The Brief

The first thing Guillermo Tejeda does when he visits a new school is hunt for the piano. At most schools, the teacher finds a dusty old instrument, out of tune, stashed away in a dark closet.

The cobwebs tell him all he needs to know about how little arts education those students have been getting. His go-to technique to get them more jazzed about learning is to tickle the ivories, make that piano come back to life.

“I’ll bring it out, dust it off. I’ll bring students into the auditorium and I’ll do lessons there,” said Tejeda, a fourth grade teacher at Wadsworth Elementary in hardscrabble South Central Los Angeles. “I’m telling you, when I bring in song, when I bring music and performance into the classroom, the students light up in a way that really creates a meaningful experience for them.”

A schoolteacher who is also a jazz musician and a member of the Neighborhood Orchestra Collective, Tejeda uses music in general and the narrative of the LA jazz scene in particular, to teach about history, race and culture, as well as to spark joy in the classroom. A father of three currently on parental leave with his 11-month-old daughter Maya, Tejeda started playing the guitar at the age of 6. His grandfather, a migrant farm worker with a love of mariachi and a hand gnarled from picking in the fields, taught him how to play.

“I’m from East LA and I became a teacher because I wanted to be the teacher that I never had,” he said. “We come from a marginalized community where it’s hard to be a teacher. A lot of the adults are stressed out. People are not feeling joy. How do we bring more joy? How do we bring more meaning into our lives? I think music is that vehicle.”

Tejeda takes an expansive view of education that integrates the arts into all the disciplines to bring learning to life for children. His teaching feeds his music, he says, and his music feeds his teaching.

“I wish I had a teacher like Guillermo when I was in fourth grade,” said Elmo Lovano, the founder of Jammcard: The Music Professionals Network, who developed School Gig, an app that connects artists to schools. “He’s a passionate guy. He’s incredibly talented. It’s important for artists to know you can still be doing your art, but being a teacher could be an amazing opportunity for you to make a living, stay at home, support your family, give back to the kids, the next generation, and also still do you.”

Music is the prism through which his students become immersed in the history of their city, its politics and culture. He wants his students to be in tune with their heritage.

“I teach on 41st and Central, which is a historic jazz corridor,” he said. “And when I got to that school site, it surprised me that so few teachers talked about that. The first thing I did was write a lesson plan about it.”

Tejeda, whose students call him ‘Mister’ as a nickname, makes sure his class learns about the rich legacy of jazz in Los Angeles. For example, the historic Central Avenue jazz corridor was, for decades a cultural mecca, the heart of the African-American community in the city. At a time when most of the country was rigidly segregated, it was also something of an oasis, a place where people of all races and classes came together over music. There, a pantheon of jazz luminaries, including Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday and Jelly Roll Morton, played to full houses.

“The giants of Central Avenue may have gone, but their footprints still remain on all of American culture,” as basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar once put it. “The jazz musicians and record promoters also gave birth to rock ‘n’ roll, rhythm and blues, hip-hop and rap.”

Steeping in the often overlooked history of their neighborhood, Tejeda says, can help children sharpen their sense of identity, belonging and pride.

“These kids have no idea how special and beautiful their neighborhoods are because all they see on the news is how messed up it is,” said Tejeda, long a champion of culturally relevant pedagogy. “I want them to know this is the place, right here in your hood, this is where a lot of jazz music was born.”

Guillermo Tejeda and members of the band Steam Down at the Venice Jazz Festival.

(

Luis Hernandez

)

Music often resonates with children on a deeper level than other forms of instruction. Tejeda is moved to tears remembering one little boy who had trouble engaging at school because of trauma at home. He only opened up when they began to play the piano together at recess. The piano became his sanctuary.

“I’m shook when I come home because a lot of these kids are dealing with very hard stuff and they’re so resilient,” said Tejeda, his voice thick with emotion.

“Yes, math and science is important but the whole child is important, that’s what drives me.”

Music also enhances both math and reading performance, experts say, perhaps partly because it enhances the neuroplasticity of the brain. Music amplifies learning across subject areas, experts say.

“Music and movement in addition to the more common modalities of written and verbal instruction is critical for including all kinds of learners in a well-rounded education,” said Jessica Mele, interim executive director of Create CA, an advocacy group. “It’s particularly beneficial for students whose first language is not English. Using art as a window into culture, race and history can engage students in complex conversations that they might not otherwise engage in.”

Music can also be healing, research suggests. As a boy, Tejeda suffered from a stutter that only subsided when he sang.

“I keep it real with the kids because I see myself in them,” he said. “It’s crazy how impactful music has been for me.”

It’s also a uniquely social experience that invites children to collaborate with their peers on projects that both require and reward focus and discipline, qualities that fuel academic success, experts say. Children practiced in the arts become accustomed to working collectively toward ambitious long-term goals.

Perhaps most importantly for Tejeda, children often find their voice through music and the arts. They can gain a sense of confidence, social-emotional well-being and a passion for lifelong learning.

“The end goals of music and education aren’t to memorize curriculums or key terms,” said Tejeda. “It’s really to find out who you are. It’s about self-determination and growing the full human being. I’m so excited to see this synergy of music and education because they are inextricable.”

Tejeda’s ambition is to make school so stimulating that children want to go there every day because they are deeply engaged in their studies. At a time of chronic absenteeism and plummeting test scores, he has a transformative vision of arts education as reinvigorating the classroom.

“I feel a deep calling to help effect change across California classrooms,” he said. “I am never going to stop teaching, because teaching and education is so essential to my soul. It is at the core of who I am,” but this “is a critical time for me to put my work into the next gear and figure out how I’m going to apply my passion and expertise to affect tangible change, more urgently, on a wider scale.”

Going forward, he hopes to pursue arts education advocacy on a broader level. He is also developing a new arts-driven curriculum, to “unleash the symphony of learning,” as Proposition 28, the state’s groundbreaking 2022 arts initiative, ramps up.

“It’s like out of my dreams and into reality,” he said. “We’re going to create a new world for students. This is a revolutionary time.”

The federal financial aid process opened this past week for students applying to college for next year. But for many California students, a source of state financial help remains untapped.

In 2022, the state launched the California Kids Investment and Development Savings Program, also known as CalKIDS, and began creating investment accounts for more than 6 million children in the state to use for higher education.

Babies born on or after July 1, 2022, can get up to $175 in their accounts, while low-income public school students can claim up to $1500.

In Los Angeles County, about 1.1 million public school students are eligible for the accounts, but fewer than 20% of kids have claimed them, said Cassandra DiBenedetto, executive director of California’s ScholarShare Investment Board. The claim rate is even less for babies — about 11%.

“The money itself, it has a long trajectory. So you have these newborns, and there's not a sense of urgency among some parents; they know the account's there, it’s been created. Parents are busy,” DiBenedetto said.

There is no deadline to claim the money, which is already growing in the investment accounts. (You do have to use the money by age 26). But DiBenedetto says kids are more likely to see themselves as college-bound if they have it — and will be able to watch the account grow over time.

“ You talk to second-and third graders who are like, ‘I'm gonna go to UC Santa Barbara,’ ‘I'm gonna go to Cal Berkeley,’” she said.

The state is working with the Los Angeles Unified School District and other school districts to get students signed up.

The city’s top financial adviser is recommending that the Los Angeles City Council deny a police department request to procure 300 additional vehicles for the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics.

The report, submitted to the council Monday by City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo, found that the L.A. Police Department would have enough vehicles to temporarily expand its fleet during the Games without the additional cars.

LAPD officials had previously requested around $31 million, arguing the additional officers deployed for the Games will need additional vehicles for their police work.

But Szabo disagreed in his report, finding instead that the department would soon have a large enough fleet.

“Given the current available vehicles and new vehicle procurements which have already been funded, it is not recommended to authorize the procurement of any additional police vehicles for the 2028 Games deployment,” Szabo wrote.

An LAPD spokesperson declined to comment on the city administrative officer’s report. Previously, the department has emphasized that its request seeks only to temporarily expand its fleet, with plans to retire old vehicles after the Games.

The police department has offered different estimates of how many additional vehicles it will need to patrol the Olympics. Two months after the LAPD asked for an additional 300 vehicles, the department released another report estimating an even higher need: 576 police vehicles.

Either way, Szabo’s report found that more than 1,100 police vehicles not yet in use by the department were funded in the past three budget cycles. He said those should be sufficient for the Olympics.

When you sit down at Birria Pa La Cruda in El Sereno, you might be expecting one thing. What you'll leave talking about is something else entirely, and it's just as good.

Take the mushroom quesataco. It starts with a tortilla brushed with avocado oil and griddled until lightly crisp, then layered with a thin skirt of cheese and a smooth smear of refried red kidney beans. On top goes a heap of shimeji mushrooms braised in a house-made salsa verde, mild, nutty and savory with a bright finish.

It's a slight departure for chef Carlos Jaquez, who spent seven years building a reputation for the birria de res at his popular pop-up. Now, at his new brick-and-mortar just blocks from where he got his start, he's serving his much-loved birria alongside several vegetable-focused dishes — including this one.

You get the sense that Jaquez has been refining each one for years through his pop-up, his work as a private chef and his high-end dining background at Otium and Bestia.

Homegrown talent

Jaquez grew up in El Sereno and launched Birria Pa La Cruda (which means “for the hangover” in Spanish) as a Sunday pop-up in 2019. Over the years, he's drawn on everything from his family's cooking to his Indigenous roots, to the bounty of local produce, building a repertoire that showcases the full range of his influences. His new place, on Alhambra Road near Cal State L.A., is his chance to prove it.

Carlos Jaquez, chef and owner of Birria Pa La Cruda, draws on the El Sereno community where he grew up and a wide range of culinary influences.

(

Eric Valle

/

Courtesy Birria Pa La Cruda

)

"I don't wanna just be the birria guy," Jaquez said. "If people know me for just the birria, then I'm sure that one day when I cook something else they'll be like, 'Wow, he can cook other stuff too.'"

The menu

The mushroom quesataco may be exquisite, but Jaquez's birria de res hardly takes a back seat. For example: the mulita. Two corn tortillas are dipped in spiced 12-hour braising liquid, and the beef he uses is cooked in a pot lined with charred blue agave leaves that Jaquez harvests from the El Sereno hills. The meat is piled on thick, then topped with cheese, resulting in a juicy, well-seasoned bite where all the flavors and textures meld together. It's a mouthful, but the mulita shows backbone, never falling apart bite after bite.

The sweet potato tamal, topped with date-almond mole and sesame seeds, served with red amaranth leaves and pickled vegetables.

(

Eric Valle

/

Courstesy Birria Pa La Cruda

)

Where the birria is a constant, the tamal is expected to change with the seasons. Right now, it's sweet potato and organic yellow corn masa steamed in a banana leaf, then topped with a rich mole made from California-grown dates and almonds. It's entirely vegan, though Jaquez doesn't advertise it that way. It's served alongside pickled carrots and a small salad of amaranth leaves grown just outside the space and dressed in a confit garlic vinaigrette.

Amaranth was a staple for Indigenous peoples in Mexico long before the Spanish arrived. Jaquez, who attended Anahuacalmecac, an Indigenous-focused charter school in El Sereno where students learn Nahuatl from third grade through high school, wanted it on the plate.

"We were eating amaranth and tamales and maybe even combining them thousands and thousands of years ago," he said. "Serving that on a menu today is a reflection of the resilience of our roots."

California love

Jaquez believes the caliber of his cooking comes from using local ingredients, whether it’s tortillas and masa milled in Boyle Heights by Kernel of Truth or heirloom tomatoes from Valdivia Farms in Carlsbad.

Chef Carlos Jaquez's birria de res is braised for 8 to 12 hours before it's served.

(

Eric Valle

/

Courtesy Birria Pa La Cruda

)

"Its uniqueness comes from the locality and the quality of the ingredients that we're afforded because we're in L.A. and California," he said.

So, is it a taqueria or a restaurant?

"I don't know," Jaquez said. "It's Birria Pa La Cruda."

California’s district attorneys and the state attorney general will now have the ability to sue individual businesses that they believe are engaging in anticompetitive conduct.

But for some of its biggest proponents, it’s a hollow victory.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday signed Assembly Bill 1776, known as the Compete Act, bringing an end to one of the most hard-fought political battles of the year. Unions and consumer rights groups supported the bill, but the state’s influential Chamber of Commerce fiercely opposed it and won several concessions to water it down.

Assemblymember Cecilia-Aguiar Curry, a powerful Davis Democrat, introduced the bill to modernize the century-old Cartwright Act, which regulates only anticompetitive conduct by two or more businesses. Many progressive Democrats, concerned about corporate consolidation of business in industries such as healthcare, ticket sales and retail, signed on as co-authors.

Newsom signed the bill along with six other small business-friendly bills on the constitutional deadline for signing legislation.

“We’re taking on predatory practices that drive up costs and shut entrepreneurs out — making sure California’s economy works for everyone, not just the biggest and best-connected,” he wrote in a release announcing his approval.

However, his signing message on AB 1776 was more circumspect.

“While I align myself with a stated goal of targeting anti-competitive conduct that harms consumers, workers, and businesses alike, we must be careful not to set the bar too low — dragging legitimate, superior business practices and products into the ambit of anti-competitive behavior,” he wrote.

He added that he expects judges and prosecutors to interpret and apply the law “in ways that penalize clear wrongdoing, without creating needless uncertainty.”

Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project, a former sponsor of the bill, wrote in a post on X that Newsom’s signing message made Hepner pessimistic that the law would be effective.

“I foresee politicized antitrust litigation budgets, partisan allegations of weaponized enforcement, novel legal defenses that find new basis in the legislative history of this bill, and public officials caving to the concentrated private power that antitrust laws are supposed to put in check,” he wrote.

The group had helped craft the legislation for years, but changed its position when Aguiar-Curry removed a “private right of action” provision that would have allowed any individual or business to sue a company they allege is harming them through anticompetitive tactics.

Other supporters included the California Federation of Labor Unions and TechEquity Action, a progressive advocacy group that lobbies for regulation of the tech industry.

Labor Federation President Lorena Gonzalez said in a statement that the new law “gets us one step closer to building a more affordable economy for working people.”

The bill grew out of a three-year review by the California Law Revision Commission, which the Legislature had asked to study changes to the 1907 Cartwright Act.

The private right of action was one of the biggest sticking points for CalChamber, which argued it would “expose businesses of all sizes to a wave of frivolous lawsuits.” The group launched a multimillion-dollar ad campaign over the summer to push to weaken the proposed law. Tech companies such as Meta and Google also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby legislators on AB 1776 and other issues.

Although Aguiar-Curry said she was disappointed the private right of action was gutted in the last weeks of the legislative session, she pressed on, and lawmakers passed the bill in the last days.

“California now has stronger tools to protect our small businesses, workers, and consumers and to make sure our markets work for everyone,” she said in Wednesday’s release.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.