The Brief

A veteran legislator who taught elementary school for 16 years introduced comprehensive early-literacy legislation Wednesday that would impose requirements on reading instruction and add urgency to the state’s patchwork of reading reforms.

Evidence-based practices, collectively known as “the science of reading,” would become the mandated approach to reading instruction for TK-5, if Assembly Bill 2222, authored by Assemblymember Blanca Rubio, D-Baldwin Park, becomes law.

The bill would shift the state’s decade-old policy of encouraging districts to incorporate fundamental reading skills in the early grades, including phonics, to demanding that they do so. This would depart from the state policy of giving school districts discretion to choose curriculums and teaching methods that meet state academic standards.

By 2028, all TK to fifth-grade teachers, literacy coaches and specialists would be required to take a 30-hour-minium course in reading instruction from an approved list.

School districts and charter schools purchasing textbooks would select from approved materials endorsed by the State Board of Education in a new round of textbook adoption.

The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing would receive money to add several experts for accreditation of teacher preparation programs in the science of reading. The bill would strengthen accountability for those programs that have not taught effective reading strategies, as required under recent state law.

Rubio and the advocacy nonprofits EdVoice, Decoding Dyslexia CA, and Families in Schools, the bill’s co-sponsors, argue that another generation of California children cannot wait for districts teaching ineffective techniques using inadequate materials to come around.

“California is facing a literacy crisis,” the first sentence of the bill states. “There are far too many children who are not reading on grade level by the end of third grade and who will not complete elementary school with the literacy skills and language development they need to be successful academically in middle school and high school.”

Only 43% of California third graders met the academic standards in the state’s standardized test in 2023. Only 27.2% of Black students, 32% of Hispanic students, and 35% of low-income children were proficient, compared with 57.5% of white, 69% of Asian and 66% of non-low-income students.

“There’s always this delicate balance between local control versus let’s move forward collectively,” said Marshall Tuck, CEO of EdVoice and former candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction. “But when we have an issue that the vast majority of lower-income kids, who are disproportionately Black and Latino, are not reading at grade level, it requires urgency to do what we know works as fast as possible.”

Rubio, who recalled being handed coloring books instead of reading lessons in first grade as a non-English-speaking Mexican immigrant, said that data on the effectiveness of the science of reading convinced her to author the bill. However, her own experience as a fourth-grade teacher who previously taught kindergarten and first grade reinforced it.

“When I have fourth graders that are at first- or second-grade reading, something’s wrong. I can tell you right then and there, if a kid doesn’t know phonics in the fourth grade, we screwed them up somewhere. If they’re not reading in the third grade, they may never recover,” said Rubio, who was first elected to the Assembly in 2016.

A piecemeal approach to literacy changes

The science of reading refers to research from neurology, psychology, and the cognitive and developmental sciences about how children learn to read. In the last decade, 47 states and Washington, D.C., have enacted laws to incorporate elements of the science of reading strategies. Fewer — Mississippi, Connecticut, Tennessee, and Virginia among them — have adopted and funded policies that coordinate multiple key elements: preparing and training teachers, supplying them with aligned instructional materials, testing for learning difficulties like dyslexia and engaging parents.

California is among the 47 states. Within the past three years, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature enacted discrete pieces of a state policy.

They funded $40 million to the University of California San Francisco to create a screening test for the risk of dyslexia and other learning difficulties; universal screening of K-2 students will begin in 2025-26.

They included $500 million in the last two state budgets for hiring and training of literacy coaches in the 5% of schools with the most low-income students. The Sacramento and Napa county offices of education, strong advocates of the science of reading, are overseeing the effort. They passed legislation to create a teaching credential for PK-3 that includes new literacy standards grounded in the science of reading; teacher preparation programs must introduce them starting next fall, and teachers will take a performance assessment as part of their new credential.

The Commission on Teacher Credentialing created a pre-kindergarten to grade 3 credential and passed new literacy standards grounded in the science of reading; those new standards will apply to the PK-3 credential as well as existing multiple subject, single subject, and education specialist teacher preparation programs. Teachers will take a performance assessment as part of their new credential.

At the encouragement of State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor emerita at the Stanford University School of Education, Newsom included $1 million in the current budget for a “literacy road map,” which will serve as a guide, with online resources, for districts to implement evidence-based reading strategies. Leading that effort are two respected literacy experts, Bonnie Garcia and Nancy Brynelson, whom State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond named the state’s first state literacy co-directors.

Tuck credits the steps taken by the Legislature and Newsom, “who has been an anchor on early education.” But guidelines won’t ensure that students in all districts will receive effective reading instruction —especially high-poverty schools that may be “slower to make adjustments when they’re dealing with so many challenges and so much complexity.”

Megan Potente, co-state director of Decoding Dyslexia CA, points to her 20 years as a teacher, who, as a new teacher frustrated by the ineffectiveness of her reading training, took a course on phonics and fundamental reading skills. “You feel like you’re not good at your job, and you weren’t equipped. And that’s a terrible feeling for new teachers,” she said. “So I went back to school, and I learned what I needed.”

Years later, she became a coach, supporting teachers in districts using balanced literacy that de-emphasizes evidence-based practices. She found it difficult to apply what she knew, she said, “because the curriculum materials didn’t follow the science; the teaching methods didn’t follow the science.”

A piecemeal approach to reading reforms inevitably leads to a game of “whack-a-mole,” former Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn, who is credited with implementing successful comprehensive policies in her state during the pandemic, told EdSource.

Newsom did not require nor explicitly encourage districts to use the $20-plus billion they received in federal and state Covid-relief funding on teaching training in the science of reading nor on updating reading texts and materials. Now that the state is heading into a lean budget year, a scarcity of funding, particularly for teacher training, could set back a timeline to implement the bill. Newsom’s proposed budget for 2024-25 includes no significant money for new TK-12 programs.

A spokesperson for the Newsom administration, which usually declines to discuss pending legislation, offered no further comment.

What’s in Assembly Bill 2222

AB 2222 would define evidence-based literacy instruction as “evidence-based explicit and systematic instruction in phonological and phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary and oral language development, fluency, comprehension, and writing … that adheres to the science of reading.” (Phonics are rules that relate letters in words to the sounds of spoken language. A phoneme is the smallest element of a sound within spoken language. Phonemic awareness reflects the ability to understand that words combine multiple phonemes when pronounced.)

The bill sets requirements for three principal elements of literacy instruction:

Teacher training

Starting in March 2026 and no later than June 30, 2028, all teachers in grades TK to 5 must complete an approved professional development and training program satisfactorily. The California Department of Education would appoint one or more county offices of education with expertise in the science of reading and evidence-based literacy instruction to serve as the state literacy expert lead that would select the list of eligible training programs. Districts would have to notify parents if fewer than 90% of the required teachers failed to complete the course. 

Instructional materials

The last state textbook adoption for English language arts and English language development was 2015. The bill would require the State Board of Education to complete the next adoption cycle by Jan. 1, 2026, for TK through eighth grade. The materials would have to adhere to the science of reading. School districts would not be required to replace materials they’re currently using, but they would need a waiver to buy basic instructional materials that aren’t approved. A district whose waiver is denied for existing instructional materials that they are using will be required to adopt materials from the state-approved list. For the first time, all districts would have to report which textbooks they are using to the Department of Education.

Textbooks like “Units of Study,” by noted literacy author Lucy Calkins, whose instruction relies on visual cues, including the three-cuing method of reading, would not be eligible for the approved list.

Teacher preparation

The bill would strengthen the accountability requirements of landmark Senate Bill 488, the 2022 law that requires candidates for a PK-3, elementary, or multiple subject credential to receive evidence-based reading instruction.

It would require the Commission on Teacher Credentialing to establish a probationary accreditation process for teacher prep programs that aren’t meeting the literacy instruction requirements. Faculty in those programs would have to complete professional development in the science of reading for the program to avoid a loss of accreditation.

The bill would provide funding for the credentialing commission to hire experts in the science of reading to help with program accreditation. One of the dozen members of the Committee of Accreditation would have to be an expert in the science of reading.

The Los Angeles Dodgers marked their record-tying 14th consecutive trip to MLB’s postseason with a toast of bubbly after Monday night’s 4-1 victory over the Cincinnati Reds.

The bigger celebrations will come later.

“It’s hard to say it ever feels routine, but it is the expectation here,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “I always laugh whenever we clinch a postseason spot, we just do a nice little toast. The guys that haven’t been here, they kind of see that and they expect a little bit more. That happens when you clinch the division.”

The two-time defending World Series champions, who joined Milwaukee and Tampa Bay as teams who have secured playoff spots, cut their magic number to three for a fifth straight NL West title and 13th in 14 seasons.

Los Angeles tied the Atlanta Braves’ postseason run from 1991 through 2005. The Braves made five World Series trips during that span, but won only in 1995.

“Thankfully we’re doing a little bit better than that,” Muncy said of the Dodgers three titles and five trips to the Fall Classic during their run.

Tarik Skubal — who pitched seven shutout innings and allowed only three hits — said the way the Dodgers handled clinching a postseason spot was definitely different compared to clinching situations he encountered the past two seasons with Detroit.

“I think it just speaks to the people in this room and what they expect out of this team. That was cool. A little toast and move on. Forget it happened. We’ve got more to accomplish this season,” he said.

Dave Roberts, who is in his 11th season as manager, said his message during the toast was that the Dodgers have accomplished a lot to this point but haven’t come close to playing their best baseball yet.

“We go through a lot of players every year, and guys find a way to step up, and so that’s the thing I’m probably most proud of, is the consistency of winning over the long term,” he said. “Any team, any organization can win in a given year where things line up, but to do it every single year when you’re expected to do this says something about the entire organization.”

The Dodgers (91-59) currently are the second seed in the NL. They are 2 1/2 games ahead of Atlanta and trail Milwaukee by 2 games for the top seed.

A first-round bye is important any time but especially this year for the Dodgers, who are not at full strength. First baseman Freddie Freeman has been plagued by right knee soreness and two-time NL MVP Shohei Ohtani is on the 15-day injured list due to right biceps inflammation.

“Given where our guys are health wise, to get that week would be huge. We’ve still got to play well to finish out the season to get to that point,” Roberts said before Monday’s game.

Among the hundreds of lead-polluted sites dotted across L.A. County, a disproportionate number are located in largely low-income neighborhoods of color. Too often, lead pollution is left in place, even when it’s severe enough to cause health harm, with potential long-term implications for those living there like irreversible neurological damage.

If it’s not dug up and hauled away or removed by some other biological means, it can stay in the environment for millenia.

Below are five lead-contaminated sites across L.A. County that illustrate just how pervasive and intractable this problem can be, how costly it is to clean up, and how surprising some of the sources are.

1. Ecobat Resources California

The Ecobat Resources California lead-acid battery recycling plant in the City of Industry.

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Karla Gachet

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Ecobat Resources California in the City of Industry is the only lead battery recycling plant left operating this side of the Rockies. It opened in 1959 (under the company name Quemetco), when the world of environmental regulations was more akin to the Wild West.

In 2008, the plant installed a sophisticated air filter that helped reduce lead emissions markedly. But by then, the plant had already released huge quantities of lead into the surrounding environment, carried by the wind before settling over people’s homes.

A long history of hazardous waste violations spanning decades also show Ecobat has not been as careful as it should in managing the dangerous chemicals it processes.

Multiple rounds of soil lead testing have been conducted around the plant since the early 1990s, and as recently as 2021. In 2024, DTSC ordered the company to do yet more testing to define the full extent of their pollution footprint.

That’s because “every single time they’ve gone out to sample in the community, they’ve got a non-trivial portion of the samples collected showing elevated levels of lead,” said Angela Johnson Meszaros, a senior attorney with the environmental nonprofit Earthjustice.

The nearest homes are just hundreds of feet from the plant perimeter, but state officials estimate it could have polluted soils up to 1.6 miles away. Yet, no government agency has ever cleaned up these lead–contaminated homes.

Though DTSC has linked the plant’s operations to this off-site contamination, Ecobat Resources California leadership and other industry representatives have voiced reservations about a potential cleanup, arguing the plant shouldn’t be responsible for removing pollution that might have come from other potential sources like lead paint and gasoline.

Community members and environmental advocates are worried that, when time comes to close the plant and clean up its mess (something not currently on the cards), there won’t be enough money given the scale of the possible remediation.

In Ecobat’s latest hazardous waste operating permit issued in 2025, the state Department of Toxic Substances Control, or DTSC, required the company to post more than $50 million in financial assurances to cover all the cleanup costs if the plant were to close, and for any ongoing environmental monitoring of the site after that.

The number is way too small, warned Johnson Meszaros. “This amount is at best, a baseless hope about the extent of the contamination that has left the facility,” she said. “And at worst, it’s a tragic mistake.”

2. S&W Atlas Iron and Metals

Loud ground-shaking activity within S&W Atlas Iron would often disrupt classes at Jordan High school.

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Courtesy of LAUSD

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For years, S&W Atlas Iron and Metals, a scrap metal recycling plant in Watts, contaminated the neighboring Jordan High campus with toxins like lead, made the lives of students and teachers unbearable with loud ground-shaking noises, and terrorized them with multiple explosions that rained shrapnel onto school grounds. The school and the plant were separated by a single wall.

Last year, Matthew and Gary Weisenberg, the owner operators of Atlas, pleaded no contest in the Los Angeles County Superior Court to five felony counts related to the management of hazardous substances including lead, and were ordered to clean up the toxic mess they’ve left behind.

The problem isn’t over. Cancer-causing chemicals in the soil are crawling toward and onto the campus of Jordan High that court filings describe as “orders of magnitude” above state screening levels.

“Let’s call it what it is, a form of societal violence and a human rights violation,” said Jane Williams, executive director of the environmental advocacy group California Communities Against Toxics, who has tracked this case for decades.

The Weisenbergs’ two-year probationary clock runs out in October 2027.

But many in the Jordan High community have voiced frustration that the Weisenbergs are dragging their heels on this ongoing remediation, and that state regulators aren’t being tough enough, especially given how the students are already in one of the most pollution-burdened communities in the whole state.

“What I want to see is the DTSC and CalEPA really look holistically at the cumulative risks at this site and that they really start to address not just one contaminant individually but all the of the factors that are weighing on the Watts community at any given time,” said Thelmy Alvarez, who helped found the environmental justice collaborative Better Watts Initiative and who worked for years to close down Atlas.

3. Exide Technologies

Large water pipes are shown in the foreground inside the now-demolished Exide Technologies plant.

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Alfredo Santana

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LA Public Press

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For three decades, the former Exide lead battery recycling plant in the City of Vernon spewed some 3,500 tons of lead into surrounding neighborhoods until the federal government forced it to close in 2015. So far, the state has overseen the removal of lead-contaminated soil in more than 6,300 homes up to 1.7 miles around the plant. The massive cleanup is the largest hazardous waste cleanup in the state’s history.

A federal bankruptcy court released Exide Technologies from its cleanup obligations in October 2020, the company having stumped up only about $23.3 million toward those costs. This is a fraction of the nearly $950 million state taxpayers have so far forked out for the cleanup.

Major question marks remain about just how well those public funds have been used.

The nonprofit advocacy group East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice partnered with UC Irvine researchers to collect soil samples from 373 homes that had already been cleaned up. Earlier this year, they published their findings.

They found that 70 percent of these supposedly remediated homes yielded samples that still exceeded the state’s health protective soil lead threshold.

The department has been conducting its own confirmation testing on 623 properties that were previously cleaned up between mid-April 2025 and February.

The individual sampling reports and raw data have been released in batches since June. A comprehensive report on these results will be available early next year, according to DTSC spokesperson Elizabeth Leslie-Gassaway.

4. Central Metals

The now shuttered Central Metals facility in South LA, captured here in July 2025.

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Dan Ross

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Long Beach Post

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When the huge front gates used to open to Central Metals, a recycler in South Los Angeles, the neighbors who lived right across the road got a glimpse into a vast metal wasteland full of junk piles.

Those who lived in the noisy shadow of this bustling 11-acre compound, where scrap would be cut and shredded, long feared it had polluted their homes and backyards with lead.

Their fears were heightened in 2011, when the state found hazardous waste leaks from smashed battery cases at the plant, along with oily sludge and broken e-waste.

Company documents detailed 430 tons of onsite soil laced with lead and other chemicals. Regulators determined toxic dust had likely blown into the adjacent community. It was closed in 2016.

Two years later, the EPA began an investigation into lead pollution surrounding Central Metals to determine whether to include the site on the federal Superfund list.

Among the agency’s eventual findings, 11 of the 83 homes sampled had soil lead levels high enough to warrant remediation, but not significant enough, the EPA argued, to make Central Metals a Superfund site.

To help decide whether Central Metals should join the Superfund list, the EPA used a soil lead cleanup threshold of 400 parts per million (ppm).

Since that report was published, the EPA has halved its residential soil lead screening limit to 200 ppm. Using that threshold, nearly 25% of the EPA’s samples in the report were over that threshold.

If the EPA used California’s stricter residential soil lead screening limit of 80 ppm, however, a staggering 88% of its published samples would exceed that threshold, according to an LA Public Press review of the data.

Mason Thomas Reid, a researcher at Ohio State University and UCLA’s JAYLab, taking soil lead readings with an XRF gun at a home around the former Central Metals plant in July 2025.

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Dan Ross

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LA Public Press

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This matches the results of a more recent independent soil lead study at homes around Central Metals, where 86% of the samples were also above California’s 80 ppm cleanup threshold.

Both the EPA and the DTSC told LA Public Press they have no plans to remediate these homes. The only cleanup has been within the recycler’s walls.

In explaining DTSC’s position, agency spokesperson Leslie-Gassaway wrote in an email how the EPA had already found no “correlation” between the residential lead contamination and Central Metals.

“As a result, DTSC is not directing Central Metals to perform soil lead remediation near its facility,” wrote spokesperson Leslie-Gassaway.

But the independent researchers found that the higher lead levels in the homes “correlated significantly” with closer proximity to Central Metals.

Either way, “no matter who put it there, the people are still suffering as a result of exposure to all of this contamination, and that’s something that should be addressed,” said Mason Thomas Reid, a researcher at Ohio State University and UCLA’s JAYLab who helped conduct the study with key support from the non-profit Communities for a Better Environment.

5. Santa Monica Airport

Santa Monica Airport is scheduled to be closed down in 2028 after decades of community pushback, including over emission risks from leaded aviation fuels.

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Dan Ross

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LA Public Press

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While a complete ban on the sale of leaded gas for highway vehicles was finally achieved in 1996, the little piston engine planes criss-crossing L.A.’s skies are still using leaded fuel, which rains out over the world below.

In total, these planes constitute the largest lead emitter in the nation.

The EPA is also phasing out the use of leaded aviation gasoline. The goal is for this to be achieved by 2030.

In the meantime, the more than 200,000 such planes that use this fuel have access to multiple county, municipal and private airports across LA. One of those airports is in Santa Monica.

Regulatory air quality studies published in 2010 and  2011 found the highest lead levels occurred closest to the Santa Monica runways before tapering off and returning to normal levels 1 kilometer away, and that air contaminants spiked just before and after planes took off.

Around that same time, the EPA found elevated soil lead levels in two of five tested homes close to the airport, though not in limited soil and dust samples at the airport and neighboring parks.

With significantly greater lead emissions than Santa Monica is Van Nuys Airport in the San Fernando Valley. Indeed, Van Nuys ranks as one of the largest lead emitting airports nationwide. An extensive 2025 report found that residents living in the shadow of the Van Nuys Airport attributed health conditions to noise and air pollution stemming from the airport.

Their concerns are far from unfounded.

The EPA determined in 2023 that leaded aviation gasoline is a likely danger to “public health and welfare.” This 2016 study identified higher rates of respiratory problems, heart disease, and emergency room visits among those living around California’s 12 largest airports.

Overall research on lead impacts around all L.A. County’s airports remains slim, however, though the South Coast Air Quality Management District conducted air monitoring around the Whiteman Airport in Pacoima in 2018, 2019, and in 2022. It found air lead levels to be within typical ranges, and lower than a national air quality standard for the chemical.

At the same time, a 2021 study around Reid-Hillview Airport in Northern California’s Santa Clara County found that the closer children lived to the airport, the higher the amount of lead in their blood.

A subsequent analysis around the same airport found that childhood blood lead levels increased with the greater volume of air traffic and larger quantities of leaded aviation gas sold.

Santa Monica airport is set to close in 2028 after years of community pushback, including around the risks from exposures to this nasty neurotoxin.

This article was produced by the nonprofit journalism publication LA Public Press. It is co-published here with permission.

This is part three of “Lead City,” our series documenting the impact of lead pollution across L.A. County. You can read the first and second stories here. The series was produced as part of the USC Center for Health Journalism’s California Health Equity Fellowship.

The work film editors do is as old as Hollywood.

The best editors take the many scenes filmed by a production crew and seamlessly create one work.

“You don't see what I do and if you do, I'm not doing my job right,” said Ryan Westphal, a visual effects editor, who worked on the TV series "Loki " and the film "Ferrari."

For Westphal, the best of times as an editor appear to be in the rearview mirror.

“I've had a good run from about 2018 to about 2023," he said. "For some people, the really busy time was about 2021 to 2023… the gold rush years for streaming content.”

It was good enough that he was lining up his finances to buy a house in Los Angeles. Not anymore.

“I feel like I'm on borrowed time. If things don't get back to some version of what it once was, I [will] need to leave L.A., and I need to change careers,” he said.

Westphal is one of thousands of people who’ve done post-production work — like editing and sound design — who are now feeling the contraction of opportunities in Hollywood. Some who are more visible, like actors and directors, have already felt that squeeze.

He and many others are waiting eagerly to see what Gov. Gavin Newsom does with a state bill meant to help these post production workers.

Assembly Bill 2319 is also known as the California Post-Production Tax Credit. It made it through both legislative chambers in Sacramento and was sent to the governor’s desk on Sept. 2.

The bill

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office has not said whether he plans to sign or veto the bill.

“I think it's a smart bill. I believe passing the bill [is] a way to keep television producers happy and here in Los Angeles,” said Juan Garza, an editor who’s worked on TV series such as "Doubt " and "Queen of the South."

California has already created tax credits as incentives for TV and film productions that do most filming and post production in the state. But this bill is different.

It would create new credits for projects that keep post-production work like editing and sound design in the state, even if they were filmed elsewhere or didn’t benefit from existing production tax credits.

For Garza, there’s a silver lining to the production slowdown. He’s also a filmmaker and has used the down time to take on several independent projects.

The Motion Picture Editors Guild represents Garza and about 8,000 other freelance and staff post-production professionals across the U.S. The union is urging Newsom to sign the bill.

Will a tax credit do enough?

But even to union members, it’s unclear if this bill will bring back the good years.

“I  think it's really a drop in the bucket of what's needed,” said Westphal, who has taken on part-time work as a security guard to make ends meet.

He said some more experienced editors have had to go to Europe to keep working. And some post-production work, like filming, has gone to other states as legislators elsewhere have attracted production out of California.

“It's a good start, but to really compete against the other states [and] the other countries, a lot more is needed,” he said.

Prosecutors said Tuesday that they won’t pursue the death penalty for Nick Reiner in the killings of his parents, actor-director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele Singer Reiner, who were stabbed at their Los Angeles home late last year.

Nick Reiner, 32, was charged with first-degree murder on Dec. 16, two days after the stunning killings of the couple, ages 78 and 70. A grand jury allegation from this summer said he was lying in wait before killing them.

Special circumstances in the allegations against Nick Reiner made him eligible for the death penalty, but Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said the issue would be deferred while his office decided whether to pursue it. Those circumstances include multiple killings and the use of a dangerous weapon, a knife.

Hochman said his office did a thorough review, including speaking Rob and Michele Reiner’s families and evaluating mitigating factors in Nick Reiner’s favor, before reaching its decision.

The district attorney said the maximum sentence Reiner will be eligible to receive if convicted will be life without the possibility of parole.

Nick Reiner has not entered a plea after two court hearings, but his former defense attorney Alan Jackson said adamantly shortly after resigning from the case that “pursuant to the laws of California, Nick Reiner is not guilty of murder.”null

Jackson had to withdraw for undisclosed reasons that he said were beyond his and the client’s control, and a public defender took over for him.