SAN FRANCISCO—Millions of California students may soon suffer from a $5.5 million state budget cut that puts in jeopardy key online educational resources for them to do research, projects, or homework, according to the California State Library.
“It is both surprising and disappointing to have last-minute amendments potentially ending the program be placed in the budget, without notice or policy discussion,” California State Librarian Greg Lucas told The Epoch Times via email on July 1.
The program, known as the California Online Media Program for Access and Student Success (COMPASS), is an online database that provides extensive content and tools to public libraries and K-12 schools.
The funding ends on July 1, 2027.
Newsom’s office said that the recently passed state budget includes billions in new funding for K-12 schools—plenty of money to cover the subscription costs, according to a CalMatters report.
“If it disappears after current funding ends, California will be the only state that doesn’t provide such a service to its public-school pupils—at the very time when the state’s new curriculum is requiring students to be trained to be more digitally and media literate,” Lucas said.
Assembly Bill 873, which Newsom signed into law in 2023, requires schools to incorporate Model Library Standards into their curriculum frameworks and consider incorporating media literacy content at each grade level.
COMPASS is free for public school districts, charter schools, and libraries, saving them over $216 million if they were to subscribe individually to the same materials, according to the California State Library’s seven-year (2018–2025) data.
“A student half a century ago might browse an encyclopedia volume or nonfiction book to learn something new. Today they can log onto an ad-free COMPASS resource to do something similar,” wrote the report.
Connie Williams, a retired school librarian and former California School Library Association president, told The Epoch Times that for many schools that lack resources, it means students will lose access to a wide variety of resources, which are behind paywalls.
“Searching databases or things that are behind a paywall requires the same critical thinking as doing an internet search, but you are able then to get a hold of resources that unless you paid for them, you don’t know they are there,” she said.
Lucas said if COMPASS disappears, the “same inequities that used to exist before COMPASS will return.”
“Those places that can afford online help for their students will be able to provide it, and those that can’t afford it, lose out,” he said.
