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  • As ethnic studies mandate withers, it’s clear state leaders misled districts

    As ethnic studies mandate withers, it’s clear state leaders misled districts


    Credit: Alison Yin / EdSource

    Last week, the California Legislature let its widely heralded 2021 high school ethnic studies bill, AB 101, silently lapse after it and Gov. Gavin Newsom passed a 2025-26 state budget that did not appropriate funds for it. Without that funding, school districts will not be bound by AB 101’s Fall 2025 deadline to offer students an ethnic studies course. 

    Ethnic studies’ popularity has been built on a false narrative: that California requires high school students to pass an ethnic studies course to earn a diploma. What’s been omitted from this narrative is that shortly before AB 101’s passage the Legislature added a barely noticed but hugely consequential sentence to AB 101 — that the ethnic studies graduation requirement will become “operative only upon an appropriation of funds” in separate legislation.

    In other words, from its inception, AB 101 was, and remains, aspirational. 

    Upon learning this surprising news, Mountain View-Los Altos High School District Superintendent Eric Volta dubbed the state’s ruse “a hot mess” (view recording hour 3:37). “Everyone was moving in one direction until December,” he said, scrambling with limited resources to meet the state’s pressing deadline.

    The Senate Appropriations Committee estimated that an ethnic studies requirement would cost taxpayers a staggering $276 million a year — for a subject rife with controversy and concern.

    California’s decision not to trigger AB 101 was undoubtedly made easier given the turmoil wracking school districts that had already prepared this coursework, including Newsom’s alma mater, Tamalpais Union. Heated school board meetings extended into the night when ethnic studies landed on board agendas. Parents statewide were distraught to see their districts selecting “liberated” ethnic studies like in Tamalpais, centered on race-based resentment that seemed to encourage armed militancy.

    Attorney General Bonta, in a rare Legal Alert sent to all local superintendents and school board members, obliquely signaled the state’s hesitation to move forward. This public alarm and skittishness followed state leaders’ receipt of a detailed June 2023 policy paper from the non-partisan Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, cc’d to 3,000 school board superintendents and trustees, alerting them that the California Legislature did not appear to require ethnic studies after all. The Los Angeles Times and EdSource confirmed it, EdSource reporting that state officials agreed — “no money, no requirement to develop or offer classes.”

    The California Department of Education’s (CDE) years of silence on this funding caveat, pertaining to the first change in the state’s graduation requirements in decades, is not what local education leaders and taxpaying parents should expect from a state agency with a $300 million annual administrative budget and a duty to help districts operate their schools. 

    This silence was not just consequential for California’s 430 school districts with high schools. It became a recurring issue for the University of California’s Academic Senate and its governing bodies as they contemplated making passing an ethnic studies course a UC admissions requirement, grounded largely in the mistaken belief that the state requires high school students to enroll in it. The Academic Senate rejected that proposal in April after a letter signed by hundreds of UC faculty members pointed out its many flaws, including this faulty premise.

    It appears that CDE’s silence about this funding caveat was intentional. Believing for years that ethnic studies was mandated, school districts developed courses expecting the state to cover their expenses. Neither the CDE nor the State Board of Education advised school districts differently. In fact, CDE’s website states that students must take ethnic studies to graduate. The state board’s comment that ethnic studies is not required was in 2025, and directed only to the University of California’s Academic Senate. 

    Over one-quarter of California school districts with high schools now offer ethnic studies, 85% employing the controversial liberated ethnic studies framework according to my recent sampling. Liberated Ethnic Studies is political education, teaching students to view the world through the narrow lenses of skin color and oppression, often so they will try to change it with anti-Western activism.

    School districts just now learning about this reprieve are reversing course or pausing their ethnic studies work. In January, San Dieguito Union turned its new required 9th-grade Ethnic Studies English course into an elective, only to discover that student interest in the course was so low that it might not offer the class at all its high schools. This spring, Ramona Unified, Glendora Unified, Chino Valley Unified, and others paused their work mid-stream. Parents in San Francisco, Palo Alto, and Newsom’s Tamalpais Union are pressing their school boards to do the same.

    The lesson here for local school leaders: verify narratives before acting, including those advanced by California state education officials.

    •••

    Lauren Janov is a California lawyer, education policy analyst, and political strategist. She is a legal consultant for the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, advised the University of California faculty team which opposed a proposed Ethnic Studies admissions requirement, and co-founded the Palo Alto Parent Alliance. The opinions expressed are her own.

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • Setting aside local control, legislation would mandate how to teach reading in California

    Setting aside local control, legislation would mandate how to teach reading in California


    Credit: Pexels

    On Feb. 8, the article was updated to clarify and elaborate on details of AB 2222.

    A veteran legislator who taught elementary school for 16 years introduced comprehensive early-literacy legislation Wednesday that would impose requirements on reading instruction and add urgency to the state’s patchwork of reading reforms.

    Evidence-based practices, collectively known as “the science of reading,” would become the mandated approach to reading instruction for TK-5, if Assembly Bill 2222, authored by Assemblymember Blanca Rubio, D-Baldwin Park, becomes law.

    The bill would shift the state’s decade-old policy of encouraging districts to incorporate fundamental reading skills in the early grades, including phonics, to demanding that they do so. This would depart from the state policy of giving school districts discretion to choose curriculums and teaching methods that meet state academic standards.

    By 2028, all TK to fifth-grade teachers, literacy coaches and specialists would be required to take a 30-hour-minium course in reading instruction from an approved list.

    School districts and charter schools purchasing textbooks would select from approved materials endorsed by the State Board of Education in a new round of textbook adoption.  

    The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing would receive money to add several experts for accreditation of teacher preparation programs in the science of reading. The bill would strengthen accountability for those programs that have not taught effective reading strategies, as required under recent state law.

    Rubio and the advocacy nonprofits EdVoice,  Decoding Dyslexia CA, and Families in Schools, the bill’s co-sponsors, argue that another generation of California children cannot wait for districts teaching ineffective techniques using inadequate materials to come around.

    “California is facing a literacy crisis,” the first sentence of the bill states. “There are far too many children who are not reading on grade level by the end of third grade and who will not complete elementary school with the literacy skills and language development they need to be successful academically in middle school and high school.”

    Only 43% of California third graders met the academic standards in the state’s standardized test in 2023. Only 27.2% of Black students, 32% of Hispanic students, and 35% of low-income children were proficient, compared with 57.5% of white, 69% of Asian and 66% of non-low-income students.

    “There’s always this delicate balance between local control versus let’s move forward collectively,” said Marshall Tuck, CEO of EdVoice and former candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction. “But when we have an issue that the vast majority of lower-income kids, who are disproportionately Black and Latino, are not reading at grade level, it requires urgency to do what we know works as fast as possible.”

    Rubio, who recalled being handed coloring books instead of reading lessons in first grade as a non-English-speaking Mexican immigrant, said that data on the effectiveness of the science of reading convinced her to author the bill. However, her own experience as a fourth-grade teacher who previously taught kindergarten and first grade reinforced it. 

    “When I have fourth graders that are at first- or second-grade reading, something’s wrong. I can tell you right then and there, if a kid doesn’t know phonics in the fourth grade, we screwed them up somewhere. If they’re not reading in the third grade, they may never recover,” said Rubio, who was first elected to the Assembly in 2016.

    A piecemeal approach to literacy changes

    The science of reading refers to research from neurology, psychology, and the cognitive and developmental sciences about how children learn to read. In the last decade, 47 states and Washington, D.C., have enacted laws to incorporate elements of the science of reading strategies. Fewer — Mississippi, Connecticut, Tennessee, and Virginia among them — have adopted and funded policies that coordinate multiple key elements: preparing and training teachers, supplying them with aligned instructional materials, testing for learning difficulties like dyslexia and engaging parents.

    California is among the 47 states. Within the past three years, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature enacted discrete pieces of a state policy.

    They funded $40 million to the University of California San Francisco to create a screening test for the risk of dyslexia and other learning difficulties; universal screening of K-2 students will begin in 2025-26.

    They included $500 million in the last two state budgets for hiring and training of literacy coaches in the 5% of schools with the most low-income students. The Sacramento and Napa county offices of education, strong advocates of the science of reading, are overseeing the effort.   They passed legislation to create a teaching credential for PK-3 that includes new literacy standards grounded in the science of reading; teacher preparation programs must introduce them starting next fall, and teachers will take a performance assessment as part of their new credential.

    The Commission on Teacher Credentialing created a pre-kindergarten to grade 3 credential and passed new literacy standards grounded in the science of reading; those new standards will apply to the PK-3 credential as well as existing multiple subject, single subject, and education specialist teacher preparation programs. Teachers will take a performance assessment as part of their new credential.

    At the encouragement of State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor emerita at the Stanford University School of Education, Newsom included $1 million in the current budget for a “literacy road map,” which will serve as a guide, with online resources, for districts to implement evidence-based reading strategies. Leading that effort are two respected literacy experts, Bonnie Garcia and Nancy Brynelson, whom State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond named the state’s first state literacy co-directors.

    Tuck credits the steps taken by the Legislature and Newsom, “who has been an anchor on early education.” But guidelines won’t ensure that students in all districts will receive effective reading instruction —especially high-poverty schools that may be “slower to make adjustments when they’re dealing with so many challenges and so much complexity.”

    Megan Potente, co-state director of Decoding Dyslexia CA, points to her 20 years as a teacher, who, as a new teacher frustrated by the ineffectiveness of her reading training, took a course on phonics and fundamental reading skills. “You feel like you’re not good at your job, and you weren’t equipped. And that’s a terrible feeling for new teachers,” she said. “So I went back to school, and I learned what I needed.”

    Years later, she became a coach, supporting teachers in districts using balanced literacy that de-emphasizes evidence-based practices. She found it difficult to apply what she knew, she said, “because the curriculum materials didn’t follow the science; the teaching methods didn’t follow the science.”

    A piecemeal approach to reading reforms inevitably leads to a game of “whack-a-mole,” former Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn, who is credited with implementing successful comprehensive policies in her state during the pandemic, told EdSource.

    Newsom did not require nor explicitly encourage districts to use the $20-plus billion they received in federal and state Covid-relief funding on teaching training in the science of reading nor on updating reading texts and materials. Now that the state is heading into a lean budget year, a scarcity of funding, particularly for teacher training, could set back a timeline to implement the bill. Newsom’s proposed budget for 2024-25 includes no significant money for new TK-12 programs.

    A spokesperson for the Newsom administration, which usually declines to discuss pending legislation, offered no further comment.

    What’s in Assembly Bill 2222

    AB 2222 would define evidence-based literacy instruction as “evidence-based explicit and systematic instruction in phonological and phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary and oral language development, fluency, comprehension, and writing …  that adheres to the science of reading.” (Phonics are rules that relate letters in words to the sounds of spoken language. A phoneme is the smallest element of a sound within spoken language. Phonemic awareness reflects the ability to understand that words combine multiple phonemes when pronounced.)

    The bill sets requirements for three principal elements of literacy instruction:

    Teacher training

    Starting in March 2026 and no later than June 30, 2028, all teachers in grades TK to 5 must complete an approved professional development and training program satisfactorily. The California Department of Education would appoint one or more county offices of education with expertise in the science of reading and evidence-based literacy instruction to serve as the state literacy expert lead that would select the list of eligible training programs. Districts would have to notify parents if fewer than 90% of the required teachers failed to complete the course. 

    Instructional materials

    The last state textbook adoption for English language arts and English language development was 2015. The bill would require the State Board of Education to complete the next adoption cycle by Jan. 1, 2026, for TK through eighth grade. The materials would have to adhere to the science of reading. School districts would not be required to replace materials they’re currently using, but they would need a waiver to buy basic instructional materials that aren’t approved. A district whose waiver is denied for existing instructional materials that they are using will be required to adopt materials from the state-approved list. For the first time, all districts would have to report which textbooks they are using to the Department of Education.

    Textbooks like “Units of Study,” by noted literacy author Lucy Calkins, whose instruction relies on visual cues, including the three-cuing method of reading, would not be eligible for the approved list.

    Teacher preparation

    The bill would strengthen the accountability requirements of landmark Senate Bill 488, the 2022 law that requires candidates for a PK-3, elementary, or multiple subject credential to receive evidence-based reading instruction. 

    It would require the Commission on Teacher Credentialing to establish a probationary accreditation process for teacher prep programs that aren’t meeting the literacy instruction requirements. Faculty in those programs would have to complete professional development in the science of reading for the program to avoid a loss of accreditation.  

    The bill would provide funding for the credentialing commission to hire experts in the science of reading to help with program accreditation. One of the dozen members of the Committee of Accreditation would have to be an expert in the science of reading.  





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  • Bill to mandate ‘science of reading’ in California schools faces teachers union opposition

    Bill to mandate ‘science of reading’ in California schools faces teachers union opposition


    Teacher Jennifer Dare Sparks conducts a reading lesson at Ethel I. Baker Elementary School in Sacramento last year.

    Credit: Randall Benton / EdSource

    California’s largest teachers union has moved to put the brakes on legislation that mandates instruction, known as the “science of reading,” that spotlights phonics to teach children to read.

    The move by the politically powerful California Teachers Association (CTA) puts the fate of Assembly Bill 2222 in question as supporters insist that there is room to negotiate changes that will bring opponents together.

    CTA’s complaints include some recently voiced by some advocacy organizations for English learners and bilingual education that oppose the bill and have refused to negotiate any changes to make the bill more acceptable.

    The teachers union put its opposition to AB 2222 in writing in a lengthy letter to Assembly Education Committee Chairman Al Muratsuchi last week. The committee is expected to hear the bill, introduced in February, later this month. 

    The letter includes a checklist of complaints including that the proposed legislation would duplicate and potentially undermine current literacy initiatives, would not meet the needs of English learner students and cuts teachers out of the decision-making process, especially when it comes to curriculum. 

    “Educators are best equipped to make school and classroom decisions to ensure student success,” the letter said. “Limiting instructional approaches undermines teachers’ professional autonomy and may impede their effectiveness in the classroom.”

    Marshall Tuck, CEO of EdVoice, an advocacy nonprofit co-sponsoring the bill, said he was surprised that CTA would oppose legislation that would ensure all teachers are trained to use the latest brain research to teach children how to read.

    “Unfortunately, a lot of folks in the field haven’t actually been trained on that, and a lot of the instruction materials in classrooms today don’t align with that,” Tuck said.

    Tuck said CTA appears to misunderstand the body of evidence-based research known as the science of reading. It “is not a curriculum and is not a program or a one-size-fits-all approach,” he said. “It will give teachers a foundational understanding of how children learn to read. Teachers will still have a lot of room locally to decide which instructional moves to make on any given day for any given children. So, you’ll still have significant differentiation.”

    A nationwide push

    California’s push to adopt the science of reading approach to early literacy is in sync with 37 states and some cities, such as New York City, that have passed similar legislation. 

    States nationwide are rejecting balanced literacy as failing to effectively teach children how to read, since it trains children to use pictures to recognize words on sight, also known as three-cueing. The new method would teach children to decode words by sounding them out, a process known as phonics.

    Although phonics, the ability to connect letters to sounds, has drawn the most attention, the science of reading focuses on four other pillars of literacy instruction: phonemic awareness, identifying distinct units of sounds; vocabulary; comprehension; and fluency. It is based on research on how the brain connects letters with sounds when learning to read.

    Along with mandating the science of reading approach to instruction, AB 2222 would require that all TK to fifth-grade teachers, literacy coaches and specialists take a 30-hour-minimum course in reading instruction by 2028. School districts and charter schools would purchase textbooks from an approved list endorsed by the State Board of Education.  

    The legislation goes against the state policy of local control that gives school districts authority to select curriculum and teaching methods as long as they meet state academic standards. Currently, the state encourages, but does not mandate, districts to incorporate instruction in the science of reading in the early grades.

    “It’s a big bill,” said Yolie Flores, president of Families in Schools, a co-sponsor. “We’re very proud that it’s a big bill because that means it is truly consequential in the best way possible for children. It’s not a sort of tweak around the edges kind though, it’s the kind of bill that really brings transformation. So we are hoping that the Legislature sees beyond the sort of typical pushback and resistance, and in the end, I think, teachers will see that this was a huge benefit for them.”

    Seeking compromise

    The bill’s author, Blanca Rubio, D-Baldwin Park, said she took CTA’s seven-page letter not as an outright rejection but as an opportunity for negotiations.

     “I’m glad they sent this letter,” she said. “They outline their objections and the reasons why, and that’s something I can work with. It’s not a flat, ‘No, we don’t want you to do it.’ They gave me specific items that I can look at and have a conversation about.”

    She said that Assemblymember Muratsuchi asked her to work with the CTA on a compromise. She is also meeting with consultants for Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Salinas, “to look at the big picture,” she said.

    But Flores says the state’s budget problems, with predictions of no money for new programs, may be a bigger hurdle to getting the bill passed than the CTA opposition. The cost of paying for the required professional development for teachers would total $200 million to $300 million, she said. Because it is a mandate, the state would be required to repay districts for the cost.

    “That is a drop in the bucket for something so transformational, so consequential,” Flores said. “I hope that the Legislature really comes to that realization. We’re in a budget deficit, but our budget is a statement of priorities.”

    Advocates say that it is imperative that California mandate instruction in the science of reading. In 2023, just 43% of California third graders met the academic standards on the state’s standardized test in 2023. Only 27.2% of Black students, 32% of Latino students and 35% of low-income children were reading at grade level, compared with 57.5% of white, 69% of Asian and 66% of non-low-income students. 

    “It’s foundational,” Flores said. “It’s not the only thing teachers need to know. It’s not the only thing that teachers will need to do and to adhere to, but it’s sort of the basic foundational knowledge of how children’s brains work in order to learn to read.”

    The bill would sunset in 2028 when all teachers are required to have completed training. Beginning in July, all teacher preparation programs would be required to teach future educators to base literacy instruction on the science of reading. 

    Needs of English learners

    The CTA and other critics of AB 2222 charge that it ignores the need of English learners for oral language skills, vocabulary and comparison between their home languages and English, which they need in order to learn how to read. Four out of 10 students in California start school as English learners.

    Tuck disputes this. “We actually emphasize oral language development,” he said. “This would be the first statute that would say when instructional materials are adopted, and when teachers are trained in the science of reading, they must include a focus on English learners and oral language development.”

    Representatives from Californians Together, an advocacy organization for English learners and bilingual education, applauded the CTA’s opposition to the bill. They oppose the bill, rather than suggest amendments, because they disagree with its overall approach.

    “We just don’t think this is the right bill to address literacy needs,” said Executive Director Martha Hernandez. “It’s very restrictive. We know that mandates don’t work. It lacks a robust, comprehensive approach for multilingual learners.”

    Instead, Californians Together and the California Association for Bilingual Education have both said they would prefer California fund the training of teachers and full implementation of the English Language Arts/English Language Development Framework. 

    The framework was adopted in 2014 and encourages, but does not mandate, explicit instruction in foundational skills and oral language development for English learners.

    The California Language Teachers Association has requested the bill be amended to include information about teaching literacy in languages not based on the English alphabet, such as Japanese, Chinese or Arabic, according to Executive Director Liz Matchett. However, the organization has not yet taken a position on the bill.

    “I agree that we want to support all children to be able to read. If they can’t read, they can’t participate in education, which is the one way that is proven to change people’s circumstances,” said Matchett, who teaches Spanish at Gunn High School in Palo Alto. “There’s nothing to oppose about that. I’m still a classroom teacher, and all the time, you get kids in high school who can’t read.”

    Education Trust-West urges changes in the bill to center the needs of “multilingual learners” — children who speak languages other than English at home — and to include more oversight and fewer mandates, such as those that may discourage new teachers from entering the profession.

    “If our recommended amendments were to be accepted, EdTrust-West would support it as a much-needed solution to California’s acute literacy crisis.”

    Claude Goldenberg, professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, said “it was disappointing” to see CTA’s opposition, particularly because the union did not suggest amendments. He said he had met with representatives from CTA and urged them to identify what could be changed in the bill.

    In a recent EdSource commentary, Goldenberg urged opponents to “do the right thing for all students. AB 2222’s introduction is an important step forward on the road to universal literacy in California. We must get it on the right track and take it across the finish line.”

    Referring to the CTA’s opposition, Goldenberg said, “Obviously my urgings fell flat. They identified why they’re opposing, but there’s no indication of any possible re-evaluation.” 

    Goldenberg, who served on the National Literacy Panel, which synthesized research on literacy development among children who speak languages other than English, has called on the bill’s authors to amend it to include a more comprehensive definition of the “science of reading” and include more information about teaching students to read in English as a second language and in their home languages.

    The CTA has changed its position on bills related to literacy instruction in the last two years. It had originally supported Senate Bill 488, which passed in 2022. The legislation requires a literacy performance assessment for teachers and oversight of literacy instruction in teacher preparation. The union is now in support of a bill that would do away with both.

    The change of course was attributed to a survey of 1,300 CTA members, who said the assessment caused stress, took away time that could have been used to collaborate with mentors and for teaching, and did not prepare them to meet the needs of students, according to Leslie Littman, vice president of the union, in a prior interview. 

    Veteran political observer Dan Schnur said he’s not surprised CTA would oppose the bill since some of its political allies are against it; the question is how important CTA considers the bill. 

    “If it becomes a pitched battle, CTA will have to decide whether it is one of its highest priorities in this session,” he said.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom hasn’t indicated his position yet, but Schnur, the press secretary for former Gov. Pete Wilson, who teaches political communications at UC Berkeley and USC, said, “This is not the type of fight Newsom needs or wants right now. If he has strong feelings, it’s hard to see him going to war for or against.”





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  • Bill to mandate ‘science of reading’ in California classrooms dies

    Bill to mandate ‘science of reading’ in California classrooms dies


    An elementary student reads on his own in class.

    Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education

    A bill that would have required California teachers to use the “science of reading,” which spotlights phonics, to teach children to read has died without a hearing. 

    Assembly Bill 2222, authored by Assemblymember Blanca Rubio, D-Baldwin Park, will not advance in the Legislature this year, according to Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, who described the state’s student reading and literacy rates as “a serious problem,” adding that the bill should receive a “methodical” review by all key groups before there is a “costly overhaul” of how reading is taught in California. 

    “I want the Legislature to study this problem closely, so we can be sure stakeholders are engaged and, most importantly, that all students benefit, especially our diverse learners,” Rivas said in a statement to EdSource, referring to English learners.

    The bill, which had the support of the California State PTA, state NAACP and more than 50 other organizations, hit a snag two weeks ago, when the California Teachers Association — the state’s largest teachers union — sent a letter stating its opposition to the bill to Assembly Education Committee Chairman Al Muratsuchi.

    The union claimed that the proposed legislation would duplicate and potentially undermine current literacy initiatives, would not meet the needs of English learner students and would cut teachers out of decisions, especially on curriculum. 

    Rubio, who could not be reached late Thursday, told EdSource last week that Muratsuchi asked her to work with the teachers union on a compromise. 

    Marshall Tuck, CEO of EdVoice, an advocacy nonprofit co-sponsoring the bill, said he was surprised the bill didn’t get a hearing considering the importance of the issue.

     “We understand it’s a tough budget year, but we also believe that the most important priority for the education budget is helping our kids learn how to read,” he said.

    But he called the move to table the bill a “bump in the road.”

    “When we launched with Assemblymember Rubio and the sponsors behind this, we knew it might be a multi-year effort,” he said. “So you get up tomorrow and keep it moving forward.”

    Advocates say that it is imperative that California mandates this change in reading instruction. In 2023, just 43% of California third-graders met the academic standards on the state’s standardized test in 2023. Only 27.2% of Black students, 32% of Latino students and 35% of low-income children were reading at grade level, compared with 57.5% of white, 69% of Asian and 66% of non-low-income students. 

    “The California NAACP was right, this is a civil rights issue,” said Kareem Weaver, a member of the Oakland NAACP Education Committee and co-founder of the literacy advocacy group FULCRUM. “And you don’t play politics with civil rights. The misinformation and ideological posturing on AB 2222 effectively leveraged the politics of fear.  We have to do better, for kids’ sake, and can’t give up.”

    What is the science of reading?

    Science of reading refers to research-based teaching strategies that reflect how the brain learns how to read. While it includes phonics-based instruction that teaches children to decode words by sounding them out, it also includes four other pillars of literacy instruction: phonemic awareness, identifying distinct units of sounds; vocabulary; comprehension; and fluency. It is based on research on how the brain connects letters with sounds when learning to read.

    The legislation would have gone against the state policy of local control that gives school districts authority to select curriculum and teaching methods as long as they meet state academic standards. Currently, the state encourages, but does not mandate, districts to incorporate instruction in the science of reading in the early grades.

    Along with mandating the science of reading approach to instruction, AB 2222 would have required that all TK to fifth-grade teachers, literacy coaches and specialists take a 30-hour-minimum course in reading instruction by 2028. School districts and charter schools would purchase textbooks from an approved list endorsed by the State Board of Education. 

    English learner advocates opposed bill

    It appears lawmakers heard the pleas of advocates for English learners who opposed the bill. 

    “We know that addressing equity and literacy outcomes is a high priority for California and that our state is not yet where it needs to be with literacy outcomes for all students,” said Martha Hernandez, executive director of Californians Together, one of the organizations that opposed the bill. “AB 2222 is not the prescription that is needed for our multilingual, diverse state.”

    She said she is willing to work with lawmakers for a literacy plan that is based on reading research, but that “centrally addresses” the needs of English learners.

    California’s proposed legislation to adopt the science of reading approach to early literacy would have been in sync with other states that have passed similar legislation. States nationwide are rejecting balanced literacy as failing to effectively teach children how to read, since it de-emphasizes explicit instruction in phonics and instead trains children to use pictures to identify words on sight, also known as three-cueing. 

    Muratsuchi had until the end of the day Thursday to put the bill on the calendar for the April 17 meeting of the Assembly Education Committee. It would then have had to be heard by the Assembly Higher Education Committee before the April 26 deadline for legislators to get bills with notable fiscal impacts to the Appropriations Committee. Now, the bill will have to be reintroduced next year to get a hearing.

    “It’s really too bad. Lots of kids are not being well-served now. But on the other hand, I hope this will be an opportunity to regroup and present a more robust version of the bill,” said Claude Goldenberg, a Stanford University professor emeritus of education, who supported the bill.

    Goldenberg said a future version of the bill should include a “more comprehensive definition” of the “science of reading” and should make clear that this includes research on teaching reading to all students, including English learners.

    “English learners, for example, would benefit if teachers knew and used research that is part of the science of reading and applies whether they’re learning in their home language or in English. Same for children with limited literacy opportunities outside of school and children having difficulty learning to read,” Goldenberg said.

    ‘Backroom politics’

    Lori DePole, co-state director of Decoding Dyslexia CA, one of the supporters of the bill, expressed frustration Thursday evening over the decision to table it. 

    “It is shameful that when more than half of CA kids aren’t reading at grade level that our legislators are okay with the status quo, and they have killed this literacy legislation without even allowing it to be heard,” she said in a statement. 

    “… CA kids’ futures are too important to allow backroom politics to silence this issue. We will no longer accept lip service in addressing our literacy crisis.  It is time for action, and we aren’t going away.”

    Advocates for students with dyslexia support the phonics-based teaching methods as especially effective for children with the learning disability. 

    Muratsuchi said he supports the science of reading. “However, we need to make sure that we do this right, by serving the needs of all California students, including our English learners,” he said in a statement to EdSource. “California is the most language-diverse state in the country, and we need to develop a literacy instruction strategy that works for all of our students.

    “I thank Speaker Robert Rivas for his decision to pursue a more deliberative process involving all education stakeholders before enacting a costly overhaul of how reading is taught statewide,” he said.

    EdSource reporter Karen D’Souza contributed to this report.





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  • The clock is ticking, ethnic studies remains an unfunded mandate; what will Newsom do?

    The clock is ticking, ethnic studies remains an unfunded mandate; what will Newsom do?


    A high school student listens to a presentation by her classmate.

    Credit: Allison Shelley / American Education

    The article was updated on Dec., 12 to clarify that the anti-bias protections in AB 101’s “guardrails” were copied from existing state statutes.

    Three years ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation mandating that high schools offer ethnic studies “upon appropriation,” starting in 2025-26.

    Now, those two words — upon appropriation — loom large. The deadline to offer a semester of ethnic studies in 2025-26 is only seven months away, and requiring the course for graduation is due to begin with the graduating class of 2029-30. 

    Since 2022, the California Department of Finance has taken the position that there has been no appropriation to implement the course, and some other legislators agree — no money, no requirement to develop or offer classes. As a result, school districts might conclude that the law’s “guardrails” intended to prevent bias, bigotry, and discrimination from seeping into instruction could be ignored. However, the guardrails language was copied from existing state education statutes (Education Code 220), which would still prevail.  

    That lack of funding is creating uncertainty about the future of ethnic studies and suspense about whether Newsom will deliver the money next month when he proposes his 2025-26 budget — and, as importantly, whether he will condition funding on amendments to the law (Assembly Bill 101), including those championed by the Jewish Legislative Caucus.

    “I come at this with a fresh set of eyes. It’s pretty clear that the law only really takes effect if there is funding for this during the budgetary process. There has been no budget allocated for that,” said Assemblymember David Alvarez, D-San Diego, who was elected to the Legislature in 2022 and chairs the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance while serving on the Assembly Budget and Education committees.

    “But that doesn’t mean that that won’t happen in the budget that’s to be released in January, which then funds the 2025-26 school year, which is when this would take effect,” he said. “I would expect it would” be funded.

    Options ‘upon appropriation’

    There is no statutory definition of “upon appropriation,” which is sometimes inserted in bills requiring significant funding. That leaves the governor and Legislature several options, according to legislative staff. One would be a significant one-time investment with dedicated funding in subsequent years. Another would be to eliminate “upon appropriation” by amending the bill — although that wouldn’t eliminate the state’s obligation to fund the mandate. The Legislature could then leave it to the Commission on State Mandates to decide how much should be reimbursed annually. Districts have complained that the commission tends to lowball reimbursements.

    Advisers to and spokespeople for Newsom refused to discuss the unfunded mandate or what to expect in January, and leaders of one of the strongest advocates of ethnic studies, the controversial Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium, aren’t answering requests for comment. An administrator of the San Diego County Office of Education, which is coordinating state grants to develop ethnic studies course curriculums, also declined to comment.

    Finance Dept. states its position

    A spokesperson for Newsom referred EdSource to the Department of Finance, which, in turn, pointed to a link to a Feb. 22, 2022, webcast of Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance hearing (watch between 2:57 to 3:07).

    At the hearing, then-Assemblymember Kevin McCarthy, D-Sacramento, a strong proponent of ethnic studies, noted that the 2021-22 state budget included $50 million that would be disbursed to school districts to “launch this work.”

    “Do we think that’s the adequate amount we need to make sure we have a successful ethnic studies requirement for high schools throughout California?” he asked state officials.

    Amber Alexander, representing the Department of Finance, clarified that the $50 million was one-time funding for districts to create, not implement, the graduation mandate. “Nor,” she added, “does the Finance Department believe the $50 million would be sufficient, should the mandate progress.”

    “I know that we have some debate about that, and I’m not sure why you need an appropriation because you’re going to have that class taught in a high school anyway, and you’ll have a teacher teaching that class as opposed to another class,” McCarthy responded. “Just simple mathematics; I don’t get it yet.”

    Turning to Mike Torres, director of the curriculum frameworks division of the California Department of Education, McCarthy asked, “Do we think that we need, uh, any other resources? Um, on the lead-up to, uh, ethnic studies throughout California?”

    Torres answered, “Gearing up for this requirement is likely to be a multi-year process with costs exceeding $50 million statewide (for districts) to make that happen.”

    In an analysis of the financial impact of AB 101, the Finance Department estimated the implementation cost of ethnic studies at $272 million. Alvares said that the 2021 ballpark estimate would need to be recalculated, and he wouldn’t hazard a guess of the cost other than to say it would be well over $100 million annually to reimburse districts.

    Jewish caucus finds an ally in Newsom

    Despite uncertainty over funding, intense work continues on developing ethnic studies curricula and piloting courses throughout the state. This week, the California Department of Education launched a website dedicated to Southeast Asian ethnic studies, including separate K-12 lesson plans exploring Vietnamese, Cambodian and Hmong histories and experiences. Chapters on Native American studies are planned for next fall. 

    The site was developed by the county education offices in Orange, Humboldt and San Diego counties, with $14 million in state funding from the 2021-22 budget. San Diego County has also hosted multiple series of ethnic studies webinars for teachers.  

    Meanwhile, the spread of the liberated ethnic studies curriculum developed as an alternative to the state’s Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Framework has escalated tensions between its creator and promoter, the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium and the Jewish Legislative Caucus. The “liberated” version has been a focus of several lawsuits (see here, here and here) brought by Jewish families and supportive law firms charging that its one-sided, ideological opposition to the state of Israel and its ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza has fostered antisemitism in schools.

    Critics say that “liberated” ethnic studies view race relations in America as a continuing struggle against white supremacy and its oppression of people of color. It stresses the importance for students to challenge capitalism and the forces of imperialism, including Israel, which the curriculum calls a modern outpost of “settler colonialism.”

    At the urging of the Legislative Jewish Caucus, the Legislature wrote into AB 101 that school districts should not use unadopted portions of earlier drafts of the model curriculum — an oblique reference to the elements of the liberated curriculum that were excised from the first draft. Advocates of liberated ethnic studies charged that the clause and other “guardrails” seek to squelch their free speech.

    But the Jewish caucus has found an ally in Newsom. In August 2023, Brooks Allen, executive director of the State Board of Education and a Newsom adviser, wrote in a memo to school districts, “We have been advised, however, that some vendors are offering materials that may not meet the requirements of AB 101, particularly the second requirement (not reflecting or promoting any bias, bigotry, or discrimination), an important guardrail highlighted when the bill was signed. Accordingly, before any curriculum or instructional materials for ethnic studies courses are selected, we strongly encourage you to closely scrutinize them to ensure that they meet the above requirements.”

    Newsom cites the need to include lessons about Jewish Americans in the ethnic studies curriculum in his 17-page Golden State Plan to Combat Antisemitism, issued in April 2024. It also includes, “The Governor will work with the Jewish Caucus and Legislature to pursue legislation strengthening the guardrails established by AB 101 to ensure all ethnic studies courses are free from bias, bigotry, and discriminatory content.”

    Second attempt at tighter guardrails

    That is the intent of Assembly Bill 2918, authored by Assemblymembers Rick Zbur, D-Los Angeles, and Dawn Addis, D-Morro Bay. Introduced late in the last legislative session, it ran aground amid opposition from the liberated consortium and the California Teachers Association as well as criticism that it short-circuited the full legislative process. Addis and Zbur promised to start from scratch and confer with opponents and Latino, Black, and Asian legislative caucuses.

    The bill called for strengthening vague wording of the guardrails as well as requirements that more opportunities for the public to weigh in on the development of local ethnic studies courses be created before a final vote for adoption by school boards. This has not been the case in some districts and is central to a lawsuit against Santa Ana Unified.

    Newsom has not given any sign of whether he would treat funding and amending AB 101 separately or use funding as leverage for added protections. Zbur, a member of the Jewish caucus, said he’s not calling for that approach.

    “I want ethnic studies to move forward. The entire Jewish caucus supported ethnic studies when it came up (for a vote). We (he and Addis) don’t view this in a context of leverage,” he said. “We actually have faith that the education unions and our colleagues want to ensure that we meet the goals of ethnic studies in a manner that’s appropriate for all students, including Jewish students.”

    But Alvarez, who said he is “fully supportive of ensuring that the guardrails exist from the Jewish caucus perspective,” added that it’s appropriate to revise AB 101 while discussing how to fund it.  

    “We have an opportunity to ensure we get this right,” he said. “And so as we go forward and implement, we need to make sure that we do so in the best way possible. It’s germane to the requirement that it needs to be funded.” 





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  • UC faculty to consider its own high school ethnic studies mandate

    UC faculty to consider its own high school ethnic studies mandate


    Credit: Alison Yin / EdSource

    KEY TAKEAWAYS
    • The UC course criteria would promote the Liberated Ethnic Studies perspective.
    • It would likely become the default ethnic studies course in K-12 districts.
    • It would contradict the state’s own voluntary, open-ended model curriculum.

    School districts are looking to the May revision of the state budget to learn if Gov. Gavin Newsom will press ahead with a mandate to offer a high school ethnic studies course whose implementation is contingent on state funding. That will be unlikely.

    Brooks Allen, executive director of the State Board of Education and a Newsom adviser, confirmed Tuesday that, given current revenue forecasts, Newsom will not be funding the mandate. He conveyed that message to a representative of the UC Academic Senate, he said.

    On Wednesday, however, representatives of the University of California faculty will decide whether to recommend that U.C. regents not wait for state funding and instead independently mandate a course. They’ll vote on a proposal (see pages 39 to 57) to require an ethnic studies course, incorporating criteria and content that Newsom and the State Board of Education have already rejected as politically extreme, for admissions to UC campuses. 

    Opponents said that adopting the proposal, which had been nearly five years in the making, would be unwise and probably illegal. 

    “Requiring such a course would entangle the university in the sorts of political and ideological disputes over ethnic studies course content that are currently roiling school districts across the state and the nation,” wrote Richard Sander, a law professor at UCLA, and Matt Malkan, an astronomy professor at UCLA, in a letter to the UC Faculty Assembly of the Senate, the body that will take up the issue on Wednesday. An earlier version was signed by 440 members of the UC faculty.

    Sander and Malkan also said that the proposal “would effectively force hundreds of schools to invest large sums in creating the mandated curriculum and finding or hiring teachers to teach it”  – a step that “would probably ultimately be found to be illegal” if UC acted unilaterally.

    If the Assembly passes the proposal, it would be forwarded to UC President Michael Drake and then to the UC Regents this summer for final approval. 

    Ethnic studies faculty at UC campuses pushed for including ethnic studies among the 15 courses required for admissions, known as “A-G.” It would be satisfied through an English, history or an elective course taught through an ethnic studies lens, as UC defines it.  Ethnic studies would become “H”, a new area of concentration.  

    When adopting legislation in 2016 authorizing the creation of a voluntary, model ethnic studies curriculum, the Legislature was vague about what it intended for an ethnic studies course. It said the objective was to prepare pupils to be “global citizens with an appreciation for the contributions of multiple cultures”; school districts could “adapt courses to reflect the pupil demographics in their communities.”

    UC’s proposed criteria for high schools would take a more directive and controversial approach, reflecting the content of many college-level courses. 

    “Ethnic studies is aimed at producing critical knowledge about power, inequality, and inequity as well as the efforts of marginalized and oppressed racialized peoples to challenge systemic violence and the institutional structures that perpetuate racial injustice,” wrote the co-lead writers, UC Riverside teaching professor Wallace Cleaves and UC Santa Cruz critical race and ethnic studies and literature professor Christine Hong, in a preface explaining the intent of the criteria.

    Hong and Cleaves say it is appropriate to set rigorous course criteria for students entering UC because ethnic studies faculty created the foundational theories and instructional strategies for the academic discipline, and the State Board and local district teachers lack their expertise. 

    But the effect of adopting their course for entry into UC would be an end-run around the state board’s open-ended guidance. It would also deviate from many legislators’ vision of ethnic studies as the study of the cultures and achievements of minority groups, as well as their past and ongoing struggles with racism and discrimination. 

    The UC criteria would become the standard version that high schools would offer. In turn, UC and CSU  ethnic studies faculty would become the go-to private consultants for creating districts’ curricula and training teachers. 

    Emergence of Liberated Ethnic Studies

    UC and CSU ethnic studies faculty were primary writers of the first draft of the state’s model curriculum in 2019, but President Linda Darling-Hammond and other members of the State Board rejected it as biased, and the board hired new writers. The California Legislative Jewish Caucus objected to its characterization of Israel as an oppressive white colonial state and the call for a boycott of companies doing business with Israel.  

    “A model curriculum should be accurate, free of bias, appropriate for all learners in our diverse state and align with Governor Newsom’s vision of a California for all,” Darling-Hammond’s statement said. 

    The writers of the initial draft disavowed the final, revised model curriculum that the State Board passed in 2021. They then formed the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium and have encouraged school districts to adopt the original draft as the true alternative. More than two dozen districts have. Both Hong and Cleaves are affiliated with the consortium.

    Having gone through five revisions, the final proposal before the Assembly (pages 10 to 18)  is a toned-down version, but its purpose and guidelines for developing skills are clear. For example, toward the goal of “Applying critical analysis,” it reads, “Study histories of imperialism, dehumanization, and genocide to expose their continuity to present-day laws, ideologies, knowledge systems, dominant cultures, institutions, and structures that perpetuate racial violence, white supremacy, and other forms of oppression.”

    Sander said,  “It’s still very clearly a liberated course by which I mean it’s very ideological. It has a particular point of view on various controversial issues.”

    Under Assembly Bill 1010, the 2021 state law, high schools would have to offer a one-semester ethnic studies course starting in fall 2025 and students would have to take it for a high school diploma starting in 2029-30. Legislators explicitly referenced the rejected first draft in the law. “It is the intent of the Legislature that (districts) not use the portions of the draft model curriculum that were not adopted … due to concerns related to bias, bigotry, and discrimination,” it reads.

    Since then, California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the Newsom administration have reminded school districts to follow the law’s requirements for “inclusivity, sensitivity, and accuracy.”

    “We have been advised, however, that some vendors are offering materials that may not meet the requirements of AB 101,” Brooks Allen, executive director of the State Board of Education and an education adviser to Newsom, wrote in a memo to districts in 2023. 

    The “liberated” version has prompted several lawsuits (see here, here and here) by Jewish families and supportive law firms charging that its one-sided perspective fosters discrimination.  

    A “target” for President Trump?

    The vote Wednesday coincides with fraught relations with the Trump administration. The president has threatened to withhold billions of dollars in federal funding from school districts and California universities that fail to curb antisemitism and teach undefined “woke” ideology on race, including critical race theory.

    “Passing the course criteria now would be like putting a target on our back,” Sander said in an interview, and undermine the university’s best defense against Trump’s effort to dictate who to hire and what ideas can be taught.

    “It is fundamentally wrong, and inconsistent with the very spirit of a university, to mandate courses that are framed by an ideology – whether that ideology comes from the left or from the right,” he said.





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  • Ethnic studies standards can’t save California’s deeply flawed mandate

    Ethnic studies standards can’t save California’s deeply flawed mandate


    Alison Yin / EdSource

    Members of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus recently introduced a new bill (AB 1468) to address concerns that the state’s new ethnic studies mandate has been and will continue to be used as a vehicle for sneaking dangerous antisemitism and anti-Israel content into our classrooms. Unfortunately, AB 1468 will only serve to exacerbate, rather than mitigate, these concerns.

    In 2021, California became the first state to require an ethnic studies course for high school graduation with the passage of AB 101. Despite good intentions, this mandate has been plagued by fundamental and unresolved problems. Chief among them is that it allows school districts to choose their own curriculum, leading many to adopt materials and training from consulting groups such as the Liberated Ethnic Studies Consortium, which promote a highly politicized approach to ethnic studies, exacerbating concerns about classroom bias and antisemitism.

    Recognizing this looming threat and knowing that content standards are required for all other California courses required for high school graduation, the Jewish legislators have introduced a bill to establish state-approved standards to prevent antisemitic content and ensure ethnic studies is taught in a way that respects all communities.

    The lack of content standards, however, is just the tip of the iceberg. Far more troubling is the absence of any consensus on what kind of subject ethnic studies even is. Some proponents view it as an inclusive, objective examination of the history, culture and contributions of various ethnic groups in the state. This understanding appears to have guided California legislators in passing the ethnic studies mandate with AB 101, whose author stated, “California is one of the most diverse states in the country, and we should celebrate that diversity by teaching a curriculum that is inclusive of all of our cultures and backgrounds.”

    Others, however, hold a radically different view. They believe high school ethnic studies should replicate the university-level discipline, which focuses primarily on four racial groups and is rooted in ideologically driven frameworks that emphasize systemic oppression and promote political activism, often incorporating antisemitic content. This approach, championed by state university ethnic studies faculty, teachers unions and Liberated consulting groups, has infiltrated many school districts.

    The lack of consensus about the very nature of ethnic studies has led to fierce battles over curricula, which have played out in contentious school board meetings and costly legal challenges, underscoring the folly of implementing a mandatory ethnic studies course without any common understanding of the subject.

    The folly becomes even graver when considering that the primary justification for an ethnic studies mandate — its supposed improvement of student outcomes — is wholly unfounded. The single empirical study claiming to demonstrate the academic benefits of ethnic studies was thoroughly debunked by scholars at the University of California and the University of Pennsylvania, who warned that “no conclusion” could be drawn from its data. Worse, an ethnic studies mandate forces students to take a controversial course with no demonstrable academic benefits in place of one with clear value, such as world history.

    The mandate’s serious flaws were well-known before the passage of AB 101, which raises the question: How could state legislators establish a law requiring all students to take a course with no agreed-upon subject matter, content standards or proven academic benefits and, under the Liberated approach to ethnic studies, that was likely to sow divisiveness and incite antisemitism?

    Unfortunately, the Jewish Caucus’ idea of adding standards to a deeply flawed mandate, though well-intentioned, will not fix the problem. Given the entrenched influence of teachers unions, university ethnic studies faculty and Liberated consultants over who teaches high school ethnic studies and how it’s taught, any attempt to add standards will inevitably be co-opted by these groups, further entrenching an ideological version of ethnic studies that is divisive, controversial and harmful to Jewish students. Moreover, AB 1468 risks giving a false sense of security to concerned parents and community members while failing to address deeper issues.

    Now is the time to reconsider — not reinforce — the ethnic studies mandate.

    Thankfully, a critical provision in AB 101 has been largely overlooked: The mandate is only operative when the Legislature provides funding for it, which has not yet occurred. And given California’s current financial crisis and the fact that the mandate is estimated to cost the state a whopping $275 million annually, it’s unlikely to become operational anytime soon. This presents an opportunity for legislators to do what is best for all California students: Instead of trying to salvage a foolhardy mandate that is beyond repair, legislators must work to repeal it.

    Without a state-funded graduation requirement, school districts could still offer ethnic studies as an elective or even a local graduation requirement, allowing communities to decide whether the course serves their students’ needs. However, given the cost, controversy and administrative burden involved with implementing an ethnic studies requirement without state support, it is doubtful many districts will proceed with it on their own. As a result, the ethnic studies industry — especially consulting groups like Liberated and university-based teacher training programs —will lose their primary source of demand and begin to wither, removing a major driver of politicized and antisemitic content in California classrooms.

    Legislators now face a clear choice: double down on a mandate that divides communities, burdens schools, and fails students, or take this opportunity to end it before it does further harm. Repealing AB 101 isn’t just prudent policy — it’s a necessary course correction.

    •••

    Tammi Rossman-Benjamin is the director of AMCHA Initiative, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to combating antisemitism at colleges and universities in the United States. She was a faculty member at the University of California for 20 years.

    The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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