Phonics battle underscores public school failures – San Bernardino Sun

After California released its statewide test scores late last year, the president of the state board of education boasted that, “California’s public schools are making encouraging gains, and these gains are largest for our most vulnerable groups of students.”

Yet those numbers revealed only the slightest boosts, with a paltry 47% of California students meeting or exceeding English standards—up a mere 0.3% from the previous year. Test scores remained below pre-pandemic levels, according to a CalMatters report. Black and Latino students made bigger gains, but their proficiency levels were at a shocking 30.3% and 36.8%.

Consider those numbers against the backdrop of an ongoing Capitol debate. Assembly Bill 1121 by Assembly member Blanca Rubio, D-West Covina, which would require public schools to use phonics-based reading curriculum rather than a whole-language system. The former helps students decode words by focusing on sounds, whereas the latter focuses on teaching whole words and their meanings.

As CalMatters explained, teachers’ unions opposed a similar bill last session and bilingual educators complain the bill would require new teacher training. They prefer the current system where schools use a variety of techniques. We suspect that these special-interest groups are more concerned about the impact on their members than on the ability of students to improve their reading skills.