasons we learn new languages, some of which have little to do with functional communication at all. We also hear how one AI-assisted conversation brought two future in-laws together, why machine translation is still so darn buggy, and why some languages are attracting a resurgence of new learners even in the age of translation apps.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Life, Automated is a production of the Ryan Institute on Complexity, at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. The host is Jess Love, senior director. Distributed by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/lifeautomated\">KQED\u003c/a>. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"Transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> This is Life, Automated, the show where we explore what it means to live, work, and make decisions in a world increasingly shaped by machines. I think it’s fair to say that over the past five years, we’ve been bombarded by all the new things AI can suddenly do. It’s solving these long unsolved math theorems, generating songs that rack up millions of listens, and even colluding with other AIs to break into servers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There’s so much crazy stuff happening, that a lot of other advances that would’ve seemed mind-blowing to us 10, 15 years ago feel almost pedestrian in comparison. I’d put real-time language translation down as one of these advances. Chat bots and translation apps now draw from a range of different kinds of AI to offer live translation for tons of different languages.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You can hear something in a language you don’t know, like Korean. You can use your phone to translate that speech into a language you do know, like English. “Which way is the restroom?” Offer your response in English. “Oh, yeah, it’s down this hallway here, second door on the right side.” And then it will speak your response aloud in Korean.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You can do this today. People already are doing this. What’s more, a lot of tech companies are developing wearables, think smart glasses, smart earbuds, to make live translation more frictionless. No more fumbling for your phone. This is literally straight out of science fiction. Star Trek’s universal translator, Dr.Who’s TARDIS translation matrix, and from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Babel Fish. For me, this raises some big questions. What do these live translation tools really let us do that we couldn’t do before? Will they ever fully replace human translators? And should my eight-year-old still be taking Spanish classes in school?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Today’s guest is Abby Walker, a sociolinguist at Virginia Tech, where she’s co-director of the Speech Lab. She’s also a longtime friend from my grad school days. I’m Jess Love, and this is Life, Automated from Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, distributed by KQED. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Welcome Abby Walker to Life Automated.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Thank you for having me, Jess. I’m so excited to be here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So there’s a clip I want to play for you. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>I wanted Abby and I to listen to some tape we recorded from a person who recently used one of these live translation tools. This person’s name is Larry Berliner. Larry’s son was in love, and this was Larry’s first time meeting the girlfriend’s parents.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Here’s the catch. Larry, father of the boyfriend, spoke English but not Chinese. And Kevin, father of the girlfriend, spoke Chinese but not English. So they used a ChatGPT app on one of their cell phones to translate between them. In this first clip, Larry’s just remarking about what this tool did for the two of them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Larry Berliner]:\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem> If not for this, I wouldn’t have got to know Kevin at all. I was able to connect with Kevin, meet Kevin, talk to Kevin seriously about myself, about my business, about my thoughts of his own daughter, what his daughter has transformed in my son. So much, right? There was so much I was able to say to him.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> And here’s another part of that conversation, this time with Larry talking about how having the tool helped everyone else in the room, too.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Larry Berliner]:\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem> We have all been there, where there’s the individual who’s the translator amongst three people or among five people, sometimes eight. And two things happen. One is that translator has to work so hard. You can see how much energy they’re having to invest in translating for everybody and make the room successful. The other thing you see is how slow everything goes. The point is, that’s not what happened in our room because Larry and Kevin were involved in this AI-enhanced live translation mode, and the other four were freed. So they were able to have a free, wonderful, free-ranging conversation, and they were able to have that ability to connect in their way.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I love that example and how it’s not just about the personal interaction, but actually about the group dynamics, too. It shows you the work that’s involved in having a human translator, that someone has to mediate that process for you, and that’s actually work on them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I hadn’t really thought about that aspect of it, which is kinda cool. If you have a human interpreter, there might be things that you want to talk about that you don’t want them to hear about. And I think this is a common situation a little bit with, we know sometimes when immigrants come to a country where they don’t speak the kind of dominant language, that often their kids become interpreters, as they’re dealing with banks and as they’re dealing with medical providers. But, like if you think about, do you want your daughters to know all of your personal information that you might talk about with a doctor? No, right? And so just getting to choose who hears what information, yeah, that’s going to be really empowering.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, it seems like in this example, depending on who is going to have to play that role of translator, is he going to feel comfortable, showering all this attention on perhaps his future daughter-in-law, for instance? If she’s the one translating.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yes. Yeah. That would be really embarrassing. Though it may be a cool, slick move as well. She has to be like, “Oh, Daddy’s saying I’m so pretty,” and yeah, something like that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So already these tools are letting people connect with other people in new ways, really connect. But I didn’t invite Abby on this show just to marvel over what’s now possible with machine translation. Like I said, I have a lot of questions. Like, “Is that it? Are we humans all just done learning second, third, fourth languages because the machines can translate for us now? Or are there some parts of a conversation that a machine probably isn’t going to be able to translate for us, at least not anytime soon?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So a lot of people think of translation as just this simple process of taking words from one language and then mapping them one-to-one onto another language. But from a sociolinguist perspective, what else is language doing other than delivering that kind of information?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> It’s doing so much, Jess. I love all the other things that language does. So one of the big things that I study and my field looks at is all the other information in the speech signal. So not just the content of the message but how you’re delivering it and all the other information that comes from that. So for example, anyone listening right now, you can probably hear that I was not born and raised in America.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’ve got a New Zealand English accent. But people in New Zealand can probably also hear that I’ve lived in America for a while, that’s probably in my speech as well. You might be able to hear that you and I are friends and friendly. We’re both trying to be friendly. We’re both trying to sound smart right now, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Maybe you can tell that this is a little bit more awkward formality for us than usual conversation with wine. So just your identity, and sometimes that stuff you’re trying to mark, like sometimes you’re like, “I want to sound really professional in this moment. I want to sound really from this place. I want to really lean into my higher roots or my New Zealand roots or something.” But then other times, there’s information there that you just can’t even control, right? Like, I’m not always necessarily trying to be like, “I’m a woman,” but most people will hear my voice and be like, “You’re a woman.” Or I’m not always trying to say I’m from New Zealand, but my vowels are always saying I’m from New Zealand.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. So whether you want to or not, you are communicating a whole lot about who you are as a person and maybe how you’re feeling in that moment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> Abby says that any tool focused primarily on the words we are saying will always miss a lot of the social information that language communicates, information that a human interpreter who can pick up on body language or emotion could probably make better sense of.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And even at the word level there’s a lot of ways for a translation to be incomplete. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker: \u003c/strong>I mean, some things like if I say boot or trunk of a car, that’s a difference between British and American English. But I’m thinking even things more like if I say groovy or neato or amazeballs or, we have lots of ways to express that something’s cool, and how another language does that, they might miss that I’m being playful, or they might miss that I’m outdated in my slang. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>How do you translate that someone is saying amazeballs unironically because they’re really that excited? How do you translate that someone is saying groovy ironically because they’re making fun of themselves for being five decades late to the party? And that’s not all. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker: \u003c/strong>The other thing that language has built into it, both in vocal tone and stuff, but then also in word choice and sometimes actually in your grammar, is your relationship to other people. It’s not just me expressing my identity. I can also be trying to say something about the relationship that you and I have or the relationship I’d like us to have. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So anything that is doing this translation, whether it’s a human or whether it’s a machine, they’re having to make some choices, and the nature of those choices are not going to be obvious to somebody who’s participating and only able to understand one side of that conversation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and most of the time, again, this… The technology’s kind of amazing. Being able to talk with anyone who you couldn’t talk to before, if the alternative is not being able to talk to them at all, that’s pretty amazing. But there are going to be times where if you don’t know the situation, it might be doing some really impolite things, and you might not know, right? Like the translation system might have decided to use an informal tone here, and you don’t realize it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>And to some extent, that’s going to be true of a human translator but to a much lesser extent if they are very culturally fluent with both languages.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah, no, I actually… Now I’m remembering I had a student who was Korean-American, and her parents had come over from Korea beforehand, so they were native Korean speakers, and I was learning Korean at the time. And it was graduation, and I was saying something to her dad, like I don’t know. I can’t remember what I was saying, but I was trying to say something polite. And she’s like, “Um,” kind of to her dad like, “Uh, she’s just learning.” And I was like… I assumed that I’d used some impolite grammatical forms or something, right? I’d done some… She knew that I was kind of doing something inappropriate that I didn’t know that I was doing and was just smoothing over the situation because yeah, I think one of the things that humans do is that we’re very socially savvy. We’re always looking at, contextually, what’s contextually appropriate language. And if you’re a bilingual person, which a human translator has to be, right, to some degree to be able to do this translation work, presumably they’re going to know the social navigation pathways of both languages. And so they’re going to be able to pull on that information.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Is there a danger that if we do move toward this world of relatively frictionless live translation, we could become overconfident that we’ve understood everything?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that’s… I think that’s almost part of it. It’s almost like the same problem that people are having right now with, you know, you hand in an essay that AI produced, and it looks so good that you don’t know that the citations are made-up. It’s that sort of confidence that it got the answer right that you would have that same kind of problem with translation, too.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> Given the sheer complexity of language and all the things it’s trying to do, maybe it shouldn’t be a big surprise that as incredible as these tools are, they still make mistakes. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/live-voice-translation-is-the-ai-americans-want-most-ahead-of-email-drafting-and-meeting-notes-new-deepl-research-finds-302858925.html\">recent survey\u003c/a> found that about half of people who’ve used some kind of translation app, chat bot, or wearable find it clunky.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>My own personal experience is pretty hit or miss. When I visited Quebec City this summer, Airbnb automatically translated my text messages to my host into French, and then translated his responses back into English. It was so seamless that I barely noticed. But then, when I tried out a pair of smart glasses to have a spoken conversation with a Bulgarian scholar here at the Ryan Institute about his summer vacation, a topic slightly more nuanced than what is the entry code to the apartment, it was a little rough.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>At first, I had to repeat my question three times until the glasses finally heard me well enough to translate. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Jess Love talking to Bulgarian Scholar]: \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem>“All right, let’s try again. Okay. Okay. I was holding it too long. I heard a rumor that you are going to the Dolomites this summer to do some hiking.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Bulgarian Scholar Translation Audio]:\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem>That’s exactly how we’re going with a large group of friends. It’s about 20 people, and I’m pretty excited since it’s raining here, but there are almost no mountains, and I very rarely get to see mountains.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hungarian Scholar: \u003c/strong>It’s somewhat accurate.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> The glasses kept messing up. We managed to stumble through a basic conversation but only because my colleague knew English and could correct the mistakes. It was not frictionless. So at least with the tools we have today, it’s pretty clear to me that some tasks will still require human translators, even if a lot of others don’t, and Abby agreed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> I think it’s the case that we’re always going to need human translators, because there are high-stakes situations, right? Like international negotiations, big business deals. But I also imagine a young person looking at a career path and still seeing, probably rightly so, that there’s going to be less path forward for them there. And I think about the medical world a bit. I think that’s often where there was a feeling that there would be a lot of interpreters was in the medical field.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And you do already see them starting to use these tools and these translation tools automatically. You would hope they would always have someone on staff still, like to do translations when things get really nuanced and stuff. But I do think if I was a young person looking, even though there still will be those jobs, I would wonder about them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> I would wonder too. Some of the practical reasons for learning a language are going away. After all, not everyone is going to be involved in negotiating corporate mergers or making high-stakes medical decisions. For a lot of situations, good enough really is good enough. And AI’s getting better. Companies are already trying to deal with these issues by like collecting visual data or following people over time so the machines have access to previous conversations.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There’s no guarantee that these tools will still be making the same kinds of mistakes in five years, or even two. And so, yeah, some people who would’ve learned another language probably will decide, “Eh, why bother?” But Abby doesn’t see a future where people just decide to stop learning other languages, no matter how good the machines get, because there are a bunch of reasons for learning a language that have nothing to do with the mere exchange of information.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>After the break, she makes her case. We’ll also hear why some very unexpected languages are actually experiencing a resurgence of new learners, apps be damned. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> I’m going to Germany later this year. The big reason, one of the big reasons I wanted to go to Germany, apart from working with some great researchers, is that I wanted to get my German better. I have no need to get German better. This is not an important thing in my life. I will not speak it. I will never need it, but I want to be good at it, right? I want to be better at it. I like it. I enjoy it. It’s a puzzle. It’s a game.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> Abby’s not alone. A lot of people are learning languages they don’t have to learn for purely communicative reasons, like because they need a job or need to get around a city.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Like people right now are learning Welsh, and people are learning Te Reo Māori, and these people can all speak English in Wales and in New Zealand, but they’re choosing to learn this language that they do not need for communication, so why are they choosing to learn this language? Because they have an identity connection to this language, right? And so its important to them, separate from how many other people they can talk to in this language, right? Like its kind of a way to connect to an identity, because I think people really do associate languages with identity.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that’s so interesting. Is there a resurgence in people trying to learn these minority languages, even right now in 2026?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yes. There’s definitely a resurgence in people trying to learn these languages. But that’s been happening since the ’80s, ’90s, 2000s. But since I’ve been in the States for almost 20 years now, and when I go back to New Zealand, it is shocking to me the amount of Te Reo that is around now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And what is Te Reo [Māori]?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> It’s the language. Sorry. It’s Māori. Māori. Sorry. It’s the Māori language. It’s just called the language, so it’s Te Reo.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, can you just give a little… ‘Cause most of our audience is not from New Zealand, so just give a little… What is this language, and why do you think that people are learning to speak it more in New Zealand?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so this was the first language, human language spoken in New Zealand by the Māori. And then waves of English settlers came, and the language was forbidden, like happens in many of these situations. There was both an incentive to learn English for economic reasons, but then there were also actual moves to ban the language in school. And so kids would get smacked and things if they were speaking it in playgrounds and stuff. And so there was a generation or two that kind of were native speakers of Māori that literally intentionally chose not to pass it on to their children because it had only caused grief for them, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then there was this next generation that was “Wait, we’ve lost this kind of connection to our identity.” And so there’s been this really big resurgence. And this is happening before the technology that we’re talking about, but it’s happening because this has identity meaning to people. This is culturally significant to them. Quite correctly, they see it as something that was taken away from them by kind of outsiders, and then they are trying to correct that and connect to these roots. Which what’s really interesting in New Zealand is a ton of white people or Pākehā, like me, a ton of white people have been learning Māori as well, right? So it’s also becoming a symbol of your political and New Zealand identity as well. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So because this language has more cultural significance than it does, a purely functional significance, do you see it as pretty protected or insulated from some of the challenges of machine translation?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah. When I’m thinking about it, now that we’re talking about it, I do think that it would be unlikely that you would use a translation app. If you were talking to someone who was a native or near-native fluent speaker of Te Reo and you wanted to communicate with them, you would do it in English or you would learn Te Reo. Why would you use an app to talk to them in this language, stiltingly with pauses and slowly when you both can talk in English, right? They are not going to appreciate that. They’re not really going to be interested in that, and what would probably be more impressive was you stumbling through some beginner Te Reo, which at least showed that you were putting in some effort yourself, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Do you remember that Mamdani clip? Should I try to find it and play it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>Abby wanted us to listen to this recent video released by Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker: \u003c/strong>So there’s this clip you can find, it went kind of a little viral, a little while ago, and it’s Mamdani doing… the mayor of New York doing a piece to camera, and it’s kind of some political speech. I don’t know what he’s actually promoting.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Zohran Mamdani speaking in Spanish]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so he is talking in Spanish and so he is trying to, you know, reach his Spanish Constituence. He does not speak Spanish, right? And so, there is this video of him and he is kind of like stumbling through Spanish and he takes it again and he’s getting corrected by AOC on his pronunciation. He keeps kind of forgetting things. And they’ve released this, right? And they think it’s not crazy that that happened but it’s very interesting to me that they released it because they are trying to emphasize that it wasn’t easy for him to speak Spanish and that he needed help speaking Spanish and he is not good at Spanish, but they knew that it would be charming and it is, right? Because it shows someone is trying to speak Spanish, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Zohran Mamdani speaking in Spanish]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They could have just released speeches with him in like fluent Spanish, or they could have had someone else who is a fluent Spanish speaker speaking on his behalf. In a little while, they could probably do videos where it looks like he is speaking Spanish, right? We’re kind of at that point of the technology now with video and audio that we could have something that sounds like him speaking in Spanish, looks like him speaking in Spanish. But they don’t do that, right? What they do is show someone who isn’t very good and who is trying, right? Part of what is really important to people is that you try to speak their language, right? And an app takes out that friction. It makes communication easier, but part of what language is signaling, too, when you use a language that is not a language that comes easy to you, is you’re signaling that you are trying, right? You are signaling that you are putting in some effort, that you don’t expect them to just understand you, and that you’re putting in some effort to be understood.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> All right. Well, we’ve been dancing around this idea of the importance of friction, and I want to just ask you to spell it out. Why is friction important? What could friction signal? We’ve talked about belonging, we’ve talked about effort. What else?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> I mean, if I’m really just using an app to talk to you, right, I… And I’m not paying attention, I’m not really trying to do anything, I’m just trying to communicate with you, so I use an app, and it spits out whatever to talk to you, and I nod. You got the message, I got the message, I move on. Like, I haven’t really changed because of that interaction, right? So when you learn a language, to talk to someone, the effort of doing it, you are actually also changing yourself. So you are adding vocab, adding things that you can use in a new situation, adding things that you can use when you don’t have your phone around you, et cetera. So there’s just, literally you are changing a little bit, maybe in small ways. There is some evidence for regular bilinguals, like people who are regularly using multiple languages in their day-to-day, that they have better executive function than monolingual speakers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And by executive function, we’re talking about your ability to ignore irrelevant information and suppress responses that you might automatically make. And if you think about it, this makes a lot of sense why this would be tied to bilingualism, because you have a day where you are telling whatever language you’re not using, you’re saying, “Shut up. This isn’t about you.” So you’re ignoring anything else that’s irrelevant while you’re having these conversations. And from my understanding, those advantages get bigger as you age. So it’s essentially like you’re keeping your brain more active in this particular way. So obviously, all of those benefits, and just the fact that each time I stumble through something in German or Korean or today Māori, I am getting a little bit better, right? I’m learning a little bit more. That is this really big obvious thing that is being lost, is just that you are not having this growth. And it’s almost sad in some ways, because you had an opportunity, right? So let’s say you go to another country, you stay there for two months. You have this opportunity to do something, and you just spend all the time using these translation apps. You miss this opportunity to have this personal growth.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> It’s true. I went to Italy, and by the end of the trip, I was fully capable of asking where the bathroom was all by myself.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> In Italian?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> In Italian.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Wow.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Don’t ask me to do it now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> I was gonna say.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh, boy. Try. Al bagno? Bagno? Bagno? I don’t want to talk about it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>Live translation tools are decent, and they’re going to get better. You can even imagine a version that works out most of the bugs. AI that does start picking up on body language and slang. Science fiction becoming reality. The universal translator, the Babel fish. But do we always want that? Throughout our conversation, as we talked about the importance of friction, it struck me that maybe today’s live translation tools, imperfect as they are, have their own charms, not despite the friction, but because of it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I decided to play Abby another excerpt from our conversation with proud dad, Larry Berliner. While he and fellow dad Kevin were conversing on their ChatGPT app, they were speaking into the phone, which would generate a written translation, which the other one would read. Hardly seamless. But here, Larry talks about the conversation being so profound because of those seams.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Larry Berliner]:\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem> This allowed us to speak in long paragraphs, like I’m doing right now, right? Shakespearean style, not a back and forth, but long paragraphs of ideas, and then it would translate, and we’d watch each other read it, which was exciting, and then the person would respond. And what ended up being magical was, first of all, we did it for a very long time.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>What he chose to talk about was things that I don’t think he would ever have spoke about first if I was speaking his native language. Or wow, the extent of which is amazing. He talked about how he had met Sonya and the previous people he had been with at the time. He talked about his failures as a father. And just– it was immediately right to the bone.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I’m just struck by how he feels that conversation was facilitated by the fact that there was this level of friction, of literally having to read. Maybe the fact that you’re putting something into print and then somebody is going to read it makes you less likely to just waste that time to say, “Well, what do you think of the weather?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, that’s a really interesting idea, and it kinda makes sense. What it makes me think, though, is that there was this feeling that this was temporary, right? That this was not going to be the regular state of affairs. It’s almost like deathbed conversation. It feels like a little bit like what it sounded like to me. Just “I need you to, here are some really big things on my mind and my heart that I just really want you to know now that we’ve got this opportunity.” It is interesting, though, to think about, what if you never get there with someone who speaks your own language because you’ve always got the dance of we can speak so easily to each other.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Yeah, and it was the artificiality of their own communication that led to something much deeper. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> I love that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> So am I going to encourage my eight-year-old to learn Spanish? Yes, absolutely. There’s so much we can’t know about AI and where it’s headed, but even if some reasons for learning another language go away, others won’t, or could even grow in importance. And in honor of our topic this week, we’ve machine translated our credits into ‘Klingon and back’, because why not?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Here we go. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Klingon words] \u003c/em>I am Jess of the clan Love. \u003cem>[Klingon words] \u003c/em>At the Northwestern University Citadel of Knowledge, inside the Kellogg School of Management, Life, Automated is an honorable battle quest of the Ryan Institute on Complexity. KQED hurls our battle transmissions across the void to conquer the airwaves.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Jesse Dukes sliced the captured sounds into submission. Stephen Jackson forged the battle hymns and struck the war drums. The machinery masters, Will Feeney and George Christensen, trapped the vocal cries of the interrogation inside the sound cage. Ananya Mallapragada commanded the proclamations of our glory and subjugated the civilian chatter web.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Producer: Jesse Dukes\u003cbr>Music: Steven Jackson\u003cbr>Recording: George Christensen, Will Feeney\u003cbr>Promotional help from Ananya Mallapragada\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Editorial guidance from Laura Pavin\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Special thanks to Larry Berliner and Georgi Demirev for their help testing out live translation tools\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Live AI translation tools are making it easier to converse across languages without a human translator, a phrasebook, or years of study. So will we all just stop taking Spanish or Mandarin classes? Sociolinguist \u003ca href=\"https://liberalarts.vt.edu/departments-and-schools/department-of-english/faculty/abby-walker.html\">Abby Walker\u003c/a> doesn’t think so. She shares the many reasons we learn new languages, some of which have little to do with functional communication at all. We also hear how one AI-assisted conversation brought two future in-laws together, why machine translation is still so darn buggy, and why some languages are attracting a resurgence of new learners even in the age of translation apps.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Live AI translation tools are making it easier to converse across languages without a human translator, a phrasebook, or years of study. So will we all just stop taking Spanish or Mandarin classes? Sociolinguist \u003ca href=\"https://liberalarts.vt.edu/departments-and-schools/department-of-english/faculty/abby-walker.html\">Abby Walker\u003c/a> doesn’t think so. She shares the many reasons we learn new languages, some of which have little to do with functional communication at all. We also hear how one AI-assisted conversation brought two future in-laws together, why machine translation is still so darn buggy, and why some languages are attracting a resurgence of new learners even in the age of translation apps.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Life, Automated is a production of the Ryan Institute on Complexity, at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. The host is Jess Love, senior director. Distributed by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/lifeautomated\">KQED\u003c/a>. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Life, Automated is a production of the Ryan Institute on Complexity, at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. The host is Jess Love, senior director. Distributed by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/lifeautomated\">KQED\u003c/a>. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> This is Life, Automated, the show where we explore what it means to live, work, and make decisions in a world increasingly shaped by machines. I think it’s fair to say that over the past five years, we’ve been bombarded by all the new things AI can suddenly do. It’s solving these long unsolved math theorems, generating songs that rack up millions of listens, and even colluding with other AIs to break into servers.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> This is Life, Automated, the show where we explore what it means to live, work, and make decisions in a world increasingly shaped by machines. I think it’s fair to say that over the past five years, we’ve been bombarded by all the new things AI can suddenly do. It’s solving these long unsolved math theorems, generating songs that rack up millions of listens, and even colluding with other AIs to break into servers.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There’s so much crazy stuff happening, that a lot of other advances that would’ve seemed mind-blowing to us 10, 15 years ago feel almost pedestrian in comparison. I’d put real-time language translation down as one of these advances. Chat bots and translation apps now draw from a range of different kinds of AI to offer live translation for tons of different languages.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>There’s so much crazy stuff happening, that a lot of other advances that would’ve seemed mind-blowing to us 10, 15 years ago feel almost pedestrian in comparison. I’d put real-time language translation down as one of these advances. Chat bots and translation apps now draw from a range of different kinds of AI to offer live translation for tons of different languages.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You can hear something in a language you don’t know, like Korean. You can use your phone to translate that speech into a language you do know, like English. “Which way is the restroom?” Offer your response in English. “Oh, yeah, it’s down this hallway here, second door on the right side.” And then it will speak your response aloud in Korean.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You can hear something in a language you don’t know, like Korean. You can use your phone to translate that speech into a language you do know, like English. “Which way is the restroom?” Offer your response in English. “Oh, yeah, it’s down this hallway here, second door on the right side.” And then it will speak your response aloud in Korean.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You can do this today. People already are doing this. What’s more, a lot of tech companies are developing wearables, think smart glasses, smart earbuds, to make live translation more frictionless. No more fumbling for your phone. This is literally straight out of science fiction. Star Trek’s universal translator, Dr.Who’s TARDIS translation matrix, and from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Babel Fish. For me, this raises some big questions. What do these live translation tools really let us do that we couldn’t do before? Will they ever fully replace human translators? And should my eight-year-old still be taking Spanish classes in school?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You can do this today. People already are doing this. What’s more, a lot of tech companies are developing wearables, think smart glasses, smart earbuds, to make live translation more frictionless. No more fumbling for your phone. This is literally straight out of science fiction. Star Trek’s universal translator, Dr.Who’s TARDIS translation matrix, and from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Babel Fish. For me, this raises some big questions. What do these live translation tools really let us do that we couldn’t do before? Will they ever fully replace human translators? And should my eight-year-old still be taking Spanish classes in school?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Today’s guest is Abby Walker, a sociolinguist at Virginia Tech, where she’s co-director of the Speech Lab. She’s also a longtime friend from my grad school days. I’m Jess Love, and this is Life, Automated from Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, distributed by KQED. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Today’s guest is Abby Walker, a sociolinguist at Virginia Tech, where she’s co-director of the Speech Lab. She’s also a longtime friend from my grad school days. I’m Jess Love, and this is Life, Automated from Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, distributed by KQED. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Welcome Abby Walker to Life Automated.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Thank you for having me, Jess. I’m so excited to be here.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Thank you for having me, Jess. I’m so excited to be here.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So there’s a clip I want to play for you. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>I wanted Abby and I to listen to some tape we recorded from a person who recently used one of these live translation tools. This person’s name is Larry Berliner. Larry’s son was in love, and this was Larry’s first time meeting the girlfriend’s parents.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>I wanted Abby and I to listen to some tape we recorded from a person who recently used one of these live translation tools. This person’s name is Larry Berliner. Larry’s son was in love, and this was Larry’s first time meeting the girlfriend’s parents.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Here’s the catch. Larry, father of the boyfriend, spoke English but not Chinese. And Kevin, father of the girlfriend, spoke Chinese but not English. So they used a ChatGPT app on one of their cell phones to translate between them. In this first clip, Larry’s just remarking about what this tool did for the two of them.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Here’s the catch. Larry, father of the boyfriend, spoke English but not Chinese. And Kevin, father of the girlfriend, spoke Chinese but not English. So they used a ChatGPT app on one of their cell phones to translate between them. In this first clip, Larry’s just remarking about what this tool did for the two of them.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Larry Berliner]:\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem> If not for this, I wouldn’t have got to know Kevin at all. I was able to connect with Kevin, meet Kevin, talk to Kevin seriously about myself, about my business, about my thoughts of his own daughter, what his daughter has transformed in my son. So much, right? There was so much I was able to say to him.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Larry Berliner]:\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem> If not for this, I wouldn’t have got to know Kevin at all. I was able to connect with Kevin, meet Kevin, talk to Kevin seriously about myself, about my business, about my thoughts of his own daughter, what his daughter has transformed in my son. So much, right? There was so much I was able to say to him.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> And here’s another part of that conversation, this time with Larry talking about how having the tool helped everyone else in the room, too.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> And here’s another part of that conversation, this time with Larry talking about how having the tool helped everyone else in the room, too.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Larry Berliner]:\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem> We have all been there, where there’s the individual who’s the translator amongst three people or among five people, sometimes eight. And two things happen. One is that translator has to work so hard. You can see how much energy they’re having to invest in translating for everybody and make the room successful. The other thing you see is how slow everything goes. The point is, that’s not what happened in our room because Larry and Kevin were involved in this AI-enhanced live translation mode, and the other four were freed. So they were able to have a free, wonderful, free-ranging conversation, and they were able to have that ability to connect in their way.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Larry Berliner]:\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem> We have all been there, where there’s the individual who’s the translator amongst three people or among five people, sometimes eight. And two things happen. One is that translator has to work so hard. You can see how much energy they’re having to invest in translating for everybody and make the room successful. The other thing you see is how slow everything goes. The point is, that’s not what happened in our room because Larry and Kevin were involved in this AI-enhanced live translation mode, and the other four were freed. So they were able to have a free, wonderful, free-ranging conversation, and they were able to have that ability to connect in their way.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I love that example and how it’s not just about the personal interaction, but actually about the group dynamics, too. It shows you the work that’s involved in having a human translator, that someone has to mediate that process for you, and that’s actually work on them.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I love that example and how it’s not just about the personal interaction, but actually about the group dynamics, too. It shows you the work that’s involved in having a human translator, that someone has to mediate that process for you, and that’s actually work on them.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I hadn’t really thought about that aspect of it, which is kinda cool. If you have a human interpreter, there might be things that you want to talk about that you don’t want them to hear about. And I think this is a common situation a little bit with, we know sometimes when immigrants come to a country where they don’t speak the kind of dominant language, that often their kids become interpreters, as they’re dealing with banks and as they’re dealing with medical providers. But, like if you think about, do you want your daughters to know all of your personal information that you might talk about with a doctor? No, right? And so just getting to choose who hears what information, yeah, that’s going to be really empowering.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I hadn’t really thought about that aspect of it, which is kinda cool. If you have a human interpreter, there might be things that you want to talk about that you don’t want them to hear about. And I think this is a common situation a little bit with, we know sometimes when immigrants come to a country where they don’t speak the kind of dominant language, that often their kids become interpreters, as they’re dealing with banks and as they’re dealing with medical providers. But, like if you think about, do you want your daughters to know all of your personal information that you might talk about with a doctor? No, right? And so just getting to choose who hears what information, yeah, that’s going to be really empowering.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, it seems like in this example, depending on who is going to have to play that role of translator, is he going to feel comfortable, showering all this attention on perhaps his future daughter-in-law, for instance? If she’s the one translating.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, it seems like in this example, depending on who is going to have to play that role of translator, is he going to feel comfortable, showering all this attention on perhaps his future daughter-in-law, for instance? If she’s the one translating.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yes. Yeah. That would be really embarrassing. Though it may be a cool, slick move as well. She has to be like, “Oh, Daddy’s saying I’m so pretty,” and yeah, something like that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yes. Yeah. That would be really embarrassing. Though it may be a cool, slick move as well. She has to be like, “Oh, Daddy’s saying I’m so pretty,” and yeah, something like that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So already these tools are letting people connect with other people in new ways, really connect. But I didn’t invite Abby on this show just to marvel over what’s now possible with machine translation. Like I said, I have a lot of questions. Like, “Is that it? Are we humans all just done learning second, third, fourth languages because the machines can translate for us now? Or are there some parts of a conversation that a machine probably isn’t going to be able to translate for us, at least not anytime soon?”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So already these tools are letting people connect with other people in new ways, really connect. But I didn’t invite Abby on this show just to marvel over what’s now possible with machine translation. Like I said, I have a lot of questions. Like, “Is that it? Are we humans all just done learning second, third, fourth languages because the machines can translate for us now? Or are there some parts of a conversation that a machine probably isn’t going to be able to translate for us, at least not anytime soon?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So a lot of people think of translation as just this simple process of taking words from one language and then mapping them one-to-one onto another language. But from a sociolinguist perspective, what else is language doing other than delivering that kind of information?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So a lot of people think of translation as just this simple process of taking words from one language and then mapping them one-to-one onto another language. But from a sociolinguist perspective, what else is language doing other than delivering that kind of information?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> It’s doing so much, Jess. I love all the other things that language does. So one of the big things that I study and my field looks at is all the other information in the speech signal. So not just the content of the message but how you’re delivering it and all the other information that comes from that. So for example, anyone listening right now, you can probably hear that I was not born and raised in America.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> It’s doing so much, Jess. I love all the other things that language does. So one of the big things that I study and my field looks at is all the other information in the speech signal. So not just the content of the message but how you’re delivering it and all the other information that comes from that. So for example, anyone listening right now, you can probably hear that I was not born and raised in America.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’ve got a New Zealand English accent. But people in New Zealand can probably also hear that I’ve lived in America for a while, that’s probably in my speech as well. You might be able to hear that you and I are friends and friendly. We’re both trying to be friendly. We’re both trying to sound smart right now, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I’ve got a New Zealand English accent. But people in New Zealand can probably also hear that I’ve lived in America for a while, that’s probably in my speech as well. You might be able to hear that you and I are friends and friendly. We’re both trying to be friendly. We’re both trying to sound smart right now, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Maybe you can tell that this is a little bit more awkward formality for us than usual conversation with wine. So just your identity, and sometimes that stuff you’re trying to mark, like sometimes you’re like, “I want to sound really professional in this moment. I want to sound really from this place. I want to really lean into my higher roots or my New Zealand roots or something.” But then other times, there’s information there that you just can’t even control, right? Like, I’m not always necessarily trying to be like, “I’m a woman,” but most people will hear my voice and be like, “You’re a woman.” Or I’m not always trying to say I’m from New Zealand, but my vowels are always saying I’m from New Zealand.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Maybe you can tell that this is a little bit more awkward formality for us than usual conversation with wine. So just your identity, and sometimes that stuff you’re trying to mark, like sometimes you’re like, “I want to sound really professional in this moment. I want to sound really from this place. I want to really lean into my higher roots or my New Zealand roots or something.” But then other times, there’s information there that you just can’t even control, right? Like, I’m not always necessarily trying to be like, “I’m a woman,” but most people will hear my voice and be like, “You’re a woman.” Or I’m not always trying to say I’m from New Zealand, but my vowels are always saying I’m from New Zealand.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. So whether you want to or not, you are communicating a whole lot about who you are as a person and maybe how you’re feeling in that moment.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. So whether you want to or not, you are communicating a whole lot about who you are as a person and maybe how you’re feeling in that moment.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> Abby says that any tool focused primarily on the words we are saying will always miss a lot of the social information that language communicates, information that a human interpreter who can pick up on body language or emotion could probably make better sense of.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> Abby says that any tool focused primarily on the words we are saying will always miss a lot of the social information that language communicates, information that a human interpreter who can pick up on body language or emotion could probably make better sense of.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker: \u003c/strong>I mean, some things like if I say boot or trunk of a car, that’s a difference between British and American English. But I’m thinking even things more like if I say groovy or neato or amazeballs or, we have lots of ways to express that something’s cool, and how another language does that, they might miss that I’m being playful, or they might miss that I’m outdated in my slang. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker: \u003c/strong>I mean, some things like if I say boot or trunk of a car, that’s a difference between British and American English. But I’m thinking even things more like if I say groovy or neato or amazeballs or, we have lots of ways to express that something’s cool, and how another language does that, they might miss that I’m being playful, or they might miss that I’m outdated in my slang. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>How do you translate that someone is saying amazeballs unironically because they’re really that excited? How do you translate that someone is saying groovy ironically because they’re making fun of themselves for being five decades late to the party? And that’s not all. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>How do you translate that someone is saying amazeballs unironically because they’re really that excited? How do you translate that someone is saying groovy ironically because they’re making fun of themselves for being five decades late to the party? And that’s not all. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker: \u003c/strong>The other thing that language has built into it, both in vocal tone and stuff, but then also in word choice and sometimes actually in your grammar, is your relationship to other people. It’s not just me expressing my identity. I can also be trying to say something about the relationship that you and I have or the relationship I’d like us to have. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker: \u003c/strong>The other thing that language has built into it, both in vocal tone and stuff, but then also in word choice and sometimes actually in your grammar, is your relationship to other people. It’s not just me expressing my identity. I can also be trying to say something about the relationship that you and I have or the relationship I’d like us to have. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So anything that is doing this translation, whether it’s a human or whether it’s a machine, they’re having to make some choices, and the nature of those choices are not going to be obvious to somebody who’s participating and only able to understand one side of that conversation.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and most of the time, again, this… The technology’s kind of amazing. Being able to talk with anyone who you couldn’t talk to before, if the alternative is not being able to talk to them at all, that’s pretty amazing. But there are going to be times where if you don’t know the situation, it might be doing some really impolite things, and you might not know, right? Like the translation system might have decided to use an informal tone here, and you don’t realize it. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and most of the time, again, this… The technology’s kind of amazing. Being able to talk with anyone who you couldn’t talk to before, if the alternative is not being able to talk to them at all, that’s pretty amazing. But there are going to be times where if you don’t know the situation, it might be doing some really impolite things, and you might not know, right? Like the translation system might have decided to use an informal tone here, and you don’t realize it. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>And to some extent, that’s going to be true of a human translator but to a much lesser extent if they are very culturally fluent with both languages.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah, no, I actually… Now I’m remembering I had a student who was Korean-American, and her parents had come over from Korea beforehand, so they were native Korean speakers, and I was learning Korean at the time. And it was graduation, and I was saying something to her dad, like I don’t know. I can’t remember what I was saying, but I was trying to say something polite. And she’s like, “Um,” kind of to her dad like, “Uh, she’s just learning.” And I was like… I assumed that I’d used some impolite grammatical forms or something, right? I’d done some… She knew that I was kind of doing something inappropriate that I didn’t know that I was doing and was just smoothing over the situation because yeah, I think one of the things that humans do is that we’re very socially savvy. We’re always looking at, contextually, what’s contextually appropriate language. And if you’re a bilingual person, which a human translator has to be, right, to some degree to be able to do this translation work, presumably they’re going to know the social navigation pathways of both languages. And so they’re going to be able to pull on that information.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah, no, I actually… Now I’m remembering I had a student who was Korean-American, and her parents had come over from Korea beforehand, so they were native Korean speakers, and I was learning Korean at the time. And it was graduation, and I was saying something to her dad, like I don’t know. I can’t remember what I was saying, but I was trying to say something polite. And she’s like, “Um,” kind of to her dad like, “Uh, she’s just learning.” And I was like… I assumed that I’d used some impolite grammatical forms or something, right? I’d done some… She knew that I was kind of doing something inappropriate that I didn’t know that I was doing and was just smoothing over the situation because yeah, I think one of the things that humans do is that we’re very socially savvy. We’re always looking at, contextually, what’s contextually appropriate language. And if you’re a bilingual person, which a human translator has to be, right, to some degree to be able to do this translation work, presumably they’re going to know the social navigation pathways of both languages. And so they’re going to be able to pull on that information.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Is there a danger that if we do move toward this world of relatively frictionless live translation, we could become overconfident that we’ve understood everything?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that’s… I think that’s almost part of it. It’s almost like the same problem that people are having right now with, you know, you hand in an essay that AI produced, and it looks so good that you don’t know that the citations are made-up. It’s that sort of confidence that it got the answer right that you would have that same kind of problem with translation, too.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that’s… I think that’s almost part of it. It’s almost like the same problem that people are having right now with, you know, you hand in an essay that AI produced, and it looks so good that you don’t know that the citations are made-up. It’s that sort of confidence that it got the answer right that you would have that same kind of problem with translation, too.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> Given the sheer complexity of language and all the things it’s trying to do, maybe it shouldn’t be a big surprise that as incredible as these tools are, they still make mistakes. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/live-voice-translation-is-the-ai-americans-want-most-ahead-of-email-drafting-and-meeting-notes-new-deepl-research-finds-302858925.html\">recent survey\u003c/a> found that about half of people who’ve used some kind of translation app, chat bot, or wearable find it clunky.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> Given the sheer complexity of language and all the things it’s trying to do, maybe it shouldn’t be a big surprise that as incredible as these tools are, they still make mistakes. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/live-voice-translation-is-the-ai-americans-want-most-ahead-of-email-drafting-and-meeting-notes-new-deepl-research-finds-302858925.html\">recent survey\u003c/a> found that about half of people who’ve used some kind of translation app, chat bot, or wearable find it clunky.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>My own personal experience is pretty hit or miss. When I visited Quebec City this summer, Airbnb automatically translated my text messages to my host into French, and then translated his responses back into English. It was so seamless that I barely noticed. But then, when I tried out a pair of smart glasses to have a spoken conversation with a Bulgarian scholar here at the Ryan Institute about his summer vacation, a topic slightly more nuanced than what is the entry code to the apartment, it was a little rough.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>My own personal experience is pretty hit or miss. When I visited Quebec City this summer, Airbnb automatically translated my text messages to my host into French, and then translated his responses back into English. It was so seamless that I barely noticed. But then, when I tried out a pair of smart glasses to have a spoken conversation with a Bulgarian scholar here at the Ryan Institute about his summer vacation, a topic slightly more nuanced than what is the entry code to the apartment, it was a little rough.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>At first, I had to repeat my question three times until the glasses finally heard me well enough to translate. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>At first, I had to repeat my question three times until the glasses finally heard me well enough to translate. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Jess Love talking to Bulgarian Scholar]: \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem>“All right, let’s try again. Okay. Okay. I was holding it too long. I heard a rumor that you are going to the Dolomites this summer to do some hiking.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Jess Love talking to Bulgarian Scholar]: \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem>“All right, let’s try again. Okay. Okay. I was holding it too long. I heard a rumor that you are going to the Dolomites this summer to do some hiking.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Bulgarian Scholar Translation Audio]:\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem>That’s exactly how we’re going with a large group of friends. It’s about 20 people, and I’m pretty excited since it’s raining here, but there are almost no mountains, and I very rarely get to see mountains.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Bulgarian Scholar Translation Audio]:\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem>That’s exactly how we’re going with a large group of friends. It’s about 20 people, and I’m pretty excited since it’s raining here, but there are almost no mountains, and I very rarely get to see mountains.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hungarian Scholar: \u003c/strong>It’s somewhat accurate.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hungarian Scholar: \u003c/strong>It’s somewhat accurate.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> The glasses kept messing up. We managed to stumble through a basic conversation but only because my colleague knew English and could correct the mistakes. It was not frictionless. So at least with the tools we have today, it’s pretty clear to me that some tasks will still require human translators, even if a lot of others don’t, and Abby agreed.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> The glasses kept messing up. We managed to stumble through a basic conversation but only because my colleague knew English and could correct the mistakes. It was not frictionless. So at least with the tools we have today, it’s pretty clear to me that some tasks will still require human translators, even if a lot of others don’t, and Abby agreed.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> I think it’s the case that we’re always going to need human translators, because there are high-stakes situations, right? Like international negotiations, big business deals. But I also imagine a young person looking at a career path and still seeing, probably rightly so, that there’s going to be less path forward for them there. And I think about the medical world a bit. I think that’s often where there was a feeling that there would be a lot of interpreters was in the medical field.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> I think it’s the case that we’re always going to need human translators, because there are high-stakes situations, right? Like international negotiations, big business deals. But I also imagine a young person looking at a career path and still seeing, probably rightly so, that there’s going to be less path forward for them there. And I think about the medical world a bit. I think that’s often where there was a feeling that there would be a lot of interpreters was in the medical field.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And you do already see them starting to use these tools and these translation tools automatically. You would hope they would always have someone on staff still, like to do translations when things get really nuanced and stuff. But I do think if I was a young person looking, even though there still will be those jobs, I would wonder about them.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And you do already see them starting to use these tools and these translation tools automatically. You would hope they would always have someone on staff still, like to do translations when things get really nuanced and stuff. But I do think if I was a young person looking, even though there still will be those jobs, I would wonder about them.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> I would wonder too. Some of the practical reasons for learning a language are going away. After all, not everyone is going to be involved in negotiating corporate mergers or making high-stakes medical decisions. For a lot of situations, good enough really is good enough. And AI’s getting better. Companies are already trying to deal with these issues by like collecting visual data or following people over time so the machines have access to previous conversations.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> I would wonder too. Some of the practical reasons for learning a language are going away. After all, not everyone is going to be involved in negotiating corporate mergers or making high-stakes medical decisions. For a lot of situations, good enough really is good enough. And AI’s getting better. Companies are already trying to deal with these issues by like collecting visual data or following people over time so the machines have access to previous conversations.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There’s no guarantee that these tools will still be making the same kinds of mistakes in five years, or even two. And so, yeah, some people who would’ve learned another language probably will decide, “Eh, why bother?” But Abby doesn’t see a future where people just decide to stop learning other languages, no matter how good the machines get, because there are a bunch of reasons for learning a language that have nothing to do with the mere exchange of information.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>There’s no guarantee that these tools will still be making the same kinds of mistakes in five years, or even two. And so, yeah, some people who would’ve learned another language probably will decide, “Eh, why bother?” But Abby doesn’t see a future where people just decide to stop learning other languages, no matter how good the machines get, because there are a bunch of reasons for learning a language that have nothing to do with the mere exchange of information.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>After the break, she makes her case. We’ll also hear why some very unexpected languages are actually experiencing a resurgence of new learners, apps be damned. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>After the break, she makes her case. We’ll also hear why some very unexpected languages are actually experiencing a resurgence of new learners, apps be damned. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> I’m going to Germany later this year. The big reason, one of the big reasons I wanted to go to Germany, apart from working with some great researchers, is that I wanted to get my German better. I have no need to get German better. This is not an important thing in my life. I will not speak it. I will never need it, but I want to be good at it, right? I want to be better at it. I like it. I enjoy it. It’s a puzzle. It’s a game.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> I’m going to Germany later this year. The big reason, one of the big reasons I wanted to go to Germany, apart from working with some great researchers, is that I wanted to get my German better. I have no need to get German better. This is not an important thing in my life. I will not speak it. I will never need it, but I want to be good at it, right? I want to be better at it. I like it. I enjoy it. It’s a puzzle. It’s a game.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> Abby’s not alone. A lot of people are learning languages they don’t have to learn for purely communicative reasons, like because they need a job or need to get around a city.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> Abby’s not alone. A lot of people are learning languages they don’t have to learn for purely communicative reasons, like because they need a job or need to get around a city.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Like people right now are learning Welsh, and people are learning Te Reo Māori, and these people can all speak English in Wales and in New Zealand, but they’re choosing to learn this language that they do not need for communication, so why are they choosing to learn this language? Because they have an identity connection to this language, right? And so its important to them, separate from how many other people they can talk to in this language, right? Like its kind of a way to connect to an identity, because I think people really do associate languages with identity.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Like people right now are learning Welsh, and people are learning Te Reo Māori, and these people can all speak English in Wales and in New Zealand, but they’re choosing to learn this language that they do not need for communication, so why are they choosing to learn this language? Because they have an identity connection to this language, right? And so its important to them, separate from how many other people they can talk to in this language, right? Like its kind of a way to connect to an identity, because I think people really do associate languages with identity.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that’s so interesting. Is there a resurgence in people trying to learn these minority languages, even right now in 2026?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that’s so interesting. Is there a resurgence in people trying to learn these minority languages, even right now in 2026?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yes. There’s definitely a resurgence in people trying to learn these languages. But that’s been happening since the ’80s, ’90s, 2000s. But since I’ve been in the States for almost 20 years now, and when I go back to New Zealand, it is shocking to me the amount of Te Reo that is around now.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yes. There’s definitely a resurgence in people trying to learn these languages. But that’s been happening since the ’80s, ’90s, 2000s. But since I’ve been in the States for almost 20 years now, and when I go back to New Zealand, it is shocking to me the amount of Te Reo that is around now.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And what is Te Reo [Māori]?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And what is Te Reo [Māori]?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> It’s the language. Sorry. It’s Māori. Māori. Sorry. It’s the Māori language. It’s just called the language, so it’s Te Reo.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> It’s the language. Sorry. It’s Māori. Māori. Sorry. It’s the Māori language. It’s just called the language, so it’s Te Reo.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, can you just give a little… ‘Cause most of our audience is not from New Zealand, so just give a little… What is this language, and why do you think that people are learning to speak it more in New Zealand?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, can you just give a little… ‘Cause most of our audience is not from New Zealand, so just give a little… What is this language, and why do you think that people are learning to speak it more in New Zealand?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so this was the first language, human language spoken in New Zealand by the Māori. And then waves of English settlers came, and the language was forbidden, like happens in many of these situations. There was both an incentive to learn English for economic reasons, but then there were also actual moves to ban the language in school. And so kids would get smacked and things if they were speaking it in playgrounds and stuff. And so there was a generation or two that kind of were native speakers of Māori that literally intentionally chose not to pass it on to their children because it had only caused grief for them, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so this was the first language, human language spoken in New Zealand by the Māori. And then waves of English settlers came, and the language was forbidden, like happens in many of these situations. There was both an incentive to learn English for economic reasons, but then there were also actual moves to ban the language in school. And so kids would get smacked and things if they were speaking it in playgrounds and stuff. And so there was a generation or two that kind of were native speakers of Māori that literally intentionally chose not to pass it on to their children because it had only caused grief for them, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And then there was this next generation that was “Wait, we’ve lost this kind of connection to our identity.” And so there’s been this really big resurgence. And this is happening before the technology that we’re talking about, but it’s happening because this has identity meaning to people. This is culturally significant to them. Quite correctly, they see it as something that was taken away from them by kind of outsiders, and then they are trying to correct that and connect to these roots. Which what’s really interesting in New Zealand is a ton of white people or Pākehā, like me, a ton of white people have been learning Māori as well, right? So it’s also becoming a symbol of your political and New Zealand identity as well. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And then there was this next generation that was “Wait, we’ve lost this kind of connection to our identity.” And so there’s been this really big resurgence. And this is happening before the technology that we’re talking about, but it’s happening because this has identity meaning to people. This is culturally significant to them. Quite correctly, they see it as something that was taken away from them by kind of outsiders, and then they are trying to correct that and connect to these roots. Which what’s really interesting in New Zealand is a ton of white people or Pākehā, like me, a ton of white people have been learning Māori as well, right? So it’s also becoming a symbol of your political and New Zealand identity as well. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So because this language has more cultural significance than it does, a purely functional significance, do you see it as pretty protected or insulated from some of the challenges of machine translation?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So because this language has more cultural significance than it does, a purely functional significance, do you see it as pretty protected or insulated from some of the challenges of machine translation?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah. When I’m thinking about it, now that we’re talking about it, I do think that it would be unlikely that you would use a translation app. If you were talking to someone who was a native or near-native fluent speaker of Te Reo and you wanted to communicate with them, you would do it in English or you would learn Te Reo. Why would you use an app to talk to them in this language, stiltingly with pauses and slowly when you both can talk in English, right? They are not going to appreciate that. They’re not really going to be interested in that, and what would probably be more impressive was you stumbling through some beginner Te Reo, which at least showed that you were putting in some effort yourself, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah. When I’m thinking about it, now that we’re talking about it, I do think that it would be unlikely that you would use a translation app. If you were talking to someone who was a native or near-native fluent speaker of Te Reo and you wanted to communicate with them, you would do it in English or you would learn Te Reo. Why would you use an app to talk to them in this language, stiltingly with pauses and slowly when you both can talk in English, right? They are not going to appreciate that. They’re not really going to be interested in that, and what would probably be more impressive was you stumbling through some beginner Te Reo, which at least showed that you were putting in some effort yourself, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Do you remember that Mamdani clip? Should I try to find it and play it?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Do you remember that Mamdani clip? Should I try to find it and play it?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>Abby wanted us to listen to this recent video released by Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>Abby wanted us to listen to this recent video released by Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker: \u003c/strong>So there’s this clip you can find, it went kind of a little viral, a little while ago, and it’s Mamdani doing… the mayor of New York doing a piece to camera, and it’s kind of some political speech. I don’t know what he’s actually promoting.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker: \u003c/strong>So there’s this clip you can find, it went kind of a little viral, a little while ago, and it’s Mamdani doing… the mayor of New York doing a piece to camera, and it’s kind of some political speech. I don’t know what he’s actually promoting.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Zohran Mamdani speaking in Spanish]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Zohran Mamdani speaking in Spanish]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so he is talking in Spanish and so he is trying to, you know, reach his Spanish Constituence. He does not speak Spanish, right? And so, there is this video of him and he is kind of like stumbling through Spanish and he takes it again and he’s getting corrected by AOC on his pronunciation. He keeps kind of forgetting things. And they’ve released this, right? And they think it’s not crazy that that happened but it’s very interesting to me that they released it because they are trying to emphasize that it wasn’t easy for him to speak Spanish and that he needed help speaking Spanish and he is not good at Spanish, but they knew that it would be charming and it is, right? Because it shows someone is trying to speak Spanish, right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so he is talking in Spanish and so he is trying to, you know, reach his Spanish Constituence. He does not speak Spanish, right? And so, there is this video of him and he is kind of like stumbling through Spanish and he takes it again and he’s getting corrected by AOC on his pronunciation. He keeps kind of forgetting things. And they’ve released this, right? And they think it’s not crazy that that happened but it’s very interesting to me that they released it because they are trying to emphasize that it wasn’t easy for him to speak Spanish and that he needed help speaking Spanish and he is not good at Spanish, but they knew that it would be charming and it is, right? Because it shows someone is trying to speak Spanish, right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Zohran Mamdani speaking in Spanish]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Zohran Mamdani speaking in Spanish]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>They could have just released speeches with him in like fluent Spanish, or they could have had someone else who is a fluent Spanish speaker speaking on his behalf. In a little while, they could probably do videos where it looks like he is speaking Spanish, right? We’re kind of at that point of the technology now with video and audio that we could have something that sounds like him speaking in Spanish, looks like him speaking in Spanish. But they don’t do that, right? What they do is show someone who isn’t very good and who is trying, right? Part of what is really important to people is that you try to speak their language, right? And an app takes out that friction. It makes communication easier, but part of what language is signaling, too, when you use a language that is not a language that comes easy to you, is you’re signaling that you are trying, right? You are signaling that you are putting in some effort, that you don’t expect them to just understand you, and that you’re putting in some effort to be understood.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>They could have just released speeches with him in like fluent Spanish, or they could have had someone else who is a fluent Spanish speaker speaking on his behalf. In a little while, they could probably do videos where it looks like he is speaking Spanish, right? We’re kind of at that point of the technology now with video and audio that we could have something that sounds like him speaking in Spanish, looks like him speaking in Spanish. But they don’t do that, right? What they do is show someone who isn’t very good and who is trying, right? Part of what is really important to people is that you try to speak their language, right? And an app takes out that friction. It makes communication easier, but part of what language is signaling, too, when you use a language that is not a language that comes easy to you, is you’re signaling that you are trying, right? You are signaling that you are putting in some effort, that you don’t expect them to just understand you, and that you’re putting in some effort to be understood.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> All right. Well, we’ve been dancing around this idea of the importance of friction, and I want to just ask you to spell it out. Why is friction important? What could friction signal? We’ve talked about belonging, we’ve talked about effort. What else?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> All right. Well, we’ve been dancing around this idea of the importance of friction, and I want to just ask you to spell it out. Why is friction important? What could friction signal? We’ve talked about belonging, we’ve talked about effort. What else?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> I mean, if I’m really just using an app to talk to you, right, I… And I’m not paying attention, I’m not really trying to do anything, I’m just trying to communicate with you, so I use an app, and it spits out whatever to talk to you, and I nod. You got the message, I got the message, I move on. Like, I haven’t really changed because of that interaction, right? So when you learn a language, to talk to someone, the effort of doing it, you are actually also changing yourself. So you are adding vocab, adding things that you can use in a new situation, adding things that you can use when you don’t have your phone around you, et cetera. So there’s just, literally you are changing a little bit, maybe in small ways. There is some evidence for regular bilinguals, like people who are regularly using multiple languages in their day-to-day, that they have better executive function than monolingual speakers.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> I mean, if I’m really just using an app to talk to you, right, I… And I’m not paying attention, I’m not really trying to do anything, I’m just trying to communicate with you, so I use an app, and it spits out whatever to talk to you, and I nod. You got the message, I got the message, I move on. Like, I haven’t really changed because of that interaction, right? So when you learn a language, to talk to someone, the effort of doing it, you are actually also changing yourself. So you are adding vocab, adding things that you can use in a new situation, adding things that you can use when you don’t have your phone around you, et cetera. So there’s just, literally you are changing a little bit, maybe in small ways. There is some evidence for regular bilinguals, like people who are regularly using multiple languages in their day-to-day, that they have better executive function than monolingual speakers.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And by executive function, we’re talking about your ability to ignore irrelevant information and suppress responses that you might automatically make. And if you think about it, this makes a lot of sense why this would be tied to bilingualism, because you have a day where you are telling whatever language you’re not using, you’re saying, “Shut up. This isn’t about you.” So you’re ignoring anything else that’s irrelevant while you’re having these conversations. And from my understanding, those advantages get bigger as you age. So it’s essentially like you’re keeping your brain more active in this particular way. So obviously, all of those benefits, and just the fact that each time I stumble through something in German or Korean or today Māori, I am getting a little bit better, right? I’m learning a little bit more. That is this really big obvious thing that is being lost, is just that you are not having this growth. And it’s almost sad in some ways, because you had an opportunity, right? So let’s say you go to another country, you stay there for two months. You have this opportunity to do something, and you just spend all the time using these translation apps. You miss this opportunity to have this personal growth.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And by executive function, we’re talking about your ability to ignore irrelevant information and suppress responses that you might automatically make. And if you think about it, this makes a lot of sense why this would be tied to bilingualism, because you have a day where you are telling whatever language you’re not using, you’re saying, “Shut up. This isn’t about you.” So you’re ignoring anything else that’s irrelevant while you’re having these conversations. And from my understanding, those advantages get bigger as you age. So it’s essentially like you’re keeping your brain more active in this particular way. So obviously, all of those benefits, and just the fact that each time I stumble through something in German or Korean or today Māori, I am getting a little bit better, right? I’m learning a little bit more. That is this really big obvious thing that is being lost, is just that you are not having this growth. And it’s almost sad in some ways, because you had an opportunity, right? So let’s say you go to another country, you stay there for two months. You have this opportunity to do something, and you just spend all the time using these translation apps. You miss this opportunity to have this personal growth.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> It’s true. I went to Italy, and by the end of the trip, I was fully capable of asking where the bathroom was all by myself.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> It’s true. I went to Italy, and by the end of the trip, I was fully capable of asking where the bathroom was all by myself.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> In Italian?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> In Italian?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> In Italian.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Wow.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Wow.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Don’t ask me to do it now.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Don’t ask me to do it now.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> I was gonna say.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> I was gonna say.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh, boy. Try. Al bagno? Bagno? Bagno? I don’t want to talk about it. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh, boy. Try. Al bagno? Bagno? Bagno? I don’t want to talk about it. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Okay.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Okay.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>Live translation tools are decent, and they’re going to get better. You can even imagine a version that works out most of the bugs. AI that does start picking up on body language and slang. Science fiction becoming reality. The universal translator, the Babel fish. But do we always want that? Throughout our conversation, as we talked about the importance of friction, it struck me that maybe today’s live translation tools, imperfect as they are, have their own charms, not despite the friction, but because of it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>Live translation tools are decent, and they’re going to get better. You can even imagine a version that works out most of the bugs. AI that does start picking up on body language and slang. Science fiction becoming reality. The universal translator, the Babel fish. But do we always want that? Throughout our conversation, as we talked about the importance of friction, it struck me that maybe today’s live translation tools, imperfect as they are, have their own charms, not despite the friction, but because of it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I decided to play Abby another excerpt from our conversation with proud dad, Larry Berliner. While he and fellow dad Kevin were conversing on their ChatGPT app, they were speaking into the phone, which would generate a written translation, which the other one would read. Hardly seamless. But here, Larry talks about the conversation being so profound because of those seams.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I decided to play Abby another excerpt from our conversation with proud dad, Larry Berliner. While he and fellow dad Kevin were conversing on their ChatGPT app, they were speaking into the phone, which would generate a written translation, which the other one would read. Hardly seamless. But here, Larry talks about the conversation being so profound because of those seams.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Larry Berliner]:\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem> This allowed us to speak in long paragraphs, like I’m doing right now, right? Shakespearean style, not a back and forth, but long paragraphs of ideas, and then it would translate, and we’d watch each other read it, which was exciting, and then the person would respond. And what ended up being magical was, first of all, we did it for a very long time.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Larry Berliner]:\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem> This allowed us to speak in long paragraphs, like I’m doing right now, right? Shakespearean style, not a back and forth, but long paragraphs of ideas, and then it would translate, and we’d watch each other read it, which was exciting, and then the person would respond. And what ended up being magical was, first of all, we did it for a very long time.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>What he chose to talk about was things that I don’t think he would ever have spoke about first if I was speaking his native language. Or wow, the extent of which is amazing. He talked about how he had met Sonya and the previous people he had been with at the time. He talked about his failures as a father. And just– it was immediately right to the bone.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>What he chose to talk about was things that I don’t think he would ever have spoke about first if I was speaking his native language. Or wow, the extent of which is amazing. He talked about how he had met Sonya and the previous people he had been with at the time. He talked about his failures as a father. And just– it was immediately right to the bone.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I’m just struck by how he feels that conversation was facilitated by the fact that there was this level of friction, of literally having to read. Maybe the fact that you’re putting something into print and then somebody is going to read it makes you less likely to just waste that time to say, “Well, what do you think of the weather?”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I’m just struck by how he feels that conversation was facilitated by the fact that there was this level of friction, of literally having to read. Maybe the fact that you’re putting something into print and then somebody is going to read it makes you less likely to just waste that time to say, “Well, what do you think of the weather?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, that’s a really interesting idea, and it kinda makes sense. What it makes me think, though, is that there was this feeling that this was temporary, right? That this was not going to be the regular state of affairs. It’s almost like deathbed conversation. It feels like a little bit like what it sounded like to me. Just “I need you to, here are some really big things on my mind and my heart that I just really want you to know now that we’ve got this opportunity.” It is interesting, though, to think about, what if you never get there with someone who speaks your own language because you’ve always got the dance of we can speak so easily to each other.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, that’s a really interesting idea, and it kinda makes sense. What it makes me think, though, is that there was this feeling that this was temporary, right? That this was not going to be the regular state of affairs. It’s almost like deathbed conversation. It feels like a little bit like what it sounded like to me. Just “I need you to, here are some really big things on my mind and my heart that I just really want you to know now that we’ve got this opportunity.” It is interesting, though, to think about, what if you never get there with someone who speaks your own language because you’ve always got the dance of we can speak so easily to each other.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Yeah, and it was the artificiality of their own communication that led to something much deeper. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Yeah, and it was the artificiality of their own communication that led to something much deeper. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> I love that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> I love that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> So am I going to encourage my eight-year-old to learn Spanish? Yes, absolutely. There’s so much we can’t know about AI and where it’s headed, but even if some reasons for learning another language go away, others won’t, or could even grow in importance. And in honor of our topic this week, we’ve machine translated our credits into ‘Klingon and back’, because why not?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Klingon words] \u003c/em>I am Jess of the clan Love. \u003cem>[Klingon words] \u003c/em>At the Northwestern University Citadel of Knowledge, inside the Kellogg School of Management, Life, Automated is an honorable battle quest of the Ryan Institute on Complexity. KQED hurls our battle transmissions across the void to conquer the airwaves.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Klingon words] \u003c/em>I am Jess of the clan Love. \u003cem>[Klingon words] \u003c/em>At the Northwestern University Citadel of Knowledge, inside the Kellogg School of Management, Life, Automated is an honorable battle quest of the Ryan Institute on Complexity. KQED hurls our battle transmissions across the void to conquer the airwaves.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Jesse Dukes sliced the captured sounds into submission. Stephen Jackson forged the battle hymns and struck the war drums. The machinery masters, Will Feeney and George Christensen, trapped the vocal cries of the interrogation inside the sound cage. Ananya Mallapragada commanded the proclamations of our glory and subjugated the civilian chatter web.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Producer: Jesse Dukes\u003cbr>Music: Steven Jackson\u003cbr>Recording: George Christensen, Will Feeney\u003cbr>Promotional help from Ananya Mallapragada\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Special thanks to Larry Berliner and Georgi Demirev for their help testing out live translation tools\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "Will We Still Learn Languages When Machines Can Translate? (with Abby Walker) | KQED",
"description": "Live AI translation tools are making it easier to converse across languages without a human translator, a phrasebook, or years of study. So will we all just stop taking Spanish or Mandarin classes? Sociolinguist Abby Walker doesn’t think so. She shares the many reasons we learn new languages, some of which have little to do with functional communication at all. We also hear how one AI-assisted conversation brought two future in-laws together, why machine translation is still so darn buggy, and why some languages are attracting a resurgence of new learners even in the age of translation apps.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#Transcript\">View Full Episode Transcript\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Live AI translation tools are making it easier to converse across languages without a human translator, a phrasebook, or years of study. So will we all just stop taking Spanish or Mandarin classes? Sociolinguist \u003ca href=\"https://liberalarts.vt.edu/departments-and-schools/department-of-english/faculty/abby-walker.html\">Abby Walker\u003c/a> doesn’t think so. She shares the many reasons we learn new languages, some of which have little to do with functional communication at all. We also hear how one AI-assisted conversation brought two future in-laws together, why machine translation is still so darn buggy, and why some languages are attracting a resurgence of new learners even in the age of translation apps.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Life, Automated is a production of the Ryan Institute on Complexity, at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. The host is Jess Love, senior director. Distributed by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/lifeautomated\">KQED\u003c/a>. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"Transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> This is Life, Automated, the show where we explore what it means to live, work, and make decisions in a world increasingly shaped by machines. I think it’s fair to say that over the past five years, we’ve been bombarded by all the new things AI can suddenly do. It’s solving these long unsolved math theorems, generating songs that rack up millions of listens, and even colluding with other AIs to break into servers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There’s so much crazy stuff happening, that a lot of other advances that would’ve seemed mind-blowing to us 10, 15 years ago feel almost pedestrian in comparison. I’d put real-time language translation down as one of these advances. Chat bots and translation apps now draw from a range of different kinds of AI to offer live translation for tons of different languages.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You can hear something in a language you don’t know, like Korean. You can use your phone to translate that speech into a language you do know, like English. “Which way is the restroom?” Offer your response in English. “Oh, yeah, it’s down this hallway here, second door on the right side.” And then it will speak your response aloud in Korean.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You can do this today. People already are doing this. What’s more, a lot of tech companies are developing wearables, think smart glasses, smart earbuds, to make live translation more frictionless. No more fumbling for your phone. This is literally straight out of science fiction. Star Trek’s universal translator, Dr.Who’s TARDIS translation matrix, and from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Babel Fish. For me, this raises some big questions. What do these live translation tools really let us do that we couldn’t do before? Will they ever fully replace human translators? And should my eight-year-old still be taking Spanish classes in school?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Today’s guest is Abby Walker, a sociolinguist at Virginia Tech, where she’s co-director of the Speech Lab. She’s also a longtime friend from my grad school days. I’m Jess Love, and this is Life, Automated from Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, distributed by KQED. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Welcome Abby Walker to Life Automated.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Thank you for having me, Jess. I’m so excited to be here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So there’s a clip I want to play for you. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>I wanted Abby and I to listen to some tape we recorded from a person who recently used one of these live translation tools. This person’s name is Larry Berliner. Larry’s son was in love, and this was Larry’s first time meeting the girlfriend’s parents.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Here’s the catch. Larry, father of the boyfriend, spoke English but not Chinese. And Kevin, father of the girlfriend, spoke Chinese but not English. So they used a ChatGPT app on one of their cell phones to translate between them. In this first clip, Larry’s just remarking about what this tool did for the two of them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Larry Berliner]:\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem> If not for this, I wouldn’t have got to know Kevin at all. I was able to connect with Kevin, meet Kevin, talk to Kevin seriously about myself, about my business, about my thoughts of his own daughter, what his daughter has transformed in my son. So much, right? There was so much I was able to say to him.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> And here’s another part of that conversation, this time with Larry talking about how having the tool helped everyone else in the room, too.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Larry Berliner]:\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem> We have all been there, where there’s the individual who’s the translator amongst three people or among five people, sometimes eight. And two things happen. One is that translator has to work so hard. You can see how much energy they’re having to invest in translating for everybody and make the room successful. The other thing you see is how slow everything goes. The point is, that’s not what happened in our room because Larry and Kevin were involved in this AI-enhanced live translation mode, and the other four were freed. So they were able to have a free, wonderful, free-ranging conversation, and they were able to have that ability to connect in their way.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I love that example and how it’s not just about the personal interaction, but actually about the group dynamics, too. It shows you the work that’s involved in having a human translator, that someone has to mediate that process for you, and that’s actually work on them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I hadn’t really thought about that aspect of it, which is kinda cool. If you have a human interpreter, there might be things that you want to talk about that you don’t want them to hear about. And I think this is a common situation a little bit with, we know sometimes when immigrants come to a country where they don’t speak the kind of dominant language, that often their kids become interpreters, as they’re dealing with banks and as they’re dealing with medical providers. But, like if you think about, do you want your daughters to know all of your personal information that you might talk about with a doctor? No, right? And so just getting to choose who hears what information, yeah, that’s going to be really empowering.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, it seems like in this example, depending on who is going to have to play that role of translator, is he going to feel comfortable, showering all this attention on perhaps his future daughter-in-law, for instance? If she’s the one translating.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yes. Yeah. That would be really embarrassing. Though it may be a cool, slick move as well. She has to be like, “Oh, Daddy’s saying I’m so pretty,” and yeah, something like that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So already these tools are letting people connect with other people in new ways, really connect. But I didn’t invite Abby on this show just to marvel over what’s now possible with machine translation. Like I said, I have a lot of questions. Like, “Is that it? Are we humans all just done learning second, third, fourth languages because the machines can translate for us now? Or are there some parts of a conversation that a machine probably isn’t going to be able to translate for us, at least not anytime soon?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So a lot of people think of translation as just this simple process of taking words from one language and then mapping them one-to-one onto another language. But from a sociolinguist perspective, what else is language doing other than delivering that kind of information?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> It’s doing so much, Jess. I love all the other things that language does. So one of the big things that I study and my field looks at is all the other information in the speech signal. So not just the content of the message but how you’re delivering it and all the other information that comes from that. So for example, anyone listening right now, you can probably hear that I was not born and raised in America.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’ve got a New Zealand English accent. But people in New Zealand can probably also hear that I’ve lived in America for a while, that’s probably in my speech as well. You might be able to hear that you and I are friends and friendly. We’re both trying to be friendly. We’re both trying to sound smart right now, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Maybe you can tell that this is a little bit more awkward formality for us than usual conversation with wine. So just your identity, and sometimes that stuff you’re trying to mark, like sometimes you’re like, “I want to sound really professional in this moment. I want to sound really from this place. I want to really lean into my higher roots or my New Zealand roots or something.” But then other times, there’s information there that you just can’t even control, right? Like, I’m not always necessarily trying to be like, “I’m a woman,” but most people will hear my voice and be like, “You’re a woman.” Or I’m not always trying to say I’m from New Zealand, but my vowels are always saying I’m from New Zealand.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. So whether you want to or not, you are communicating a whole lot about who you are as a person and maybe how you’re feeling in that moment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> Abby says that any tool focused primarily on the words we are saying will always miss a lot of the social information that language communicates, information that a human interpreter who can pick up on body language or emotion could probably make better sense of.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And even at the word level there’s a lot of ways for a translation to be incomplete. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker: \u003c/strong>I mean, some things like if I say boot or trunk of a car, that’s a difference between British and American English. But I’m thinking even things more like if I say groovy or neato or amazeballs or, we have lots of ways to express that something’s cool, and how another language does that, they might miss that I’m being playful, or they might miss that I’m outdated in my slang. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>How do you translate that someone is saying amazeballs unironically because they’re really that excited? How do you translate that someone is saying groovy ironically because they’re making fun of themselves for being five decades late to the party? And that’s not all. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker: \u003c/strong>The other thing that language has built into it, both in vocal tone and stuff, but then also in word choice and sometimes actually in your grammar, is your relationship to other people. It’s not just me expressing my identity. I can also be trying to say something about the relationship that you and I have or the relationship I’d like us to have. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So anything that is doing this translation, whether it’s a human or whether it’s a machine, they’re having to make some choices, and the nature of those choices are not going to be obvious to somebody who’s participating and only able to understand one side of that conversation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and most of the time, again, this… The technology’s kind of amazing. Being able to talk with anyone who you couldn’t talk to before, if the alternative is not being able to talk to them at all, that’s pretty amazing. But there are going to be times where if you don’t know the situation, it might be doing some really impolite things, and you might not know, right? Like the translation system might have decided to use an informal tone here, and you don’t realize it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>And to some extent, that’s going to be true of a human translator but to a much lesser extent if they are very culturally fluent with both languages.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah, no, I actually… Now I’m remembering I had a student who was Korean-American, and her parents had come over from Korea beforehand, so they were native Korean speakers, and I was learning Korean at the time. And it was graduation, and I was saying something to her dad, like I don’t know. I can’t remember what I was saying, but I was trying to say something polite. And she’s like, “Um,” kind of to her dad like, “Uh, she’s just learning.” And I was like… I assumed that I’d used some impolite grammatical forms or something, right? I’d done some… She knew that I was kind of doing something inappropriate that I didn’t know that I was doing and was just smoothing over the situation because yeah, I think one of the things that humans do is that we’re very socially savvy. We’re always looking at, contextually, what’s contextually appropriate language. And if you’re a bilingual person, which a human translator has to be, right, to some degree to be able to do this translation work, presumably they’re going to know the social navigation pathways of both languages. And so they’re going to be able to pull on that information.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Is there a danger that if we do move toward this world of relatively frictionless live translation, we could become overconfident that we’ve understood everything?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that’s… I think that’s almost part of it. It’s almost like the same problem that people are having right now with, you know, you hand in an essay that AI produced, and it looks so good that you don’t know that the citations are made-up. It’s that sort of confidence that it got the answer right that you would have that same kind of problem with translation, too.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> Given the sheer complexity of language and all the things it’s trying to do, maybe it shouldn’t be a big surprise that as incredible as these tools are, they still make mistakes. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/live-voice-translation-is-the-ai-americans-want-most-ahead-of-email-drafting-and-meeting-notes-new-deepl-research-finds-302858925.html\">recent survey\u003c/a> found that about half of people who’ve used some kind of translation app, chat bot, or wearable find it clunky.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>My own personal experience is pretty hit or miss. When I visited Quebec City this summer, Airbnb automatically translated my text messages to my host into French, and then translated his responses back into English. It was so seamless that I barely noticed. But then, when I tried out a pair of smart glasses to have a spoken conversation with a Bulgarian scholar here at the Ryan Institute about his summer vacation, a topic slightly more nuanced than what is the entry code to the apartment, it was a little rough.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>At first, I had to repeat my question three times until the glasses finally heard me well enough to translate. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Jess Love talking to Bulgarian Scholar]: \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem>“All right, let’s try again. Okay. Okay. I was holding it too long. I heard a rumor that you are going to the Dolomites this summer to do some hiking.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Bulgarian Scholar Translation Audio]:\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem>That’s exactly how we’re going with a large group of friends. It’s about 20 people, and I’m pretty excited since it’s raining here, but there are almost no mountains, and I very rarely get to see mountains.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hungarian Scholar: \u003c/strong>It’s somewhat accurate.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> The glasses kept messing up. We managed to stumble through a basic conversation but only because my colleague knew English and could correct the mistakes. It was not frictionless. So at least with the tools we have today, it’s pretty clear to me that some tasks will still require human translators, even if a lot of others don’t, and Abby agreed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> I think it’s the case that we’re always going to need human translators, because there are high-stakes situations, right? Like international negotiations, big business deals. But I also imagine a young person looking at a career path and still seeing, probably rightly so, that there’s going to be less path forward for them there. And I think about the medical world a bit. I think that’s often where there was a feeling that there would be a lot of interpreters was in the medical field.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And you do already see them starting to use these tools and these translation tools automatically. You would hope they would always have someone on staff still, like to do translations when things get really nuanced and stuff. But I do think if I was a young person looking, even though there still will be those jobs, I would wonder about them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> I would wonder too. Some of the practical reasons for learning a language are going away. After all, not everyone is going to be involved in negotiating corporate mergers or making high-stakes medical decisions. For a lot of situations, good enough really is good enough. And AI’s getting better. Companies are already trying to deal with these issues by like collecting visual data or following people over time so the machines have access to previous conversations.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There’s no guarantee that these tools will still be making the same kinds of mistakes in five years, or even two. And so, yeah, some people who would’ve learned another language probably will decide, “Eh, why bother?” But Abby doesn’t see a future where people just decide to stop learning other languages, no matter how good the machines get, because there are a bunch of reasons for learning a language that have nothing to do with the mere exchange of information.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>After the break, she makes her case. We’ll also hear why some very unexpected languages are actually experiencing a resurgence of new learners, apps be damned. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> I’m going to Germany later this year. The big reason, one of the big reasons I wanted to go to Germany, apart from working with some great researchers, is that I wanted to get my German better. I have no need to get German better. This is not an important thing in my life. I will not speak it. I will never need it, but I want to be good at it, right? I want to be better at it. I like it. I enjoy it. It’s a puzzle. It’s a game.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> Abby’s not alone. A lot of people are learning languages they don’t have to learn for purely communicative reasons, like because they need a job or need to get around a city.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Like people right now are learning Welsh, and people are learning Te Reo Māori, and these people can all speak English in Wales and in New Zealand, but they’re choosing to learn this language that they do not need for communication, so why are they choosing to learn this language? Because they have an identity connection to this language, right? And so its important to them, separate from how many other people they can talk to in this language, right? Like its kind of a way to connect to an identity, because I think people really do associate languages with identity.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that’s so interesting. Is there a resurgence in people trying to learn these minority languages, even right now in 2026?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yes. There’s definitely a resurgence in people trying to learn these languages. But that’s been happening since the ’80s, ’90s, 2000s. But since I’ve been in the States for almost 20 years now, and when I go back to New Zealand, it is shocking to me the amount of Te Reo that is around now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And what is Te Reo [Māori]?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> It’s the language. Sorry. It’s Māori. Māori. Sorry. It’s the Māori language. It’s just called the language, so it’s Te Reo.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, can you just give a little… ‘Cause most of our audience is not from New Zealand, so just give a little… What is this language, and why do you think that people are learning to speak it more in New Zealand?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so this was the first language, human language spoken in New Zealand by the Māori. And then waves of English settlers came, and the language was forbidden, like happens in many of these situations. There was both an incentive to learn English for economic reasons, but then there were also actual moves to ban the language in school. And so kids would get smacked and things if they were speaking it in playgrounds and stuff. And so there was a generation or two that kind of were native speakers of Māori that literally intentionally chose not to pass it on to their children because it had only caused grief for them, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then there was this next generation that was “Wait, we’ve lost this kind of connection to our identity.” And so there’s been this really big resurgence. And this is happening before the technology that we’re talking about, but it’s happening because this has identity meaning to people. This is culturally significant to them. Quite correctly, they see it as something that was taken away from them by kind of outsiders, and then they are trying to correct that and connect to these roots. Which what’s really interesting in New Zealand is a ton of white people or Pākehā, like me, a ton of white people have been learning Māori as well, right? So it’s also becoming a symbol of your political and New Zealand identity as well. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So because this language has more cultural significance than it does, a purely functional significance, do you see it as pretty protected or insulated from some of the challenges of machine translation?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah. When I’m thinking about it, now that we’re talking about it, I do think that it would be unlikely that you would use a translation app. If you were talking to someone who was a native or near-native fluent speaker of Te Reo and you wanted to communicate with them, you would do it in English or you would learn Te Reo. Why would you use an app to talk to them in this language, stiltingly with pauses and slowly when you both can talk in English, right? They are not going to appreciate that. They’re not really going to be interested in that, and what would probably be more impressive was you stumbling through some beginner Te Reo, which at least showed that you were putting in some effort yourself, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Do you remember that Mamdani clip? Should I try to find it and play it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>Abby wanted us to listen to this recent video released by Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker: \u003c/strong>So there’s this clip you can find, it went kind of a little viral, a little while ago, and it’s Mamdani doing… the mayor of New York doing a piece to camera, and it’s kind of some political speech. I don’t know what he’s actually promoting.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Zohran Mamdani speaking in Spanish]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so he is talking in Spanish and so he is trying to, you know, reach his Spanish Constituence. He does not speak Spanish, right? And so, there is this video of him and he is kind of like stumbling through Spanish and he takes it again and he’s getting corrected by AOC on his pronunciation. He keeps kind of forgetting things. And they’ve released this, right? And they think it’s not crazy that that happened but it’s very interesting to me that they released it because they are trying to emphasize that it wasn’t easy for him to speak Spanish and that he needed help speaking Spanish and he is not good at Spanish, but they knew that it would be charming and it is, right? Because it shows someone is trying to speak Spanish, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Zohran Mamdani speaking in Spanish]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They could have just released speeches with him in like fluent Spanish, or they could have had someone else who is a fluent Spanish speaker speaking on his behalf. In a little while, they could probably do videos where it looks like he is speaking Spanish, right? We’re kind of at that point of the technology now with video and audio that we could have something that sounds like him speaking in Spanish, looks like him speaking in Spanish. But they don’t do that, right? What they do is show someone who isn’t very good and who is trying, right? Part of what is really important to people is that you try to speak their language, right? And an app takes out that friction. It makes communication easier, but part of what language is signaling, too, when you use a language that is not a language that comes easy to you, is you’re signaling that you are trying, right? You are signaling that you are putting in some effort, that you don’t expect them to just understand you, and that you’re putting in some effort to be understood.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> All right. Well, we’ve been dancing around this idea of the importance of friction, and I want to just ask you to spell it out. Why is friction important? What could friction signal? We’ve talked about belonging, we’ve talked about effort. What else?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> I mean, if I’m really just using an app to talk to you, right, I… And I’m not paying attention, I’m not really trying to do anything, I’m just trying to communicate with you, so I use an app, and it spits out whatever to talk to you, and I nod. You got the message, I got the message, I move on. Like, I haven’t really changed because of that interaction, right? So when you learn a language, to talk to someone, the effort of doing it, you are actually also changing yourself. So you are adding vocab, adding things that you can use in a new situation, adding things that you can use when you don’t have your phone around you, et cetera. So there’s just, literally you are changing a little bit, maybe in small ways. There is some evidence for regular bilinguals, like people who are regularly using multiple languages in their day-to-day, that they have better executive function than monolingual speakers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And by executive function, we’re talking about your ability to ignore irrelevant information and suppress responses that you might automatically make. And if you think about it, this makes a lot of sense why this would be tied to bilingualism, because you have a day where you are telling whatever language you’re not using, you’re saying, “Shut up. This isn’t about you.” So you’re ignoring anything else that’s irrelevant while you’re having these conversations. And from my understanding, those advantages get bigger as you age. So it’s essentially like you’re keeping your brain more active in this particular way. So obviously, all of those benefits, and just the fact that each time I stumble through something in German or Korean or today Māori, I am getting a little bit better, right? I’m learning a little bit more. That is this really big obvious thing that is being lost, is just that you are not having this growth. And it’s almost sad in some ways, because you had an opportunity, right? So let’s say you go to another country, you stay there for two months. You have this opportunity to do something, and you just spend all the time using these translation apps. You miss this opportunity to have this personal growth.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> It’s true. I went to Italy, and by the end of the trip, I was fully capable of asking where the bathroom was all by myself.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> In Italian?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> In Italian.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Wow.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Don’t ask me to do it now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> I was gonna say.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh, boy. Try. Al bagno? Bagno? Bagno? I don’t want to talk about it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>Live translation tools are decent, and they’re going to get better. You can even imagine a version that works out most of the bugs. AI that does start picking up on body language and slang. Science fiction becoming reality. The universal translator, the Babel fish. But do we always want that? Throughout our conversation, as we talked about the importance of friction, it struck me that maybe today’s live translation tools, imperfect as they are, have their own charms, not despite the friction, but because of it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I decided to play Abby another excerpt from our conversation with proud dad, Larry Berliner. While he and fellow dad Kevin were conversing on their ChatGPT app, they were speaking into the phone, which would generate a written translation, which the other one would read. Hardly seamless. But here, Larry talks about the conversation being so profound because of those seams.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Larry Berliner]:\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem> This allowed us to speak in long paragraphs, like I’m doing right now, right? Shakespearean style, not a back and forth, but long paragraphs of ideas, and then it would translate, and we’d watch each other read it, which was exciting, and then the person would respond. And what ended up being magical was, first of all, we did it for a very long time.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>What he chose to talk about was things that I don’t think he would ever have spoke about first if I was speaking his native language. Or wow, the extent of which is amazing. He talked about how he had met Sonya and the previous people he had been with at the time. He talked about his failures as a father. And just– it was immediately right to the bone.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I’m just struck by how he feels that conversation was facilitated by the fact that there was this level of friction, of literally having to read. Maybe the fact that you’re putting something into print and then somebody is going to read it makes you less likely to just waste that time to say, “Well, what do you think of the weather?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, that’s a really interesting idea, and it kinda makes sense. What it makes me think, though, is that there was this feeling that this was temporary, right? That this was not going to be the regular state of affairs. It’s almost like deathbed conversation. It feels like a little bit like what it sounded like to me. Just “I need you to, here are some really big things on my mind and my heart that I just really want you to know now that we’ve got this opportunity.” It is interesting, though, to think about, what if you never get there with someone who speaks your own language because you’ve always got the dance of we can speak so easily to each other.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Yeah, and it was the artificiality of their own communication that led to something much deeper. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abby Walker:\u003c/strong> I love that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> So am I going to encourage my eight-year-old to learn Spanish? Yes, absolutely. There’s so much we can’t know about AI and where it’s headed, but even if some reasons for learning another language go away, others won’t, or could even grow in importance. And in honor of our topic this week, we’ve machine translated our credits into ‘Klingon and back’, because why not?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Here we go. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Klingon words] \u003c/em>I am Jess of the clan Love. \u003cem>[Klingon words] \u003c/em>At the Northwestern University Citadel of Knowledge, inside the Kellogg School of Management, Life, Automated is an honorable battle quest of the Ryan Institute on Complexity. KQED hurls our battle transmissions across the void to conquer the airwaves.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Jesse Dukes sliced the captured sounds into submission. Stephen Jackson forged the battle hymns and struck the war drums. The machinery masters, Will Feeney and George Christensen, trapped the vocal cries of the interrogation inside the sound cage. Ananya Mallapragada commanded the proclamations of our glory and subjugated the civilian chatter web.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Producer: Jesse Dukes\u003cbr>Music: Steven Jackson\u003cbr>Recording: George Christensen, Will Feeney\u003cbr>Promotional help from Ananya Mallapragada\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Editorial guidance from Laura Pavin\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Special thanks to Larry Berliner and Georgi Demirev for their help testing out live translation tools\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "a-historically-black-college-in-oakland-a-task-force-is-dreaming",
"title": "A Historically Black College in Oakland? A Task Force Is Dreaming",
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"headTitle": "A Historically Black College in Oakland? A Task Force Is Dreaming | KQED",
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"content": "\n\u003cp>A task force is quietly working to expand higher education offerings in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/oakland\">Oakland\u003c/a> by bringing a historically Black college or university here. And Oakland Mayor \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/barbara-lee\">Barbara Lee\u003c/a> is central to the effort.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There are a little over 100 recognized HBCUs in the country, but they are concentrated in the Southeast since many were established in the years following the Civil War, when African Americans were barred from most colleges and universities. The West Coast has only one historically Black educational institution — the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles, one of only a handful of historically Black medical schools in the nation. If an HBCU lands in Oakland, it could offer the first opportunity for undergraduate students in California to get a culturally relevant education closer to home.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>When students head east to enroll at an HBCU, they often don’t come back, said Kim Thompson, a member of the Oakland HBCU task force. She described that as a loss for California’s workforce.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“That’s a big brain drain and loss of students who could be staying here and gaining access to high-wage STEM careers that the Bay Area has to offer,” Thompson told The Oaklandside. “There’s a lot of students we think could benefit from the culturally affirming education that an HBCU could provide.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1123\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/OaklandGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12015107\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/OaklandGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/OaklandGetty-800x449.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/OaklandGetty-1020x573.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/OaklandGetty-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/OaklandGetty-1536x862.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/OaklandGetty-1920x1078.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">There are over 100 HBCUs in the U.S., mostly in the Southeast. The West Coast has only one, in Los Angeles. (Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Oakland HBCU initiative, a fiscally sponsored project of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandfund.org/oaklandhbcu\">Oakland Fund\u003c/a>, officially launched last year and is still in the early stages. A volunteer task force composed of Mayor Lee along with individuals from business, higher education, civic and philanthropic communities in Oakland is leading the effort.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The task force undertook a feasibility study this year to explore the potential economic impacts of a campus for Oakland and to identify which industries here are primed for growth. Thompson said the task force plans to publish the results of the study in the next month, but said they’ve already identified technology, entrepreneurship, life sciences, artificial intelligence, logistics and transportation as areas of focus.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The task force will then move to the next phase: solidifying a list of interested schools and settling on a location. The team is exploring a range of ideas, including a satellite campus for a single college, a hub center that would allow multiple colleges and universities to offer classes in Oakland and a partnership with the Peralta Community Colleges District to offer a pathway to a four-year degree from an HBCU.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>California’s community colleges already have a \u003ca href=\"https://icangotocollege.com/hbcu-transfer-opportunities\">transfer pathway for students to enroll at HBCUs\u003c/a>, which guarantees admission to more than 30 colleges and comes with a $5,000 scholarship, but few students take it, Taína Knox, another member of the task force, said. While tens of thousands of students transfer from community college to a UC or Cal State campus each year, those taking advantage of the HBCU transfer pathway number in the tens, Knox said. Five students received the Cal-HBCU transfer grant in 2024-2025, 10 in 2025-2026, and five payments are in progress for this academic year, according to the California Student Aid Commission.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Students are still hesitant to transfer to out-of-state schools, and having an HBCU school here in California would have an impact,” Knox told The Oaklandside. “We think that an HBCU partnership could bolster what is already happening and hopefully increase students’ resiliency to continue through with the process that they start.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In 2022, Paul Quinn College, an HBCU in Dallas, was in talks to \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2022/04/21/texas-hbcu-paul-quinn-college-expansion-oakland-california/\">establish a campus in Oakland\u003c/a>. In 2024, Thompson and others, including then-deputy mayor Kimberly Mayfield representing the mayor’s office, attended the annual conference of the United Negro College Fund, the HBCU membership organization, to scout interest in Oakland. But the conference took place in July 2024, weeks after then mayor \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/tag/oakland-fbi-raids/\">Sheng Thao’s home was raided by the FBI\u003c/a>, so timing wasn’t ideal, Thompson said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>After Lee became mayor last year, the talks restarted. At one point, Howard University, the country’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/asia-alexander/2026/08/01/top-hbcus-20-historically-black-colleges-universities-that-set-grads-up-for-success/\">top-ranked private HBCU\u003c/a>, was interested, Thompson said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“They came out for a site visit, we had ongoing conversations with them for several months,” Thompson said. “Currently, they have an interim leader in place, so now is not perfect timing for them to be making a definitive decision on something like this, but we continue to keep them in mind.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Lee said she is able to tap connections with HBCUs that she built during her time in Congress. Lee, who graduated from Mills College, the former women’s college in Oakland, has \u003ca href=\"https://uncf.org/the-latest/the-murell-family-legacy-establishing-a-uncf-scholarship-to-expand-educational-opportunity\">family members who attended HBCUs\u003c/a> and received an \u003ca href=\"https://thedig.howard.edu/all-stories/go-where-need-greatest-honorary-degree-designee-barbara-lee-has-spent-lifetime-uplifting-people\">honorary doctorate from Howard University last year\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/250428-OAKLAND-CITY-HALL-FILE-MD-02-KQED-1920x1280-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12081625\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/250428-OAKLAND-CITY-HALL-FILE-MD-02-KQED-1920x1280-1.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/250428-OAKLAND-CITY-HALL-FILE-MD-02-KQED-1920x1280-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/250428-OAKLAND-CITY-HALL-FILE-MD-02-KQED-1920x1280-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Oakland City Hall in Oakland on April 28, 2025. (Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Establishing an HBCU in Oakland could be crucial to stabilizing the Black population here, Lee said. When she was elected to Congress, 40% of Oakland was Black, she said, and now it’s around 20%.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Here in Oakland, gentrification, redlining, and systemic discrimination has been a driver of bringing our population down,” she told The Oaklandside. “This would give some stability in many ways to the Black population and for everyone in Oakland to see that we still care about the Black community and Black students.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In exploring potential locations, the task force has toured the former Holy Names University campus in the hills, as well as locations in downtown Oakland, but they don’t want to commit to a site until they’re further along in talks with the colleges.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The group also held listening sessions last fall with students to gauge their interest in an HBCU here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“A lot of students said, ‘It’d be great to go to an HBCU, but I’m the first in my family to go to college, and it’s expensive to travel out of state,’” Thompson said. “But if it were here, that would be a great alternative opportunity to go to an HBCU, which many students had an interest in attending.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/\">The Oaklandside\u003c/a> and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>A task force is quietly working to expand higher education offerings in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/oakland\">Oakland\u003c/a> by bringing a historically Black college or university here. And Oakland Mayor \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/barbara-lee\">Barbara Lee\u003c/a> is central to the effort.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There are a little over 100 recognized HBCUs in the country, but they are concentrated in the Southeast since many were established in the years following the Civil War, when African Americans were barred from most colleges and universities. The West Coast has only one historically Black educational institution — the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles, one of only a handful of historically Black medical schools in the nation. If an HBCU lands in Oakland, it could offer the first opportunity for undergraduate students in California to get a culturally relevant education closer to home.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>There are a little over 100 recognized HBCUs in the country, but they are concentrated in the Southeast since many were established in the years following the Civil War, when African Americans were barred from most colleges and universities. The West Coast has only one historically Black educational institution — the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles, one of only a handful of historically Black medical schools in the nation. If an HBCU lands in Oakland, it could offer the first opportunity for undergraduate students in California to get a culturally relevant education closer to home.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>When students head east to enroll at an HBCU, they often don’t come back, said Kim Thompson, a member of the Oakland HBCU task force. She described that as a loss for California’s workforce.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>When students head east to enroll at an HBCU, they often don’t come back, said Kim Thompson, a member of the Oakland HBCU task force. She described that as a loss for California’s workforce.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“That’s a big brain drain and loss of students who could be staying here and gaining access to high-wage STEM careers that the Bay Area has to offer,” Thompson told The Oaklandside. “There’s a lot of students we think could benefit from the culturally affirming education that an HBCU could provide.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“That’s a big brain drain and loss of students who could be staying here and gaining access to high-wage STEM careers that the Bay Area has to offer,” Thompson told The Oaklandside. “There’s a lot of students we think could benefit from the culturally affirming education that an HBCU could provide.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/OaklandGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12015107\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/OaklandGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/OaklandGetty-800x449.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/OaklandGetty-1020x573.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/OaklandGetty-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/OaklandGetty-1536x862.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/OaklandGetty-1920x1078.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">There are over 100 HBCUs in the U.S., mostly in the Southeast. The West Coast has only one, in Los Angeles.\u003ccite class=\"wp-inline-image-credit\"> (Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/OaklandGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12015107\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">There are over 100 HBCUs in the U.S., mostly in the Southeast. The West Coast has only one, in Los Angeles.\u003ccite class=\"wp-inline-image-credit\"> (Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The Oakland HBCU initiative, a fiscally sponsored project of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandfund.org/oaklandhbcu\">Oakland Fund\u003c/a>, officially launched last year and is still in the early stages. A volunteer task force composed of Mayor Lee along with individuals from business, higher education, civic and philanthropic communities in Oakland is leading the effort.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The Oakland HBCU initiative, a fiscally sponsored project of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandfund.org/oaklandhbcu\">Oakland Fund\u003c/a>, officially launched last year and is still in the early stages. A volunteer task force composed of Mayor Lee along with individuals from business, higher education, civic and philanthropic communities in Oakland is leading the effort.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The task force undertook a feasibility study this year to explore the potential economic impacts of a campus for Oakland and to identify which industries here are primed for growth. Thompson said the task force plans to publish the results of the study in the next month, but said they’ve already identified technology, entrepreneurship, life sciences, artificial intelligence, logistics and transportation as areas of focus.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The task force undertook a feasibility study this year to explore the potential economic impacts of a campus for Oakland and to identify which industries here are primed for growth. Thompson said the task force plans to publish the results of the study in the next month, but said they’ve already identified technology, entrepreneurship, life sciences, artificial intelligence, logistics and transportation as areas of focus.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The task force will then move to the next phase: solidifying a list of interested schools and settling on a location. The team is exploring a range of ideas, including a satellite campus for a single college, a hub center that would allow multiple colleges and universities to offer classes in Oakland and a partnership with the Peralta Community Colleges District to offer a pathway to a four-year degree from an HBCU.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The task force will then move to the next phase: solidifying a list of interested schools and settling on a location. The team is exploring a range of ideas, including a satellite campus for a single college, a hub center that would allow multiple colleges and universities to offer classes in Oakland and a partnership with the Peralta Community Colleges District to offer a pathway to a four-year degree from an HBCU.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>California’s community colleges already have a \u003ca href=\"https://icangotocollege.com/hbcu-transfer-opportunities\">transfer pathway for students to enroll at HBCUs\u003c/a>, which guarantees admission to more than 30 colleges and comes with a $5,000 scholarship, but few students take it, Taína Knox, another member of the task force, said. While tens of thousands of students transfer from community college to a UC or Cal State campus each year, those taking advantage of the HBCU transfer pathway number in the tens, Knox said. Five students received the Cal-HBCU transfer grant in 2024-2025, 10 in 2025-2026, and five payments are in progress for this academic year, according to the California Student Aid Commission.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>California’s community colleges already have a \u003ca href=\"https://icangotocollege.com/hbcu-transfer-opportunities\">transfer pathway for students to enroll at HBCUs\u003c/a>, which guarantees admission to more than 30 colleges and comes with a $5,000 scholarship, but few students take it, Taína Knox, another member of the task force, said. While tens of thousands of students transfer from community college to a UC or Cal State campus each year, those taking advantage of the HBCU transfer pathway number in the tens, Knox said. Five students received the Cal-HBCU transfer grant in 2024-2025, 10 in 2025-2026, and five payments are in progress for this academic year, according to the California Student Aid Commission.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Students are still hesitant to transfer to out-of-state schools, and having an HBCU school here in California would have an impact,” Knox told The Oaklandside. “We think that an HBCU partnership could bolster what is already happening and hopefully increase students’ resiliency to continue through with the process that they start.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“Students are still hesitant to transfer to out-of-state schools, and having an HBCU school here in California would have an impact,” Knox told The Oaklandside. “We think that an HBCU partnership could bolster what is already happening and hopefully increase students’ resiliency to continue through with the process that they start.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In 2022, Paul Quinn College, an HBCU in Dallas, was in talks to \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2022/04/21/texas-hbcu-paul-quinn-college-expansion-oakland-california/\">establish a campus in Oakland\u003c/a>. In 2024, Thompson and others, including then-deputy mayor Kimberly Mayfield representing the mayor’s office, attended the annual conference of the United Negro College Fund, the HBCU membership organization, to scout interest in Oakland. But the conference took place in July 2024, weeks after then mayor \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/tag/oakland-fbi-raids/\">Sheng Thao’s home was raided by the FBI\u003c/a>, so timing wasn’t ideal, Thompson said.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In 2022, Paul Quinn College, an HBCU in Dallas, was in talks to \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2022/04/21/texas-hbcu-paul-quinn-college-expansion-oakland-california/\">establish a campus in Oakland\u003c/a>. In 2024, Thompson and others, including then-deputy mayor Kimberly Mayfield representing the mayor’s office, attended the annual conference of the United Negro College Fund, the HBCU membership organization, to scout interest in Oakland. But the conference took place in July 2024, weeks after then mayor \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/tag/oakland-fbi-raids/\">Sheng Thao’s home was raided by the FBI\u003c/a>, so timing wasn’t ideal, Thompson said.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>After Lee became mayor last year, the talks restarted. At one point, Howard University, the country’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/asia-alexander/2026/08/01/top-hbcus-20-historically-black-colleges-universities-that-set-grads-up-for-success/\">top-ranked private HBCU\u003c/a>, was interested, Thompson said.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>After Lee became mayor last year, the talks restarted. At one point, Howard University, the country’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/asia-alexander/2026/08/01/top-hbcus-20-historically-black-colleges-universities-that-set-grads-up-for-success/\">top-ranked private HBCU\u003c/a>, was interested, Thompson said.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“They came out for a site visit, we had ongoing conversations with them for several months,” Thompson said. “Currently, they have an interim leader in place, so now is not perfect timing for them to be making a definitive decision on something like this, but we continue to keep them in mind.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“They came out for a site visit, we had ongoing conversations with them for several months,” Thompson said. “Currently, they have an interim leader in place, so now is not perfect timing for them to be making a definitive decision on something like this, but we continue to keep them in mind.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Lee said she is able to tap connections with HBCUs that she built during her time in Congress. Lee, who graduated from Mills College, the former women’s college in Oakland, has \u003ca href=\"https://uncf.org/the-latest/the-murell-family-legacy-establishing-a-uncf-scholarship-to-expand-educational-opportunity\">family members who attended HBCUs\u003c/a> and received an \u003ca href=\"https://thedig.howard.edu/all-stories/go-where-need-greatest-honorary-degree-designee-barbara-lee-has-spent-lifetime-uplifting-people\">honorary doctorate from Howard University last year\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Lee said she is able to tap connections with HBCUs that she built during her time in Congress. Lee, who graduated from Mills College, the former women’s college in Oakland, has \u003ca href=\"https://uncf.org/the-latest/the-murell-family-legacy-establishing-a-uncf-scholarship-to-expand-educational-opportunity\">family members who attended HBCUs\u003c/a> and received an \u003ca href=\"https://thedig.howard.edu/all-stories/go-where-need-greatest-honorary-degree-designee-barbara-lee-has-spent-lifetime-uplifting-people\">honorary doctorate from Howard University last year\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/250428-OAKLAND-CITY-HALL-FILE-MD-02-KQED-1920x1280-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12081625\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/250428-OAKLAND-CITY-HALL-FILE-MD-02-KQED-1920x1280-1.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/250428-OAKLAND-CITY-HALL-FILE-MD-02-KQED-1920x1280-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/250428-OAKLAND-CITY-HALL-FILE-MD-02-KQED-1920x1280-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Oakland City Hall in Oakland on April 28, 2025. \u003ccite class=\"wp-inline-image-credit\"> (Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Establishing an HBCU in Oakland could be crucial to stabilizing the Black population here, Lee said. When she was elected to Congress, 40% of Oakland was Black, she said, and now it’s around 20%.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Establishing an HBCU in Oakland could be crucial to stabilizing the Black population here, Lee said. When she was elected to Congress, 40% of Oakland was Black, she said, and now it’s around 20%.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Here in Oakland, gentrification, redlining, and systemic discrimination has been a driver of bringing our population down,” she told The Oaklandside. “This would give some stability in many ways to the Black population and for everyone in Oakland to see that we still care about the Black community and Black students.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“Here in Oakland, gentrification, redlining, and systemic discrimination has been a driver of bringing our population down,” she told The Oaklandside. “This would give some stability in many ways to the Black population and for everyone in Oakland to see that we still care about the Black community and Black students.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In exploring potential locations, the task force has toured the former Holy Names University campus in the hills, as well as locations in downtown Oakland, but they don’t want to commit to a site until they’re further along in talks with the colleges.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In exploring potential locations, the task force has toured the former Holy Names University campus in the hills, as well as locations in downtown Oakland, but they don’t want to commit to a site until they’re further along in talks with the colleges.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The group also held listening sessions last fall with students to gauge their interest in an HBCU here.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“A lot of students said, ‘It’d be great to go to an HBCU, but I’m the first in my family to go to college, and it’s expensive to travel out of state,’” Thompson said. “But if it were here, that would be a great alternative opportunity to go to an HBCU, which many students had an interest in attending.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“A lot of students said, ‘It’d be great to go to an HBCU, but I’m the first in my family to go to college, and it’s expensive to travel out of state,’” Thompson said. “But if it were here, that would be a great alternative opportunity to go to an HBCU, which many students had an interest in attending.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/\">The Oaklandside\u003c/a> and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>A task force is quietly working to expand higher education offerings in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/oakland\">Oakland\u003c/a> by bringing a historically Black college or university here. And Oakland Mayor \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/barbara-lee\">Barbara Lee\u003c/a> is central to the effort.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There are a little over 100 recognized HBCUs in the country, but they are concentrated in the Southeast since many were established in the years following the Civil War, when African Americans were barred from most colleges and universities. The West Coast has only one historically Black educational institution — the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles, one of only a handful of historically Black medical schools in the nation. If an HBCU lands in Oakland, it could offer the first opportunity for undergraduate students in California to get a culturally relevant education closer to home.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>When students head east to enroll at an HBCU, they often don’t come back, said Kim Thompson, a member of the Oakland HBCU task force. She described that as a loss for California’s workforce.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“That’s a big brain drain and loss of students who could be staying here and gaining access to high-wage STEM careers that the Bay Area has to offer,” Thompson told The Oaklandside. “There’s a lot of students we think could benefit from the culturally affirming education that an HBCU could provide.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1123\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/OaklandGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12015107\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/OaklandGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/OaklandGetty-800x449.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/OaklandGetty-1020x573.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/OaklandGetty-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/OaklandGetty-1536x862.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/OaklandGetty-1920x1078.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">There are over 100 HBCUs in the U.S., mostly in the Southeast. The West Coast has only one, in Los Angeles. (Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Oakland HBCU initiative, a fiscally sponsored project of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandfund.org/oaklandhbcu\">Oakland Fund\u003c/a>, officially launched last year and is still in the early stages. A volunteer task force composed of Mayor Lee along with individuals from business, higher education, civic and philanthropic communities in Oakland is leading the effort.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The task force undertook a feasibility study this year to explore the potential economic impacts of a campus for Oakland and to identify which industries here are primed for growth. Thompson said the task force plans to publish the results of the study in the next month, but said they’ve already identified technology, entrepreneurship, life sciences, artificial intelligence, logistics and transportation as areas of focus.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The task force will then move to the next phase: solidifying a list of interested schools and settling on a location. The team is exploring a range of ideas, including a satellite campus for a single college, a hub center that would allow multiple colleges and universities to offer classes in Oakland and a partnership with the Peralta Community Colleges District to offer a pathway to a four-year degree from an HBCU.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>California’s community colleges already have a \u003ca href=\"https://icangotocollege.com/hbcu-transfer-opportunities\">transfer pathway for students to enroll at HBCUs\u003c/a>, which guarantees admission to more than 30 colleges and comes with a $5,000 scholarship, but few students take it, Taína Knox, another member of the task force, said. While tens of thousands of students transfer from community college to a UC or Cal State campus each year, those taking advantage of the HBCU transfer pathway number in the tens, Knox said. Five students received the Cal-HBCU transfer grant in 2024-2025, 10 in 2025-2026, and five payments are in progress for this academic year, according to the California Student Aid Commission.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Students are still hesitant to transfer to out-of-state schools, and having an HBCU school here in California would have an impact,” Knox told The Oaklandside. “We think that an HBCU partnership could bolster what is already happening and hopefully increase students’ resiliency to continue through with the process that they start.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In 2022, Paul Quinn College, an HBCU in Dallas, was in talks to \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2022/04/21/texas-hbcu-paul-quinn-college-expansion-oakland-california/\">establish a campus in Oakland\u003c/a>. In 2024, Thompson and others, including then-deputy mayor Kimberly Mayfield representing the mayor’s office, attended the annual conference of the United Negro College Fund, the HBCU membership organization, to scout interest in Oakland. But the conference took place in July 2024, weeks after then mayor \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/tag/oakland-fbi-raids/\">Sheng Thao’s home was raided by the FBI\u003c/a>, so timing wasn’t ideal, Thompson said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>After Lee became mayor last year, the talks restarted. At one point, Howard University, the country’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/asia-alexander/2026/08/01/top-hbcus-20-historically-black-colleges-universities-that-set-grads-up-for-success/\">top-ranked private HBCU\u003c/a>, was interested, Thompson said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“They came out for a site visit, we had ongoing conversations with them for several months,” Thompson said. “Currently, they have an interim leader in place, so now is not perfect timing for them to be making a definitive decision on something like this, but we continue to keep them in mind.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Lee said she is able to tap connections with HBCUs that she built during her time in Congress. Lee, who graduated from Mills College, the former women’s college in Oakland, has \u003ca href=\"https://uncf.org/the-latest/the-murell-family-legacy-establishing-a-uncf-scholarship-to-expand-educational-opportunity\">family members who attended HBCUs\u003c/a> and received an \u003ca href=\"https://thedig.howard.edu/all-stories/go-where-need-greatest-honorary-degree-designee-barbara-lee-has-spent-lifetime-uplifting-people\">honorary doctorate from Howard University last year\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/250428-OAKLAND-CITY-HALL-FILE-MD-02-KQED-1920x1280-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12081625\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/250428-OAKLAND-CITY-HALL-FILE-MD-02-KQED-1920x1280-1.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/250428-OAKLAND-CITY-HALL-FILE-MD-02-KQED-1920x1280-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/250428-OAKLAND-CITY-HALL-FILE-MD-02-KQED-1920x1280-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Oakland City Hall in Oakland on April 28, 2025. (Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Establishing an HBCU in Oakland could be crucial to stabilizing the Black population here, Lee said. When she was elected to Congress, 40% of Oakland was Black, she said, and now it’s around 20%.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Here in Oakland, gentrification, redlining, and systemic discrimination has been a driver of bringing our population down,” she told The Oaklandside. “This would give some stability in many ways to the Black population and for everyone in Oakland to see that we still care about the Black community and Black students.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In exploring potential locations, the task force has toured the former Holy Names University campus in the hills, as well as locations in downtown Oakland, but they don’t want to commit to a site until they’re further along in talks with the colleges.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The group also held listening sessions last fall with students to gauge their interest in an HBCU here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“A lot of students said, ‘It’d be great to go to an HBCU, but I’m the first in my family to go to college, and it’s expensive to travel out of state,’” Thompson said. “But if it were here, that would be a great alternative opportunity to go to an HBCU, which many students had an interest in attending.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/\">The Oaklandside\u003c/a> and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "conservative-group-claims-oakland-unified-programs-discriminate-against-white-students",
"title": "Conservative Group Claims Oakland Unified Programs Discriminate Against White Students",
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"content": "\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/news/tag/oakland-unified-school-district\">Oakland Unified School District’s\u003c/a> Latino Men and Boys program and Latinx Mentoring and Achievement program are aimed at helping Latino youth improve outcomes in their personal lives and studies, but a conservative-parents group claims the initiatives are discriminatory. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The nonprofit Defending Education filed a federal civil rights complaint \u003ca href=\"https://defendinged.org/complaints/defending-ed-files-civil-rights-complaint-against-oakland-unified-school-district-for-race-and-sex-discrimination/\">this week\u003c/a> with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, alleging the district violated Titles VI and IX of federal civil rights law by discriminating based on sex and race. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Over the past decade, OUSD has offered racially discriminatory programs to students ranging from high school seniors to three-year-old preschoolers,” the nonprofit said in a statement. “These programs provide additional academic support, mentoring, and even cash payments based on students’ race and sex.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/028_KQEDScience_IntCommunitySchoolOakland_10202022_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12014399\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/028_KQEDScience_IntCommunitySchoolOakland_10202022_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/028_KQEDScience_IntCommunitySchoolOakland_10202022_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/028_KQEDScience_IntCommunitySchoolOakland_10202022_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/028_KQEDScience_IntCommunitySchoolOakland_10202022_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/028_KQEDScience_IntCommunitySchoolOakland_10202022_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/028_KQEDScience_IntCommunitySchoolOakland_10202022_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Students run behind a wall providing shade in the schoolyard at International Community School in Oakland on Oct. 20, 2022. Defending Education claims in a federal civil rights complaint that Oakland Unified discriminated against white students. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Defending Education said the Latino Men and Boys program offers services that aren’t offered to white students, and the Latinx Mentoring and Achievement program for female-identifying and nonbinary students discriminates based on gender. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Unity Council, which helps operate the Latino student programs, did not respond to a request for comment, nor did the school district. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>On \u003ca href=\"https://unitycouncil.org/program/youth-achievement-programs/\">its website\u003c/a>, the Unity Council said the programs “significantly increase” graduation rates and promote healthy lifestyles. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028442/san-leandro-schools-tried-uplift-black-boys-now-they-face-discrimination-complaint\">Advocates, including those in the Bay Area, say\u003c/a> such programs are necessary to level the playing field for students. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/027_KQED_GrassValleyElementarySchoolOakland_04282022_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12080868\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/027_KQED_GrassValleyElementarySchoolOakland_04282022_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/027_KQED_GrassValleyElementarySchoolOakland_04282022_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/027_KQED_GrassValleyElementarySchoolOakland_04282022_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Students play a game during recess at Grass Valley Elementary School in Oakland on April 28, 2022. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Defending Education’s complaint, which urges the Office of Civil Rights to open an investigation into the district, isn’t the first time the group has made such claims. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Under the name “Parents Defending Education,” the conservative group \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028442/san-leandro-schools-tried-uplift-black-boys-now-they-face-discrimination-complaint\">claimed\u003c/a> that San Leandro Unified discriminated against other students by offering programming specifically for Black boys. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Then, in San Francisco Unified, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12081794/sfusd-new-ethnic-studies-curriculum-adopted-over-controversy-and-some-parents-complaints\">the organization raised concerns\u003c/a> over an ethnic studies curriculum that was ultimately adopted. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The parents’ organization is, according to its website, dedicated to “working to restore schools at all levels from activists imposing harmful agendas.” An “\u003ca href=\"https://defendinged.org/map/\">IndoctriNation Map\u003c/a>” on the site identifies incidents of diversity, equity and inclusion, ethnic studies, “indoctrination,” and other programs in schools across the country. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Its allegations against Bay Area districts, including the most recent against Oakland Unified, are tied to a nationwide movement by conservative leaders to end DEI and initiatives related to ethnic studies in K-12 schools. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In President Donald Trump’ssecond term, he signed an \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-indoctrination-in-k-12-schooling/\">executive order\u003c/a> that called on the government to remove funding from schools that implement such programming. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Leaders in the West Contra Costa Unified School District \u003ca href=\"https://edsource.org/2025/west-contra-costa-unified-loses-big-chunk-of-federal-grant-to-support-students-mental-health/731842\">suggested\u003c/a> that the administration’s cutback on such services caused it to lose a mental health grant focusing on diversity. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Office of Civil Rights has not said whether it will open an investigation into Oakland Unified.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/news/tag/oakland-unified-school-district\">Oakland Unified School District’s\u003c/a> Latino Men and Boys program and Latinx Mentoring and Achievement program are aimed at helping Latino youth improve outcomes in their personal lives and studies, but a conservative-parents group claims the initiatives are discriminatory. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The nonprofit Defending Education filed a federal civil rights complaint \u003ca href=\"https://defendinged.org/complaints/defending-ed-files-civil-rights-complaint-against-oakland-unified-school-district-for-race-and-sex-discrimination/\">this week\u003c/a> with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, alleging the district violated Titles VI and IX of federal civil rights law by discriminating based on sex and race. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Over the past decade, OUSD has offered racially discriminatory programs to students ranging from high school seniors to three-year-old preschoolers,” the nonprofit said in a statement. “These programs provide additional academic support, mentoring, and even cash payments based on students’ race and sex.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/028_KQEDScience_IntCommunitySchoolOakland_10202022_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12014399\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/028_KQEDScience_IntCommunitySchoolOakland_10202022_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/028_KQEDScience_IntCommunitySchoolOakland_10202022_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/028_KQEDScience_IntCommunitySchoolOakland_10202022_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/028_KQEDScience_IntCommunitySchoolOakland_10202022_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/028_KQEDScience_IntCommunitySchoolOakland_10202022_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/028_KQEDScience_IntCommunitySchoolOakland_10202022_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Students run behind a wall providing shade in the schoolyard at International Community School in Oakland on Oct. 20, 2022. Defending Education claims in a federal civil rights complaint that Oakland Unified discriminated against white students. \u003ccite class=\"wp-inline-image-credit\"> (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/028_KQEDScience_IntCommunitySchoolOakland_10202022_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12014399\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Students run behind a wall providing shade in the schoolyard at International Community School in Oakland on Oct. 20, 2022. Defending Education claims in a federal civil rights complaint that Oakland Unified discriminated against white students. \u003ccite class=\"wp-inline-image-credit\"> (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Defending Education said the Latino Men and Boys program offers services that aren’t offered to white students, and the Latinx Mentoring and Achievement program for female-identifying and nonbinary students discriminates based on gender. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The Unity Council, which helps operate the Latino student programs, did not respond to a request for comment, nor did the school district. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The Unity Council, which helps operate the Latino student programs, did not respond to a request for comment, nor did the school district. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>On \u003ca href=\"https://unitycouncil.org/program/youth-achievement-programs/\">its website\u003c/a>, the Unity Council said the programs “significantly increase” graduation rates and promote healthy lifestyles. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028442/san-leandro-schools-tried-uplift-black-boys-now-they-face-discrimination-complaint\">Advocates, including those in the Bay Area, say\u003c/a> such programs are necessary to level the playing field for students. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>On \u003ca href=\"https://unitycouncil.org/program/youth-achievement-programs/\">its website\u003c/a>, the Unity Council said the programs “significantly increase” graduation rates and promote healthy lifestyles. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028442/san-leandro-schools-tried-uplift-black-boys-now-they-face-discrimination-complaint\">Advocates, including those in the Bay Area, say\u003c/a> such programs are necessary to level the playing field for students. \u003c/p>\n"
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"\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/027_KQED_GrassValleyElementarySchoolOakland_04282022_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12080868\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Students play a game during recess at Grass Valley Elementary School in Oakland on April 28, 2022.\u003ccite class=\"wp-inline-image-credit\"> (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Defending Education’s complaint, which urges the Office of Civil Rights to open an investigation into the district, isn’t the first time the group has made such claims. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Under the name “Parents Defending Education,” the conservative group \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028442/san-leandro-schools-tried-uplift-black-boys-now-they-face-discrimination-complaint\">claimed\u003c/a> that San Leandro Unified discriminated against other students by offering programming specifically for Black boys. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Under the name “Parents Defending Education,” the conservative group \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028442/san-leandro-schools-tried-uplift-black-boys-now-they-face-discrimination-complaint\">claimed\u003c/a> that San Leandro Unified discriminated against other students by offering programming specifically for Black boys. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Then, in San Francisco Unified, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12081794/sfusd-new-ethnic-studies-curriculum-adopted-over-controversy-and-some-parents-complaints\">the organization raised concerns\u003c/a> over an ethnic studies curriculum that was ultimately adopted. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The parents’ organization is, according to its website, dedicated to “working to restore schools at all levels from activists imposing harmful agendas.” An “\u003ca href=\"https://defendinged.org/map/\">IndoctriNation Map\u003c/a>” on the site identifies incidents of diversity, equity and inclusion, ethnic studies, “indoctrination,” and other programs in schools across the country. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The parents’ organization is, according to its website, dedicated to “working to restore schools at all levels from activists imposing harmful agendas.” An “\u003ca href=\"https://defendinged.org/map/\">IndoctriNation Map\u003c/a>” on the site identifies incidents of diversity, equity and inclusion, ethnic studies, “indoctrination,” and other programs in schools across the country. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Its allegations against Bay Area districts, including the most recent against Oakland Unified, are tied to a nationwide movement by conservative leaders to end DEI and initiatives related to ethnic studies in K-12 schools. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Its allegations against Bay Area districts, including the most recent against Oakland Unified, are tied to a nationwide movement by conservative leaders to end DEI and initiatives related to ethnic studies in K-12 schools. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In President Donald Trump’ssecond term, he signed an \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-indoctrination-in-k-12-schooling/\">executive order\u003c/a> that called on the government to remove funding from schools that implement such programming. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Leaders in the West Contra Costa Unified School District \u003ca href=\"https://edsource.org/2025/west-contra-costa-unified-loses-big-chunk-of-federal-grant-to-support-students-mental-health/731842\">suggested\u003c/a> that the administration’s cutback on such services caused it to lose a mental health grant focusing on diversity. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Leaders in the West Contra Costa Unified School District \u003ca href=\"https://edsource.org/2025/west-contra-costa-unified-loses-big-chunk-of-federal-grant-to-support-students-mental-health/731842\">suggested\u003c/a> that the administration’s cutback on such services caused it to lose a mental health grant focusing on diversity. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The Office of Civil Rights has not said whether it will open an investigation into Oakland Unified.\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "It’s not the first time Defending Education has made such claims against Bay Area school districts.",
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"title": "Conservative Group Claims Oakland Unified Programs Discriminate Against White Students | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/news/tag/oakland-unified-school-district\">Oakland Unified School District’s\u003c/a> Latino Men and Boys program and Latinx Mentoring and Achievement program are aimed at helping Latino youth improve outcomes in their personal lives and studies, but a conservative-parents group claims the initiatives are discriminatory. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The nonprofit Defending Education filed a federal civil rights complaint \u003ca href=\"https://defendinged.org/complaints/defending-ed-files-civil-rights-complaint-against-oakland-unified-school-district-for-race-and-sex-discrimination/\">this week\u003c/a> with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, alleging the district violated Titles VI and IX of federal civil rights law by discriminating based on sex and race. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Over the past decade, OUSD has offered racially discriminatory programs to students ranging from high school seniors to three-year-old preschoolers,” the nonprofit said in a statement. “These programs provide additional academic support, mentoring, and even cash payments based on students’ race and sex.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/028_KQEDScience_IntCommunitySchoolOakland_10202022_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12014399\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/028_KQEDScience_IntCommunitySchoolOakland_10202022_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/028_KQEDScience_IntCommunitySchoolOakland_10202022_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/028_KQEDScience_IntCommunitySchoolOakland_10202022_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/028_KQEDScience_IntCommunitySchoolOakland_10202022_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/028_KQEDScience_IntCommunitySchoolOakland_10202022_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/028_KQEDScience_IntCommunitySchoolOakland_10202022_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Students run behind a wall providing shade in the schoolyard at International Community School in Oakland on Oct. 20, 2022. Defending Education claims in a federal civil rights complaint that Oakland Unified discriminated against white students. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Defending Education said the Latino Men and Boys program offers services that aren’t offered to white students, and the Latinx Mentoring and Achievement program for female-identifying and nonbinary students discriminates based on gender. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Unity Council, which helps operate the Latino student programs, did not respond to a request for comment, nor did the school district. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>On \u003ca href=\"https://unitycouncil.org/program/youth-achievement-programs/\">its website\u003c/a>, the Unity Council said the programs “significantly increase” graduation rates and promote healthy lifestyles. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028442/san-leandro-schools-tried-uplift-black-boys-now-they-face-discrimination-complaint\">Advocates, including those in the Bay Area, say\u003c/a> such programs are necessary to level the playing field for students. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/027_KQED_GrassValleyElementarySchoolOakland_04282022_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12080868\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/027_KQED_GrassValleyElementarySchoolOakland_04282022_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/027_KQED_GrassValleyElementarySchoolOakland_04282022_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/027_KQED_GrassValleyElementarySchoolOakland_04282022_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Students play a game during recess at Grass Valley Elementary School in Oakland on April 28, 2022. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Defending Education’s complaint, which urges the Office of Civil Rights to open an investigation into the district, isn’t the first time the group has made such claims. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Under the name “Parents Defending Education,” the conservative group \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028442/san-leandro-schools-tried-uplift-black-boys-now-they-face-discrimination-complaint\">claimed\u003c/a> that San Leandro Unified discriminated against other students by offering programming specifically for Black boys. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Then, in San Francisco Unified, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12081794/sfusd-new-ethnic-studies-curriculum-adopted-over-controversy-and-some-parents-complaints\">the organization raised concerns\u003c/a> over an ethnic studies curriculum that was ultimately adopted. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The parents’ organization is, according to its website, dedicated to “working to restore schools at all levels from activists imposing harmful agendas.” An “\u003ca href=\"https://defendinged.org/map/\">IndoctriNation Map\u003c/a>” on the site identifies incidents of diversity, equity and inclusion, ethnic studies, “indoctrination,” and other programs in schools across the country. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Its allegations against Bay Area districts, including the most recent against Oakland Unified, are tied to a nationwide movement by conservative leaders to end DEI and initiatives related to ethnic studies in K-12 schools. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In President Donald Trump’ssecond term, he signed an \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-indoctrination-in-k-12-schooling/\">executive order\u003c/a> that called on the government to remove funding from schools that implement such programming. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Leaders in the West Contra Costa Unified School District \u003ca href=\"https://edsource.org/2025/west-contra-costa-unified-loses-big-chunk-of-federal-grant-to-support-students-mental-health/731842\">suggested\u003c/a> that the administration’s cutback on such services caused it to lose a mental health grant focusing on diversity. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Office of Civil Rights has not said whether it will open an investigation into Oakland Unified.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "california-math-scores-are-far-below-grade-level-this-screener-will-test-students-skills-early",
"title": "California Math Scores Are Far Below Grade Level. This Screener Will Test Students’ Skills Early",
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"headTitle": "California Math Scores Are Far Below Grade Level. This Screener Will Test Students’ Skills Early | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003c!-- Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ -->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/\">CalMatters\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/\">Sign up\u003c/a> for their newsletters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a> schools will test all kindergartners, first- and second-graders in basic math skills and provide them tutoring if they need it, under a bill on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The legislation, sponsored by Sen. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/legislators/akilah-weber-165432\">Akilah Weber Pierson\u003c/a>, a Democrat from San Diego, is expected to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/k-12-education/2026/04/math-skills-california/\">boost California’s math scores\u003c/a>, which are significantly \u003ca href=\"https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile?sfj=NP&chort=1&sub=MAT&sj=&st=MN&year=2024R3\">below the national average\u003c/a>. Last year, only 37% of students in California met grade-level math standards, an increase from the previous year but still well below the pre-pandemic level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This bill will help more kids so they don’t get stuck at the starting line in math,” said Marshall Tuck, chief executive officer of EdVoice, a nonprofit advocacy group that’s among the bill’s sponsors. “There’s still a lot more to do, but this is an important step.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb1067\">Senate Bill 1067\u003c/a>, schools will be required to test students for basic math skills and provide individual or small-group tutoring or other support for those who need help catching up to their peers. The tests are expected to be fairly straightforward. Kindergartners, for example, might be asked what order numbers go in, which numbers are bigger or smaller, and what quantities numbers represent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because math is sequential, students who start school not knowing their 1-2-3s sometimes lag behind for years. If they don’t understand addition, for example, they’ll struggle with multiplication and fractions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12072507\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12072507\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/02172023_ksuzuki_tkprogress-157_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1331\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/02172023_ksuzuki_tkprogress-157_qed-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/02172023_ksuzuki_tkprogress-157_qed-1-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/02172023_ksuzuki_tkprogress-157_qed-1-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wooden blocks and tiny jackets rest on the rug during playtime at a transitional kindergarten class at Cesar Chavez Elementary School in East San José, which the school district is converting into an early learning center, on Feb. 17, 2023. \u003ccite>(Kori Suzuki/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If they struggle with fractions, they’ll have a hard time with algebra. By high school, only 30% of students currently meet the state’s math standards, with low-income, Black and Latino students faring much worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many districts in California already use early math assessments. Los Angeles Unified and Compton Unified both assess younger students in basic math skills, and both have seen significant increases in math scores in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If Newsom signs the bill, schools would give the first assessments in 2028. He has until the end of September to take action.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Teachers union’s waning influence?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The bill passed unanimously in the Senate and 71-0 in the Assembly with eight abstentions, despite persistent opposition from the powerful California Teachers Association — the state’s largest teachers union — and a handful of other influential education groups. They argued that mandated assessments make students stressed and fatigued, and would do little to improve students’ math performance. Instead, the state should invest in training teachers to improve the way they teach math, they said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The CTA also \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/2023/03/dyslexia-screening-2/\">opposed a dyslexia screener\u003c/a> in 2023 as well as a bill that calls for a more \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/k-12-education/2026/01/california-education/\">streamlined education governance\u003c/a> system in California. Both bills passed with bipartisan support, suggesting that legislators may be increasingly willing to vote against the powerful union.[aside postID=news_12096557 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/081226-SCHOOLTECHBANS-05-MC_QED-1-1.jpg']“I think legislators recognize the issue is urgent,” Tuck said. “The state needs to do more to help students, particularly low-income students, in math.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CTA president David Goldberg said the union takes positions on hundreds of bills every year, and it’s not unusual for some it opposes to pass. Although power dynamics in Sacramento constantly evolve, the union’s influence hasn’t changed, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He pointed to the state’s recent investments in special education and community schools — both union priorities — as well as the union’s support for the relatively unknown \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/2026/06/primary-election-california-superintendent/\">Richard Barrera\u003c/a> for state superintendent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barrera defeated several better-known Legislature veterans in the June primary election. In addition, he noted that numerous local teacher unions represented by the CTA successfully \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/k-12-education/2026/02/teacher-strikes-california/\">went on strike\u003c/a> this year, resulting in higher pay and improved benefits for thousands of teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That said, sometimes things pass that we oppose, and we have to deal with that,” Goldberg said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Like ‘a well-baby check-up’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In part because of the opposition, the math bill’s authors added a few amendments since the bill was introduced in February. One allows school districts that are already using assessments to continue using them, as long as they meet certain criteria. Another lets parents know how their children did on the test, something that Yolie Flores, president of the nonprofit Families in Schools, was especially happy to see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I tell parents, think of this as a well-baby check-up,” said Flores, whose organization advocates for improving school relationships with marginalized families, mostly in Los Angeles. “You want to know how your kid is doing, so you can get them help if they need it. Sometimes the report card doesn’t tell the whole story.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Next: Improved teacher training?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The math assessment joins a few other recent initiatives aimed at improving California’s dismal math scores, which have stagnated as the state focused on boosting students’ literacy skills in the wake of the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, the state adopted a new math framework and textbooks, expanded transitional kindergarten to all 4-year-olds, and greatly increased investments in community schools, which offer an array of social services intended to boost attendance and ultimately, academic achievement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12029848\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12029848\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/SanBrunoElementaryGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1329\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/SanBrunoElementaryGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/SanBrunoElementaryGetty-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/SanBrunoElementaryGetty-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/SanBrunoElementaryGetty-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/SanBrunoElementaryGetty-1536x1021.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/SanBrunoElementaryGetty-1920x1276.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kindergarten students at a school in the San Bruno Park Elementary School District run outside for recess in San Bruno, California, on April 19, 2012. \u003ccite>(Michael Macor/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Next, Tuck would like the state to invest in improving math training for current teachers as well as those still earning their credentials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vince Stewart, vice president of policy and programs for the nonprofit Children Now, said his organization would like the state to take a more comprehensive approach to improving math outcomes, not tackling it bill-by-bill. A broader initiative should also include teacher preparation, professional development, addressing the math teacher shortage and other topics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The organization did not take a position on SB 1067, but “absolutely believes there’s an issue with math performance in California,” Stewart said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/k-12-education/2026/09/math-skills-california-2/\">originally published on CalMatters\u003c/a> and was republished under the \u003ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives\u003c/a> license.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c!-- Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ -->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/\">CalMatters\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/\">Sign up\u003c/a> for their newsletters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a> schools will test all kindergartners, first- and second-graders in basic math skills and provide them tutoring if they need it, under a bill on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The legislation, sponsored by Sen. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/legislators/akilah-weber-165432\">Akilah Weber Pierson\u003c/a>, a Democrat from San Diego, is expected to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/k-12-education/2026/04/math-skills-california/\">boost California’s math scores\u003c/a>, which are significantly \u003ca href=\"https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile?sfj=NP&chort=1&sub=MAT&sj=&st=MN&year=2024R3\">below the national average\u003c/a>. Last year, only 37% of students in California met grade-level math standards, an increase from the previous year but still well below the pre-pandemic level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This bill will help more kids so they don’t get stuck at the starting line in math,” said Marshall Tuck, chief executive officer of EdVoice, a nonprofit advocacy group that’s among the bill’s sponsors. “There’s still a lot more to do, but this is an important step.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb1067\">Senate Bill 1067\u003c/a>, schools will be required to test students for basic math skills and provide individual or small-group tutoring or other support for those who need help catching up to their peers. The tests are expected to be fairly straightforward. Kindergartners, for example, might be asked what order numbers go in, which numbers are bigger or smaller, and what quantities numbers represent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because math is sequential, students who start school not knowing their 1-2-3s sometimes lag behind for years. If they don’t understand addition, for example, they’ll struggle with multiplication and fractions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12072507\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12072507\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/02172023_ksuzuki_tkprogress-157_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1331\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/02172023_ksuzuki_tkprogress-157_qed-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/02172023_ksuzuki_tkprogress-157_qed-1-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/02172023_ksuzuki_tkprogress-157_qed-1-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wooden blocks and tiny jackets rest on the rug during playtime at a transitional kindergarten class at Cesar Chavez Elementary School in East San José, which the school district is converting into an early learning center, on Feb. 17, 2023. \u003ccite>(Kori Suzuki/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If they struggle with fractions, they’ll have a hard time with algebra. By high school, only 30% of students currently meet the state’s math standards, with low-income, Black and Latino students faring much worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many districts in California already use early math assessments. Los Angeles Unified and Compton Unified both assess younger students in basic math skills, and both have seen significant increases in math scores in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If Newsom signs the bill, schools would give the first assessments in 2028. He has until the end of September to take action.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Teachers union’s waning influence?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The bill passed unanimously in the Senate and 71-0 in the Assembly with eight abstentions, despite persistent opposition from the powerful California Teachers Association — the state’s largest teachers union — and a handful of other influential education groups. They argued that mandated assessments make students stressed and fatigued, and would do little to improve students’ math performance. Instead, the state should invest in training teachers to improve the way they teach math, they said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The CTA also \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/2023/03/dyslexia-screening-2/\">opposed a dyslexia screener\u003c/a> in 2023 as well as a bill that calls for a more \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/k-12-education/2026/01/california-education/\">streamlined education governance\u003c/a> system in California. Both bills passed with bipartisan support, suggesting that legislators may be increasingly willing to vote against the powerful union.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“I think legislators recognize the issue is urgent,” Tuck said. “The state needs to do more to help students, particularly low-income students, in math.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CTA president David Goldberg said the union takes positions on hundreds of bills every year, and it’s not unusual for some it opposes to pass. Although power dynamics in Sacramento constantly evolve, the union’s influence hasn’t changed, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He pointed to the state’s recent investments in special education and community schools — both union priorities — as well as the union’s support for the relatively unknown \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/2026/06/primary-election-california-superintendent/\">Richard Barrera\u003c/a> for state superintendent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barrera defeated several better-known Legislature veterans in the June primary election. In addition, he noted that numerous local teacher unions represented by the CTA successfully \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/k-12-education/2026/02/teacher-strikes-california/\">went on strike\u003c/a> this year, resulting in higher pay and improved benefits for thousands of teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That said, sometimes things pass that we oppose, and we have to deal with that,” Goldberg said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Like ‘a well-baby check-up’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In part because of the opposition, the math bill’s authors added a few amendments since the bill was introduced in February. One allows school districts that are already using assessments to continue using them, as long as they meet certain criteria. Another lets parents know how their children did on the test, something that Yolie Flores, president of the nonprofit Families in Schools, was especially happy to see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I tell parents, think of this as a well-baby check-up,” said Flores, whose organization advocates for improving school relationships with marginalized families, mostly in Los Angeles. “You want to know how your kid is doing, so you can get them help if they need it. Sometimes the report card doesn’t tell the whole story.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Next: Improved teacher training?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The math assessment joins a few other recent initiatives aimed at improving California’s dismal math scores, which have stagnated as the state focused on boosting students’ literacy skills in the wake of the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, the state adopted a new math framework and textbooks, expanded transitional kindergarten to all 4-year-olds, and greatly increased investments in community schools, which offer an array of social services intended to boost attendance and ultimately, academic achievement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12029848\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12029848\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/SanBrunoElementaryGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1329\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/SanBrunoElementaryGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/SanBrunoElementaryGetty-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/SanBrunoElementaryGetty-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/SanBrunoElementaryGetty-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/SanBrunoElementaryGetty-1536x1021.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/SanBrunoElementaryGetty-1920x1276.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kindergarten students at a school in the San Bruno Park Elementary School District run outside for recess in San Bruno, California, on April 19, 2012. \u003ccite>(Michael Macor/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Next, Tuck would like the state to invest in improving math training for current teachers as well as those still earning their credentials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vince Stewart, vice president of policy and programs for the nonprofit Children Now, said his organization would like the state to take a more comprehensive approach to improving math outcomes, not tackling it bill-by-bill. A broader initiative should also include teacher preparation, professional development, addressing the math teacher shortage and other topics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The organization did not take a position on SB 1067, but “absolutely believes there’s an issue with math performance in California,” Stewart said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/k-12-education/2026/09/math-skills-california-2/\">originally published on CalMatters\u003c/a> and was republished under the \u003ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives\u003c/a> license.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "trump-admin-accuses-uc-berkeley-law-school-of-racial-discrimination-in-admissions",
"title": "Trump Admin Accuses UC Berkeley Law School of Racial Discrimination in Admissions",
"publishDate": 1788998186,
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"headTitle": "Trump Admin Accuses UC Berkeley Law School of Racial Discrimination in Admissions | KQED",
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"content": "\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/uc-berkeley\">UC Berkeley\u003c/a>’s law school illegally discriminated against white and Asian students in its admissions process, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education alleged Wednesday. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The departments’ investigative findings are the latest in a series of actions by the Trump administration targeting the state’s public university system — and other top universities nationwide — with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12056908/uc-faculty-escalate-court-battle-against-trump-efforts-to-reshape-higher-education\">threats to cut funding\u003c/a> over antisemitism and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12031468/trumps-anti-dei-crackdown-targets-over-50-universities-nationwide\">diversity, equity and inclusion\u003c/a> policies.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“The Department finds that Berkeley Law violated Title VI by discriminating against Asian and white applicants based on race when selecting its incoming classes of 2024 and 2025, well after the SFFA decision was issued,” the letter from Harmeet Dhillon, the Department of Justice’s Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division, read. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The DOJ is requesting that Berkeley’s law school enter a “voluntary resolution agreement” to ensure that its admissions process is brought into legal compliance. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/USDeptofJusticeGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12003275\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/USDeptofJusticeGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/USDeptofJusticeGetty-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/USDeptofJusticeGetty-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/USDeptofJusticeGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/USDeptofJusticeGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/USDeptofJusticeGetty-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The U.S. Department of Justice headquarters on Sept. 5, 2024. (J. David Ake/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In the six-page findings letter issued Wednesday, the Department of Justice said it launched a review of UC Berkeley’s admissions practices after a 2023 Supreme Court ruling \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11954612/u-s-supreme-court-strikes-down-affirmative-action-barring-california-private-universities-from-considering-race-in-admissions\">struck down affirmative action\u003c/a> in college admissions and more than 30 years after California outlawed it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The letter said the discrimination by the school is ongoing and points to university admissions materials, like essay prompts, that the DOJ describes as a “backdoor to solicit applicants’ racial demographics.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Analysis of the school’s admissions data by federal officials found that the median LSAT scores of Black students admitted in 2024 and 2025 were five points lower than admitted white and Asian students, the letter states.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1373\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/ErwinChemerinskyGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12042500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/ErwinChemerinskyGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/ErwinChemerinskyGetty-800x549.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/ErwinChemerinskyGetty-1020x700.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/ErwinChemerinskyGetty-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/ErwinChemerinskyGetty-1536x1054.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/ErwinChemerinskyGetty-1920x1318.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">UC Berkeley law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky at his home in Oakland, California on Jan. 19, 2021. (Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It also said that UC Berkeley’s law dean, Erwin Chemerinsky, admitted that Berkeley Law practices “unstated affirmative action” in faculty hiring, and accuses him of “using race and racial proxies” in admissions.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Chemerinsky said in a statement that the school of law “scrupulously complies” with both the state and federal laws.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Our admissions policy is clear that race is not considered in any way,” Chemerinsky said in a statement. Those laws, he said, “do not preclude schools from pursuing diversity so long as they give no preferences based on race. Berkeley Law does not do so.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Trump administration has launched dozens of investigations into colleges and universities in 2025, threatening to withhold federal funding from those who don’t comply with an executive order regarding campus antisemitism.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In an \u003ca href=\"https://www.aaup.org/academe/issues/spring-2025/assault-campus-protests\">article\u003c/a> published in the American Association of University Professors’ magazine last spring, UC Irvine law professor Sameer Ashar wrote that “this executive order, along with others prohibiting ‘DEI,’ is an effort by the Trump administration to drain US campuses of their contentious, democratic spirit.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The AAUP said that since taking office in 2025, the Trump administration “has waged open warfare on higher education.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Over the last year, a number of schools, including the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University, have agreed to multimillion-dollar settlements to unfreeze their federal funding, while others have accepted policy changes in line with the administration’s views.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>UC Berkeley did not respond to an inquiry about whether it plans to comply with the DOJ’s request to enter into a voluntary resolution agreement to bring its policies into compliance.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“UC Berkeley is committed to ensuring that every student is admitted based on their merit,” a spokesperson for the university said via email. “UC Berkeley will spare no effort to provide ample evidence showing that the university complies with all relevant laws, policies and rules governing admissions.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/uc-berkeley\">UC Berkeley\u003c/a>’s law school illegally discriminated against white and Asian students in its admissions process, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education alleged Wednesday. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The departments’ investigative findings are the latest in a series of actions by the Trump administration targeting the state’s public university system — and other top universities nationwide — with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12056908/uc-faculty-escalate-court-battle-against-trump-efforts-to-reshape-higher-education\">threats to cut funding\u003c/a> over antisemitism and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12031468/trumps-anti-dei-crackdown-targets-over-50-universities-nationwide\">diversity, equity and inclusion\u003c/a> policies.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“The Department finds that Berkeley Law violated Title VI by discriminating against Asian and white applicants based on race when selecting its incoming classes of 2024 and 2025, well after the SFFA decision was issued,” the letter from Harmeet Dhillon, the Department of Justice’s Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division, read. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The DOJ is requesting that Berkeley’s law school enter a “voluntary resolution agreement” to ensure that its admissions process is brought into legal compliance. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/USDeptofJusticeGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12003275\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/USDeptofJusticeGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/USDeptofJusticeGetty-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/USDeptofJusticeGetty-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/USDeptofJusticeGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/USDeptofJusticeGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/USDeptofJusticeGetty-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The U.S. Department of Justice headquarters on Sept. 5, 2024. (J. David Ake/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In the six-page findings letter issued Wednesday, the Department of Justice said it launched a review of UC Berkeley’s admissions practices after a 2023 Supreme Court ruling \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11954612/u-s-supreme-court-strikes-down-affirmative-action-barring-california-private-universities-from-considering-race-in-admissions\">struck down affirmative action\u003c/a> in college admissions and more than 30 years after California outlawed it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The letter said the discrimination by the school is ongoing and points to university admissions materials, like essay prompts, that the DOJ describes as a “backdoor to solicit applicants’ racial demographics.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Analysis of the school’s admissions data by federal officials found that the median LSAT scores of Black students admitted in 2024 and 2025 were five points lower than admitted white and Asian students, the letter states.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1373\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/ErwinChemerinskyGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12042500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/ErwinChemerinskyGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/ErwinChemerinskyGetty-800x549.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/ErwinChemerinskyGetty-1020x700.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/ErwinChemerinskyGetty-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/ErwinChemerinskyGetty-1536x1054.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/ErwinChemerinskyGetty-1920x1318.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">UC Berkeley law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky at his home in Oakland, California on Jan. 19, 2021. (Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It also said that UC Berkeley’s law dean, Erwin Chemerinsky, admitted that Berkeley Law practices “unstated affirmative action” in faculty hiring, and accuses him of “using race and racial proxies” in admissions.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Chemerinsky said in a statement that the school of law “scrupulously complies” with both the state and federal laws.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Our admissions policy is clear that race is not considered in any way,” Chemerinsky said in a statement. Those laws, he said, “do not preclude schools from pursuing diversity so long as they give no preferences based on race. Berkeley Law does not do so.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Trump administration has launched dozens of investigations into colleges and universities in 2025, threatening to withhold federal funding from those who don’t comply with an executive order regarding campus antisemitism.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In an \u003ca href=\"https://www.aaup.org/academe/issues/spring-2025/assault-campus-protests\">article\u003c/a> published in the American Association of University Professors’ magazine last spring, UC Irvine law professor Sameer Ashar wrote that “this executive order, along with others prohibiting ‘DEI,’ is an effort by the Trump administration to drain US campuses of their contentious, democratic spirit.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The AAUP said that since taking office in 2025, the Trump administration “has waged open warfare on higher education.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Over the last year, a number of schools, including the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University, have agreed to multimillion-dollar settlements to unfreeze their federal funding, while others have accepted policy changes in line with the administration’s views.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>UC Berkeley did not respond to an inquiry about whether it plans to comply with the DOJ’s request to enter into a voluntary resolution agreement to bring its policies into compliance.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“UC Berkeley is committed to ensuring that every student is admitted based on their merit,” a spokesperson for the university said via email. “UC Berkeley will spare no effort to provide ample evidence showing that the university complies with all relevant laws, policies and rules governing admissions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "community-colleges-suddenly-oppose-plan-to-let-them-offer-more-bachelors-degrees",
"title": "Community Colleges Suddenly Oppose Plan to Let Them Offer More Bachelor’s Degrees",
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"headTitle": "Community Colleges Suddenly Oppose Plan to Let Them Offer More Bachelor’s Degrees | KQED",
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"content": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Welcome to CalMatters, the only nonprofit newsroom devoted solely to covering issues that affect all Californians. Sign up for \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/whatmatters\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">WhatMatters\u003c/a> to receive the latest news and commentary on the most important issues in the Golden State.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a>’s community colleges have been trying for several years to offer more bachelor’s degrees. This year, they put their hopes in two sweeping bills designed to help them do that. But lawmakers made massive, last-minute changes that prompted the state’s community colleges to now oppose the legislation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The abrupt change of heart, spurred by new limits on how much the colleges could grow their bachelor’s programs, didn’t influence the outcomes of the bills: \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb960\">Senate Bill 960\u003c/a> by Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, a Democrat from Napa, and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab2694\">Assembly Bill 2694\u003c/a> by David Alvarez, also a Democrat from Chula Vista. Both passed this week by wide margins in the Legislature and now head to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In recent years, Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/01/community-colleges-california-2/#:~:text=While%20Newsom%20supports\">vetoed bills\u003c/a> that sought to expand the community colleges’ ability to issue more bachelor’s degrees. Still, Newsom’s office was involved in the revision of the latest bills, Cabaldon said in a Senate floor speech Monday.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>“This is the first time that we’ve been able to engage in productive conversation between the houses and the executive branch,” \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/hearings/280027#t=1158&f=4f607eb330ef5178f50fba4551edfb0e\">he said\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/0207SSC200203437-2048x1365-1.jpg\" alt=\"An aerial view of a college campus with people walking around.\" class=\"wp-image-12023068\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/0207SSC200203437-2048x1365-1.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/0207SSC200203437-2048x1365-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/0207SSC200203437-2048x1365-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/0207SSC200203437-2048x1365-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/0207SSC200203437-2048x1365-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/0207SSC200203437-2048x1365-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Santiago Canyon College campus in Orange, California. In recent years, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed bills that sought to expand the community colleges’ ability to issue more bachelor’s degrees. (Courtesy of Santiago Canyon College)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Combined, the bills introduce new mechanisms for determining when colleges can create bachelor’s degrees and how many they can offer. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The new approach has accountability metrics — colleges would be able to offer an additional two to 12 bachelor’s degrees starting in 2028 depending on their students’ certificate, degree and transfer-completion rates.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>No college district could propose more than three new degrees per year, and districts would need to prove that there’s a workforce need in their region to justify the creation of a bachelor’s degree.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s a claim the state’s labor secretary would step in to validate if the California State University system objects, as has regularly occurred in the pitched policy disputes \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2023/08/bachelors-degrees/\">between the community colleges and the university\u003c/a>.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>The rules would apply to new degrees offered after 2028; existing community college bachelor’s degrees are grandfathered in. Today, 49 colleges \u003ca href=\"https://www.cccco.edu/About-Us/Chancellors-Office/Divisions/Educational-Services-and-Support/What-we-do/Curriculum-and-Instruction-Unit/Curriculum/Baccalaureate-Degree-Program\">either offer or will soon\u003c/a> offer 66 bachelor’s degrees.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Cabaldon called the bills a breakthrough that would bring long-sought clarity. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“This will give us peace,” he said in a phone interview. “That doesn’t mean everybody’s going to agree all of the time, but it does mean the endless war and bickering and fighting and more and more legislation will come to an end.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Community college leaders said the amendments are too last-minute, too unclear and too complicated, even if they appreciate the effort by the Legislature to wrangle the thorny issues.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“We’re being asked to … support a process that is not completely understood or vetted at the last minute, and so that’s just not great policymaking,” said Larry Galizio, president and CEO of the Community College League of California, an association representing community college presidents and board leaders. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-why-bachelor-s-degrees-have-been-so-contentious\">Why bachelor’s degrees have been so contentious\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The community colleges’ sudden shift is another turn in an effort that has produced near-constant turmoil. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Historically, the community colleges and Cal State have clashed over which bachelor’s degrees the colleges can teach. A 2021 state law was supposed to establish peace in the realm, but the colleges and Cal State regularly disagreed on a key concept — degree duplication. That law said the colleges couldn’t create bachelor’s degrees that are already offered by any Cal State or University of California campus, even if a community college is hundreds of miles from the nearest public university. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Colleges and several lawmakers called that an unfair arrangement, since many community college students can’t relocate to a distant university. In some instances, community colleges created those degrees anyway, \u003ca href=\"https://edsource.org/2026/california-community-colleges-approve-3-new-bachelors-degrees-over-california-state-university-objections/751678\">over the objections of the Cal State system\u003c/a>, EdSource reported.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/GettyImages-494862297-e1545347957211.jpg\" alt=\"When researchers took a close look at transcripts for thousands of California community college students, they discovered an encouraging trend in enrollment for undocumented students.\" class=\"wp-image-11714155\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/GettyImages-494862297-e1545347957211.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/GettyImages-494862297-e1545347957211-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/GettyImages-494862297-e1545347957211-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/GettyImages-494862297-e1545347957211-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/GettyImages-494862297-e1545347957211-1200x800.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The community colleges are generally barred from duplicating a degree a UC campus offers. (Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty Images for UCLA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Backers and foes of more bachelor’s degrees at community colleges point to competing data.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A recent report found that \u003ca href=\"https://rpgroup.org/Portals/0/Documents/Projects/Exploring_Geographic_Isolation_Barrier_Equitable_Transfer_Outcomes/DistanceMatters_ExploringGeographicBarriers_November2024.pdf?ver=2024-12-20-201519-053\">29 of the state’s 116 community colleges\u003c/a> are located at least 25 miles from a public university. Their students are “place-bound” or can’t easily move from the area their community colleges serve. Roughly 157,000 students attend these colleges.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/01/community-colleges-california-2/#:~:text=Southwestern%20College%20student%20Marilynn%20Palomino%20is\">Some students say\u003c/a> they need their local community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees because local employers want those — certificates or associate degrees aren’t enough. But under existing law, those colleges cannot provide them because a Cal State 500 miles away offers that degree already.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>On the other hand, community colleges post low transfer rates — just 21% of students who wanted to transfer do so after four years, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.auditor.ca.gov/reports/2023-123/\">state auditor reported\u003c/a>. This may indicate a broken transfer system that could be remedied if more colleges could offer bachelor’s. Or it may demonstrate that colleges \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/01/community-colleges-california-2/#:~:text=Community%20colleges%20have,college%20system%20chancellor.\">aren’t ready\u003c/a> to widen their academic offerings because most also post low certificate and associate degree completion rates.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-how-the-bills-address-duplication\">How the bills address duplication\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In response, Alvarez and Cabaldon wrote comprehensive bills this year to allow colleges to create bachelor’s degrees, even if they resemble degrees already offered by Cal State campuses. The community colleges were on board with those versions while the Cal State system was opposed; the system instead wanted more streamlined pathways for students to start their studies at a community college and earn a bachelor’s at a Cal State campus. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Others in the system have feared that an expansion of community college bachelor’s degrees would siphon away students and crucial tuition revenue at a time when some Cal States \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/03/cal-state-enrollment/\">are battling enrollment declines\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/GettyImages-2230923952.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12088396\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/GettyImages-2230923952.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/GettyImages-2230923952-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/GettyImages-2230923952-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">California State University, Northridge, on Aug. 22, 2025. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The new combined bills allow community colleges to propose bachelor’s degrees even if a nearby Cal State offers a similar program, but only if that Cal State program admits fewer than 75% of applicants from that nearby community college for three consecutive years. The community college would still need to submit a workforce needs report and be governed by the degree caps also spelled out in the bills. That workforce need could be that employers are having difficulty filling positions that require a bachelor’s degree, the two bills say.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>And unlike the current policy, in which there’s no arbiter to settle an impasse between community colleges and the Cal States over duplication, a review by the state’s secretary of labor siding with the colleges would remove the Cal State system’s challenge to the degree. But districts face consequences for being wrong: If the labor secretary sides with Cal State, the district is barred from submitting an application for a similar program for five years.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>The community colleges are generally barred from duplicating a degree a UC campus offers. Only written consent from a UC would clear the way for duplication, the bills say.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-why-community-colleges-are-now-opposed\">Why community colleges are now opposed \u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The newly created caps on the number of degrees community college districts can offer are a problem for the community college system. Districts will be judged by their student completion rates and how those rates compare to the statewide average.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>The bills “would make a district’s eligibility depend partly on how its performance\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>compares with every other district in the state,” \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/SB-960-CCCCO-Letter-of-Opposition-August-26-2026.pdf\">a letter of opposition\u003c/a> to Cabaldon reads from Sonya Christian, chancellor of California Community Colleges. “A district could improve its own student outcomes” but still have the same caps apply to them, “or even see its eligibility change simply because the statewide average changed,” she wrote.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230822-CCSFCampus-01-BL-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A person walks toward a building labeled "Creative Arts" on a campus with trees, sidewalks and the street in view.\" class=\"wp-image-11968734\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230822-CCSFCampus-01-BL-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230822-CCSFCampus-01-BL-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230822-CCSFCampus-01-BL-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230822-CCSFCampus-01-BL-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230822-CCSFCampus-01-BL-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A student walks through the City College of San Francisco community college campus in San Francisco on Aug. 22, 2023. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Galizio of the Community College League also takes issue with the caps on degree creation. He said in an interview that campuses with low graduation rates typically serve more low-income students, the same students who need more bachelor’s degrees to get a leg up in the workforce.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But not all community college leaders think the bills are bad for their campuses, including Jose Fierro, president/superintendent of the Cerritos Community College District. Based on his college’s completion rates, he thinks he’ll be permitted to add a total of six to eight new bachelor’s degrees starting in 2028. That’s plenty for now, he said. The school has two now and plans to launch more in 2027.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>“We are not trying to become a university. It’s not our mission. We’re trying to align with industry and provide pathways for social and economic mobility for our students,” he said in an interview. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But just because the bills aren’t a problem for him doesn’t mean it’s not a problem for the system. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“For some of us this is workable,” he said. For other colleges, “this is going to bring some additional challenges.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Welcome to CalMatters, the only nonprofit newsroom devoted solely to covering issues that affect all Californians. Sign up for \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/whatmatters\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">WhatMatters\u003c/a> to receive the latest news and commentary on the most important issues in the Golden State.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Welcome to CalMatters, the only nonprofit newsroom devoted solely to covering issues that affect all Californians. Sign up for \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/whatmatters\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">WhatMatters\u003c/a> to receive the latest news and commentary on the most important issues in the Golden State.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a>’s community colleges have been trying for several years to offer more bachelor’s degrees. This year, they put their hopes in two sweeping bills designed to help them do that. But lawmakers made massive, last-minute changes that prompted the state’s community colleges to now oppose the legislation. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a>’s community colleges have been trying for several years to offer more bachelor’s degrees. This year, they put their hopes in two sweeping bills designed to help them do that. But lawmakers made massive, last-minute changes that prompted the state’s community colleges to now oppose the legislation. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The abrupt change of heart, spurred by new limits on how much the colleges could grow their bachelor’s programs, didn’t influence the outcomes of the bills: \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb960\">Senate Bill 960\u003c/a> by Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, a Democrat from Napa, and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab2694\">Assembly Bill 2694\u003c/a> by David Alvarez, also a Democrat from Chula Vista. Both passed this week by wide margins in the Legislature and now head to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The abrupt change of heart, spurred by new limits on how much the colleges could grow their bachelor’s programs, didn’t influence the outcomes of the bills: \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb960\">Senate Bill 960\u003c/a> by Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, a Democrat from Napa, and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab2694\">Assembly Bill 2694\u003c/a> by David Alvarez, also a Democrat from Chula Vista. Both passed this week by wide margins in the Legislature and now head to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In recent years, Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/01/community-colleges-california-2/#:~:text=While%20Newsom%20supports\">vetoed bills\u003c/a> that sought to expand the community colleges’ ability to issue more bachelor’s degrees. Still, Newsom’s office was involved in the revision of the latest bills, Cabaldon said in a Senate floor speech Monday.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>“This is the first time that we’ve been able to engage in productive conversation between the houses and the executive branch,” \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/hearings/280027#t=1158&f=4f607eb330ef5178f50fba4551edfb0e\">he said\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In recent years, Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/01/community-colleges-california-2/#:~:text=While%20Newsom%20supports\">vetoed bills\u003c/a> that sought to expand the community colleges’ ability to issue more bachelor’s degrees. Still, Newsom’s office was involved in the revision of the latest bills, Cabaldon said in a Senate floor speech Monday.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>“This is the first time that we’ve been able to engage in productive conversation between the houses and the executive branch,” \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/hearings/280027#t=1158&f=4f607eb330ef5178f50fba4551edfb0e\">he said\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/0207SSC200203437-2048x1365-1.jpg\" alt=\"An aerial view of a college campus with people walking around.\" class=\"wp-image-12023068\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/0207SSC200203437-2048x1365-1.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/0207SSC200203437-2048x1365-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/0207SSC200203437-2048x1365-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/0207SSC200203437-2048x1365-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/0207SSC200203437-2048x1365-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/0207SSC200203437-2048x1365-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Santiago Canyon College campus in Orange, California. In recent years, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed bills that sought to expand the community colleges’ ability to issue more bachelor’s degrees.\u003ccite class=\"wp-inline-image-credit\"> (Courtesy of Santiago Canyon College)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/0207SSC200203437-2048x1365-1.jpg\" alt=\"An aerial view of a college campus with people walking around.\" class=\"wp-image-12023068\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Santiago Canyon College campus in Orange, California. In recent years, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed bills that sought to expand the community colleges’ ability to issue more bachelor’s degrees.\u003ccite class=\"wp-inline-image-credit\"> (Courtesy of Santiago Canyon College)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Combined, the bills introduce new mechanisms for determining when colleges can create bachelor’s degrees and how many they can offer. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Combined, the bills introduce new mechanisms for determining when colleges can create bachelor’s degrees and how many they can offer. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The new approach has accountability metrics — colleges would be able to offer an additional two to 12 bachelor’s degrees starting in 2028 depending on their students’ certificate, degree and transfer-completion rates.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The new approach has accountability metrics — colleges would be able to offer an additional two to 12 bachelor’s degrees starting in 2028 depending on their students’ certificate, degree and transfer-completion rates.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>No college district could propose more than three new degrees per year, and districts would need to prove that there’s a workforce need in their region to justify the creation of a bachelor’s degree.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>No college district could propose more than three new degrees per year, and districts would need to prove that there’s a workforce need in their region to justify the creation of a bachelor’s degree.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>That’s a claim the state’s labor secretary would step in to validate if the California State University system objects, as has regularly occurred in the pitched policy disputes \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2023/08/bachelors-degrees/\">between the community colleges and the university\u003c/a>.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>The rules would apply to new degrees offered after 2028; existing community college bachelor’s degrees are grandfathered in. Today, 49 colleges \u003ca href=\"https://www.cccco.edu/About-Us/Chancellors-Office/Divisions/Educational-Services-and-Support/What-we-do/Curriculum-and-Instruction-Unit/Curriculum/Baccalaureate-Degree-Program\">either offer or will soon\u003c/a> offer 66 bachelor’s degrees.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>That’s a claim the state’s labor secretary would step in to validate if the California State University system objects, as has regularly occurred in the pitched policy disputes \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2023/08/bachelors-degrees/\">between the community colleges and the university\u003c/a>.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>The rules would apply to new degrees offered after 2028; existing community college bachelor’s degrees are grandfathered in. Today, 49 colleges \u003ca href=\"https://www.cccco.edu/About-Us/Chancellors-Office/Divisions/Educational-Services-and-Support/What-we-do/Curriculum-and-Instruction-Unit/Curriculum/Baccalaureate-Degree-Program\">either offer or will soon\u003c/a> offer 66 bachelor’s degrees.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Cabaldon called the bills a breakthrough that would bring long-sought clarity. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Cabaldon called the bills a breakthrough that would bring long-sought clarity. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“This will give us peace,” he said in a phone interview. “That doesn’t mean everybody’s going to agree all of the time, but it does mean the endless war and bickering and fighting and more and more legislation will come to an end.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“This will give us peace,” he said in a phone interview. “That doesn’t mean everybody’s going to agree all of the time, but it does mean the endless war and bickering and fighting and more and more legislation will come to an end.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Community college leaders said the amendments are too last-minute, too unclear and too complicated, even if they appreciate the effort by the Legislature to wrangle the thorny issues.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Community college leaders said the amendments are too last-minute, too unclear and too complicated, even if they appreciate the effort by the Legislature to wrangle the thorny issues.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“We’re being asked to … support a process that is not completely understood or vetted at the last minute, and so that’s just not great policymaking,” said Larry Galizio, president and CEO of the Community College League of California, an association representing community college presidents and board leaders. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“We’re being asked to … support a process that is not completely understood or vetted at the last minute, and so that’s just not great policymaking,” said Larry Galizio, president and CEO of the Community College League of California, an association representing community college presidents and board leaders. \u003c/p>\n"
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"text": "Why bachelor’s degrees have been so contentious",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-why-bachelor-s-degrees-have-been-so-contentious\">Why bachelor’s degrees have been so contentious\u003c/h2>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The community colleges’ sudden shift is another turn in an effort that has produced near-constant turmoil. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The community colleges’ sudden shift is another turn in an effort that has produced near-constant turmoil. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Historically, the community colleges and Cal State have clashed over which bachelor’s degrees the colleges can teach. A 2021 state law was supposed to establish peace in the realm, but the colleges and Cal State regularly disagreed on a key concept — degree duplication. That law said the colleges couldn’t create bachelor’s degrees that are already offered by any Cal State or University of California campus, even if a community college is hundreds of miles from the nearest public university. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Historically, the community colleges and Cal State have clashed over which bachelor’s degrees the colleges can teach. A 2021 state law was supposed to establish peace in the realm, but the colleges and Cal State regularly disagreed on a key concept — degree duplication. That law said the colleges couldn’t create bachelor’s degrees that are already offered by any Cal State or University of California campus, even if a community college is hundreds of miles from the nearest public university. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Colleges and several lawmakers called that an unfair arrangement, since many community college students can’t relocate to a distant university. In some instances, community colleges created those degrees anyway, \u003ca href=\"https://edsource.org/2026/california-community-colleges-approve-3-new-bachelors-degrees-over-california-state-university-objections/751678\">over the objections of the Cal State system\u003c/a>, EdSource reported.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Colleges and several lawmakers called that an unfair arrangement, since many community college students can’t relocate to a distant university. In some instances, community colleges created those degrees anyway, \u003ca href=\"https://edsource.org/2026/california-community-colleges-approve-3-new-bachelors-degrees-over-california-state-university-objections/751678\">over the objections of the Cal State system\u003c/a>, EdSource reported.\u003c/p>\n"
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"alt": "When researchers took a close look at transcripts for thousands of California community college students, they discovered an encouraging trend in enrollment for undocumented students.",
"srcset": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/GettyImages-494862297-e1545347957211.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/GettyImages-494862297-e1545347957211-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/GettyImages-494862297-e1545347957211-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/GettyImages-494862297-e1545347957211-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/GettyImages-494862297-e1545347957211-1200x800.jpg 1200w",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/GettyImages-494862297-e1545347957211.jpg\" alt=\"When researchers took a close look at transcripts for thousands of California community college students, they discovered an encouraging trend in enrollment for undocumented students.\" class=\"wp-image-11714155\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/GettyImages-494862297-e1545347957211.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/GettyImages-494862297-e1545347957211-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/GettyImages-494862297-e1545347957211-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/GettyImages-494862297-e1545347957211-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/GettyImages-494862297-e1545347957211-1200x800.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The community colleges are generally barred from duplicating a degree a UC campus offers. \u003ccite class=\"wp-inline-image-credit\"> (Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty Images for UCLA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/GettyImages-494862297-e1545347957211.jpg\" alt=\"When researchers took a close look at transcripts for thousands of California community college students, they discovered an encouraging trend in enrollment for undocumented students.\" class=\"wp-image-11714155\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The community colleges are generally barred from duplicating a degree a UC campus offers. \u003ccite class=\"wp-inline-image-credit\"> (Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty Images for UCLA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Backers and foes of more bachelor’s degrees at community colleges point to competing data.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Backers and foes of more bachelor’s degrees at community colleges point to competing data.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>A recent report found that \u003ca href=\"https://rpgroup.org/Portals/0/Documents/Projects/Exploring_Geographic_Isolation_Barrier_Equitable_Transfer_Outcomes/DistanceMatters_ExploringGeographicBarriers_November2024.pdf?ver=2024-12-20-201519-053\">29 of the state’s 116 community colleges\u003c/a> are located at least 25 miles from a public university. Their students are “place-bound” or can’t easily move from the area their community colleges serve. Roughly 157,000 students attend these colleges.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>A recent report found that \u003ca href=\"https://rpgroup.org/Portals/0/Documents/Projects/Exploring_Geographic_Isolation_Barrier_Equitable_Transfer_Outcomes/DistanceMatters_ExploringGeographicBarriers_November2024.pdf?ver=2024-12-20-201519-053\">29 of the state’s 116 community colleges\u003c/a> are located at least 25 miles from a public university. Their students are “place-bound” or can’t easily move from the area their community colleges serve. Roughly 157,000 students attend these colleges.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/01/community-colleges-california-2/#:~:text=Southwestern%20College%20student%20Marilynn%20Palomino%20is\">Some students say\u003c/a> they need their local community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees because local employers want those — certificates or associate degrees aren’t enough. But under existing law, those colleges cannot provide them because a Cal State 500 miles away offers that degree already.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>On the other hand, community colleges post low transfer rates — just 21% of students who wanted to transfer do so after four years, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.auditor.ca.gov/reports/2023-123/\">state auditor reported\u003c/a>. This may indicate a broken transfer system that could be remedied if more colleges could offer bachelor’s. Or it may demonstrate that colleges \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/01/community-colleges-california-2/#:~:text=Community%20colleges%20have,college%20system%20chancellor.\">aren’t ready\u003c/a> to widen their academic offerings because most also post low certificate and associate degree completion rates.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/01/community-colleges-california-2/#:~:text=Southwestern%20College%20student%20Marilynn%20Palomino%20is\">Some students say\u003c/a> they need their local community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees because local employers want those — certificates or associate degrees aren’t enough. But under existing law, those colleges cannot provide them because a Cal State 500 miles away offers that degree already.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>On the other hand, community colleges post low transfer rates — just 21% of students who wanted to transfer do so after four years, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.auditor.ca.gov/reports/2023-123/\">state auditor reported\u003c/a>. This may indicate a broken transfer system that could be remedied if more colleges could offer bachelor’s. Or it may demonstrate that colleges \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/01/community-colleges-california-2/#:~:text=Community%20colleges%20have,college%20system%20chancellor.\">aren’t ready\u003c/a> to widen their academic offerings because most also post low certificate and associate degree completion rates.\u003c/p>\n"
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"text": "How the bills address duplication",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-how-the-bills-address-duplication\">How the bills address duplication\u003c/h2>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In response, Alvarez and Cabaldon wrote comprehensive bills this year to allow colleges to create bachelor’s degrees, even if they resemble degrees already offered by Cal State campuses. The community colleges were on board with those versions while the Cal State system was opposed; the system instead wanted more streamlined pathways for students to start their studies at a community college and earn a bachelor’s at a Cal State campus. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In response, Alvarez and Cabaldon wrote comprehensive bills this year to allow colleges to create bachelor’s degrees, even if they resemble degrees already offered by Cal State campuses. The community colleges were on board with those versions while the Cal State system was opposed; the system instead wanted more streamlined pathways for students to start their studies at a community college and earn a bachelor’s at a Cal State campus. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Others in the system have feared that an expansion of community college bachelor’s degrees would siphon away students and crucial tuition revenue at a time when some Cal States \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/03/cal-state-enrollment/\">are battling enrollment declines\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Others in the system have feared that an expansion of community college bachelor’s degrees would siphon away students and crucial tuition revenue at a time when some Cal States \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/03/cal-state-enrollment/\">are battling enrollment declines\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The new combined bills allow community colleges to propose bachelor’s degrees even if a nearby Cal State offers a similar program, but only if that Cal State program admits fewer than 75% of applicants from that nearby community college for three consecutive years. The community college would still need to submit a workforce needs report and be governed by the degree caps also spelled out in the bills. That workforce need could be that employers are having difficulty filling positions that require a bachelor’s degree, the two bills say.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>And unlike the current policy, in which there’s no arbiter to settle an impasse between community colleges and the Cal States over duplication, a review by the state’s secretary of labor siding with the colleges would remove the Cal State system’s challenge to the degree. But districts face consequences for being wrong: If the labor secretary sides with Cal State, the district is barred from submitting an application for a similar program for five years.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>The community colleges are generally barred from duplicating a degree a UC campus offers. Only written consent from a UC would clear the way for duplication, the bills say.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The new combined bills allow community colleges to propose bachelor’s degrees even if a nearby Cal State offers a similar program, but only if that Cal State program admits fewer than 75% of applicants from that nearby community college for three consecutive years. The community college would still need to submit a workforce needs report and be governed by the degree caps also spelled out in the bills. That workforce need could be that employers are having difficulty filling positions that require a bachelor’s degree, the two bills say.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>And unlike the current policy, in which there’s no arbiter to settle an impasse between community colleges and the Cal States over duplication, a review by the state’s secretary of labor siding with the colleges would remove the Cal State system’s challenge to the degree. But districts face consequences for being wrong: If the labor secretary sides with Cal State, the district is barred from submitting an application for a similar program for five years.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>The community colleges are generally barred from duplicating a degree a UC campus offers. Only written consent from a UC would clear the way for duplication, the bills say.\u003c/p>\n"
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"text": "Why community colleges are now opposed ",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-why-community-colleges-are-now-opposed\">Why community colleges are now opposed \u003c/h2>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The newly created caps on the number of degrees community college districts can offer are a problem for the community college system. Districts will be judged by their student completion rates and how those rates compare to the statewide average.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>The bills “would make a district’s eligibility depend partly on how its performance\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The newly created caps on the number of degrees community college districts can offer are a problem for the community college system. Districts will be judged by their student completion rates and how those rates compare to the statewide average.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>The bills “would make a district’s eligibility depend partly on how its performance\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>compares with every other district in the state,” \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/SB-960-CCCCO-Letter-of-Opposition-August-26-2026.pdf\">a letter of opposition\u003c/a> to Cabaldon reads from Sonya Christian, chancellor of California Community Colleges. “A district could improve its own student outcomes” but still have the same caps apply to them, “or even see its eligibility change simply because the statewide average changed,” she wrote.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>compares with every other district in the state,” \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/SB-960-CCCCO-Letter-of-Opposition-August-26-2026.pdf\">a letter of opposition\u003c/a> to Cabaldon reads from Sonya Christian, chancellor of California Community Colleges. “A district could improve its own student outcomes” but still have the same caps apply to them, “or even see its eligibility change simply because the statewide average changed,” she wrote.\u003c/p>\n"
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"\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230822-CCSFCampus-01-BL-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A person walks toward a building labeled "Creative Arts" on a campus with trees, sidewalks and the street in view.\" class=\"wp-image-11968734\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A student walks through the City College of San Francisco community college campus in San Francisco on Aug. 22, 2023.\u003ccite class=\"wp-inline-image-credit\"> (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Galizio of the Community College League also takes issue with the caps on degree creation. He said in an interview that campuses with low graduation rates typically serve more low-income students, the same students who need more bachelor’s degrees to get a leg up in the workforce.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Galizio of the Community College League also takes issue with the caps on degree creation. He said in an interview that campuses with low graduation rates typically serve more low-income students, the same students who need more bachelor’s degrees to get a leg up in the workforce.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But not all community college leaders think the bills are bad for their campuses, including Jose Fierro, president/superintendent of the Cerritos Community College District. Based on his college’s completion rates, he thinks he’ll be permitted to add a total of six to eight new bachelor’s degrees starting in 2028. That’s plenty for now, he said. The school has two now and plans to launch more in 2027.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>“We are not trying to become a university. It’s not our mission. We’re trying to align with industry and provide pathways for social and economic mobility for our students,” he said in an interview. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But not all community college leaders think the bills are bad for their campuses, including Jose Fierro, president/superintendent of the Cerritos Community College District. Based on his college’s completion rates, he thinks he’ll be permitted to add a total of six to eight new bachelor’s degrees starting in 2028. That’s plenty for now, he said. The school has two now and plans to launch more in 2027.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>“We are not trying to become a university. It’s not our mission. We’re trying to align with industry and provide pathways for social and economic mobility for our students,” he said in an interview. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But just because the bills aren’t a problem for him doesn’t mean it’s not a problem for the system. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“For some of us this is workable,” he said. For other colleges, “this is going to bring some additional challenges.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“For some of us this is workable,” he said. For other colleges, “this is going to bring some additional challenges.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"excerpt": "Two bills sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom set new rules for determining when colleges can create bachelor’s degrees and how many they can offer.\n\n",
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"title": "Community Colleges Suddenly Oppose Plan to Let Them Offer More Bachelor’s Degrees | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Welcome to CalMatters, the only nonprofit newsroom devoted solely to covering issues that affect all Californians. Sign up for \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/whatmatters\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">WhatMatters\u003c/a> to receive the latest news and commentary on the most important issues in the Golden State.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a>’s community colleges have been trying for several years to offer more bachelor’s degrees. This year, they put their hopes in two sweeping bills designed to help them do that. But lawmakers made massive, last-minute changes that prompted the state’s community colleges to now oppose the legislation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The abrupt change of heart, spurred by new limits on how much the colleges could grow their bachelor’s programs, didn’t influence the outcomes of the bills: \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb960\">Senate Bill 960\u003c/a> by Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, a Democrat from Napa, and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab2694\">Assembly Bill 2694\u003c/a> by David Alvarez, also a Democrat from Chula Vista. Both passed this week by wide margins in the Legislature and now head to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In recent years, Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/01/community-colleges-california-2/#:~:text=While%20Newsom%20supports\">vetoed bills\u003c/a> that sought to expand the community colleges’ ability to issue more bachelor’s degrees. Still, Newsom’s office was involved in the revision of the latest bills, Cabaldon said in a Senate floor speech Monday.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>“This is the first time that we’ve been able to engage in productive conversation between the houses and the executive branch,” \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/hearings/280027#t=1158&f=4f607eb330ef5178f50fba4551edfb0e\">he said\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/0207SSC200203437-2048x1365-1.jpg\" alt=\"An aerial view of a college campus with people walking around.\" class=\"wp-image-12023068\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/0207SSC200203437-2048x1365-1.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/0207SSC200203437-2048x1365-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/0207SSC200203437-2048x1365-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/0207SSC200203437-2048x1365-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/0207SSC200203437-2048x1365-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/0207SSC200203437-2048x1365-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Santiago Canyon College campus in Orange, California. In recent years, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed bills that sought to expand the community colleges’ ability to issue more bachelor’s degrees. (Courtesy of Santiago Canyon College)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Combined, the bills introduce new mechanisms for determining when colleges can create bachelor’s degrees and how many they can offer. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The new approach has accountability metrics — colleges would be able to offer an additional two to 12 bachelor’s degrees starting in 2028 depending on their students’ certificate, degree and transfer-completion rates.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>No college district could propose more than three new degrees per year, and districts would need to prove that there’s a workforce need in their region to justify the creation of a bachelor’s degree.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s a claim the state’s labor secretary would step in to validate if the California State University system objects, as has regularly occurred in the pitched policy disputes \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2023/08/bachelors-degrees/\">between the community colleges and the university\u003c/a>.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>The rules would apply to new degrees offered after 2028; existing community college bachelor’s degrees are grandfathered in. Today, 49 colleges \u003ca href=\"https://www.cccco.edu/About-Us/Chancellors-Office/Divisions/Educational-Services-and-Support/What-we-do/Curriculum-and-Instruction-Unit/Curriculum/Baccalaureate-Degree-Program\">either offer or will soon\u003c/a> offer 66 bachelor’s degrees.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Cabaldon called the bills a breakthrough that would bring long-sought clarity. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“This will give us peace,” he said in a phone interview. “That doesn’t mean everybody’s going to agree all of the time, but it does mean the endless war and bickering and fighting and more and more legislation will come to an end.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Community college leaders said the amendments are too last-minute, too unclear and too complicated, even if they appreciate the effort by the Legislature to wrangle the thorny issues.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“We’re being asked to … support a process that is not completely understood or vetted at the last minute, and so that’s just not great policymaking,” said Larry Galizio, president and CEO of the Community College League of California, an association representing community college presidents and board leaders. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-why-bachelor-s-degrees-have-been-so-contentious\">Why bachelor’s degrees have been so contentious\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The community colleges’ sudden shift is another turn in an effort that has produced near-constant turmoil. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Historically, the community colleges and Cal State have clashed over which bachelor’s degrees the colleges can teach. A 2021 state law was supposed to establish peace in the realm, but the colleges and Cal State regularly disagreed on a key concept — degree duplication. That law said the colleges couldn’t create bachelor’s degrees that are already offered by any Cal State or University of California campus, even if a community college is hundreds of miles from the nearest public university. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Colleges and several lawmakers called that an unfair arrangement, since many community college students can’t relocate to a distant university. In some instances, community colleges created those degrees anyway, \u003ca href=\"https://edsource.org/2026/california-community-colleges-approve-3-new-bachelors-degrees-over-california-state-university-objections/751678\">over the objections of the Cal State system\u003c/a>, EdSource reported.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/GettyImages-494862297-e1545347957211.jpg\" alt=\"When researchers took a close look at transcripts for thousands of California community college students, they discovered an encouraging trend in enrollment for undocumented students.\" class=\"wp-image-11714155\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/GettyImages-494862297-e1545347957211.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/GettyImages-494862297-e1545347957211-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/GettyImages-494862297-e1545347957211-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/GettyImages-494862297-e1545347957211-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/GettyImages-494862297-e1545347957211-1200x800.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The community colleges are generally barred from duplicating a degree a UC campus offers. (Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty Images for UCLA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Backers and foes of more bachelor’s degrees at community colleges point to competing data.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A recent report found that \u003ca href=\"https://rpgroup.org/Portals/0/Documents/Projects/Exploring_Geographic_Isolation_Barrier_Equitable_Transfer_Outcomes/DistanceMatters_ExploringGeographicBarriers_November2024.pdf?ver=2024-12-20-201519-053\">29 of the state’s 116 community colleges\u003c/a> are located at least 25 miles from a public university. Their students are “place-bound” or can’t easily move from the area their community colleges serve. Roughly 157,000 students attend these colleges.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/01/community-colleges-california-2/#:~:text=Southwestern%20College%20student%20Marilynn%20Palomino%20is\">Some students say\u003c/a> they need their local community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees because local employers want those — certificates or associate degrees aren’t enough. But under existing law, those colleges cannot provide them because a Cal State 500 miles away offers that degree already.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>On the other hand, community colleges post low transfer rates — just 21% of students who wanted to transfer do so after four years, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.auditor.ca.gov/reports/2023-123/\">state auditor reported\u003c/a>. This may indicate a broken transfer system that could be remedied if more colleges could offer bachelor’s. Or it may demonstrate that colleges \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/01/community-colleges-california-2/#:~:text=Community%20colleges%20have,college%20system%20chancellor.\">aren’t ready\u003c/a> to widen their academic offerings because most also post low certificate and associate degree completion rates.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-how-the-bills-address-duplication\">How the bills address duplication\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In response, Alvarez and Cabaldon wrote comprehensive bills this year to allow colleges to create bachelor’s degrees, even if they resemble degrees already offered by Cal State campuses. The community colleges were on board with those versions while the Cal State system was opposed; the system instead wanted more streamlined pathways for students to start their studies at a community college and earn a bachelor’s at a Cal State campus. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Others in the system have feared that an expansion of community college bachelor’s degrees would siphon away students and crucial tuition revenue at a time when some Cal States \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/03/cal-state-enrollment/\">are battling enrollment declines\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/GettyImages-2230923952.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12088396\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/GettyImages-2230923952.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/GettyImages-2230923952-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/GettyImages-2230923952-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">California State University, Northridge, on Aug. 22, 2025. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The new combined bills allow community colleges to propose bachelor’s degrees even if a nearby Cal State offers a similar program, but only if that Cal State program admits fewer than 75% of applicants from that nearby community college for three consecutive years. The community college would still need to submit a workforce needs report and be governed by the degree caps also spelled out in the bills. That workforce need could be that employers are having difficulty filling positions that require a bachelor’s degree, the two bills say.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>And unlike the current policy, in which there’s no arbiter to settle an impasse between community colleges and the Cal States over duplication, a review by the state’s secretary of labor siding with the colleges would remove the Cal State system’s challenge to the degree. But districts face consequences for being wrong: If the labor secretary sides with Cal State, the district is barred from submitting an application for a similar program for five years.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>The community colleges are generally barred from duplicating a degree a UC campus offers. Only written consent from a UC would clear the way for duplication, the bills say.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-why-community-colleges-are-now-opposed\">Why community colleges are now opposed \u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The newly created caps on the number of degrees community college districts can offer are a problem for the community college system. Districts will be judged by their student completion rates and how those rates compare to the statewide average.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>The bills “would make a district’s eligibility depend partly on how its performance\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>compares with every other district in the state,” \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/SB-960-CCCCO-Letter-of-Opposition-August-26-2026.pdf\">a letter of opposition\u003c/a> to Cabaldon reads from Sonya Christian, chancellor of California Community Colleges. “A district could improve its own student outcomes” but still have the same caps apply to them, “or even see its eligibility change simply because the statewide average changed,” she wrote.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230822-CCSFCampus-01-BL-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A person walks toward a building labeled "Creative Arts" on a campus with trees, sidewalks and the street in view.\" class=\"wp-image-11968734\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230822-CCSFCampus-01-BL-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230822-CCSFCampus-01-BL-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230822-CCSFCampus-01-BL-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230822-CCSFCampus-01-BL-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230822-CCSFCampus-01-BL-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A student walks through the City College of San Francisco community college campus in San Francisco on Aug. 22, 2023. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Galizio of the Community College League also takes issue with the caps on degree creation. He said in an interview that campuses with low graduation rates typically serve more low-income students, the same students who need more bachelor’s degrees to get a leg up in the workforce.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But not all community college leaders think the bills are bad for their campuses, including Jose Fierro, president/superintendent of the Cerritos Community College District. Based on his college’s completion rates, he thinks he’ll be permitted to add a total of six to eight new bachelor’s degrees starting in 2028. That’s plenty for now, he said. The school has two now and plans to launch more in 2027.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>“We are not trying to become a university. It’s not our mission. We’re trying to align with industry and provide pathways for social and economic mobility for our students,” he said in an interview. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But just because the bills aren’t a problem for him doesn’t mean it’s not a problem for the system. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“For some of us this is workable,” he said. For other colleges, “this is going to bring some additional challenges.”\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "benicia-eyes-40-million-grant-from-valero-refinery-settlement-for-green-transition",
"title": "Benicia Eyes $40 Million From Valero Refinery Settlement for Green Transition",
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"headTitle": "Benicia Eyes $40 Million From Valero Refinery Settlement for Green Transition | KQED",
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"content": "\n\u003cp>Smokestacks sit idly in Benicia as the city awaits nearly $40 million in grant funding, following a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12011785/bay-area-air-district-hits-valeros-benicia-refinery-with-historic-82-million-fine\">2024 settlement\u003c/a> between the Bay Area Air District, the California Air Resources Board and Valero. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>After nearly 26 years in Benicia, a Solano County town of roughly 26,000, Valero \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12036242/oil-giant-valero-announces-plans-to-shutter-troubled-benicia-refinery\">shuttered\u003c/a> operations there in April. The decision to close shop came after Texas-based Valero was slapped with $82 million in fines, on the grounds that it exceeded toxic emissions standards for over a decade before regulators intervened.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As city officials have noted, meanwhile, the closure left a hole in Benicia’s budget and removed hundreds of high-paying jobs. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The penalty against Valero is the largest that the Bay Area Air District ever levied, said Emi Wang, a community investments officer with the air district, and it is the first time it is sending settlement money directly to communities that have been polluted.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250509-BeniciaRefinery-32-BL_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12055464\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250509-BeniciaRefinery-32-BL_qed-1.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250509-BeniciaRefinery-32-BL_qed-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250509-BeniciaRefinery-32-BL_qed-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Valero Benicia Refinery in Benicia, California, on May 8, 2025. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The $40 million would go toward updating school buildings and investing in clean energy infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>City Councilmember Kari Birdseye said that the next five years — the time period they have allotted for implementing the grants — will be pivotal for Benicia, which Birdseye said “can be a model for future towns that have lost their refineries.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As of May there are still \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/resources/documents/california-refineries\">eight refineries\u003c/a> operating in California, according to CARB. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Wang said 80% of the Valero settlement would go directly to the local communities most affected by the air quality violations, with 20% to a regional fund through the new Local Community Benefits Fund. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Obviously we didn’t appreciate the 15 years of secret, toxic emissions,” Birdseye said. “But these funds will help us recover from that and transition away from depending on Valero and their tax money.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In May, KQED reported that about \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12084374/can-benicia-be-the-poster-child-of-a-just-transition-away-from-fossil-fuels\">10%\u003c/a> of Benicia’s tax money came from Valero. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Benicia Mayor Steve Young said that, while the grants cannot support general fund services like police and parks, they could help the overall budget by giving room to purchase new electric vehicles and repair solar infrastructure. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>If the board approves the projects, $30 million could go to the city of Benicia to invest in clean-energy upgrades for government facilities, in electric-vehicle infrastructure, in bike and pedestrian safety, in community health, and in a just-transition roadmap. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The other $10 million would go to the school district. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Benicia Unified School District Superintendent Chris Calabrese said the funds would be used to update school facilities by installing heat pumps equipped with air filters, replacing windows for better insulation and planting trees. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“We have several schools that have the highway going right by them,” Calabrese said, explaining that the city will plant trees between the highways and the schools to absorb carbon and act as buffers. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251027-CHILD-CARE-PRICES-MD-05-1-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12061772\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251027-CHILD-CARE-PRICES-MD-05-1-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251027-CHILD-CARE-PRICES-MD-05-1-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251027-CHILD-CARE-PRICES-MD-05-1-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A mother and her daughter play at City Park in Benicia on Oct. 27, 2025. (Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Calabrese noted that 10% of preschoolers in the district have been diagnosed with asthma — that’s more than three times the national average of \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/asthma-data/about/most-recent-asthma-data.html\">3%\u003c/a> of children under 4. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Although Valero exited Benicia in April, it still owns the refinery land, Young noted. Birdseye said the company selected the Signature Development Group to redevelop the site over the next few years. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“As far as I understand it, the city has to engage in pretty complex partnerships and negotiations with entities like Signature,” Wang said. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Wang explained that part of the proposal will provide capacity for the city to partake in these interagency negotiations, and “to come to the table fully staffed” — especially considering the amount of tax revenue the city lost with the Valero closure. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Birdseye said she sees good things in the city’s future. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“There’s 900 acres of prime real estate that can be part of our clean-energy future, can be a part of how we grow the community of Benicia, can be part of our future diversified tax base,” Birdseye said. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Bay Area Air District will hold a final vote on authorizing the grants at its board meeting today.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>After nearly 26 years in Benicia, a Solano County town of roughly 26,000, Valero \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12036242/oil-giant-valero-announces-plans-to-shutter-troubled-benicia-refinery\">shuttered\u003c/a> operations there in April. The decision to close shop came after Texas-based Valero was slapped with $82 million in fines, on the grounds that it exceeded toxic emissions standards for over a decade before regulators intervened.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>As city officials have noted, meanwhile, the closure left a hole in Benicia’s budget and removed hundreds of high-paying jobs. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The penalty against Valero is the largest that the Bay Area Air District ever levied, said Emi Wang, a community investments officer with the air district, and it is the first time it is sending settlement money directly to communities that have been polluted.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The penalty against Valero is the largest that the Bay Area Air District ever levied, said Emi Wang, a community investments officer with the air district, and it is the first time it is sending settlement money directly to communities that have been polluted.\u003c/p>\n"
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"srcset": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250509-BeniciaRefinery-32-BL_qed-1.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250509-BeniciaRefinery-32-BL_qed-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250509-BeniciaRefinery-32-BL_qed-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w",
"sizes": "(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250509-BeniciaRefinery-32-BL_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12055464\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250509-BeniciaRefinery-32-BL_qed-1.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250509-BeniciaRefinery-32-BL_qed-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250509-BeniciaRefinery-32-BL_qed-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Valero Benicia Refinery in Benicia, California, on May 8, 2025.\u003ccite class=\"wp-inline-image-credit\"> (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250509-BeniciaRefinery-32-BL_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12055464\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Valero Benicia Refinery in Benicia, California, on May 8, 2025.\u003ccite class=\"wp-inline-image-credit\"> (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The $40 million would go toward updating school buildings and investing in clean energy infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>City Councilmember Kari Birdseye said that the next five years — the time period they have allotted for implementing the grants — will be pivotal for Benicia, which Birdseye said “can be a model for future towns that have lost their refineries.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>City Councilmember Kari Birdseye said that the next five years — the time period they have allotted for implementing the grants — will be pivotal for Benicia, which Birdseye said “can be a model for future towns that have lost their refineries.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>As of May there are still \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/resources/documents/california-refineries\">eight refineries\u003c/a> operating in California, according to CARB. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>As of May there are still \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/resources/documents/california-refineries\">eight refineries\u003c/a> operating in California, according to CARB. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Wang said 80% of the Valero settlement would go directly to the local communities most affected by the air quality violations, with 20% to a regional fund through the new Local Community Benefits Fund. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Obviously we didn’t appreciate the 15 years of secret, toxic emissions,” Birdseye said. “But these funds will help us recover from that and transition away from depending on Valero and their tax money.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“Obviously we didn’t appreciate the 15 years of secret, toxic emissions,” Birdseye said. “But these funds will help us recover from that and transition away from depending on Valero and their tax money.” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In May, KQED reported that about \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12084374/can-benicia-be-the-poster-child-of-a-just-transition-away-from-fossil-fuels\">10%\u003c/a> of Benicia’s tax money came from Valero. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In May, KQED reported that about \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12084374/can-benicia-be-the-poster-child-of-a-just-transition-away-from-fossil-fuels\">10%\u003c/a> of Benicia’s tax money came from Valero. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Benicia Mayor Steve Young said that, while the grants cannot support general fund services like police and parks, they could help the overall budget by giving room to purchase new electric vehicles and repair solar infrastructure. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Benicia Mayor Steve Young said that, while the grants cannot support general fund services like police and parks, they could help the overall budget by giving room to purchase new electric vehicles and repair solar infrastructure. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>If the board approves the projects, $30 million could go to the city of Benicia to invest in clean-energy upgrades for government facilities, in electric-vehicle infrastructure, in bike and pedestrian safety, in community health, and in a just-transition roadmap. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>If the board approves the projects, $30 million could go to the city of Benicia to invest in clean-energy upgrades for government facilities, in electric-vehicle infrastructure, in bike and pedestrian safety, in community health, and in a just-transition roadmap. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The other $10 million would go to the school district. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The other $10 million would go to the school district. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Benicia Unified School District Superintendent Chris Calabrese said the funds would be used to update school facilities by installing heat pumps equipped with air filters, replacing windows for better insulation and planting trees. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Benicia Unified School District Superintendent Chris Calabrese said the funds would be used to update school facilities by installing heat pumps equipped with air filters, replacing windows for better insulation and planting trees. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“We have several schools that have the highway going right by them,” Calabrese said, explaining that the city will plant trees between the highways and the schools to absorb carbon and act as buffers. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“We have several schools that have the highway going right by them,” Calabrese said, explaining that the city will plant trees between the highways and the schools to absorb carbon and act as buffers. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251027-CHILD-CARE-PRICES-MD-05-1-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12061772\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251027-CHILD-CARE-PRICES-MD-05-1-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251027-CHILD-CARE-PRICES-MD-05-1-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251027-CHILD-CARE-PRICES-MD-05-1-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A mother and her daughter play at City Park in Benicia on Oct. 27, 2025.\u003ccite class=\"wp-inline-image-credit\"> (Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Calabrese noted that 10% of preschoolers in the district have been diagnosed with asthma — that’s more than three times the national average of \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/asthma-data/about/most-recent-asthma-data.html\">3%\u003c/a> of children under 4. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Calabrese noted that 10% of preschoolers in the district have been diagnosed with asthma — that’s more than three times the national average of \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/asthma-data/about/most-recent-asthma-data.html\">3%\u003c/a> of children under 4. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Although Valero exited Benicia in April, it still owns the refinery land, Young noted. Birdseye said the company selected the Signature Development Group to redevelop the site over the next few years. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Although Valero exited Benicia in April, it still owns the refinery land, Young noted. Birdseye said the company selected the Signature Development Group to redevelop the site over the next few years. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“As far as I understand it, the city has to engage in pretty complex partnerships and negotiations with entities like Signature,” Wang said. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Wang explained that part of the proposal will provide capacity for the city to partake in these interagency negotiations, and “to come to the table fully staffed” — especially considering the amount of tax revenue the city lost with the Valero closure. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Wang explained that part of the proposal will provide capacity for the city to partake in these interagency negotiations, and “to come to the table fully staffed” — especially considering the amount of tax revenue the city lost with the Valero closure. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Birdseye said she sees good things in the city’s future. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“There’s 900 acres of prime real estate that can be part of our clean-energy future, can be a part of how we grow the community of Benicia, can be part of our future diversified tax base,” Birdseye said. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“There’s 900 acres of prime real estate that can be part of our clean-energy future, can be a part of how we grow the community of Benicia, can be part of our future diversified tax base,” Birdseye said. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The Bay Area Air District will hold a final vote on authorizing the grants at its board meeting today.\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The city and the school district could both receive millions after decades of pollution.",
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"title": "Benicia Eyes $40 Million From Valero Refinery Settlement for Green Transition | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>Smokestacks sit idly in Benicia as the city awaits nearly $40 million in grant funding, following a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12011785/bay-area-air-district-hits-valeros-benicia-refinery-with-historic-82-million-fine\">2024 settlement\u003c/a> between the Bay Area Air District, the California Air Resources Board and Valero. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>After nearly 26 years in Benicia, a Solano County town of roughly 26,000, Valero \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12036242/oil-giant-valero-announces-plans-to-shutter-troubled-benicia-refinery\">shuttered\u003c/a> operations there in April. The decision to close shop came after Texas-based Valero was slapped with $82 million in fines, on the grounds that it exceeded toxic emissions standards for over a decade before regulators intervened.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As city officials have noted, meanwhile, the closure left a hole in Benicia’s budget and removed hundreds of high-paying jobs. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The penalty against Valero is the largest that the Bay Area Air District ever levied, said Emi Wang, a community investments officer with the air district, and it is the first time it is sending settlement money directly to communities that have been polluted.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250509-BeniciaRefinery-32-BL_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12055464\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250509-BeniciaRefinery-32-BL_qed-1.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250509-BeniciaRefinery-32-BL_qed-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250509-BeniciaRefinery-32-BL_qed-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Valero Benicia Refinery in Benicia, California, on May 8, 2025. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The $40 million would go toward updating school buildings and investing in clean energy infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>City Councilmember Kari Birdseye said that the next five years — the time period they have allotted for implementing the grants — will be pivotal for Benicia, which Birdseye said “can be a model for future towns that have lost their refineries.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As of May there are still \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/resources/documents/california-refineries\">eight refineries\u003c/a> operating in California, according to CARB. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Wang said 80% of the Valero settlement would go directly to the local communities most affected by the air quality violations, with 20% to a regional fund through the new Local Community Benefits Fund. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Obviously we didn’t appreciate the 15 years of secret, toxic emissions,” Birdseye said. “But these funds will help us recover from that and transition away from depending on Valero and their tax money.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In May, KQED reported that about \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12084374/can-benicia-be-the-poster-child-of-a-just-transition-away-from-fossil-fuels\">10%\u003c/a> of Benicia’s tax money came from Valero. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Benicia Mayor Steve Young said that, while the grants cannot support general fund services like police and parks, they could help the overall budget by giving room to purchase new electric vehicles and repair solar infrastructure. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>If the board approves the projects, $30 million could go to the city of Benicia to invest in clean-energy upgrades for government facilities, in electric-vehicle infrastructure, in bike and pedestrian safety, in community health, and in a just-transition roadmap. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The other $10 million would go to the school district. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Benicia Unified School District Superintendent Chris Calabrese said the funds would be used to update school facilities by installing heat pumps equipped with air filters, replacing windows for better insulation and planting trees. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“We have several schools that have the highway going right by them,” Calabrese said, explaining that the city will plant trees between the highways and the schools to absorb carbon and act as buffers. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251027-CHILD-CARE-PRICES-MD-05-1-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12061772\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251027-CHILD-CARE-PRICES-MD-05-1-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251027-CHILD-CARE-PRICES-MD-05-1-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251027-CHILD-CARE-PRICES-MD-05-1-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A mother and her daughter play at City Park in Benicia on Oct. 27, 2025. (Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Calabrese noted that 10% of preschoolers in the district have been diagnosed with asthma — that’s more than three times the national average of \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/asthma-data/about/most-recent-asthma-data.html\">3%\u003c/a> of children under 4. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Although Valero exited Benicia in April, it still owns the refinery land, Young noted. Birdseye said the company selected the Signature Development Group to redevelop the site over the next few years. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“As far as I understand it, the city has to engage in pretty complex partnerships and negotiations with entities like Signature,” Wang said. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Wang explained that part of the proposal will provide capacity for the city to partake in these interagency negotiations, and “to come to the table fully staffed” — especially considering the amount of tax revenue the city lost with the Valero closure. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Birdseye said she sees good things in the city’s future. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“There’s 900 acres of prime real estate that can be part of our clean-energy future, can be a part of how we grow the community of Benicia, can be part of our future diversified tax base,” Birdseye said. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Bay Area Air District will hold a final vote on authorizing the grants at its board meeting today.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "should-california-backfill-science-funding-after-trump-cuts-voters-could-decide-in-2028",
"title": "Should California Backfill Science Funding After Trump Cuts? Voters Could Decide in 2028",
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"headTitle": "Should California Backfill Science Funding After Trump Cuts? Voters Could Decide in 2028 | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003c!-- Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ -->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/\">CalMatters\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/\">Sign up\u003c/a> for their newsletters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a> science bond measure to counter the Trump administration’s research cuts is back from the dead after state lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom reached a deal last week to place the $7.5 billion request to voters on the March 2028 ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb895\">Senate Bill 895\u003c/a> by Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat from San Francisco, passed the Legislature with minimal opposition and bipartisan support on Monday and now awaits Newsom’s signature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It has been in the works for more than a year and began as a $23 billion bond proposal but got a steep haircut mid-year, down to $12 billion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After failing to clear a June legislative deadline to get on this year’s ballot, the bond proposal appeared moribund — and was slashed to $5 billion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Wiener and a united front led by the University of California and the union representing graduate students, two forces that are \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2022/12/uc-strike-civil-disobedience/\">often\u003c/a> at \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2024/05/uc-strike/\">loggerheads\u003c/a>, continued working to restore the bill. Both significantly benefit, as the money fuels scientific discovery while also supplementing the pay of graduate students conducting essential research for professors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The summer hustle paid off: For the first time, leaders of the Assembly, Senate and Newsom are all backing the measure, which was heavily amended in the past two weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069108\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069108\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GavinNewsomStateoftheState2026AP.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1337\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GavinNewsomStateoftheState2026AP.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GavinNewsomStateoftheState2026AP-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GavinNewsomStateoftheState2026AP-1536x1027.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during his State of the State address on Jan. 8, 2026, in Sacramento, California. \u003ccite>(Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We have performed a ritual legislative resurrection of the bill,” Wiener quipped at a press conference Friday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The measure would allocate $1 billion to the UC and California State University to build more science facilities and create a system of scientific panels to review research proposals based on their scientific merits. The bulk of the funding would pay for a wide array of priorities such as biomedical research, wildfire prevention and water supply. Portions of the bond would also support science breakthroughs that can be commercialized and provide opportunities for early-career researchers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bonds are a kind of debt that government agencies issue and then pay down over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public or private research companies, universities, academic medical centers, institutes, and organizations would be eligible for the grants or loans under this bond measure. A newly formed California Foundation for Science and Health Research Council would write more specific rules on how the money can be used.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Why backers say the bond is needed\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Wiener and the coalition in support of the measure view it as a backstop against the Trump administration’s aggressive efforts to terminate existing and new research funding for the UC and other campuses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump’s Department of Justice has argued in courts that grants the administration canceled violated his prohibitions on research into diversity issues and climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the grants sought to better understand diseases, and focused on new disease-fighting drugs, cancer and dementia. About half of the UC system’s spending on research comes from the federal government — in 2024-25 that totaled \u003ca href=\"https://www.ucop.edu/operating-budget/_files/rbudget/2026-27-budget-detail.pdf#page=21\">around $3 billion in federal grants\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12097112\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12097112\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/UCLACM.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1331\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/UCLACM.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/UCLACM-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/UCLACM-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The UCLA campus in Los Angeles on Feb. 18, 2022. \u003ccite>(Raquel Natalicchio for CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Last year the White House suspended or cancelled more than 1,000 California science grants from the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration admitted in court filings that it used \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/07/research-grants-california-2/\">bulk keyword searches\u003c/a> for terms related to DEI and climate change to target grants to cancel. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/07/newsom-uc-cal-state-billion-dollars-more/#:~:text=At%20one%20point%20last%20year%20the%20Trump%20administration%20froze%20or%20terminated%20more%20than%201%2C000%20California%20science%20grants%20from%20the%20National%20Institutes%20of%20Health%20and%20National%20Science%20Foundation.\">Most of those\u003c/a> have been \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/2025/09/ucla-research-grants/\">restored\u003c/a> for now through various court orders \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2025/11/uc/\">after professors\u003c/a> sued last year. But at least one major case is unresolved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration seeks to further expand control over federal research by proposing to require political appointees to decide \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/well/omb-scientific-grant-proposal.html?eafs_enabled=false\">which science grants are funded\u003c/a>, departing from a practice in which peer-review scientific committees select the worthiest grants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump’s desire to bring federal science increasingly under his control spurred esteemed U.S. scientists to \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/world/canada/canada-universities-hire-us-researchers.html\">move to other countries\u003c/a> that recently passed budgets to entice researchers to relocate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Harold R. Collard, vice chancellor for research at research powerhouse UC San Francisco, said at Friday’s press event that the Wiener bond measure could keep more researchers in California and attract new ones. Experts say every dollar of NIH spending amounts to \u003ca href=\"https://www.unitedformedicalresearch.org/annual-economic-report/\">$2.57 of economic activity\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How the measure came back from dead\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The measure initially sped through the Senate but stalled in the Assembly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Political insiders \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/07/newsom-uc-cal-state-billion-dollars-more/#:~:text=Several%20legislative%20and%20political%20insiders%20told%20CalMatters%20that%20another%20reason%20the%20science%20research%20bond\">suspected\u003c/a> that the holdup was over worry it would compete with the Assembly’s priority bond, an \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2026/08/california-rhna-housing-affordable-progress/#:~:text=Affordable%20developers%20and%20other%20housing%20advocates%20are%20hoping%20voters%20will%20back%20an%20%2411.25%20billion%20state%20bond%20in%20November%20to%20replenish%20the%20coffers.%C2%A0\">$11.25 billion ballot measure\u003c/a> for this November to expand housing construction and affordability in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters of that measure feared it might be defeated if another large bond was on the ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think there’s some legitimate political concerns about placing something competing with the housing bond,” said Chris Micheli, a veteran lobbyist and law professor, in an interview in June when Wiener’s bill was derailed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12085954\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12085954\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260602-DISTRICT11SCOTTWIENER-15-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260602-DISTRICT11SCOTTWIENER-15-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260602-DISTRICT11SCOTTWIENER-15-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260602-DISTRICT11SCOTTWIENER-15-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sen. Scott Wiener speaks during an election night event at his campaign headquarters in San Francisco on June 2, 2026. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Wiener validated that suspicion on Friday. “We already placed a housing bond on the ballot. There are a lot of items on the state ballot, and you know I understand why some people were concerned about placing yet additional items on the ballot for November, and that’s why we were able to, after the deadline passed, work collaboratively towards March of 2028.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The housing bond experienced a similar journey: It got skipped over by political leaders in 2024 to make room \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-voter-guide-2024/propositions/\">for two\u003c/a> $10 billion bonds for school construction and to combat the effects of climate change.[aside postID=news_12097632 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/GettyImages-183300309.jpg']This November voters will see another science research bond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That measure, Proposition 38, is backed by a billionaire funder and would approve $8.4 billion for research into immunology and immunotherapies, with an emphasis on Alzheimer’s, cancer and heart disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Half of that funding appears to benefit \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/elections/2026/07/proposition-38-california/\">just one institute\u003c/a> that is significantly supported by that billionaire funder, CalMatters reported.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiener doesn’t think that Prop. 38 will compete with his bond effort some two years later. “That ballot measure primarily funds one particular institute. It’s not a broad science policy funding measure, and so it’s just very different,” he said on Friday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The onus will be on the coalition backing the bond to convince voters to pass it in 2028, he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/09/science-research-california-2/\">originally published on CalMatters\u003c/a> and was republished under the \u003ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives\u003c/a> license.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Last year the White House suspended or cancelled more than 1,000 California science grants. This bond measure would restore some of that funding.",
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"title": "Should California Backfill Science Funding After Trump Cuts? Voters Could Decide in 2028 | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c!-- Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ -->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/\">CalMatters\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/\">Sign up\u003c/a> for their newsletters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a> science bond measure to counter the Trump administration’s research cuts is back from the dead after state lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom reached a deal last week to place the $7.5 billion request to voters on the March 2028 ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb895\">Senate Bill 895\u003c/a> by Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat from San Francisco, passed the Legislature with minimal opposition and bipartisan support on Monday and now awaits Newsom’s signature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It has been in the works for more than a year and began as a $23 billion bond proposal but got a steep haircut mid-year, down to $12 billion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After failing to clear a June legislative deadline to get on this year’s ballot, the bond proposal appeared moribund — and was slashed to $5 billion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Wiener and a united front led by the University of California and the union representing graduate students, two forces that are \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2022/12/uc-strike-civil-disobedience/\">often\u003c/a> at \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2024/05/uc-strike/\">loggerheads\u003c/a>, continued working to restore the bill. Both significantly benefit, as the money fuels scientific discovery while also supplementing the pay of graduate students conducting essential research for professors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The summer hustle paid off: For the first time, leaders of the Assembly, Senate and Newsom are all backing the measure, which was heavily amended in the past two weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069108\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069108\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GavinNewsomStateoftheState2026AP.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1337\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GavinNewsomStateoftheState2026AP.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GavinNewsomStateoftheState2026AP-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GavinNewsomStateoftheState2026AP-1536x1027.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during his State of the State address on Jan. 8, 2026, in Sacramento, California. \u003ccite>(Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We have performed a ritual legislative resurrection of the bill,” Wiener quipped at a press conference Friday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The measure would allocate $1 billion to the UC and California State University to build more science facilities and create a system of scientific panels to review research proposals based on their scientific merits. The bulk of the funding would pay for a wide array of priorities such as biomedical research, wildfire prevention and water supply. Portions of the bond would also support science breakthroughs that can be commercialized and provide opportunities for early-career researchers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bonds are a kind of debt that government agencies issue and then pay down over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public or private research companies, universities, academic medical centers, institutes, and organizations would be eligible for the grants or loans under this bond measure. A newly formed California Foundation for Science and Health Research Council would write more specific rules on how the money can be used.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Why backers say the bond is needed\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Wiener and the coalition in support of the measure view it as a backstop against the Trump administration’s aggressive efforts to terminate existing and new research funding for the UC and other campuses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump’s Department of Justice has argued in courts that grants the administration canceled violated his prohibitions on research into diversity issues and climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the grants sought to better understand diseases, and focused on new disease-fighting drugs, cancer and dementia. About half of the UC system’s spending on research comes from the federal government — in 2024-25 that totaled \u003ca href=\"https://www.ucop.edu/operating-budget/_files/rbudget/2026-27-budget-detail.pdf#page=21\">around $3 billion in federal grants\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12097112\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12097112\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/UCLACM.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1331\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/UCLACM.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/UCLACM-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/UCLACM-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The UCLA campus in Los Angeles on Feb. 18, 2022. \u003ccite>(Raquel Natalicchio for CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Last year the White House suspended or cancelled more than 1,000 California science grants from the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration admitted in court filings that it used \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/07/research-grants-california-2/\">bulk keyword searches\u003c/a> for terms related to DEI and climate change to target grants to cancel. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/07/newsom-uc-cal-state-billion-dollars-more/#:~:text=At%20one%20point%20last%20year%20the%20Trump%20administration%20froze%20or%20terminated%20more%20than%201%2C000%20California%20science%20grants%20from%20the%20National%20Institutes%20of%20Health%20and%20National%20Science%20Foundation.\">Most of those\u003c/a> have been \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/2025/09/ucla-research-grants/\">restored\u003c/a> for now through various court orders \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2025/11/uc/\">after professors\u003c/a> sued last year. But at least one major case is unresolved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration seeks to further expand control over federal research by proposing to require political appointees to decide \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/well/omb-scientific-grant-proposal.html?eafs_enabled=false\">which science grants are funded\u003c/a>, departing from a practice in which peer-review scientific committees select the worthiest grants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump’s desire to bring federal science increasingly under his control spurred esteemed U.S. scientists to \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/world/canada/canada-universities-hire-us-researchers.html\">move to other countries\u003c/a> that recently passed budgets to entice researchers to relocate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Harold R. Collard, vice chancellor for research at research powerhouse UC San Francisco, said at Friday’s press event that the Wiener bond measure could keep more researchers in California and attract new ones. Experts say every dollar of NIH spending amounts to \u003ca href=\"https://www.unitedformedicalresearch.org/annual-economic-report/\">$2.57 of economic activity\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How the measure came back from dead\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The measure initially sped through the Senate but stalled in the Assembly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Political insiders \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/07/newsom-uc-cal-state-billion-dollars-more/#:~:text=Several%20legislative%20and%20political%20insiders%20told%20CalMatters%20that%20another%20reason%20the%20science%20research%20bond\">suspected\u003c/a> that the holdup was over worry it would compete with the Assembly’s priority bond, an \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2026/08/california-rhna-housing-affordable-progress/#:~:text=Affordable%20developers%20and%20other%20housing%20advocates%20are%20hoping%20voters%20will%20back%20an%20%2411.25%20billion%20state%20bond%20in%20November%20to%20replenish%20the%20coffers.%C2%A0\">$11.25 billion ballot measure\u003c/a> for this November to expand housing construction and affordability in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters of that measure feared it might be defeated if another large bond was on the ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think there’s some legitimate political concerns about placing something competing with the housing bond,” said Chris Micheli, a veteran lobbyist and law professor, in an interview in June when Wiener’s bill was derailed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12085954\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12085954\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260602-DISTRICT11SCOTTWIENER-15-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260602-DISTRICT11SCOTTWIENER-15-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260602-DISTRICT11SCOTTWIENER-15-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260602-DISTRICT11SCOTTWIENER-15-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sen. Scott Wiener speaks during an election night event at his campaign headquarters in San Francisco on June 2, 2026. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Wiener validated that suspicion on Friday. “We already placed a housing bond on the ballot. There are a lot of items on the state ballot, and you know I understand why some people were concerned about placing yet additional items on the ballot for November, and that’s why we were able to, after the deadline passed, work collaboratively towards March of 2028.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The housing bond experienced a similar journey: It got skipped over by political leaders in 2024 to make room \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-voter-guide-2024/propositions/\">for two\u003c/a> $10 billion bonds for school construction and to combat the effects of climate change.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>This November voters will see another science research bond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That measure, Proposition 38, is backed by a billionaire funder and would approve $8.4 billion for research into immunology and immunotherapies, with an emphasis on Alzheimer’s, cancer and heart disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Half of that funding appears to benefit \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/elections/2026/07/proposition-38-california/\">just one institute\u003c/a> that is significantly supported by that billionaire funder, CalMatters reported.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiener doesn’t think that Prop. 38 will compete with his bond effort some two years later. “That ballot measure primarily funds one particular institute. It’s not a broad science policy funding measure, and so it’s just very different,” he said on Friday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The onus will be on the coalition backing the bond to convince voters to pass it in 2028, he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/09/science-research-california-2/\">originally published on CalMatters\u003c/a> and was republished under the \u003ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives\u003c/a> license.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "SF Varsity Baseball Team to Forfeit 3 Games, Remove Coaches After Investigation",
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"content": "\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/lowell-high-school\">Lowell High School’s\u003c/a> varsity baseball team must forfeit three games during the upcoming spring season, after an investigation by the San Francisco school district’s athletic conference found that an incident during last year’s junior varsity championship violated multiple rules. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>San Francisco Unified School District said Monday that it has also removed the team’s entire coaching staff, all of whom have been on leave since May when reports emerged of unsportsmanlike conduct. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/lowell-high-racial-misconduct-baseball-22271411.php\">\u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em>\u003c/a> said at the time that the conduct occurred at Lowell’s junior varsity championship game against Lincoln High School, where varsity coaches were reportedly present when “alleged race-based taunting by Lowell’s varsity players” occurred.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1200\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/LowellHighSchoolMainEntranceFromEuclyptausStreet.jpg\" alt=\"An exterior view of Lowell High School, a gray, boxy building.\" class=\"wp-image-10961135\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/LowellHighSchoolMainEntranceFromEuclyptausStreet.jpg 1600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/LowellHighSchoolMainEntranceFromEuclyptausStreet-400x300.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/LowellHighSchoolMainEntranceFromEuclyptausStreet-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/LowellHighSchoolMainEntranceFromEuclyptausStreet-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/LowellHighSchoolMainEntranceFromEuclyptausStreet-960x720.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">This is the first year that Lowell High School offered ethnic studies. (Wikimedia Commons)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The district has not provided details about the incident, which the Chronicle’s May report attributed to inside sources.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Last week, the San Francisco Academic Athletic Conference informed school administrators that its investigation of the incident found that Lowell baseball violated multiple bylaws having to do with sportsmanship expectations, rooting section requirements and hazing policy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As a result of the findings, the school district’s governing body for sports determined that Lowell will forfeit the first game of each of three double-headers next spring against local rivals Lincoln High School, Galileo Academy and Washington High School — teams that finished second through fourth in the league last season.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“The forfeited games were chosen based on the standings last season and the impact it will have on standings in the 2026-2027 season,” commissioner Gail Barksdale wrote in message to school administrators. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Forfeiting the selected games will likely hurt the team, which has historically dominated its division.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Lowell won nine more games than second-place Lincoln in 2026 and snagged the vast majority of section championship titles over the last decade, including last year’s, just days after the purported taunting incident.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>An interim coach will be put in place for this year as the school searches for a permanent replacement for first-year head coach Michael Sera, who also taught physical education at Lowell before he was put on leave. Sera was only the third head coach of the team in the last four decades.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“We want to emphasize that there is no place for racism, discrimination, or racialized harm in the Lowell community or anywhere in SFUSD,” a district spokesperson said via email. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>SFUSD said that after the incident was initially reported, Lowell administrators were in contact with the Lincoln team and affected students and families “to ensure that they worked to repair any harm done.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/081726-SFUSDFIRSTDAY-09-MC-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12095564\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/081726-SFUSDFIRSTDAY-09-MC-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/081726-SFUSDFIRSTDAY-09-MC-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/081726-SFUSDFIRSTDAY-09-MC-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie speaks during Jose Ortega Elementary School’s first morning circle of the school year on Aug. 17, 2026, in San Francisco. (Miles Cull/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>District officials required Lowell players to engage in relearning the sports code of conduct and held discussions on “being upstanders” when there is bullying or harassment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The district said individual players took accountability for their individual actions. All players will be required to complete implicit bias and bullying and hazing training before the start of the spring season.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said Tuesday that he was aware of the incident and planned to follow up with the school, but that “it sounds like Lowell did the right thing.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“There should be no tolerance of hatred, for those types of remarks, that type of behavior,” Lurie said during an unrelated press conference.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Jose Velazquez contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/lowell-high-school\">Lowell High School’s\u003c/a> varsity baseball team must forfeit three games during the upcoming spring season, after an investigation by the San Francisco school district’s athletic conference found that an incident during last year’s junior varsity championship violated multiple rules. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>San Francisco Unified School District said Monday that it has also removed the team’s entire coaching staff, all of whom have been on leave since May when reports emerged of unsportsmanlike conduct. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/LowellHighSchoolMainEntranceFromEuclyptausStreet.jpg\" alt=\"An exterior view of Lowell High School, a gray, boxy building.\" class=\"wp-image-10961135\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/LowellHighSchoolMainEntranceFromEuclyptausStreet.jpg 1600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/LowellHighSchoolMainEntranceFromEuclyptausStreet-400x300.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/LowellHighSchoolMainEntranceFromEuclyptausStreet-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/LowellHighSchoolMainEntranceFromEuclyptausStreet-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/LowellHighSchoolMainEntranceFromEuclyptausStreet-960x720.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">This is the first year that Lowell High School offered ethnic studies. \u003ccite class=\"wp-inline-image-credit\"> (Wikimedia Commons)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The district has not provided details about the incident, which the Chronicle’s May report attributed to inside sources.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>As a result of the findings, the school district’s governing body for sports determined that Lowell will forfeit the first game of each of three double-headers next spring against local rivals Lincoln High School, Galileo Academy and Washington High School — teams that finished second through fourth in the league last season.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“The forfeited games were chosen based on the standings last season and the impact it will have on standings in the 2026-2027 season,” commissioner Gail Barksdale wrote in message to school administrators. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Lowell won nine more games than second-place Lincoln in 2026 and snagged the vast majority of section championship titles over the last decade, including last year’s, just days after the purported taunting incident.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>An interim coach will be put in place for this year as the school searches for a permanent replacement for first-year head coach Michael Sera, who also taught physical education at Lowell before he was put on leave. Sera was only the third head coach of the team in the last four decades.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“We want to emphasize that there is no place for racism, discrimination, or racialized harm in the Lowell community or anywhere in SFUSD,” a district spokesperson said via email. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The district said individual players took accountability for their individual actions. All players will be required to complete implicit bias and bullying and hazing training before the start of the spring season.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said Tuesday that he was aware of the incident and planned to follow up with the school, but that “it sounds like Lowell did the right thing.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“There should be no tolerance of hatred, for those types of remarks, that type of behavior,” Lurie said during an unrelated press conference.\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "School district officials did not release specifics, but the penalties follow reports of racial taunting at a Lowell High School game last spring.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/lowell-high-school\">Lowell High School’s\u003c/a> varsity baseball team must forfeit three games during the upcoming spring season, after an investigation by the San Francisco school district’s athletic conference found that an incident during last year’s junior varsity championship violated multiple rules. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>San Francisco Unified School District said Monday that it has also removed the team’s entire coaching staff, all of whom have been on leave since May when reports emerged of unsportsmanlike conduct. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/lowell-high-racial-misconduct-baseball-22271411.php\">\u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em>\u003c/a> said at the time that the conduct occurred at Lowell’s junior varsity championship game against Lincoln High School, where varsity coaches were reportedly present when “alleged race-based taunting by Lowell’s varsity players” occurred.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1200\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/LowellHighSchoolMainEntranceFromEuclyptausStreet.jpg\" alt=\"An exterior view of Lowell High School, a gray, boxy building.\" class=\"wp-image-10961135\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/LowellHighSchoolMainEntranceFromEuclyptausStreet.jpg 1600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/LowellHighSchoolMainEntranceFromEuclyptausStreet-400x300.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/LowellHighSchoolMainEntranceFromEuclyptausStreet-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/LowellHighSchoolMainEntranceFromEuclyptausStreet-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/LowellHighSchoolMainEntranceFromEuclyptausStreet-960x720.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">This is the first year that Lowell High School offered ethnic studies. (Wikimedia Commons)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The district has not provided details about the incident, which the Chronicle’s May report attributed to inside sources.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Last week, the San Francisco Academic Athletic Conference informed school administrators that its investigation of the incident found that Lowell baseball violated multiple bylaws having to do with sportsmanship expectations, rooting section requirements and hazing policy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As a result of the findings, the school district’s governing body for sports determined that Lowell will forfeit the first game of each of three double-headers next spring against local rivals Lincoln High School, Galileo Academy and Washington High School — teams that finished second through fourth in the league last season.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“The forfeited games were chosen based on the standings last season and the impact it will have on standings in the 2026-2027 season,” commissioner Gail Barksdale wrote in message to school administrators. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Forfeiting the selected games will likely hurt the team, which has historically dominated its division.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Lowell won nine more games than second-place Lincoln in 2026 and snagged the vast majority of section championship titles over the last decade, including last year’s, just days after the purported taunting incident.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>An interim coach will be put in place for this year as the school searches for a permanent replacement for first-year head coach Michael Sera, who also taught physical education at Lowell before he was put on leave. Sera was only the third head coach of the team in the last four decades.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“We want to emphasize that there is no place for racism, discrimination, or racialized harm in the Lowell community or anywhere in SFUSD,” a district spokesperson said via email. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>SFUSD said that after the incident was initially reported, Lowell administrators were in contact with the Lincoln team and affected students and families “to ensure that they worked to repair any harm done.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/081726-SFUSDFIRSTDAY-09-MC-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12095564\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/081726-SFUSDFIRSTDAY-09-MC-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/081726-SFUSDFIRSTDAY-09-MC-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/081726-SFUSDFIRSTDAY-09-MC-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie speaks during Jose Ortega Elementary School’s first morning circle of the school year on Aug. 17, 2026, in San Francisco. (Miles Cull/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>District officials required Lowell players to engage in relearning the sports code of conduct and held discussions on “being upstanders” when there is bullying or harassment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The district said individual players took accountability for their individual actions. All players will be required to complete implicit bias and bullying and hazing training before the start of the spring season.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said Tuesday that he was aware of the incident and planned to follow up with the school, but that “it sounds like Lowell did the right thing.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“There should be no tolerance of hatred, for those types of remarks, that type of behavior,” Lurie said during an unrelated press conference.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Jose Velazquez contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"marketplace": {
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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"politicalbreakdown": {
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"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
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"possible": {
"id": "possible",
"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm",
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"pri-the-world": {
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"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"radiolab": {
"id": "radiolab",
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"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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"reveal": {
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"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
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},
"rightnowish": {
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"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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},
"science-friday": {
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"info": "Science Friday is a weekly science talk show, broadcast live over public radio stations nationwide. Each week, the show focuses on science topics that are in the news and tries to bring an educated, balanced discussion to bear on the scientific issues at hand. Panels of expert guests join host Ira Flatow, a veteran science journalist, to discuss science and to take questions from listeners during the call-in portion of the program.",
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"snap-judgment": {
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"title": "Snap Judgment",
"tagline": "Real stories with killer beats",
"info": "The Snap Judgment radio show and podcast mixes real stories with killer beats to produce cinematic, dramatic radio. Snap's musical brand of storytelling dares listeners to see the world through the eyes of another. This is storytelling... with a BEAT!! Snap first aired on public radio stations nationwide in July 2010. Today, Snap Judgment airs on over 450 public radio stations and is brought to the airwaves by KQED & PRX.",
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},
"soldout": {
"id": "soldout",
"title": "SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America",
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