Daily News Roundup, Nov. 12, 2026
Articles below are meant to inform members of significant reporting and commentary on public schools and do not necessarily reflect the views of CSBA. (Please note: Included in this post are articles on news sites that have limited access for nonsubscribers.)
ELECTIONS
The San Francisco Standard: California voters reject billionaire tax
California voters have rejected the billionaire tax. Proposition 40 would have imposed a one-time 5 percent tax on the wealth of Californians worth more than $1 billion, with most of the revenue going to healthcare. It would’ve been the first tax of its kind in the U.S. Associated Press called the measure on Nov. 9. The tax was placed on the ballot by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, which contended that the money was needed to offset cuts from President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill.
The state measure garnered support from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and the California Democratic Party. But the proposal also caused internecine fractures within the state party and organized labor. Gov. Gavin Newsom and Governor-elect Xavier Becerra opposed it, as did a coalition led by the California Medical Association, California Primary Care Association, California School Boards Association, and Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California. “Proposition 40 was a reckless experiment conducted on our state’s economy with little regard for the harms it would cause,” the coalition said in a statement Nov. 9. The groups said they would work with Becerra and legislative leaders on “more thoughtful, inclusive solutions” for healthcare funding amid federal cuts.
EdSource: What a ‘blue tsunami’ means for education in California
Democrats’ dominance in last week’s midterm elections could have significant consequences for federal education policy and the fate of the U.S. Department of Education. For California, where Democrats already dominate state politics, the election could create new opportunities to challenge the administration’s education agenda in Washington.
Incoming Democratic leaders in the House and Senate have said the election gives them a mandate to address soaring costs, end war with Iran and clean up government corruption. Education is likely to gain attention when it can be connected to these broader priorities, particularly affordability and everyday pocket book policy issues, according to Jonathan Collins, assistant professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. “If that conversation happens in a silo, I don’t think it’s going to go anywhere,” Collins said. Now that Democrats will soon hold Congress’ power of the purse, they may be able to reign in efforts by the Trump administration to disband the U.S. Department of Education.
RESEARCH
K-12 Dive: The US ranks last in teacher pay worldwide
Public school teacher pay in the U.S. lags significantly when compared to other industrialized countries, according to a late October analysis by the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution. Examining average pay for teachers at the primary school level versus that of other college graduates across more than 30 countries, Brookings found the U.S. ranked last — and that its primary school teachers earn about two-thirds of what other college graduates are paid annually.
That pay gap is wider than what the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has found in its ongoing teacher pay penalty studies. According to a late August EPI report, U.S. teachers in 2025 earned about 25 percent less than college graduates in other professions. In its report, Brookings described the U.S. teacher pay gap as “striking” and said that one possible explanation for the disparity may be widening income gaps in the U.S. The teacher pay gap seems to widen particularly for teachers who fall in the middle-to-high range of the salary scale, according to Brookings.
Education Week: Low-income students less likely to remain in top tier for math
Students from low-income households are under-represented among the highest math performers in the early elementary school grades, a new analysis finds. Those high-achieving, low-income students who start school at the top of their class in math are less likely to remain there in later grades than their higher-income peers, finds the new report by the testing company NWEA.
The findings come as more schools aim to identify and address students’ math struggles early through assessments and screeners. “The goal of screening is more often to catch kids who are falling behind rather than to identify kids who are really high achievers,” said Megan Kuhfeld, NWEA’s director of growth modeling and data analytics. “But this really highlights why it’s important to focus on the early math potential many low-income kids bring that may not be sustained.”
The Hechinger Report: 5 reports, 5 different conclusions about fairness in school funding
If you’re confused about whether America’s public schools are shortchanging poor children or spending less money educating Black, Hispanic and Native American children, I was too. At least five major reports on school funding released in the past decade have reached conflicting conclusions. Some say disadvantaged students get more money than their wealthier, whiter peers. Others find substantial spending gaps in the opposite direction. Why the strikingly different conclusions? Some reports count federal dollars for education, while others exclude them, and some adjust the dollars for regional differences in salaries or other expenses.
The five school spending reports — from Brookings, EdBuild, the Urban Institute, EdTrust and the Education Law Center — all use slightly different methodologies. One dates back to 2017 while another was just released last month. “The fact is that when you ask different questions, you get different answers by design,” said Zahava Stadler, the former policy director at EdBuild — an advocacy and research group that closed in June 2020 — who now directs the education funding equity initiative at the left-leaning think tank New America. “We’re not using different calculators here.” Stadler made these comments at an August webinar held by EdFund, a nonprofit organization, after a surprising Brookings report landed in July 2026. That report pushed back against the narrative that school funding is terribly unfair to low-income children and implied that school funding inequality had been fixed. EdFund, which collects and commissions school finance research, wanted to help policymakers sort through the conflicting narratives and I attended the event.
LOCAL EDUCATIONAL AGENCIES
An 8-year-old Haitian boy who lost protected status earlier this year was placed in federal custody after an immigration check-in last week in San Diego, according to federal and school district officials. The boy, who has not been publicly identified, was placed in the government’s custody during a routine check-in on Nov. 5, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
San Diego Unified School District officials highlighted the boy’s case in a Nov. 6 letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. San Diego County Superintendent Fabi Bagula wrote in the letter that the boy is a third-grader at Fay Elementary School and is among the many children and families whose education and well-being have been affected by revocation of their temporary protected status.
The Wall Street Journal: The parents suing schools because their kids got bad grades
When Weiwei Luo saw the report card saying her son needed to work on “cooperating with others,” the Silicon Valley mom demanded it be changed. When the school district declined, she called her lawyer. What began last fall as a playground spat between third-graders has now escalated into a courtroom brawl: In a lawsuit filed in October, Luo calls the teacher’s comments “inaccurate and unsubstantiated,” and is asking a judge to order the district to rehear her case.
Time was when parents disciplined children for bringing home bad marks. Today, they often take a more adversarial approach, educators say, leaning on teachers and administrators to change grades in disputes that can even spill into court. Ever since remote learning brought classrooms into living rooms during the pandemic, U.S. parents have grown more involved in and less enchanted with schools, according to numerous surveys. That includes scrutinizing how teachers evaluate their children. Four in 10 American teachers report facing pressure from moms and dads to change grades, according to a 2024 EdWeek survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,500 educators. Affluent parents, teachers noted, were more likely to complain.
The Mercury News: Shuttered East Bay charter school sues Oakland Unified
An East Bay charter school forced to shutter earlier this year is suing Oakland Unified School District, alleging district leaders unlawfully denied its renewal. The 18-year-old Oakland charter school, Aspire Golden State College Preparatory Academy, is asking the Alameda County Superior Court to compel the district and the California Department of Education to renew its charter through June 30, 2031.
The lawsuit comes as Aspire GSP has run out of nonjudicial appeals in its bid to stay open — including reviews by the county and a first-of-its-kind appeal to the State Board of Education. In the final administrative review of the district’s decision to close the school, the State Board of Education decided in July to take no action on the charter’s request to overturn the district’s and Alameda County Office of Education’s decisions.
The tiny Fort Ross school district on Sonoma County’s rugged northern coast is facing an unexpected expense that could have big implications: the breakdown of its ailing septic system. The one-school district, currently with about 17 students from transitional kindergarten through eighth grade, has faced myriad challenges with its septic system over the years, including a backup a few weeks ago.
That Oct. 21 incident, at Fort Ross Elementary, saw untreated wastewater come up through the drains in the bathroom floors. Students were sent home early, around midday. The next day, a Thursday, they were off-site for a planned field trip. The school district tacked on an additional trip for that Friday. By Monday, Oct. 26, students were back on campus with a new portable toilet trailer. Superintendent-Principal Jennifer Dudley said septic issues have been “ever-present” since she started in the role seven years ago. Over the years, the district has had to bring in crews to pump the tanks, remove tree roots and blockages and generally patch up the aging system. But those smaller, short-term repairs may have reached the end of their helping line.
The Sacramento Bee: County office of education rejects Sacramento City Unified’s revised budget
Sacramento City Unified School District’s (SCUSD) fiscal overseer has disapproved the district’s revised budget, citing a “significant” projected negative year-end fund balance and the district’s failure to provide enough information to assess its cash flow and ability to meet financial obligations. The decision, made Nov. 6, came weeks after the Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE) disapproved the district’s original budget adopted in June and less than a day after the district signaled it would pursue a state budget review committee to review its revised budget.
The disapproval could trigger a budget review by a three-member committee selected by the SCUSD board from a state-provided list, unless the district receives a waiver. The committee, if formed, will recommend whether the budget should be approved or disapproved. In a letter to SCUSD Superintendent Cancy McArn, SCOE Superintendent Jacqueline White cited several concerns, including the district’s projected negative unrestricted balance of $166.3 million by year’s end, uncertainty over which budget solutions were reflected and missing financial projections.