Matt Mahan

Where are we in California?

We are by last count at 49% on grade level for reading.

We are struggling.

And look, this is part of my assessment of what's gone wrong in Sacramento is we have highly organized interests who are doing their job.

They're advocating for their members.

In this case, you have a very effective teacher's union that has a principle of

Essentially, non-interference does not want the state to mandate that teachers teach a certain way, do a certain thing, be accountable for certain outcomes.

Well, recently and belatedly, we did have the legislature deliver to the governor's desk a science of reading bill that mandates evidence-based curricula for literacy, namely phonics, in the early years.

It should not have taken that long.

It should not have been as big of a fight.

The governor, to his credit, signed it.

It's still not actually mandated.

It basically is saying that the law essentially says that science of reading, evidence-based literacy curricula is the standard, and you have to meet a certain bar to basically not follow the standard.

But it's actually still not an actual mandate that you use particular standards.

And maybe a certain amount of flexibility is warranted, but we were in a place that I strongly opposed, which is we were sort of just leaving it to let teachers decide what to teach when it comes to teaching our children how to read, as other states had quite clearly demonstrated what works and we should follow what works.

So, you know, when I say effective, I guess what I mean is in the narrow sense, Sacramento is full of highly organized interests from teachers to dentists to oil and gas industry to, you know, pick any industry union, you know, advocacy group.

But they have such outsized influence.

They're so organized, are so well staffed.

have such a strong and consistent presence, both through the legislative cycle, through the writing of laws and bills and the advocacy side, as well as the electoral side, endorsing candidates, spending money on their behalf, that they have this outsized influence.

And in a narrow sense, they're actually doing exactly what they should be doing.