The SF Chronicle published an editorial Saturday criticizing California Democrats for repeatedly putting their tired ideology over what actually works in a number of areas.
For instance, if you listen to Gov. Newsom, the state needs to build more homes. He recently admitted the state isn’t anywhere close to meeting it’s stated goals for home construction and then offered a bunch of excuses why that was the case. But when two bills were recently put forward to allow for more multi-family homes, the bills were killed by one powerful state democrat.
The bills’ primary assailant was state Sen. Aisha Wahab, D-Fremont, chair of the Senate Housing Committee, who has leaned on the tired refrain that efforts to streamline new housing production are “giveaways for developers,” partly because they reduce the ability of local governments to weigh in on projects.
And that’s just one example. An even more egregious one comes from a recent effort to push California to embrace phonics, aka the science of reading, which evidence has long shown is the most effective way to teach reading to children. Last year, a new bill was introduced to force more school districts in the state to embrace phonics, but even at the time it was clear that teachers unions and special interest groups were likely to oppose it.
AB 2222, introduced by Assemblymember Blanca Rubio, a Democrat from West Covina, is backed by Marshall Tuck, who ran for California superintendent of public instruction in 2018. Tuck is now the chief executive officer of EdVoice, an education policy organization. It’s also backed by the advocacy groups Decoding Dyslexia California and Families in Schools…
Although research is clear that phonics is a more effective approach to literacy, the so-called “reading wars” are far from over. Advocates for English learners have sometimes been reluctant to embrace phonics — which focuses on sounding out words, rather than sight memorization — because it may not take into account English learners’ unique language needs and skills…
Teachers unions also have a history of opposing legislation that requires specific teaching methods, particularly related to literacy. Teachers, they have argued, should have the freedom to use whatever approaches work best with their students.
That’s true even though recent evidence shows that some of the poorest states in the US are now outperforming California on literacy (largely because those states embraced phonics).
Data shown above from Stanford and Harvard universities’ Education Recovery Scorecard reveals the stark contrast. Mississippi’s students were below California’s in 2016, and half a year behind the national average in reading. Mississippi made steady progress until 2019, but both states suffered similar-sized learning losses during the pandemic.
Their paths to recovery have diverged sharply: Mississippi students now read above average while California students are worse off than those in 2016. A student in Jackson now reads a quarter of a school year ahead of a similar student in Sacramento. This is the result not of a short-term fix but from a decade of intensive focus on reading throughout the state.
California policymakers may be angered by the comparison, but they can’t ignore or dismiss the data.
California policymakers should not be able to ignore or dismiss the data and yet, when the unions tell them to block the bill on phonics that’s what lawmakers do. In fact, as anticipated, they killed the phonics bill without even a hearing.
California Democrats silently killed a bipartisan bill to mandate the science of reading, refusing to even discuss the topic publicly. Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, and Assembly Member Al Muratsuchi, D-Rolling Hills Estates (Los Angeles County), who leads the Assembly Education Committee (and is running for state superintendent of public instruction next year) tabled the bill without a hearing amid fierce opposition from influential interest groups — including the California Teachers Association and Californians Together, which advocates for English language learners.
Yes, you read that correctly — ensuring California kids receive the most effective reading lessons didn’t even merit a discussion among Democrats in the face of union opposition…
Leslie Littman, vice president of the California Teachers Association, argued the bill would weaken local control over education. “Teacher input, teacher voice, in the decision-making process with the curriculum and the development of that are vitally important,” she said. Littman also said the bill doesn’t come with funding — though Rubio told the editorial board there’s money for curriculum development and teacher training in Newsom’s proposed budget.
Supporters of the bill were understandably angry.
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.”
The SF Chronicle editorial board is similarly at a loss to explain how this can even be controversial in a state that has fallen behind Mississippi in reading. “Isn’t California ranking far below Mississippi for early childhood literacy enough of a wake-up call?” the editorial asks.
At least for now the answer is no. If special interests put the concerns of their adult members above those of California kids, Democrats in the state are happy to go along, just as they were during the pandemic.
Contrast that reality with Gov. Newsom recently agreeing that Ezra Klein’s book “Abundance” was on to something, i.e. that Democrats needed to show they could actually govern effectively. He’s talking about home building here but the problem is the same on any issue. When it comes to the bottom line, Democrats do what the special interest ideologues tell them to do, not what makes sense for regular people.
Ezra Klein asks Gavin Newsom why cities and states run by Democrats are not efficient, and Gavin responds quite inefficiently:
Ezra Klein: “Why is it easier to build homes in Texas than California?”
Gavin Newsom: “The supply demand imbalance: That supply demand imbalance is next… pic.twitter.com/JmA084Clus— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) March 26, 2025
