California schools in hell as Gavin Newsom drops catastrophic cuts for classes already on life support

California kids will suffer after a last-minute state budget cut stripped key research resources from public-school libraries, leaving millions of students without the materials they need for class projects and homework.Gov.

Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers erased $5.5 million from the just-approved state budget for a school program called Compass, which is a popular online database of research and curriculum material that’s been vetted by teachers and librarians. The Compass program pays the online fees for thousands of online materials used by students and teachers including the Encyclopedia Britannica, National Geographic, PBS videos such as Ken Burns documentaries, scientific journals, and more.The cut goes into effect on July 1, 2027 and was made without any warning.“We had no idea this was coming,” said Greg Lucas, head of the California State Library, which helps oversee the Compass program for the state’s 10,000 public schools, told CalMatters. “This will have a huge impact on California students,” Lucas said.Since Compass launched in 2018, it’s received nearly 1 billion hits, the nonprofit news outlet reports.

The vast majority of Compass users are at K-12 schools, although the program is also available through public libraries.Compass is available free to all schools in California.Schools would spend more than $216 million annually if they were to subscribe individually to all the materials available on the program, according to a State Library report. “A student half a century ago might browse an encyclopedia volume or nonfiction book to learn something new,” the State Library report says.

“Today they can log onto an ad-free Compass resource to do something similar.”And, with the vetted Compass program, “parents can rest assured that the student is guided by a desire to learn and not by a mysterious algorithm intended to sell advertising or track users.”Educators said the cut deprives today’s digital learners from acces...