You'd think that a governor in charge of what used to be the lodestar for K-12 education, California, and who claims that he "can't read" because of his recently-mentioned dyslexia, would be the least bit curious about why Mississippi students outperform his state's kids in reading. Gavin Newsom's comments to podcasters this week, however, reveal no self-reflection, and no insights into why his state's students can't read, or compute, or understand the world around them. In fact, he appears incurious about it.
The truth is, Newsom knows that to reflect on why Mississippi students are eating California's lunch in reading would force him to explain his slavish relationship to the education-wrecking California Teachers Association (CTA). The truth would out him as a disastrous open borders, free-for-all spender on illegal aliens, who don't read and write in their own native languages, much less English, and who flood California schools, where the educational pace is set at their level. Worse, he uses parents' money to pay them to come.
Newsom doesn't want to talk about why Mississippi is running circles around schools in the "fourth largest economy in the world," as he keeps reminding anyone who will listen in his campaign for president, because he's done nothing about it. Indeed, he's made things worse.
California public schools spend roughly $30,000 per student, all-in. That's state, federal, local, property taxes — the whole enchilada. California has the sixth highest per-pupil spending in the country. Since 2018, and throughout his first term in 2019, education spending has risen 60 to 75 percent. As the California Policy Center put it: Newsom’s Education Legacy: Rising Costs, Declining Performance.
Podcaster and TV personality Katie Couric asked Newsom this week how come California has one of the highest poverty rates in the nation (tied with Louisiana), and why the poor kids in Mississippi can out-read the kids in "the fourth largest economy of the world"!
I won't dignify his answer by highlighting it here. It was basically an enumeration of programs that don't work, while insulting our intelligence as an intended by-product. It was a Kamala Harris-meets-Paris Hilton mash up of cotton candy.
And his state's schools are behind Mississippi in reading.
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Newsom himself has voted with his feet to keep his own kids out of the California public schools. They're at private schools, where their curiosities about reading, computing, and understanding important things, such as physics, are satisfied by non-union teachers in an academic milieu that rewards success and values meritocracy. These schools run circles around the public schools. Newsom's high schooler goes to a $68,000 per year school. The all-in budget for the school is $71,000, when fees and other necessities are added in.
It makes sense, therefore, that Newsom doesn't think much about the schools, and leaves the political questions about them — for schools are political machines to Democrats — to the CTA and his radical critical theory-loving state schools superintendent Tony Thurmond.
If they were so inclined — a big if — what could Newsom and his cast of radical characters do to bring California up to scratch with Mississippi kids?
They could stop flooding the zone with illegal aliens by stopping Democrats' huge incentive package to bring them here. Free schools, free healthcare, subsidized housing. It adds up. This overspending on illegal aliens is bankrupting the state.
California's educational cartel could teach students to read and stop giving underperforming students social promotions. This is a generalized approach undertaken by Mississippi and that has changed everything for that state's schools.
Mississippi teaches children how to decode the English language by using phonics. The old saw, "Learn to read, read to learn," animates the effort to get these kids at all age levels to keep reading for understanding by going back to the basics over and over and over, for as long as it takes. If they can't read, they can't move up in school. The stigma of "being held back" is lessening as a result. Moving up is based on mastery of a certain set of skills, not age.
Democrats hate this dynamic. They don't want people to notice that schools that receive less per-pupil funding in a poorer state can outperform California. And they really don't want to talk about how minority kids are making huge improvements in reading. Just ask Newsom about his prejudices about black students and SAT scores.
After making these adjustments in 2013, the Mississippi Miracle began to take hold. By the early 2020s, Mississippi moved from 49th in the nation to the top ten. When you adjust for demographics, Mississippi is often ranked first in the nation.
As a reading tutor at one of my kid's schools back in the day, I was trained to use phonics. If students weren't picking up language decoding in classrooms awash with whole language curricula, teachers would send the kids to the cafeteria where we taught them how to break the code. Volunteers like me taught them to look for language clues, like Sherlock Holmes spots clues to solve a case.
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One dad saw me years later, pointed at me, and declared to anyone listening, "You taught my son to read!" Then he looked around at the people in the room while still pointing at me, "She taught my kid to read!"
I'll never forget it. More importantly, however, Todd, the student, never forgot how to decode the language.
California should embrace this effort. And maybe, just maybe, someday they'll become as good as Mississippi schools at teaching kids how to read.
That would require willingness to work hard and talent, however, both of which are in short supply among the Democrat cadre in the Golden State.
Still, you'd think a guy who claims he "can't read" would move heaven and earth to make sure other kids can.
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