The Brief

When Humberto Estratalán’s daughter started transitional kindergarten last fall in the Coachella Valley city of La Quinta, he was surprised to hear she’d be in a combination class with kindergartners — with only one teacher.

He said the classroom held about 30 kids, but no dedicated aide to help the teacher manage them. His daughter would come home, deflated.

“She was struggling emotionally. We could tell she was just a little, not herself, not as happy to be at school,” Estratalán said. “She said, ‘Who do I go to when [the teacher] is busy?’”

The most upsetting moment was when he picked her up from school one day and noticed her sweatpants were inside out. He said when he asked the school about it, he was told his daughter had an accident and was sent to an office to change by herself.

“Here we have a 4-year-old in the office restroom, sitting on the floor, naked, changing herself,” he said. “That was the last straw.”

Estratalán, who is an education policy advocate for the nonprofit UNITE-LA, said he knew state rules require an adult for every 12 transitional kindergarten students. He complained to the Desert Sands Unified School District, and within two months the school reassigned teachers from other grades and hired more staff to open up a new transitional kindergarten class with a teacher and aide where he said his daughter is thriving.

The rough start of the year, however, highlights the staffing challenges some school districts face as they try to keep up with California’s rapid expansion of transitional kindergarten. The state needs a lot more teachers and aides to fill TK classrooms, but advocates say early childhood educators who have the experience and desire to step into those jobs are being deterred by the state’s credentialing system.

What is the teacher labor market for transitional kindergarten?

Starting this fall, any child who turns 4 by Sept. 1 can enroll in TK, marking the final phase of California’s four-year rollout of the new grade. There’s a lot riding on the success of universal TK: supporters hope that a year of learning through play will help give a boost to young kids who may not otherwise have access to preschool. Districts facing declining enrollment hope that a surge of new students will improve their financial outlook.

Angelica Cardenas of Hayward poses for a portrait on the Cal State University East Bay campus in Hayward. Cardenas received her master's degree in early childhood education from Cal State East Bay.

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David M. Barreda

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Gov. Gavin Newsom, who made universal TK a focus of his education policy, is proposing to spend $3.9 billion in the 2025-26 budget to fully implement the program. Part of that money would go toward lowering the student to teacher staffing ratio from from 12-to-1 to 10-to-1. School districts that don’t comply could face a fine or risk losing funding.

Researchers estimate that California schools will need 11,900 teachers and at least 16,000 aides to keep TK expansion on track. But amid a shortage of teachers at all levels of public education, some school districts struggle to hire or retain those who have the skills to support the physical, social-emotional and cognitive development of 4-year-olds, said Naj Alikhan, a spokesman for the Association of California School Administrators.

Rural or smaller school districts have a hard time finding a qualified teacher from their local pool of candidates.

Desert Sands Unified, where Estratalán’s daughter is enrolled, has hosted job fairs and offered financial incentives to entice teachers.

“We don't have, you know, five universities like the Bay Area right around all these school districts, and it's difficult,” said Dennis Zink, senior director of certificated personnel at the district.

Why aren't teachers getting the needed credentials?

To grow the workforce, the state introduced a new credential for teachers who want to specialize in TK through third grade.

But Alikhan says he’s hearing anecdotally that not enough people are pursuing the credential, and one reason may be its stringent requirements.

“Teachers may want to do it, but it’s the investment of time and investment of money that’s preventing some from moving forward with it,” he said. 

Assistant professor Yoonjin Esther Nam-Huh teaches early literacy and language trainings at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

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Candidates must hold a bachelor’s degree, complete coursework in child development or early childhood education, pass the state’s teacher performance assessment and undergo up to 600 hours of training in classrooms — typically without pay.

Critics say those are tough barriers for at least 17,000 early educators who already teach young kids and have a bachelor’s degree, but aren’t part of the state’s K-12 school system.

Angelica Cardenas, who has a master’s degree in early childhood education and 13 years of experience teaching 2- to 5-year-olds in Head Start and state preschool programs in the Bay Area, would still need a credential to teach TK.

“People tell me ‘I think you'd be a really good TK teacher,’ and I would love to, but right now I don't know if I have the energy to go back to school,” Cardenas said.

What if you're already a K-12 teacher?

The state’s credentialing program would also require her to jump through more hoops than a K-12 teacher at a private or public school with no experience teaching 4-year-olds.

For example, a preschool teacher with a bachelor’s degree and five years of work experience would still have to undergo classroom training to earn the credential. Those 600 hours amount to at least $10,000 in lost wages, according to researchers at the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) at UC Berkeley and at the California Budget and Policy Center.

By comparison, private school teachers, who are not required to hold a state-issued credential, can shift to TK without additional training or any experience teaching 4-year-olds. State law only requires them and K-12 public school teachers to complete six to eight classes of early childhood education or development.

Lea Austin, executive director of the CSCCE, argues that the separate pathways are inequitable for early educators, the majority of whom are women of color. A preschool teacher earns on average $17.66 per hour, which is less than half the salary of an elementary school teacher, according to an analysis of the most recent labor data for California workers.

“You can't use your existing experience and education as evidence that you are a qualified teacher in the same way that anybody teaching kindergarten or older has the opportunity to do that,” Austin said.

Students in the early education credential program make mini-lesson plans during their lecture at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

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Austin and other advocates have called on the state’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing to offer early educators the same pathway to teaching TK as private school teachers. She said if the state doesn’t improve access, it risks losing a valuable workforce.

“It just feels sad and wrong to be losing such experienced educators when there's a clear need for them and when there should be opportunities for them,” Austin said.

Mary Vixie Sandy, director of the commission, said that policy for private school teachers existed long before the PK-3 credential came along. She urged patience as teacher preparation programs train the first cohorts of PK-3 credential candidates to figure out what worked, what didn’t and consider changes in the future.

“We're not trying to keep a workforce out, not at all. We most certainly want the workforce in,” she said.

What can teacher education programs do?

The CTC allows teacher training programs to waive up to 400 hours of training depending on a person’s preschool classroom experience, but requires 200 hours to prepare candidates to teach all the way up to third grade.

“The knowledge of someone whose complete experience has been with 3- and 4-year-olds may not be sufficient to be assigned to a third-grade classroom,” she said. “And if they have a credential that authorizes them to serve in those places, we have a fundamental obligation to the public to make sure the people we credential are prepared to do so.”

Cardenas, 38, considers herself a lifelong learner and said she would be willing to undergo more professional training, but she can’t afford to take time off work to pursue a credential, at least not without a scholarship or grant.

It takes one to two years to complete a teacher preparation program, and the CTC is giving these programs some leeway to waive prior coursework in child development or early childhood education.

The state has awarded millions of dollars in grants to support aspiring TK teachers willing to work in classrooms as they earn their credential. California State University, Dominguez Hills is offering up to $15,000 grants to students pursuing the credential as part of an effort to increase the early childhood education workforce. It’s also trying to make returning to school easier for preschool teachers who have an associate’s degree by giving them three years to complete their bachelor’s degree and PK-3 credential if they attend full-time.

San Jose State University offered to cover the full cost of tuition for up to 28 early educators who enrolled in its PK-3 credentialing program by April 1st, according to Maria Fusaro, a child and adolescent development professor at the university.

Fusaro said going through the program takes “a big commitment,” but it’s up to early educators to decide whether the effort is worth the reward of working in a K-12 setting.

A single mom of two boys, Cardenas said she’s attracted to the good salary, benefits and summer breaks that come with teaching in public schools. She also said she was excited by the prospect of teaching TK when the state began expanding the grade.

She knows she has what it takes to teach 4-year-olds — the patience to see them through the potty training and other foundational skills so they’re ready for the next stage of learning.

“It saddens me that after all the years of education that I have, all the years of experience, I wouldn't be able to teach TK even though that's my jam,” she said.

An estimated 26,000 children who entered the U.S. without parents or guardians are expected to be left without independent legal representation as soon as Monday, according to lawyers who help represent them.

For more than two decades, the U.S. has been required by law to protect children who cross the border alone, because of fears that they could be easily exploited, abused or trafficked. After children cross the border unaccompanied, they are typically transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). A network of nearly 100 legal groups helps provide children who arrive in ORR custody with legal services, funded by Congress.

But in November, ORR stopped paying for those legal services, after lawyers declined to provide the agency with confidential information it had requested about the children. The attorneys say that information is covered by attorney-client privilege.

"The government is withholding payment for work that has already been performed in order to extract confidential information about kids, information the government has no right to," Acacia Center for Justice, the nonprofit that manages the legal services contract with ORR, said in a statement on Thursday.

ORR did not renew the contract with the network of legal providers, which expired Friday.

Alexa Sendukas, an attorney at the Galveston-Houston Immigrant Representation Project, one of the organizations that provides legal help to migrant children, said that come Monday, the children may have to represent themselves in court and that most who would have to do that would likely end up being deported.

"We know that without a lawyer, unaccompanied children win the right to stay in the United States less than 1% of the time," said Sendukas. "And they've come to the United States seeking safety and protection. And what this administration is asking us to do now is to turn our backs on them completely. And they will undoubtedly be sent to harmful, dangerous situations. And I worry some will be killed if they lose their lawyers."

A group of legal nonprofits filed a lawsuit last year asking a judge to order the government to pay them for what it is owed — some $65 million — and continue paying them for more services. After going more than eight months without pay from ORR, some legal service providers have had to reduce their staff.

"Due to the loss of funding for children's immigration work, ProBAR laid off more than 20% of its staff this week," Lauren Fisher Flores, the legal director of ProBAR, a project of the American Bar Association that provides legal services to children in ORR care, said in an emailed statement on July 31.

On July 29, Acacia received notice from the federal government that ORR was considering a new contract, potentially with different legal providers. But ORR did not share much more information.

"It is not clear who the new contractor will be. They have not answered the questions that we have put to them," said Bettina Rodriguez Schlegel of Acacia, in response to a question from NPR. "And so there remains a lot of uncertainty and a great deal of concern."

Neither ORR nor the White House responded to NPR's requests for comment about this story.

Almost 1,800 children were in ORR custody in June, according to agency data. ORR has a legal obligation based on a 2008 law to promptly match children with guardians, or "sponsors," in the U.S. who can take care of them. Those children were held in custody for an average of 194 days before being released to sponsors, which lawyers who represent the children say is unusually long and has been detrimental to the health and safety of the children.

For years, lawyers from the network have given presentations for children arriving in ORR care to inform them of their rights and screen them to determine which legal services they are eligible for. Children who are victims of trafficking or abuse, for example, are entitled to special protections. Some of the network's lawyers told NPR they will no longer be able to provide some of those services.

But some of the attorneys say they won't simply abandon the children, even though the contract has not been renewed and they have not been paid by ORR.

"We have an ethical responsibility. We can't just drop a case. If you have a hearing tomorrow, we can't just not show up because the government decided to stop paying us," said Mickey Donovan, the director of legal services at Immigrant Defenders Law Center. "So we'll be there in court on Monday, to introduce ourselves to kids and try to do what we can to prevent their deportation."

Copyright 2026 NPR

The Los Angeles Dodgers have acquired the biggest prize on the trade deadline market, getting two-time reigning AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal from the Detroit Tigers on Saturday night.

Skubal got the news during the Tigers’ 8-6 win over the Athletics and was emotional after the game as he prepared to leave the team that drafted him in 2018 and developed him into a star to join the two-time defending World Series champions.

“I’m excited to be a Dodger,” he said. “I’m excited to get down there and meet all those guys and chase three championships in a row. That’s hard to do, so I’m so excited to a part of that. But it’s a lot of different emotions. Definitely kind of a roller coaster a little bit.”

Skubal is the latest star to join the high-priced roster for the Dodgers that already has big-name players like Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Mookie Betts. If everyone is healthy, he could be part of a rotation with Ohtani, reigning World Series MVP Yamamoto, fellow two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow. The Dodgers lead the majors with a 3.36 ERA from their starting pitchers and now add Skubal to the mix.

The Dodgers are in first place in the NL West and were already the favorites to become the first team to three-peat since the New York Yankees from 1998-2000 before adding Skubal. They began the season with a $323.3 million opening-day payroll for their 40-man roster and a $163.7 million tax for a $487.1 million total. They will pay Skubal about $9.5 million for the remainder of the season.

ESPN first reported the deal and said the Tigers would receive three minor league prospects in right-handers River Ryan and Brady Smith and outfielder Zyhir Hope.

Skubal is eligible for free agency after the World Series. He has a $32 million salary, a record total in arbitration, after the team offered $19 million, and is expected to sign a massive contract in the offseason.

The 29-year-old lefty said in July that it was his preference to finish the season with the Tigers and to compete for a World Series championship, which has eluded the franchise since 1984. Skubal took the loss in the decisive Game 5 of the division series against Cleveland in 2024 and then got a no-decision in a 15-inning loss to Seattle in Game 5 of the division series last year.

He said it was “very tough” to leave the Tigers having fallen short of the goal of winning a title.

“Ever since that ’24 Game 5, the failure that I experienced on the mound, I’ve used that as fuel to try and bring a World Series to the city of Detroit. I truly did,” he said. “That whole offseason I’ve never been more motivated and then go in and we lose Game 5 again. That failure kind of sparks some more motivation, just to dig deeper and see how good you can truly be. The goal was always to win a World Series for the city, for the organization that took a chance on me. It’s tough. I love all those guys in there. They’re some of my best friends.”

Detroit planned to contend again this season, bolstering the Skubal-led rotation by giving two-time All-Star pitcher Framber Valdez a $115 million, three-year contract in free agency and retaining three-time All-Star infielder Gleyber Torres with a $22 million deal.

The Tigers, though, got off to a rough start and are currently 2 1/2 games out of the last wild-card spot in the American League.

“It’s crazy. Going into the season, this isn’t what I planned on doing,” Skubal said. “But circumstances change, situations change, and I’m very appreciative of everything the Tigers have done for me.”

They bounced back in June and most of July to get into playoff contention with Skubal leading a rotation and three All-Stars in the lineup: rookie infielder Kevin McGonigle, catcher Dillon Dingler and outfielder Riley Greene.

With a chance to possibly persuade management to keep Skubal by improving its playoff positioning, Detroit lost ground by dropping four of its last five games at home, including Skubal’s last start that was made even more memorable by a late-inning collapse.

The Tigers led Baltimore 7-0 after six innings Wednesday and lost 10-9 in 12 innings. Skubal started the game, recorded his 1,000th career strikeout and was cheered at every opportunity by a crowd of 34,406.

“I’ve watched this guy rise to the top of the sport,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “He’s carried us a lot. I’ll forever be grateful that our paths crossed and the things that he did for this organization and for a couple of playoff teams. His presence, his work ethic, his example, his dominance. There’s so much to go through, it’s hard to capture in one quote or kind of one setting. But I’m very grateful that I was able to manage him for the time that I did.”

Skubal is 7-5 this season with a 2.79 ERA and 116 strikeouts in 96 2/3 innings. He is 61-42 with a 3.04 ERA over seven seasons, all in Detroit. In two postseasons, Skubal is 2-1 with a 2.04 ERA in six starts.

Skubal had a minimally invasive surgery on May 6 to remove a loose body from his pitching elbow and returned to pitch on June 13.

“The way the surgery went is exactly how it was supposed to go,” he said in July.

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AP Sports Writer Larry Lage in Detroit contributed to this report

Yoko Ono is having her first solo retrospective in Southern California, Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind, at The Broad in downtown Los Angeles.

As part of the survey of her career, a special tribute concert, Yoko Only, featuring artists inspired by Ono, including Yo La Tengo, Tune-Yards and other musicians spanning genres and generations is scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 8.

If you only know Yoko Ono because of that whole Beatles thing ...

The 93-year-old Ono has been a major avant-garde art figure since the 1960s. In one of her most famous works, long considered a cornerstone of feminist art, Ono sat on stage as audience members cut away pieces of her clothing.

Her experimentation spills over into music

In the late 1960s, Ono formed a band of sorts with John Lennon, originally as a conceptual art piece for a show. The Plastic Ono Band featured a rotating cast of members including some jaw-dropping names: Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Keith Moon.

Plastic Ono Band

On Dec. 11, 1970, both Ono and Lennon released their respective debut solo albums — John Lennon/Plastic Ono Ban and Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band.

Lennon's version — musically stripped down and lyrically raw — was lauded by critics at the time.

Ono's version — where vocal experimentation took center stage — was panned. Here's what music writer Marissa Lorusso said of the album for NPR in 2021.

In the decades since its release, Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band has found new appreciation, particularly among musicians the likes of Kim Gordon and Yuka Honda.

'Yoko Only'

Honda, half of the 1990s New York duo Cibo Matto, is the tribute concert's guest curator.

"Everyone from Tune-Yards to Satomi Matsuzaki of Deerhoof to Sylvan Esso, Yo La Tengo, Rufus Wainwright — they all cite Yoko as a major influence on them as artists," said Ed Patuto, The Broad's director of audience engagement, who reached out to ask Honda to participate.

"Her music and her lyrics oftentimes have that poeticism. Yuka has done arrangements that really do this work justice," Patuto continued. "We're gonna introduce Angelenos to Yoko the musical composer."

This story first appeared on Long Beach Post

More than 260 city employees could be laid off and over 200 more vacant positions could be cut in departments ranging from fire and police to homeless services in order to close a $58 million budget gap the city faces next year, according to a budget proposal from Long Beach City Manager Tom Modica released on Thursday.

The $4 billion spending plan, which covers the 2026-27 fiscal year, includes some new spending, including a 12-person High Crime Focus Team and expanded real-time crime center in the Police Department, permanent funding for Fire Engine 17 near Stearns Park, money for replacing traffic signs and sprucing up medians, investments in the city’s police crime lab and a $6.5 million helicopter paid for using forfeited assets and a law enforcement grant.

But the cuts outsize the gains. Layoffs could claim 4% of the city’s nearly 6,000-person workforce, with additional cuts at libraries, parks and the city’s homeless services hub as Long Beach copes with rising personnel costs, soaring legal payouts, a clawback of federal grants and a slowdown in the local economy that has stifled tax revenue.

A range of positions are set to be cut, spanning more than a dozen departments or offices, from managerial roles to rank-and-file employees. It includes fire captains and police lieutenants, analysts and clerks, crossing guards, librarians and investigators, among others. Officials have said the impact will be felt citywide, in the government’s ability to analyze and respond to emerging issues.

A city spokesman noted that police and fire employees losing their jobs will be transferred to open roles elsewhere in the departments, including in a new patrol beat specific to the shoreline. Many other employees will not be as lucky.

How we got here

This is the first time Long Beach has proposed layoffs for employees paid out of its general fund in nearly six years. Dozens of Health Department jobs were cut in 2024, but those positions were tied specifically to the loss of state grant funding and the conclusion of Long Beach Recovery Act pandemic aid.

The past couple of budgets relied on reserve cash to cover their shortfalls and delay layoffs — $7.8 million in fiscal year 2025 and $5.8 million in fiscal year 2024, the latter pulled from COVID recovery funds. But officials say that strategy was short-term and unsustainable.

The city already pulled $27 million from four reserve accounts to close out the current fiscal year, exhausting its operating reserves and taking $16.5 million from its $50.1 million emergency reserve — money set aside specifically for natural disasters and unforeseen crises.

The moves would save $55.9 million, allowing the city to add $9.8 million back to reserves. It currently has only $33.6 million in reserves.

What's on the chopping block

In public safety, the city proposed shutting down Fire Engine 14, which operates out of the station near Colorado Lagoon, to save $3.8 million, citing data showing it responds to the fewest fire calls in the city and 87% of calls received are for paramedics. Officials also proposed converting one engine from permanent staffing to cheaper overtime; in the Police Department, they suggest eliminating 17 vacant patrol officer positions, cutting $2.68 million in police overtime, consolidating part of financial crimes into property crimes, and eliminating 18 investigator roles.

Pressed by the loss of $11 million in county, state and federal funding, the Health Department faces heavy losses, including 79 positions cut — including eight positions within the city homelessness bureau. The reductions will affect programs and agencies that handle medical shuttle services, weekend homelessness outreach, one of the city’s two mobile homeless outreach centers, workforce development and homelessness prevention.

If approved, the proposed budget would also cut more than half of its motel voucher shelter rooms (from 40 to 15) and offer rapid rehousing assistance to 45 fewer households. City leaders said the cuts are targeted to keep all municipal shelter beds open, a crucial need as Long Beach struggles to reduce local homelessness, which rose by 3.7% in the past year.

Programs and services citywide would also see reductions. Hours and days at five city libraries — Bayshore, Burnett, El Dorado, Harte and Michelle Obama — would be cut to five days a week under reduced hours. Teen programming at Chavez Park, summer swim classes at Jordan and Millikan high schools, and the city’s involvement with the afterschool WRAP program are all expected to be eliminated.

An additional 25 positions would be cut by contracting out services for parking collections, school crossing guards and the city’s reprographics office. To offset administrative cuts in Public Works, parking meters would be installed around City Hall, Lincoln Park, the courthouse and Ocean Boulevard, and citywide parking rates would rise from $2 to $3 an hour, with the revenue redirected to street light repairs, solar conversions, weed abatement and median upkeep.

Several departments would also see agencies consolidated, which officials say is part of a necessary restructuring to focus on emerging issues like traffic safety and community health.

What’s next

Workers were informed of potential layoffs as early as Thursday morning. Civil service rules allow for employees with more experience to bump those with fewer years on the job, meaning workers can move within or across departments, displacing colleagues.

The plan is not finalized yet. Going forward, the City Council will deliberate the budget through a series of public meetings, town hall forums and study sessions until final approval, typically at the end of September.

The earliest potential adjustments came Thursday, during Mayor Rex Richardson’s proposed version of the budget that would restore several programs and reinstate 70 positions.

For example, Richardson said he wants to undo the plan for a rotating engine; keep four of the 17 eliminated police patrol positions and two Quality of Life officers, while reinstating $400,000 for officers’ overtime pay; preserve youth programs, and homelessness programs; add new disease prevention and nursing positions; and continue to fund the Office of Equity position that oversees the city’s deportation defense fund while also adding more money to its account. The defense fund currently has $548,000.

Funding, he explained, could come from a line of new sources, like the $7 million to $8 million expected annually from the voter-approved county Measure ER, an updated cost-recovery agreement with the Port of Long Beach for fire services adding $5.9 million and $1.5 million saved from not holding a general election because races were already decided in the June primary.

Sparing no detail on the starkness of the economic picture, officials say it figures to get worse before it gets better. After a $27.3 million deficit expected next year, officials are confident they will have consecutive years of meager surpluses.

Despite the headwinds, they say, Long Beach is on solid footing, with a 17.5% drop in overall crime, with paramedics responding 30 seconds faster than they did last year, with 12% more city shelter beds, thousands of new, high-paying aerospace jobs, and work underway on new streets, bridges — and a very expensive pool — as part of a billion-dollar infrastructure plan ahead of the 2028 Olympics.

The city also welcomed a new amphitheater and an independent baseball team in the past year, and it continues to draw $2 billion in tourism and economic impact — outpacing San Diego, Anaheim, Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Francisco in key hotel use and visitor metrics.

By following the city’s plans, Richardson said Long Beach would achieve a structural surplus by 2028 — the first in more than a decade.

“Our responsibility today is not only to today’s budget, it’s to the long-term financial health of our city and to the thousands of employees who depend on a stable and sustainable organization,” Richardson said. “Our employees deserve to be more than temporary fixes that simply postpone difficult decisions. They deserve a city with a stable financial future. That’s why I believe we have to stay the course.”