City celebrates end of wharf reopening
More than 100 people attended a reopening ceremony celebrating the completion of the $1.3 million repair of the historic Santa Cruz Wharf’s southern end.
A 150-foot section of the wharf partially collapsed on Dec. 23, 2024, after powerful waves battered the Santa Cruz coastline, causing widespread damage.
Fourth District Supervisor Scott Newsome called the reopening significant for the community.
“This is the official opening of the south end of the wharf,” he said. “It’s a space for residents, visitors and families to come together, enjoy sweeping views of the bay, watch the sea lions and experience what the wharf has to offer.”
Newsome said there are no immediate plans for additional development at the site, but community meetings are expected to begin this summer about the future of the wharf’s southern end, including the possibility of extending it farther.
The post City celebrates end of wharf reopening appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.
El Concejo Municipal de Capitola evaluará cambiar a elecciones por distritos para evitar litigios
Esta traducción fue generada utilizando inteligencia artificial y ha sido revisada por un hablante nativo de español; si bien nos esforzamos por lograr precisión, pueden ocurrir algunos errores de traducción. Para leer el artículo en inglés, haga clic aquí.
El Concejo Municipal de Capitola discutirá un posible cambio de un sistema electoral general a uno por distritos mientras la ciudad enfrenta un posible litigio de un bufete de abogados del sur de California.
Abogados de Shenkman & Hughes, con sede en Malibu, enviaron una carta a funcionarios de la ciudad en marzo, recomendando que inicie voluntariamente el proceso para cambiar a elecciones por distritos antes de la fecha límite del 5 de mayo o enfrente una demanda.
La base de la queja del bufete es que las elecciones generales privan de derechos a las comunidades minoritarias.
En una sesión especial el jueves, los concejales decidirán si aprueban una resolución que declare la intención de la ciudad de comenzar la transición a elecciones por distritos y autorizar un acuerdo con un consultor demógrafo.
Si la resolución se aprueba, la ciudad tendría 90 días para completar el cambio a elecciones por distritos, según un informe del personal. El proceso incluiría dos audiencias públicas antes de que se tracen los mapas, junto con divulgación pública.
El bufete afirma que la forma actual en que los residentes de Capitola eligen a los concejales viola la Ley de Derechos Electorales de California de 2001(CVRA). La ley busca dar a las comunidades minoritarias privadas de derechos más poder de voto en elecciones locales. Casi 229 ciudades en California han cambiado a elecciones por distritos, según un informe de Claremont McKenna College.
El abogado de la ciudad de Capitola, Marc Tran, dijo al concejo la semana pasada que los casos relacionados con la CVRA no requieren que los demandantes prueben si las ciudades con elecciones generales son intencionalmente discriminatorias, lo que hace que este tipo de casos sea difícil de defender.
Shenkman & Hughes tiene un historial de demandar o amenazar con demandar a ciudades y juntas escolares desde 2012, y ha ganado casi todas las demandas que el bufete ha presentado, según un informe del San Francisco Chronicle.
El bufete afirma que el sistema general de Capitola diluye la capacidad de los residentes latinos para elegir a un candidato de su preferencia “o de otro modo influir en el resultado de la elección del concejo municipal.” Los latinos actualmente representan alrededor del 26.5% de la población de casi 10,000 residentes de Capitola, según datos de la Oficina del Censo de Estados Unidos.
Bajo el sistema general de Capitola, los candidatos al concejo municipal pueden postularse para cualquier escaño disponible y representar a la comunidad en general. Todos los votantes eligen quién representa esos escaños. Por ejemplo, en la elección de noviembre de 2024, en la que dos escaños del concejo estaban disponibles, los dos candidatos con más votos fueron declarados ganadores.
En las elecciones por distritos, sin embargo, los concejales representan un vecindario específico, en el que también viven. Los votantes pueden votar solo por los candidatos que representan su distrito. Las ciudades de Santa Cruz y Watsonville usan este modelo para elegir a los concejales. Scotts Valley, al igual que Capitola, tiene elecciones generales.
Shenkman & Hughes usa la elección reciente como ejemplo de cómo la estructura general de Capitola viola la Ley de Derechos Electorales de California.
“Enrique Dolmo Jr. recibió un apoyo significativo de votantes latinos, pero perdió debido a la falta de apoyo de votantes blancos no hispanos,” según la carta de marzo. Dolmo recibió 1,430 votos en la votación del concejo municipal de 2024, más de 1,300 votos detrás del candidato con más votos.
En 2020, la ciudad de Santa Cruz enfrentó una amenaza de demanda similar. Santa Cruz cambió oficialmente a elecciones por distritos después de que los votantes aprobaron la Medida E, una iniciativa que estableció los seis distritos de la ciudad y un alcalde elegido directamente, y realizó su primera elección por distritos durante las primarias de marzo de 2024.
Durante la transición de Santa Cruz fuera de elecciones generales, ex políticos dijeron a Lookout en 2022 que eran escépticos sobre cómo las elecciones por distritos llevarían a una representación diversa en el concejo.
La ciudad de Watsonville enfrentó una demanda en 1989, que llegó hasta el nivel de tribunal federal, y perdió. El tribunal determinó que las elecciones generales de Watsonville diluían el poder de voto de sus residentes latinos, que constituyen la mayoría de su población.
¿Tiene algo que decir? Lookout da la bienvenida a cartas al editor, dentro de nuestras políticas, de los lectores. Directrices aquí.
The post El Concejo Municipal de Capitola evaluará cambiar a elecciones por distritos para evitar litigios appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.
Supreme Court weakens a landmark Civil Rights-era law and aids GOP efforts to control the House
The Supreme Court on Wednesday weakened a landmark Civil Rights-era law that has increased minority representation in Congress and elsewhere, striking down a majority Black congressional district in Louisiana and opening the door for more redistricting across the country that could aid Republican efforts to control the House.
The post Supreme Court weakens a landmark Civil Rights-era law and aids GOP efforts to control the House appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.
California will soon have more than 300 data centers. Where will they get their water?
The new data center proposed for a quiet city about 115 miles east of San Diego came across people’s radars in different ways.
For patrons of the deli on West Aten Road in Imperial, it was the white “Not In My Backyard” signs jutting out of lawns.
For local irrigation district workers, it was something called an “electric service application.”
For Margie Padilla, it was a rant on Facebook.
The 43-year-old mom came across a post online while she had a few minutes to scan social media last spring after a day spent tending her garden and taking care of her two boys.
“Somebody was complaining about this center,” Padilla said. “I was like, ‘Whoa, what’s going on here?’”
What’s going on is the second-largest new data center being considered statewide, which would be less than half a mile from Padilla’s stucco home in the center of Imperial Valley. If finished by 2028, as the developer expects, the at least 950,000-square-foot, two-story data center could be the largest operating statewide, taking up 17 football fields’ worth of land.
The roughly $10 billion, 330-megawatt data center would require 750,000 gallons of water a day to operate, said developer Sebastian Rucci, who insists electricity and water costs won’t rise due to the data center.
“We have studies on the air. We have studies on the water. The electricity could be handled,” Rucci said. “We did our homework.”
The proposed 330-megawatt data center in Imperial is slated to take up 17 football fields of land and needs 750,000 gallons of water a day. Credit: Sebastian Rucci via Inside Climate NewsImperial officials haven’t quelled local concerns, only noting that the project is facing litigation and that the center’s long-term impacts on utilities haven’t been determined.
On top of the financial burden of maintaining her family’s health, gas and grocery expenses strain Padilla’s budget and she’s worried a new data center will only increase water and power costs. Padilla, who first heard of the data center a year ago, has only grown more concerned and she’s not alone.
Some residents would see it from their backyards.
“I can only imagine the rates going up once that data center is up and running,” she said, shading her eyes from the beaming sun.
This is one of two dozen data centers expected to open in California in the next few years.
Growing concern and regulatory gapsA majority of respondents to a nationwide poll by the US Water Alliance share Padilla’s worries, with 54% extremely or very concerned about the effect data centers will have on water quality, water supply and costs in their area.
In its first question about data centers since the poll began in 2016, two-thirds of voters said it was important for their state to have a plan for the effects of data centers on water in the coming years.
“I suspect that as data centers continue to be part of the broad conversation, then these numbers will probably continue to go up as people are more concerned about the impacts they have on the things that affect them and their communities, like supply, quality and cost,” said Scott Berry, the senior advisor on policy and external affairs at the US Water Alliance, from Water Week in Washington, D.C., this month.
More than 90% of data centers in the U.S. get most of the water they need for cooling from municipal systems, estimated Shaolei Ren, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC Riverside.
During the hottest summer days, a large 100-megawatt facility can use about 1 million gallons of water for evaporative cooling. That amount is the same as about 10,000 people’s daily water use at home, Ren said.
But those centers require “zero water for many days of the year when it’s cool outside,” he said.
Some data centers are exploring alternatives like treated wastewater or graywater for cooling instead of drinkable water, providing residents and officials with options that could reduce strain on local water supplies.
California doesn’t require artificial intelligence data centers to report water usage, and the state’s Water Resources Control Board does not maintain a specific list of water rights held by data centers. Although residents are working to require more transparency about water use from data centers, recent efforts to require the facilities’ owners to report how much water they use to the state have faltered.
On top of the data center boom in California, the hundreds of water districts, a deepening Southwestern megadrought and the diminishing of the Colorado River increasingly complicate water issues.
Also, while data centers can take as little as two to three years to build, developing new water sources can take as long as 20 years, said Ren.
Plans for the steep increase in water demand from California data centers inevitably focus on infrastructure, experts said.
“Water is not purely an environmental issue,” Ren noted. “In many places, it is fundamentally an infrastructure challenge.”
Across the country, water infrastructure upgrades are estimated to cost between $10 billion to $58 billion, Ren’s research team found. How many more facilities are built and where will be a big factor in future infrastructure costs.
The amount of electricity a data center uses, to some degree, determines how much heat it produces, and consequently how much cooling it requires and, in turn, how much water it needs.
The Imperial County data center is one of 24 planned for completion across California by 2030, according to the latest information gathered by analysts at Cleanview, a market intelligence platform.
Based on the about 1.7 GW of electricity the proposed data centers would use, with at least two projects for which there aren’t energy consumption figures, water infrastructure upgrade costs just for the demands of the centers in the state could run from about $200 million to $800 million, Ren said.
“This number assumes that California data centers’ water use intensity is the same as the national average,” he explained.
There is no central permitting authority for data centers in California, and most are overseen by city and county governments, according to the California Public Utilities Commission. Data Center Map shows 286 of the facilities currently operating in California.
While California’s size and tech focus lead some to expect many more data centers here, the cost and availability of power and land, as well as the general tax and regulatory climate, have been hurdles to building them out, according to the Data Center Coalition, which represents big corporations like Amazon, Meta, Google and Microsoft.
Nonetheless, California trails only Virginia and Texas in the number of individual data center locations, but its centers have much lower total new electricity capacity, which may also indicate lower water demand.
A research team at UC Riverside recently found that data centers could collectively require 697 to 1,451 million gallons per day (MGD) of new water capacity nationally through 2030. New York City’s average daily supply is about 1,000 MGD.
Currently, data centers are estimated to use about 39 billion gallons of water nationally each year, Khara Boender, the senior manager for state policy at the Data Center Coalition, said, citing market research from Bluefield.
“I know when we start to talk about billions of gallons of water in a year, that sounds absolutely crazy,” Boender said. “Looking at how that falls into context with some of these other large water users, I think that that kind of contextualization could be surprising to folks.”
Alfalfa irrigation in California’s Imperial Valley alone uses more than 800 billion gallons a year, an April essay in Outside highlighted. The beverage industry uses 533 billion gallons of water a year and the semiconductor industry uses 59 billion gallons, Boender noted.
But spikes in water needs for data centers can lead to bottlenecks in small community water systems, Ren, at UC Riverside, noted. “Only comparing the annual totals can obscure the real water challenge,” he said.
There is no single fix for the pressure data centers are placing on water supplies across the state, which will be different depending on the location and water systems where each facility is built, said Shivaji Deshmukh, the general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California—the largest supplier of treated water in the U.S. The district serves 19 million people in six California counties.
“Every community — even within our service area — is different in terms of costs, what type of supply they have. Some regions have access to groundwater. Some have access to treated wastewater or recycled water somewhere along the coast,” Deshmukh said.
So industries, most of which require water for cooling, will look to satisfy that thirst from different sources, depending on their location.
“Imperial Irrigation District is one where I know they’re discussing … installation of data centers in their area,” Deshmukh said.
The Imperial dilemmaThe plot of dirt on West Aton Road betrays nothing of the colossal data center that could one day sit on the land. Owner Sebastian Rucci hopes to have the facility up and running by the summer of 2028, he said.
Rucci, who is also a lawyer, has purchased 235 acres for his data center so far. He says the data center will allow Google to train its Gemini artificial intelligence, although Google denies any involvement “in a data center project in Imperial County.”
Before he can begin building on the site, a judge will weigh in on the city of Imperial’s lawsuit against the project, which demands that it clear higher environmental hurdles, including the California Environmental Quality Act — which often draws ire from developers who claim it can needlessly stall proposals. The local water district also has to complete its review of the project.
The site of the proposed data center in Imperial. Credit: Steven Rodas / Inside Climate NewsRucci is determined, though, citing a series of studies conducted by survey and consulting groups, and by the district itself, which manages water and provides power. He posted those reports online to show the data center made sense — in part because water and power could be effectively provided to the data center and the land was permitted for industrial use.
The debate between supporters and opponents of the facility has escalated, with the next court date set for the end of April.
With that date in mind, Padilla, the Imperial mother, set out to work in her garden on a balmy Thursday morning.
Donning a green, short-sleeved shirt and flip-flops, she checked on her squash, poked at her cherry tomatoes and dug in her spade to move periwinkle to a better spot for watering. And through it all, she wondered what the thirst of the proposed data center would do to her garden. And her monthly water bill.
Her payment for water, sewer and trash services currently ranges from $90 to $130 a month — more than double what she paid six years ago.
“I’m also afraid they’re going to put [water] restrictions for us, for the residents,” said Padilla, who estimates her family of four uses about 300 gallons of water a day. “That’s going to be harsh on me, particularly, because of my garden. I grow my own food, my own vegetables.”
Worries over power and water price surges are misguided, Rucci said. He has been considering power and water needs for the 18 months he has worked on the project, he said, and outlined how it would bring various economic benefits to the region, including about 100 permanent jobs post-construction.
Still, Padilla is thinking about other things. She says her two sons were anemic when they were younger, requiring them to eat fresh produce to supplement the iron their bodies needed. Even after treating the condition, the Imperial mom keeps her sons’ diet filled with veggies and fruits. She needs her garden for that.
The Imperial Irrigation District declined to be interviewed for this story but, in a written statement, noted that it has yet to receive a formal request for water for the project.
The District, which provides water and power to all of Imperial County as well as parts of Riverside and San Diego counties, did not have specific estimates of how demand from the data center could impact its costs.
“Water was very concerning to us from the beginning,” Rucci said.
He’s spoken with city officials in Imperial and El Centro to arrange a water deal for the facility, he said, and proposed getting 6 million gallons per day of reclaimed water from both cities.
“Our plan was we would do all the municipal upgrades at our cost, and then we would take the excess water and run it clean to the Salton Sea,” he said.
Those conversations have not paid off, although Rucci said he remains hopeful municipal officials will help him get water for his facility.
“We first tried to do reclaimed water. I still prefer that but that seems to be taking months and I don’t know if that … will happen,” Rucci said. “Probably we’ll just get it from the [Imperial Irrigation District]” by purchasing it for industrial use.
How the center obtains its water may change as its plans are updated, he added.
Through it all, he remains confident the data center will be built in Imperial County and be good for the area.
Carolina Paez disagrees.
The 46-year-old mother’s backyard abuts the data center site. She says she’d be able to hit it with a rock from her property.
Both she and her son have asthma, and she’s worried about the construction dust, potential pollution and noise from the data center. And higher bills.
“I’m not just thinking about the expenses that are going to increase, but also about the things that are going to lose value—for instance, my house,” Paez said in Spanish.
“What am I going to do with this property? Who would even want to live here?”
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.
The post California will soon have more than 300 data centers. Where will they get their water? appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.
Wednesday morning traffic: Hit and run on Hwy 1; lane closed WB SR-152 for paving
This post is updated throughout the day to reflect the latest incidents. It was last updated at 7:31 a.m..
Here’s what’s happening on the roads this morning…
▼︎ new incidents
Road incidents as of 7:30 a.m. on April 29- A hit and run happened at 2420 Highway 1 in Watsonville / Pajaro. A vehicle hit a white truck and a boat trailer, making the trailer turn sideways. The owners of the truck and trailer were possibly fishing and not at the scene. No injuries were reported. The incident was reported today.
- A lane on westbound SR-152 at Clifford Drive/Ohlone Parkway in Watsonville and Pajaro is closed for asphalt paving. The closure is expected to last until July 3, ending at 5:59 a.m.
Disclosure: Traffic incidents are partially generated by artificial intelligence. We are constantly working to improve the accuracy and quality of our AI-generated content. However, there may still be errors or inaccuracies. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us.
The post Wednesday morning traffic: Hit and run on Hwy 1; lane closed WB SR-152 for paving appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.
Pajaro Valley Unified officials, teachers face off over district proposal to cap health insurance contributions
Contract negotiations in Pajaro Valley Unified School District have intensified as teachers push back against a district proposal to cap health insurance contributions. The district says the cap is needed to address rising health care costs, while teachers argue it could drive staff out of the district.
The post Pajaro Valley Unified officials, teachers face off over district proposal to cap health insurance contributions appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.
It’s ‘nerd Christmas’ in May as Free Comic Book Day returns to Santa Cruz
Downtown Santa Cruz’s comic hubs are rolling out the red carpet for Saturday’s national Free Comic Book Day, including an appearance by cartoonist Mike Kunkel of “Herobear and the Kid” fame at Atlantis Fantasyworld as it and Comicopolis celebrate the industry’s day in the sun.
The post It’s ‘nerd Christmas’ in May as Free Comic Book Day returns to Santa Cruz appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.
Capitola City Council to weigh switching to district-based elections to avoid litigation
To prevent a potential lawsuit, the Capitola City Council will convene a special session on Thursday night to discuss switching from at-large to district-based elections.
The post Capitola City Council to weigh switching to district-based elections to avoid litigation appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.
This week in Santa Cruz County business: Joby’s big ride in NYC, training for emerging aviation careers, Java Junction shutters River Street café
Joby’s electric air taxi takes Manhattan, a Monterey Bay nonprofit launches a forward-looking job training initiative and the end of the line for a Gateway Plaza coffee spot are all part of Jessica M. Pasko’s weekly look at local business.
The post This week in Santa Cruz County business: Joby’s big ride in NYC, training for emerging aviation careers, Java Junction shutters River Street café appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.
Santa Cruz County Arts Commission names Micha Scott artist of the year
Micha Scott has been named the 2026 Santa Cruz County artist of the year by the county’s arts commission.
Scott is a professional dancer, choreographer and teacher who has performed on stages around the world as a 13-year member of Garth Fagan Dance.
The annual award is presented to local artists for outstanding achievement in the disciplines of performing, visual or literary arts who also have made a substantial contribution to the cultural enrichment of Santa Cruz County.
Since moving from New York to Santa Cruz in 2008, Scott has been involved in the local dance community, with particular focus on being an advocate for Black youth dance.
Since 2011, she has been the artistic director of the Tannery World Dance and Cultural Center (TWDCC). In 2021, she also became the executive director, using her roles to highlight the artistic traditions passed on to her by dance pioneer Garth Fagan.
In 2022, Scott started the annual Deep Roots Dance Fest, bringing artists of the African diaspora to perform original contemporary dances rooted in their traditional forms to Santa Cruz stages.
Scott served on the grants panels at Arts Council Santa Cruz County from 2021 to 2025, on the California Arts Council in 2023-24 and recently served as a guest panelist for The Great Cabrillo Arts Design Challenge at Cabrillo College. She has secured more than $120,000 in grants over the past four years to bolster TWDCC’s youth scholarship program.
For information on previous artist of the year winners, visit the Santa Cruz County Parks website.
A profile performance will be held at the Museum of Art & History on June 5 from 7 to 9 p.m. Admission is free, though seating is limited and is on a first-come, first-served basis the night of the event.
Have news that should be in Lookout Briefs? Send your news releases, including contact information, to news@lookoutlocal.com.
MORE LOCAL COVERAGEThe post Santa Cruz County Arts Commission names Micha Scott artist of the year appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.
California’s math scores are abysmal. Is it time to screen kindergartners for basic math skills?
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for its newsletters.
Just a few months after California overhauled the way it teaches children to read, a new bill takes on math education — and may be just as controversial.
Senate Bill 1067 would require schools to screen all kindergartners, first- and second-graders for basic math skills, and give them extra help if they’re behind. The idea is to help those children catch up to their peers who might have had much more exposure to math before starting school.
“A student’s early math skills are the most powerful predictor of their later success in school,” said Amy Cooper, a senior advisor at EdVoice, an education nonprofit that’s cosponsoring the bill. “We’re not talking about tracking kids. There’s no labels. It’s just about getting support to students so that they can get up to grade level.”
California students, in all grade levels, have long struggled in math. Last year, just 37% of students performed at grade level in math, with some groups of students faring far worse. Just 16% of Black 11th-graders, for example, met the state’s grade-level standard. Nationwide, California ranks 43rd in 4th grade math scores, behind Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and dozens of other states.
One reason for the poor performance, experts say, is California’s uneven early education landscape. Until transitional kindergarten became available to all 4-year-olds last year, children showed up at kindergarten with a wide array of abilities and skills. Some had years of exposure to early math — either at preschool or at home — and could count, do basic arithmetic and even read a little. Others, especially low-income children, had no prior exposure to the ABCs and 123s, and lagged far behind. Even now, TK and kindergarten are optional, so some students start first grade with no previous math instruction at all.
‘Critical tipping point’Some of those children catch up eventually, but many continue to fall further and further behind, research shows. And because math is sequential, catching up becomes harder over time, and the gap widens. Some researchers found that early math skills can even be a predictor of how well students do in high school and college.
It’s still too early to gauge the impact of transitional kindergarten on students’ long-term math performance, but so far there’s still a gap between children who’ve had exposure to math — either through preschool or at home — and those who haven’t. Low-income children are far less likely to get that early exposure, said Alice Klein, a developmental psychologist and research director at the education research firm WestEd.
“It is a critical tipping point,” Klein said. “Unless those students get intervention, the gap will widen. It’ll be harder for them to access higher-level math classes later on, and this will have implications for future job opportunities and the economic future of California. It’s a continual closing of opportunities.”
Transitional kindergarten teacher Rachelle Bacong leads students during a math lesson at Ira Harbison Elementary School in National City. Credit: Adriana Heldiz / CalMatters Transitional kindergarten teacher Rachelle Bacong leads students during a math lesson at Ira Harbison Elementary School in National City. Credit: Adriana Heldiz / CalMattersKlein supports the math screening legislation because she said it’s an effective way to identify students who are struggling and provide them with support. At least 20 other states have math screenings and have seen positive results, she said.
“I’m so happy that California is considering passing this bill,” Klein said. “It’s a great start, and could be the next step” in improving math outcomes in California.
Numbers and objectsDistricts would have their choice of several screening tests to choose from, each ranging from 10 to 20 minutes long and testing children’s knowledge of basic math concepts. For example, kindergartners might be asked to look at two groups of dots and decide which group has more. Or they’d be asked to identify certain numbers and show that they understand what the numbers mean — that “three” means three objects, for example. English learners would take the test in their native languages.
The bill is authored by state Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson, a Democrat from San Diego, and last week passed unanimously in the Senate education committee.
Its cosponsor, EdVoice, was behind the push for phonics-based literacy instruction in California public schools. That initiative passed, but only after a long fight with the California Teachers Association, the state’s largest teachers union, and English learner advocates, who argued that it didn’t give teachers enough flexibility and that it wouldn’t be effective for students whose first language isn’t English. The final version of the bill doesn’t require schools to take advantage of state-funded teacher training, but it does require them to use phonics-based classroom materials.
Too many tests?There might be a fight over the proposed math testing as well. The California Teachers Association opposes it, as well as California County Superintendents, the Association of California School Administrators and the California Mathematics Council.
They argue that the screening is unnecessary because the state already has a comprehensive new math framework and has made other big investments in early math. It’ll take time for those investments to show results. Also, the math framework emphasizes critical thinking and real-world math problems, and the screening might be too narrow and not take into account young children’s developmental differences.
They also argue that the testing will be pointless unless the state funds tutoring to help those students who are identified as needing extra help.
Transitional kindergarten students arrange number blocks during class at Ira Harbison Elementary School in National City. Credit: Adriana Heldiz / CalMattersNick Johnson, an associate professor of teacher education at San Diego State University, questioned whether schools need yet another standardized test. The federal education policy No Child Left Behind, adopted in the early 2000s, focused heavily on testing, and led to few improvements, he said.
“Since No Child Left Behind testing, we’ve assumed that (standardized testing) will improve student learning,” Johnson said. “But the evidence shows that’s rarely true. Is public education in a better place now than it was 25 years ago?”
Magic of mathRachelle Bacong has been teaching kindergarten and TK for 30 years in National City, near San Diego. She weaves math into every activity the children do. When she sets up an art project, she asks them how many chairs are at the table and how many scissors they’ll need. When she makes smoothies with them, she asks them how much juice or how many chunks of bananas they should add. When the children wash their hands, she asks them how long they spent at the sink.
They also spend a good portion of their day playing with blocks, tiles and tubes, experimenting with shapes and dimensions. Bacon’s goal is to make math fun and easy to grasp, no matter where the child is developmentally.
“Math crosses all cultures, abilities and backgrounds. It’s accessible to everyone. It’s my job to design the learning environment to make it accessible to everyone,” Bacong said. “That’s what’s so magical about it.”
Transitional kindergarten teacher Rachelle Bacong insider her classroom at Ira Harbison Elementary School in National City. Credit: Adriana Heldiz / CalMattersShe also spends time every day explicitly teaching them math, although in a way that’s blended with play. She’ll teach them songs about numbers, show them how shapes fit together, and gently guide them when a solution might not be clear. Math instruction needs to come from several angles, she said, because children’s cognitive skills develop at such different rates.
She welcomes extra help for children who need it, but she’s skeptical that a test will reflect how individual children process math concepts. She already knows how her students are faring, and she fears that screening results will be used to stigmatize children, teachers or schools.
“My fear is that it’ll focus on a child’s deficits,” Bacong said. “Math needs to be joyful, fun and developmentally appropriate. We want to set students up for success, so they’ll be prepared for whatever they’re going to be designing or building in the future.”
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.
The post California’s math scores are abysmal. Is it time to screen kindergartners for basic math skills? appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.