At a minimum, schools should teach children to read. But for years California’s elementary schools have been failing many of them.
The results are so obvious even those who struggle to read can see them: Nearly 6 in 10 third graders scored below grade level on California’s reading tests during most of the last decade. That includes about three quarters of lower-income Black or Latino students.
Meanwhile, a decades-long conflict raged among California educators and equity advocates about how to teach reading. Simply put, they battled over phonics, the 17th-century system of sounding out letters and words. The reading technique fell out of favor in most American schools in the 1980s, but now it’s experiencing a comeback.
Parents, advocates and educators have been urging the state to return to teaching phonics to all kids, as a foundation for reading. Some brought up racial equity issues that seemed to pit one under-served group of children against another.
Groups supporting Black students, such as the state’s NAACP chapter, urged a switch to phonics. But other groups supporting English learners and bilingual students wanted to keep the state’s current, flexible instruction system, which features other disciplines that also help kids pick up English.
The result: inertia and stagnant test scores.
California ranked 40th last year in fourth grade reading on national tests. For Black fourth-graders, California tied for last place with only 7% proficient, and for Latino students it tied for 24th place with 19% proficient.
This isn’t just an academic problem.
Kids who don’t read by fourth grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school. We know what follows.
When the California Assembly passed a bill last week adopting the so-called “science of reading,” a literacy approach that emphasizes phonics, it was a sign of progress. More than 40 states have taken similar measures, but California was one of the last holdouts. Now it’s up to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
System hid struggles
It shouldn’t have taken so long.
Until now, most of California’s districts used one of a handful of reading instructional systems. Mostly they encouraged students to recognize words via memorization, or guess words based on the context of a sentence or the pictures illustrating the text.
That works for some young readers, but for many others the system hid their struggles. Youngsters could look like they were learning to read, even though they weren’t. In later grades, when there are no pictures or too many unfamiliar words to memorize, these readers would falter, and their reading troubles would hinder learning in other academic subjects.
This is California’s reading crisis.
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But even with this new bill, the state is not moving far enough, fast enough.
The bill advances phonics and other skills like comprehension and reading fluency, but its adoption is only voluntary. The state would only be encouraging school districts and teachers to revamp their reading instruction, not mandating it.
That was the compromise needed to pass the measure, bill proponents said. Two similar attempts to make it mandatory failed in prior sessions, after opposition from teachers unions and some education groups.
That’s where the risk lies. Without a mandate that lays down deadlines, it’s hard to predict how widespread the science of reading will be and how quickly it could take hold.
Louisiana and Mississippi, two states not usually known as academic frontrunners, experienced meteoric rises in reading test scores a few years after adopting similar literacy systems. Mississippi moved from 49th in the nation in fourth-grade reading in 2013 to ninth in 2024. Louisiana jumped from last place in 2019 to 16th last year.
Both states made their science of reading training mandatory and required districts to adopt the related instructional materials.
California is trying to entice districts with funding.
Newsom has budgeted $200 million to pay for teacher training, as part of several literacy initiatives he touted during a recent press conference. The Assembly just passed a budget proposal that includes the funding.
“It’s not just rhetoric; there’s $200 million to reinforce that cause,” Newsom said.
Also part of those plans, all of California’s youngest elementary students will be screened for reading issues starting this fall, and Newsom vowed to spend $500 million to send literacy coaches and specialists to hundreds of schools around the state.
This certainly sounds good, but as always, the follow-through will determine whether it’s politicking or progress.
Districts will need more support, because many may not be ready to make a switch. Schools will have to foot the bill for new books and teaching materials. Many districts don’t have that kind of money. Some are tackling their own budget deficits and making sacrifices, including laying off teachers.
Civil rights issue
This is going to take a great commitment. The least-resourced districts will need state help affording it. And the state should do some of the work early by vetting the growing list of reading programs being offered to districts, so millions more dollars aren’t wasted on curricula and materials that don’t move reading scores.
Some school districts have already started transitioning to a more phonics-friendly curriculum, including Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles Unified.
Antoine Taylor, a literacy coordinator for Los Angeles Unified School District, offered a glance at how the science of reading could look in schools. Out of about 20 students in his classes, half are at different stages of learning to speak English. He estimates he’s spent about 30 minutes daily working in small groups, much of it on phonics, spelling and learning words.
He said he has folded it into daily reading sessions, but he also continues practicing other skills, such as reading aloud, asking students questions about texts, and getting bilingual students to speak and demonstrate comprehension.
Other teachers, when they get exposed to phonics, will embrace it too, he predicts — as long as they get the training and the books and supplies they need.
“Most of the teachers in the district are aware of the science of reading,” said Taylor, who has taught 28 years. “Most teachers want their students to do better.”
California’s schools have their work cut out for them, educating about 3 million students from low-income families and 1.1 million English learners.
Phonics proponents are optimistic California’s teachers will be receptive, though it’ll still be years before we see any changes, at least in test scores.
As Marshall Tuck, CEO of EdVoice, recently put it: “We have one of the greatest gaps between high-income kids and low-income kids of any state in the country. This is a civil rights issue that demands urgent action and collective action.”
Denise Amos is an editor and columnist at CalMatters.