California Politicians Focus Too Much on School Spending and Not Enough on Reading Results
- 5 days ago
- 2 min read
California Politicians Focus Too Much on School Spending and Not Enough on Reading Results
This CalMatters commentary argues that California leaders are too quick to celebrate rising education spending without paying enough attention to whether students are actually improving, especially in reading.
Columnist Dan Walters points to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest budget proposal, which would raise K-12 spending to $27,418 per student including federal funds, and contrasts that with weak academic outcomes across the state.
The piece centers on California’s poor performance in fourth-grade reading, calling it one of the clearest signs that higher spending alone has not solved the problem.
Walters notes that California ranked 37th among states on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress in fourth-grade reading, with only 29% of students reaching proficiency, down from 2022. He also emphasizes that Black and Latino students continue to struggle the most in this area.
A major theme of the commentary is California’s long-running conflict over how reading should be taught. Walters argues that state education leaders spent years embracing instructional trends such as whole language while resisting phonics-based methods that many other states adopted earlier.
He points to Mississippi as a contrasting example, noting that it once ranked near the bottom in reading but rose to ninth in fourth-grade reading after adopting science-of-reading reforms, tougher standards, and a stronger statewide focus on academic outcomes.
The commentary also notes that California did recently adopt phonics as its primary reading instruction approach, a change Walters calls one of the state’s most important education developments.
But he argues that Sacramento’s debate still tends to revolve around how much money schools receive rather than whether students are learning to read at acceptable levels. His broader point is that California’s education system should be judged more by measurable results than by record spending figures alone.
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