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Our Kids Need Arts Education Now More Than Ever. Here’s What Is Lost Without It

B etween months of a pandemic , years of political hostility and centuries of racism , mending America’s wounds will be the work of many hands. In his first 100 days, President-elect Joe Biden should empower school-age children — no fewer than one in six Americans —to help heal themselves, one another and their communities by restoring the arts to our education system.

There’s no time to waste. No different than grown-ups, kids today are walled in, lacking human interaction and adrift in anxieties that nobody should have to worry about. Researchers are tracking a global surge in the number of young people reporting symptoms of clinical depression . And to make matters worse, school-based mental health services are hamstrung .

The good news is we can help young people to not only express and channel difficult emotions, but also to find their spirit’s song. Painting and ceramics, music and dance, photography and film —these aren’t merely hobbies; they are some of humankind’s most liberating pathways to creativity and catharsis. Anyone who’s stood before an ancient sculpture and felt wonder, or listened to a piece of classical music and felt peace, or gazed at a Renaissance painting and experienced the sublime grasps the power of art to transmit emotion across the ages. And arts like architecture and design teach us to imagine and create a future all of us can share.

Nothing moves us like art.

Yet, even before the outbreak of COVID-19, schools nationwide were rolling back arts education . Now that schools are bootstrapping themselves through the most challenging school year in recent memory, the arts could be on their way to permanent “extracurricular” status.

For students, teachers, parents—for all of us—this is a giant leap backward, not least because studies have shown that students who have the arts included in their core curriculum also see improvement in reading and math. Arts education has also been linked to not only higher GPAs and SAT scores but lower suspension and dropout rates. What’s more, young people who study the arts consistently demonstrate higher levels of empathy, social tolerance and civic engagement . Are any qualities more needed in the United States right now?

It is no coincidence that students at the lowest-performing schools in the country don’t have access to the arts. As the shift to digital learning widens the educational equity gap , the arts can give the most disadvantaged students a fighting chance to succeed. Indeed, we’ve seen it firsthand.

We’re part of a nationwide effort to integrate the arts across our education system. Here in California, we partner with 24 historically marginalized schools to harness the arts for transformation. In every case, we’ve been inspired by the changes we’re tracking. Young people who might have fallen through the cracks academically or socially find their voices and make themselves heard. Parents report that arts programs make schools feel tighter knit and more inclusive. Teachers say the arts help them connect across disciplines—bringing music into math class, sculpture into social studies, drawing into science and more. Ninety-eight percent of teachers in our partner schools tell us that the arts had a positive or very positive impact on their students during this challenging year.

As advocates, we see that arts education is an antidote to the narrow curricula, rote memorization and overreliance on high-stakes testing that leave too many teachers questioning their calling, and too many students unseen. As human beings, we thrill to the excitement, joy and fun that the arts bring to the experience of learning, teaching and growing.

And just as the arts can revive a school’s community, so too they can help restore our nation’s soul. That’s why the job of making arts accessible to young people starts at the top. President-elect Biden should heed the call to appoint a Secretary of Arts and Culture, who can help ensure that building back better means building back room for creative self-expression. Federal, state and local officials must work together to fund arts programs, hire more arts teachers and buy more musical instruments and arts supplies. Finally, at home and in the classroom, teachers and parents need to hold each other accountable for giving kids the time, space and resources to dance, draw, paint and sing.

After all, our future doesn’t just include young people, it depends on them. It won’t be long before they step out of their childhoods and into our increasingly troubled world. If we want them to have the creative powers necessary to solve the problems we’re leaving behind, then now more than ever, students need the arts.

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How technology is reinventing education

Stanford Graduate School of Education Dean Dan Schwartz and other education scholars weigh in on what's next for some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom.

Image credit: Claire Scully

New advances in technology are upending education, from the recent debut of new artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like ChatGPT to the growing accessibility of virtual-reality tools that expand the boundaries of the classroom. For educators, at the heart of it all is the hope that every learner gets an equal chance to develop the skills they need to succeed. But that promise is not without its pitfalls.

“Technology is a game-changer for education – it offers the prospect of universal access to high-quality learning experiences, and it creates fundamentally new ways of teaching,” said Dan Schwartz, dean of Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE), who is also a professor of educational technology at the GSE and faculty director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning . “But there are a lot of ways we teach that aren’t great, and a big fear with AI in particular is that we just get more efficient at teaching badly. This is a moment to pay attention, to do things differently.”

For K-12 schools, this year also marks the end of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding program, which has provided pandemic recovery funds that many districts used to invest in educational software and systems. With these funds running out in September 2024, schools are trying to determine their best use of technology as they face the prospect of diminishing resources.

Here, Schwartz and other Stanford education scholars weigh in on some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom this year.

AI in the classroom

In 2023, the big story in technology and education was generative AI, following the introduction of ChatGPT and other chatbots that produce text seemingly written by a human in response to a question or prompt. Educators immediately worried that students would use the chatbot to cheat by trying to pass its writing off as their own. As schools move to adopt policies around students’ use of the tool, many are also beginning to explore potential opportunities – for example, to generate reading assignments or coach students during the writing process.

AI can also help automate tasks like grading and lesson planning, freeing teachers to do the human work that drew them into the profession in the first place, said Victor Lee, an associate professor at the GSE and faculty lead for the AI + Education initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. “I’m heartened to see some movement toward creating AI tools that make teachers’ lives better – not to replace them, but to give them the time to do the work that only teachers are able to do,” he said. “I hope to see more on that front.”

He also emphasized the need to teach students now to begin questioning and critiquing the development and use of AI. “AI is not going away,” said Lee, who is also director of CRAFT (Classroom-Ready Resources about AI for Teaching), which provides free resources to help teach AI literacy to high school students across subject areas. “We need to teach students how to understand and think critically about this technology.”

Immersive environments

The use of immersive technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality is also expected to surge in the classroom, especially as new high-profile devices integrating these realities hit the marketplace in 2024.

The educational possibilities now go beyond putting on a headset and experiencing life in a distant location. With new technologies, students can create their own local interactive 360-degree scenarios, using just a cell phone or inexpensive camera and simple online tools.

“This is an area that’s really going to explode over the next couple of years,” said Kristen Pilner Blair, director of research for the Digital Learning initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, which runs a program exploring the use of virtual field trips to promote learning. “Students can learn about the effects of climate change, say, by virtually experiencing the impact on a particular environment. But they can also become creators, documenting and sharing immersive media that shows the effects where they live.”

Integrating AI into virtual simulations could also soon take the experience to another level, Schwartz said. “If your VR experience brings me to a redwood tree, you could have a window pop up that allows me to ask questions about the tree, and AI can deliver the answers.”

Gamification

Another trend expected to intensify this year is the gamification of learning activities, often featuring dynamic videos with interactive elements to engage and hold students’ attention.

“Gamification is a good motivator, because one key aspect is reward, which is very powerful,” said Schwartz. The downside? Rewards are specific to the activity at hand, which may not extend to learning more generally. “If I get rewarded for doing math in a space-age video game, it doesn’t mean I’m going to be motivated to do math anywhere else.”

Gamification sometimes tries to make “chocolate-covered broccoli,” Schwartz said, by adding art and rewards to make speeded response tasks involving single-answer, factual questions more fun. He hopes to see more creative play patterns that give students points for rethinking an approach or adapting their strategy, rather than only rewarding them for quickly producing a correct response.

Data-gathering and analysis

The growing use of technology in schools is producing massive amounts of data on students’ activities in the classroom and online. “We’re now able to capture moment-to-moment data, every keystroke a kid makes,” said Schwartz – data that can reveal areas of struggle and different learning opportunities, from solving a math problem to approaching a writing assignment.

But outside of research settings, he said, that type of granular data – now owned by tech companies – is more likely used to refine the design of the software than to provide teachers with actionable information.

The promise of personalized learning is being able to generate content aligned with students’ interests and skill levels, and making lessons more accessible for multilingual learners and students with disabilities. Realizing that promise requires that educators can make sense of the data that’s being collected, said Schwartz – and while advances in AI are making it easier to identify patterns and findings, the data also needs to be in a system and form educators can access and analyze for decision-making. Developing a usable infrastructure for that data, Schwartz said, is an important next step.

With the accumulation of student data comes privacy concerns: How is the data being collected? Are there regulations or guidelines around its use in decision-making? What steps are being taken to prevent unauthorized access? In 2023 K-12 schools experienced a rise in cyberattacks, underscoring the need to implement strong systems to safeguard student data.

Technology is “requiring people to check their assumptions about education,” said Schwartz, noting that AI in particular is very efficient at replicating biases and automating the way things have been done in the past, including poor models of instruction. “But it’s also opening up new possibilities for students producing material, and for being able to identify children who are not average so we can customize toward them. It’s an opportunity to think of entirely new ways of teaching – this is the path I hope to see.”

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Which states are restricting, or requiring, lessons on race, sex and gender

Since 2017, dozens of states have enacted more than 110 laws and policies reshaping the teaching of race, racism, sexual orientation and gender identity. These new rules now affect how three-fourths of the nation’s students learn about topics ranging from the role of slavery in American history to the lives of nonbinary people.

The Washington Post is tracking state laws, rules and policies that regulate instruction about race, as well as lessons on sex and gender, and will continue to update this page as state leaders take action.

Much of the first wave of curriculum legislation — from the late 2010s to 2021 — focused on how schools can teach about race, racism and the nation’s racial history.

How race education has changed in each state

Mostly blue states have passed expansive laws that do things like require that students learn about Black or Native American history. For example, a 2021 Delaware law says schools must offer K-12 students instruction on Black history including the “central role racism played in the Civil War” and “the significance of enslavement in the development of the American economy.”

Mostly red states, meanwhile, have passed laws that, among other things, outlaw teaching a long list of concepts related to race, including the idea that America is systemically racist or that students should feel guilt, shame or responsibility for historical wrongs due to their race. For example, a 2021 Texas law forbids teaching that “slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to, the authentic founding principles of the United States, which include liberty and equality.”

The target of curriculum laws has shifted over time to include determining how teachers can discuss — or whether they can discuss — gender identity and sexual orientation with students.

Changes to sex/gender education in each state

Mostly blue states have passed expansive laws that do things like require teaching about prominent LGBTQ individuals in history. For example, a 2024 Washington state law says school districts must adopt “inclusive curricula” and “diverse, equitable, inclusive” instructional materials that feature the perspectives of historically marginalized groups including LGBTQ people.

But at the same time, mostly red states have passed restrictive laws that would, among other things, outlaw lessons about gender identity and sexual orientation before a certain grade or require parental permission to learn about these topics. In one example, a 2023 Tennessee law says schools must obtain parents’ written consent for a student to receive lessons featuring a “sexual orientation curriculum or gender identity curriculum.”

Who is affected by these restrictions?

The laws cumulatively affect about three-fourths of all Americans aged 5 to 19, The Post found. The restrictive laws alone affect nearly half of all Americans in that age group. The majority of laws apply to K-12 campuses, where First Amendment protections are less potent as compared to the freedoms the courts have afforded to college and university professors.

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​Why School Absences Have ‘Exploded’ Almost Everywhere

The pandemic changed families’ lives and the culture of education: “Our relationship with school became optional.”

By Sarah Mervosh and Francesca Paris

Sarah Mervosh reports on K-12 education, and Francesca Paris is a data reporter.

In Anchorage, affluent families set off on ski trips and other lengthy vacations, with the assumption that their children can keep up with schoolwork online.

In a working-class pocket of Michigan, school administrators have tried almost everything, including pajama day, to boost student attendance.

And across the country, students with heightened anxiety are opting to stay home rather than face the classroom.

In the four years since the pandemic closed schools, U.S. education has struggled to recover on a number of fronts, from learning loss , to enrollment , to student behavior .

But perhaps no issue has been as stubborn and pervasive as a sharp increase in student absenteeism, a problem that cuts across demographics and has continued long after schools reopened.

Nationally, an estimated 26 percent of public school students were considered chronically absent last school year, up from 15 percent before the pandemic, according to the most recent data, from 40 states and Washington, D.C., compiled by the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute . Chronic absence is typically defined as missing at least 10 percent of the school year, or about 18 days, for any reason.

Source: Upshot analysis of data from Nat Malkus, American Enterprise Institute. Districts are grouped into highest, middle and lowest third.

The increases have occurred in districts big and small, and across income and race. For districts in wealthier areas, chronic absenteeism rates have about doubled, to 19 percent in the 2022-23 school year from 10 percent before the pandemic, a New York Times analysis of the data found.

Poor communities, which started with elevated rates of student absenteeism, are facing an even bigger crisis: Around 32 percent of students in the poorest districts were chronically absent in the 2022-23 school year, up from 19 percent before the pandemic.

Even districts that reopened quickly during the pandemic, in fall 2020, have seen vast increases.

“The problem got worse for everybody in the same proportional way,” said Nat Malkus, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, who collected and studied the data.

Victoria, Texas reopened schools in August 2020, earlier than many other districts. Even so, student absenteeism in the district has doubled.

Kaylee Greenlee for The New York Times

The trends suggest that something fundamental has shifted in American childhood and the culture of school, in ways that may be long lasting. What was once a deeply ingrained habit — wake up, catch the bus, report to class — is now something far more tenuous.

“Our relationship with school became optional,” said Katie Rosanbalm, a psychologist and associate research professor with the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University.

The habit of daily attendance — and many families’ trust — was severed when schools shuttered in spring 2020. Even after schools reopened, things hardly snapped back to normal. Districts offered remote options, required Covid-19 quarantines and relaxed policies around attendance and grading .

Source: Nat Malkus, American Enterprise Institute . Includes districts with at least 1,500 students in 2019. Numbers are rounded. U.S. average is estimated.

Today, student absenteeism is a leading factor hindering the nation’s recovery from pandemic learning losses , educational experts say. Students can’t learn if they aren’t in school. And a rotating cast of absent classmates can negatively affect the achievement of even students who do show up, because teachers must slow down and adjust their approach to keep everyone on track.

“If we don’t address the absenteeism, then all is naught,” said Adam Clark, the superintendent of Mt. Diablo Unified, a socioeconomically and racially diverse district of 29,000 students in Northern California, where he said absenteeism has “exploded” to about 25 percent of students. That’s up from 12 percent before the pandemic.

U.S. students, overall, are not caught up from their pandemic losses. Absenteeism is one key reason.

Why Students Are Missing School

Schools everywhere are scrambling to improve attendance, but the new calculus among families is complex and multifaceted.

At South Anchorage High School in Anchorage, where students are largely white and middle-to-upper income, some families now go on ski trips during the school year, or take advantage of off-peak travel deals to vacation for two weeks in Hawaii, said Sara Miller, a counselor at the school.

For a smaller number of students at the school who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, the reasons are different, and more intractable. They often have to stay home to care for younger siblings, Ms. Miller said. On days they miss the bus, their parents are busy working or do not have a car to take them to school.

And because teachers are still expected to post class work online, often nothing more than a skeleton version of an assignment, families incorrectly think students are keeping up, Ms. Miller said.

Sara Miller, a counselor at South Anchorage High School for 20 years, now sees more absences from students across the socioeconomic spectrum.

Ash Adams for The New York Times

Across the country, students are staying home when sick , not only with Covid-19, but also with more routine colds and viruses.

And more students are struggling with their mental health, one reason for increased absenteeism in Mason, Ohio, an affluent suburb of Cincinnati, said Tracey Carson, a district spokeswoman. Because many parents can work remotely, their children can also stay home.

For Ashley Cooper, 31, of San Marcos, Texas, the pandemic fractured her trust in an education system that she said left her daughter to learn online, with little support, and then expected her to perform on grade level upon her return. Her daughter, who fell behind in math, has struggled with anxiety ever since, she said.

“There have been days where she’s been absolutely in tears — ‘Can’t do it. Mom, I don’t want to go,’” said Ms. Cooper, who has worked with the nonprofit Communities in Schools to improve her children’s school attendance. But she added, “as a mom, I feel like it’s OK to have a mental health day, to say, ‘I hear you and I listen. You are important.’”

Experts say missing school is both a symptom of pandemic-related challenges, and also a cause. Students who are behind academically may not want to attend, but being absent sets them further back. Anxious students may avoid school, but hiding out can fuel their anxiety.

And schools have also seen a rise in discipline problems since the pandemic, an issue intertwined with absenteeism.

Dr. Rosanbalm, the Duke psychologist, said both absenteeism and behavioral outbursts are examples of the human stress response, now playing out en masse in schools: fight (verbal or physical aggression) or flight (absenteeism).

“If kids are not here, they are not forming relationships,” said Quintin Shepherd, the superintendent in Victoria, Texas.

Quintin Shepherd, the superintendent in Victoria, Texas, first put his focus on student behavior, which he described as a “fire in the kitchen” after schools reopened in August 2020.

The district, which serves a mostly low-income and Hispanic student body of around 13,000, found success with a one-on-one coaching program that teaches coping strategies to the most disruptive students. In some cases, students went from having 20 classroom outbursts per year to fewer than five, Dr. Shepherd said.

But chronic absenteeism is yet to be conquered. About 30 percent of students are chronically absent this year, roughly double the rate before the pandemic.

Dr. Shepherd, who originally hoped student absenteeism would improve naturally with time, has begun to think that it is, in fact, at the root of many issues.

“If kids are not here, they are not forming relationships,” he said. “If they are not forming relationships, we should expect there will be behavior and discipline issues. If they are not here, they will not be academically learning and they will struggle. If they struggle with their coursework, you can expect violent behaviors.”

Teacher absences have also increased since the pandemic, and student absences mean less certainty about which friends and classmates will be there. That can lead to more absenteeism, said Michael A. Gottfried, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. His research has found that when 10 percent of a student’s classmates are absent on a given day, that student is more likely to be absent the following day.

Absent classmates can have a negative impact on the achievement and attendance of even the students who do show up.

Is This the New Normal?

In many ways, the challenge facing schools is one felt more broadly in American society: Have the cultural shifts from the pandemic become permanent?

In the work force, U.S. employees are still working from home at a rate that has remained largely unchanged since late 2022 . Companies have managed to “put the genie back in the bottle” to some extent by requiring a return to office a few days a week, said Nicholas Bloom, an economist at Stanford University who studies remote work. But hybrid office culture, he said, appears here to stay.

Some wonder whether it is time for schools to be more pragmatic.

Lakisha Young, the chief executive of the Oakland REACH, a parent advocacy group that works with low-income families in California, suggested a rigorous online option that students could use in emergencies, such as when a student misses the bus or has to care for a family member. “The goal should be, how do I ensure this kid is educated?” she said.

Relationships with adults at school and other classmates are crucial for attendance.

In the corporate world, companies have found some success appealing to a sense of social responsibility, where colleagues rely on each other to show up on the agreed-upon days.

A similar dynamic may be at play in schools, where experts say strong relationships are critical for attendance.

There is a sense of: “If I don’t show up, would people even miss the fact that I’m not there?” said Charlene M. Russell-Tucker, the commissioner of education in Connecticut.

In her state, a home visit program has yielded positive results , in part by working with families to address the specific reasons a student is missing school, but also by establishing a relationship with a caring adult. Other efforts — such as sending text messages or postcards to parents informing them of the number of accumulated absences — can also be effective.

Regina Murff has worked to re-establish the daily habit of school attendance for her sons, who are 6 and 12.

Sylvia Jarrus for The New York Times

In Ypsilanti, Mich., outside of Ann Arbor, a home visit helped Regina Murff, 44, feel less alone when she was struggling to get her children to school each morning.

After working at a nursing home during the pandemic, and later losing her sister to Covid-19, she said, there were days she found it difficult to get out of bed. Ms. Murff was also more willing to keep her children home when they were sick, for fear of accidentally spreading the virus.

But after a visit from her school district, and starting therapy herself, she has settled into a new routine. She helps her sons, 6 and 12, set out their outfits at night and she wakes up at 6 a.m. to ensure they get on the bus. If they are sick, she said, she knows to call the absence into school. “I’ve done a huge turnaround in my life,” she said.

But bringing about meaningful change for large numbers of students remains slow, difficult work .

Nationally, about 26 percent of students were considered chronically absent last school year, up from 15 percent before the pandemic.

The Ypsilanti school district has tried a bit of everything, said the superintendent, Alena Zachery-Ross. In addition to door knocks, officials are looking for ways to make school more appealing for the district’s 3,800 students, including more than 80 percent who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. They held themed dress-up days — ’70s day, pajama day — and gave away warm clothes after noticing a dip in attendance during winter months.

“We wondered, is it because you don’t have a coat, you don’t have boots?” said Dr. Zachery-Ross.

Still, absenteeism overall remains higher than it was before the pandemic. “We haven’t seen an answer,” she said.

Data provided by Nat Malkus, with the American Enterprise Institute. The data was originally published on the Return to Learn tracker and used for the report “ Long COVID for Public Schools: Chronic Absenteeism Before and After the Pandemic .”

The analysis for each year includes all districts with available data for that year, weighted by district size. Data are sourced from states, where available, and the U.S. Department of Education and NCES Common Core of Data.

For the 2018-19 school year, data was available for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. For 2022-23, it was available for 40 states and D.C., due to delays in state reporting.

Closure length status is based on the most in-person learning option available. Poverty is measured using the Census Bureau’s Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates. School size and minority population estimates are from NCES CCD.

How absenteeism is measured can vary state by state, which means comparisons across state lines may not be reliable.

An earlier version of this article misnamed a research center at Duke University. It is the Center for Child and Family Policy, not the Center of Child and Family Policy.

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Excitement, relief, dread. What $20 an hour means, according to fast-food workers, franchise owners, customers

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Good morning. It’s Thursday, April 4 . This is Ryan Fonseca and I’m joined by our reporting fellow Defne Karabatur. Here’s what you need to know to start your day.

• What California’s $20 fast-food wage means for workers, franchise owners and customers
• Scientology tried to ‘derail’ Danny Masterson’s rape trial by harassing prosecutor, suit says; church calls claim ‘false.’
• The movies worth seeing at UCLA’s Festival of Preservation.
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What $20 an hour means, according to fast-food workers, franchise owners, customers

A sweeping change unfolded this week inside fast food chains like McDonald’s, El Pollo Loco and Starbucks. The food is the same. But the hourly minimum wage of the workers who serve you is now $20, a notable increase from the previous $16 . And the price of that burger or cup of coffee may be rising.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1228 last year, affecting fast-food chains with more than 60 locations nationwide and more than 500,000 fast-food workers in California. The Times has been regularly covering the wage increase and its potential impacts , including the possibility of price hikes as fast-food operators pass on the increased labor costs to consumers.

We wanted to hear from all sides affected by the new law — primarily workers, but also the franchise owners and customers. We emailed, we called — and we just walked into some restaurants to talk to people. Here’s what they told us:

Workers are excited (plus a little worried)

We asked the workers one basic question: What does the $20 minimum wage mean for you?

Scarlett Arana has worked at an El Pollo Loco in the San Gabriel Valley for about eight months. The 19-year-old said the larger paychecks will be a major help as she struggles with high housing costs and inflation. She said she is literally bringing the money home, where she lives with her family, to pitch in more toward bills.

“I get to not only help out more with rent, but I get to help with other utilities as well [and] groceries,” Arana said. “It’s gonna do really good for us.”

Arana is also somewhat concerned that the higher hourly wage could lead to decreased hours — and that inflation could keep creeping up to where her pay bump flattens out.

“That’s the main thing I worry about,” she said.

Dennise Rodriguez, 20, is the primary wage earner in her family — and the pressure has been intense.

She’s been working at a Wendy’s in the San Gabriel Valley for about a year while juggling classes at Mt. San Antonio College. She’s studying early childhood education and plans to become an elementary school teacher.

“You have to put in so many hours just to reach a certain goal for your rent,” she said from a booth at work, still wearing her drive-through headset. “I have to provide for my school — and school’s expensive.”

Rodriguez lives at home with her parents and younger siblings. Her mother recently gave birth via C-section and can’t return to work yet and her father is on disability after a workplace injury.

“I’m the one who’s bringing in the income,” she said. “So it’s a little hard.”

For Rodriguez, the higher hourly wage will mean less pressure to work 40-plus hours each week, giving her more time to focus on school “or even get a mental break from work and school,” she said.

Still, Rodriguez is worried that her larger paychecks might not stretch as far in the long run “because California itself is expensive .”

“Yeah, the minimum wage is going higher, but then what’s next?” she wondered. “I just feel like, at the end of the day, it’s gonna come back down to everything rising. It’s not really going to be a living [wage].”

Family-run franchises feel targeted

The California Alliance of Family Owned Businesses gave us a statement reflecting how many of their members are feeling. The group said state lawmakers “have singled out family-owned fast food franchise operators to target with wage and regulatory requirements not imposed upon other businesses.”

“As family-owned businesses, we are proud to provide jobs and opportunities for our valued employees but we also want an even playing field,” the statement reads. “The minimum wage for one should be the same for all.”

Mike Mangione, 74, exemplifies what it means to operate a family owned business. He worked at McDonald’s in Chicago in the late 1960s. As a loyal employee, in 1967, Mangione bought a Long Beach McDonald’s with his father.

Now, 57 years later, Mangione owns and operates 19 McDonald’s restaurants across L.A. and the Inland Empire with his daughter, Jessica D’Ambre, and son, Anthony.

For Mangione and his children, being a franchisee is about more than owning McDonald’s locations. Both of his kids have worked in the kitchen and helped with maintenance. They have taken orders and processed payments, before becoming managers and ultimately licensed operators.

“We run it like any other family business,” D’Ambre, 37, said, adding that she knew she wanted to be her dad’s business partner from the age of 5. “I celebrate birthdays with my employees, we celebrate Christmases together.”

D’Ambre feels the new law is like an “unfair target on our backs.”

“It’s not just this giant corporation that runs things,” D’Ambre, who has more than 20 years of experience in the industry, said. “I think that’s where the misconception lies, especially with politicians. They don’t understand the business and the tight margins we run on.”

D’Ambre said she and her family are trying to approach the change from a positive perspective.

“Maybe there are great people out there who never considered working at McDonald’s before and who never considered this as an option but now they will,” D’Ambre said. Instead of laying off workers, she thinks she will “be hiring more people that are friendlier and faster than before.”

D’Ambre said that she doesn’t foresee any layoffs at her locations and those who “work hard and give our customers a great experience are going to be fine.”

It’s too soon to know whether she will raise prices and she will evaluate each location uniquely. Some of her employees “feel excited,” while “there are other people who are more realistic.”

“Are we really helping anybody?” she asked. “I don’t really know.”

Fewer takeout bags, more leftovers

Wearing a blue Dodgers cap and matching jacket, Jose Navarro was enjoying his lunch at the El Pollo Loco in Marina del Rey on Monday.

The 50-year-old South Gate resident had packed leftovers, fearing that the new law might immediately increase the price of his go-to meal: chicken thighs, mashed potatoes with gravy, mac-and-cheese and flour tortillas. But he forgot his lunch at home.

Navarro said he frequents fast-food restaurants during the workweek because it’s easier to eat a warm lunch. He often works outside the office as a customer service administrator at a telecommunications company — and reheating leftovers isn’t always an option. He may have to change habits if prices go up.

“Before, it was like, ah I don’t want to carry it,” Navarro said. But now, he said he is going to ask himself “Is it really worth paying?” Will he have to “cut back maybe a day or two,” instead of relying on eating out most days?

However, when he needs to, he’ll pay whatever the new price is.

“Everybody should make a living wage,” Navarro said. But he also worries owners could react by cutting workers’ hours or laying them off — maybe replacing them with machines.

“What seemed to be a good idea is actually going to hurt the people that [the law is] trying to help,” he said. “But maybe this will be a good example for other states that might be thinking about doing the same.”

Today’s top stories

Scientology

• Scientology tried to ‘derail’ Danny Masterson’s rape trial by harassing prosecutor, suit says ; church calls claim ‘false.’
• Masterson was convicted of two counts of rape in May of last year.

Stolen artifacts in California museums

• Investigators think LACMA, Norton Simon and other California museums have Cambodia’s looted antiquities. Go inside Cambodia’s quest to get them back .
• In a highly unusual move, UCLA Fowler Museum initiated returns of looted African works in February .

California and criminal justice reform

• After a trip to Alabama that helped him see the connection between slavery and the death penalty, Santa Clara County Dist. Atty. Jeff Rosen is working to call back the death sentences of 18 men convicted from his county.
• Newsom has approved three California prison closures but resists pressure to shutter more.
• Newsom closed death row. He’s not exactly hyping that right now , Anita Chabria writes.

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• Taiwan’s strongest earthquake in 25 years killed nine people and trapped 70 workers in quarries.
• What California can learn from the massive earthquake off the coast of Taiwan.

Bob Iger triumphed over Nelson Peltz in Disney’s bitter shareholder vote

• The hard-fought battle focused a harsh light on Disney’s challenges , including finding a successor for CEO Bob Iger.
• Meet the man who battled Bob Iger .

Why the 2024 election is unique

• “Double-Haters,” who want neither Trump nor Biden, make up as much as a fifth of the electorate . The path to the White House means winning them over.
• Meet Don Hankey , the L.A. billionaire who financed Donald Trump’s appeal bond.
• It’s an election between authoritarianism and the uncommitted, wrote our columnist Anita Chabria .
• Every vote counts in Silicon Valley , where two congressional candidates literally tied for second place.

Allegations against Andy Cohen’s Bravo empire

• Andy Cohen turned Bravo into a cable powerhouse. Now the network and its producers face a slew of allegations and lawsuits claiming bullying, harassment and unfair labor practices.
• “Real Housewives” star Leah McSweeney sued the TV personality, Bravo and NBCUniversal in February for encouraging a “dangerous work environment” and “substance abuse”. Cohen’s rep called it “completely false.”

It’s suddenly cold again (and still wet)

• Expect winter temps and low-elevation snow across California starting today.
• ‘Way, way, way above normal’ rains could set an all-time L.A. record.
• Officials urging residents near the latest Big Sur landslide to evacuate as more rain approaches.

More big stories

• In one of L.A.’s largest cash heists, burglars stole $30 million on Easter . Mystery surrounds the case.
• A new video finally reveals the truth of how police killed abducted teen Savannah Graziano.
• Peter Schey, longtime Los Angeles champion of immigrant rights , dead at 77.
• Paris Hilton backs California bill to reform ‘troubled teen industry.’
• Sage Against the Machine, an L.A.-based band of punk-rock native plant nerds , might do for native plants what the Beach Boys did for surfing.
• Poppies across Southern California aren’t popping, even as other bright flowers blanket the region. Here’s why .
• Jon Stewart continues his ‘Daily Show’ comeback with a major dig at his former employer.
• LeBron James on Bronny James’ future : ‘He has some tough decisions to make.’

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Commentary and opinions

• Lorraine Ali : I spent 24 hours on Trump’s Truth Social so you don’t have to. No wonder it’s tanking.
• Mary McNamara : Bob Iger, you beat Nelson Peltz. So don’t give into his retrograde agenda.
• Michael Hiltzik : Disney needs fixing, but Peltz was the wrong repairman .
• Harry Litman: How Jack Smith just called out Judge Aileen Cannon in the Trump classified records case
• Editorial Board: Berkeley’s backtrack on gas ban won’t stop the electrification trend

Today’s great reads

L.A. synagogue’s invite to Muslims on Ramadan ends in tears and resignations. Can they heal? A Jewish temple in the San Fernando Valley opened its doors to Muslims for Ramadan. When word spread among the congregation that a display of photos of Israeli hostages had been covered, there was an uproar.

Other great reads

• A trash-covered home in L.A. draws outrage, worry and a ‘Hoarders’ producer.
• This teacher will guide you into talking with your dreams. A warning: They will talk back.

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected] .

For your downtime

• 📽️ These are the movies worth seeing at UCLA’s Festival of Preservation, which starts Friday.
• 🌱 18 ways to volunteer with native plants in and around L.A.
• 🎤 The son of Sublime’s Bradley Nowell gives the band a ‘second beginning’ in time for Coachella.
• ☀️ How to take a photo of the eclipse without damaging your phone.
• 🍽️ Here are 2024’s James Beard Award nominees in Los Angeles — and all of California
• 📖 The 3 best mystery books to read this spring.
• 📺 ‘Elsbeth’: the non-spin-off spin-off from ‘The Good Wife’ universe.
• 🧑‍🍳 Here’s a recipe for Pho Gà Nhanh (Quick Chicken Pho) .
• ✏️ Get our free daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and arcade games .

And finally ... from our archives

On April 4, 1968, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot in Memphis. Fifty years later, the Times looked back on his death , and more events from 1968 , one of our nation’s most tumultuous years.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Ryan Fonseca, reporter Defne Karabatur, fellow Stephanie Chavez, deputy metro editor Christian Orozco, assistant editor Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

Check our top stories , topics and the latest articles on latimes.com .

Defne Karabatur is the 2023-24 audience engagement fellow at the Los Angeles Times. She recently graduated from UC Berkeley, where she studied applied mathematics, English and political economy.

Ryan Fonseca writes the Los Angeles Times’ Essential California newsletter. A lifelong SoCal native, he has worked in a diverse mix of newsrooms across L.A. County, including radio, documentary, print and television outlets. Most recently, he was an associate editor for LAist.com and KPCC-FM (89.3) public radio, covering transportation and mobility. He returns to The Times after previously working as an assistant web editor for Times Community News, where he helped manage the websites and social media presence of the Burbank Leader, Glendale News-Press and La Cañada Valley Sun. Fonseca studied journalism at Cal State Northridge, where he now teaches the next generation of journalists to develop their voice and digital skills.

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New Law Allowing Religion into Science Classrooms Is Dangerous for Everyone

It is imperative that we protect science education from “intelligent design” and other alternative “theories”

By Amanda L. Townley

Win McNamee/Getty Images

I grew up a creationist in the rural southeastern U.S. I am now a scientist, educator, wife, mother and person of faith. Regardless of whether you practice religion, you should fight to prohibit the teaching of nonscientific alternative ideas in science classrooms and use your vote and your voice to prevent the inclusion of religious beliefs in public education. A recently signed law in West Virginia illustrates why.

I often hear lamentations about the removal of God from public schools. These sentiments are based on a misinterpretation of the principle of the separation of church and state. In the U.S., religious beliefs and practices are protected and situated in their rightful place within people’s homes and communities so that individuals can choose what to teach their children regarding religion. Kids can still pray whenever they wish, gather with their peers, create faith-based groups or even nondisruptively practice their faith in school. Separating state and church means young people cannot be compelled to engage in religious actions by someone in a position of power, such as a teacher, administrator or lawmaker. Separation of church and state is as critical to people of faith as it is to those who do not practice faith traditions. The protection of personal religious freedoms was a vital component of the foundation of our nation.

On March 22 West Virginia governor Jim Justice signed a bill that purports to protect the ability of the state’s public school educators to teach scientific theories. There is no actual problem that the new law would solve, however; none of its supporters produced a teacher who plausibly claimed to have been oppressed. But the legislative history of the bill, known as Senate Bill 280, makes it clear that its real aim is to encourage educators to teach religiously motivated “alternatives” to evolution. As introduced, SB 280 would have expressly allowed the teaching of “ intelligent design ” in West Virginia’s public schools.

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The National Center for Science Education (NCSE), of which I am the executive director, monitors attempts to undermine the accurate and robust teaching of science education in K–12 public school classrooms. Most often, these attempts die in committee or fail to pass in state legislatures to become a law. This particular West Virginia bill appeared in a prior session and passed the state’s Senate in February 2023 before dying in the House Education Committee. This session, the Senate Education Committee adjusted the wording to remove the term “intelligent design” in favor of “scientific theories,” conspicuously failing to explain what that term does and does not include. During the floor discussion of Senate Bill 280, however, its sponsor, Amy Grady (Republican, District 4), declared that even as amended, the bill would protect the teaching of “intelligent design” in West Virginia’s public schools.

It’s been 19 years since a federal court in neighboring Pennsylvania took up the issue of whether “intelligent design,” like its predecessor “creation science,” can be constitutionally taught in public schools. Presiding over the case Kitzmiller v. Dover , Judge John E. Jones III, appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush, found that it cannot be. There was no appeal of his meticulous decision, and no court has ruled otherwise.

The policy makers in West Virginia would have done well to consult the decision in Kitzmiller . They would have learned about the legal perils awaiting any teacher or district unwise enough to invoke the protection of the newly enacted law in defense of teaching “intelligent design”; in Pennsylvania, the Dover Area School Board ended up paying more than $1 million of the plaintiffs’ legal fees. They might also have realized that their motivations rested on some common misconceptions.

The first misconception is that learning about evolution threatens students’ faith. Evolutionary biology, like any area of modern science, is simply a body of knowledge about the natural world and a set of methods and procedures for attaining, refining and testing that knowledge. Nothing in evolutionary biology denies the existence of God or places constraints on divine activity. Evolutionary biologists include people of many faiths and of none, and evolutionary biology is routinely taught in institutions of higher education, whether public or private, secular or sectarian, as the well-established area of modern science that it is.

A second misconception is that exposing students to “intelligent design” promotes religious freedom. (The proponents of “intelligent design” often claim their views have no religious motivation, but frame it otherwise when it suits their purposes.) On the contrary, because “intelligent design” reflects a narrow sectarian rejection of evolution, teaching it in school actually harms religious freedom.

The division of church and state is crucial for the religious freedom of everyone in the U.S. Yet some people hope for the undoing of this separation of religion and political power, mainly because they expect that those in power will share their particular religious beliefs. They should stop and think very carefully about the possible consequences of temporarily having their way.

In particular, with Senate Bill 280 now on the books, West Virginia educators are free to teach whatever “scientific theories” they please. With no definition of "scientific theories" in the law, a few misguided educators may present creationism—either old-fashioned “creation science” or newfangled and equally unscientific “intelligent design”—as a result. But the sky’s the limit. Why not geocentrism or flat-Earthery? Why not crystal healing? Why not racist views claiming that white people and Black people have separate ancestry? All of these notions, which stem from religious beliefs, not science, have been held up by their proponents as scientific theories, and West Virginia’s legislature and governor just opened the public classroom door to them.

West Virginia is only one state, but others—Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee—have similar laws on the books. As the nation continues to polarize along religious and political lines, more states may follow, compromising both science education and religious freedom.

For these reasons, people of all faiths and none should unite in fighting for religious freedom, including by ensuring that religiously motivated but unscientific “alternatives” to science are not allowed in public school classrooms. Failure to maintain the separation of church and state, and to instead favor a particular sectarian view, opens a door that, one day, people will wish could be closed.

This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.