The Brief

A panel of reading experts has designated the tests that school districts can use to identify reading difficulties that kindergartners through second graders may have, starting next fall.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement Tuesday of the selection of the reading risk screeners marks a milestone in the nearly decadelong campaign to mandate that all young students be measured for potential reading challenges, including dyslexia. California will become one of the last states to require universal literacy screening when it takes effect in 2025-26.

Between now and then, districts will select which of four approved reading screeners they will use, and all staff members designated as the testers will undergo state-led training. The Legislature funded $25 million for that effort.

“I know from my own challenges with dyslexia that when we help children read, we help them succeed,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement.

Students will be tested annually in kindergarten through second grade. In authorizing the screeners, the Legislature and Newsom emphasized that screening will not serve as a diagnosis for reading disabilities, including dyslexia, which is estimated to affect 5% to 15% of readers. Instead, the results could lead to further evaluation and will be used for classroom supports and interventions for individual students. Parents will also receive the findings of the screenings.

“This is a significant step toward early identification and intervention for students showing early signs of difficulty learning to read. We believe that with strong implementation, educators will be better equipped to support all learners, fostering a more inclusive environment where every child has the opportunity to thrive,” said Megan Potente, co-director of Decoding Dyslexia CA, which led the effort for universal screening.

A reading-difficulty screener could consist of a series of questions and simple word-reading exercises to measure students’ strengths and needs in phonemic awareness skills, decoding abilities, vocabulary and reading comprehension. A student may be asked, for example, “What does the ‘sh’ sound like in ‘ship'”?

Among the four designated screeners chosen is Multitudes, a $28 million, state-funded effort that Newsom championed and the University of California San Francisco Dyslexia Center developed. The 10 to 13-minute initial assessment will serve K–2 grades and be offered in English and Spanish.

The other three are:

• Amira, published by Amira Learning, serving students in grades K–2, offered in English and Spanish.
• mCLASS with DIBELS Edition 8 and mCLASS Lectura, published by Amplify Education, serving students in grades K–2, offered in English and Spanish.
• Rapid Online Assessment of Reading (ROAR), published by the Stanford University Brain Development and Education Lab, serving students in grades one and two, offered in English only.

Young-Suk Kim, an associate dean at UC Irvine’s School of Education, and Yesenia Guerrero, a special education teacher at Lennox School District, led the nine-member Reading Difficulties Risk Screener Selection Panel that held hearings and approved the screeners. The State Board of Education appointed the members.

The move to establish universal screening dragged out for a decade. The California Teachers Association and advocates for English learners were initially opposed, expressing fear that students who don’t speak English would be over-identified as having a disability and qualifying for special education.

In 2015, then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation requiring schools to assess students for dyslexia, but students weren’t required to take the evaluation.

In 2021, advocates for universal screening were optimistic legislation would pass, but the chair of the Assembly Education Committee, Patrick O’Donnell, refused to give it a hearing.

“Learning to read is a little like learning to ride a bike. With practice, typical readers gradually learn to read words automatically,” CTA wrote in a letter to O’Donnell.

Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-Glendale, reintroduced his bill the following year, but instead Newsom included funding and requirements for universal screening in his 2023-24 state budget.

The Newsom administration and advocates for universal screening reached out to advocates for English learners to incorporate their concerns in the requirements for approving screeners and to include English learner authorities on the selection panel.

Martha Hernandez, executive director of Californians Together, an organization that advocates for English learners statewide, said Wednesday it was clear that the panel considered the needs of English learners and she is pleased that the majority of the screeners are available in Spanish and English.

“Their commitment to addressing the unique needs of English learners was evident throughout the process,” Hernandez said.

However, she said it is important for the state to provide clear guidance to districts about what level of English proficiency is required in order for students to get accurate results from a screener in English.

“The vast majority of English learners will be screened only in English, and without evidence that these screeners are valid and reliable across different English proficiency levels, there is a risk of misidentification,” Hernandez said.

Hernandez said Californians Together emphasized to the panel that it is important for students who are not yet fluent in English to be assessed for reading in both their native language and English, “to capture the full scope of their skills.” In addition, Hernandez said it is crucial for the state Department of Education to offer guidance to districts on selecting or developing a screener in languages other than English or Spanish.

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In 2019, first-year Gov. Gavin Newsom inherited a state flush with cash. With a $21.4 billion budget surplus to play with, an ambitious Newsom invested billions in affordable housing, child care and healthcare expansion while paying down the state’s debt and shoring up reserves.

The next governor won’t be that lucky.

When Newsom unveils his last spending plan as governor Friday, he will do so with the specter of a projected $18 billion deficit — the result of the state’s fast-growing spending, federal funding losses and heightened economic uncertainties under President Donald Trump’s administration.

The deficit could balloon to $35 billion annually in the next few years if state leaders don’t pursue long-term solutions, namely making sustainable revenue increases or cutting spending, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the nonpartisan fiscal adviser to lawmakers.

But neither will be appealing options to Newsom and legislative leaders this year.

They have repeatedly resisted increasing taxes on average Californians and high-income earners alike — a politically dicey pitch to make in a state with high tax rates and increasing revenue. Spending cuts are equally painful to swallow, especially for Democrats running for re-election in November who have fought to expand services, such as Medi-Cal, that may now be rolled back.

For Newsom, a lame-duck governor with presidential aspirations, there is even less incentive to address the state’s long-term budget health through major policy changes, political strategists say.

“It’s not an uncommon occurrence in California for a departing governor to leave a note on the new governor’s desk that they’ve got a budget deficit,” said longtime Democratic consultant Garry South.

But how Newsom tackles the structural deficit will almost certainly have implications for his expected presidential bid. State Republicans, such as Assemblymember David Tangipa of Fresno, are already blaming the budget problem on Newsom’s mismanagement. “A Newsom presidency would be a fiscal and governance disaster of historic proportions,” Tangipa wrote in a December op-ed.

It’s the fourth consecutive year in Newsom’s tenure that the state is projecting a deficit even as revenue grows. In the past, state Democratic leaders resorted to temporary fixes such as internal borrowing, deferring payments, one-time cuts and drawing from California’s rainy day fund to avoid cutting into the social safety net.

But that cushion is deflating: The state’s reserve stands at $14 billion, half its peak balance, after two years of withdrawals. State leaders have borrowed more than $20 billion from other state funds, debts that will come due in later years. Continuing to rely on those options would leave the state “undeniably less prepared” for an economic downturn, the LAO warned.

“Eventually you are going to run out of Band-aids,” said Steve Maviglio, a Democratic strategist who worked for then-Gov. Gray Davis during a massive budget deficit. Newsom "has used every trick in the book, and after a certain point, there’s nothing left.”

More healthcare cuts to come?

Newsom has not indicated whether he’ll consider cuts to Medi-Cal, the state’s primary health insurance program for low-income residents. But as the state’s most expensive program, it is an attractive target. More than half of the $200 billion program’s funding comes from the federal government.

Last year, as Newsom and legislators scrambled to close a $12 billion budget gap, they froze new Medi-Cal enrollment for undocumented immigrants, charged immigrant enrollees a $30 monthly premium and delayed cutting certain benefits. The cost of Medi-Cal has been rising faster than expected, forcing the state Legislature to allocate $6.2 billion midyear to prevent a shortfall.

The decision was contentious, with some healthcare advocates and Democratic lawmakers slamming their leaders for creating a “two-tiered healthcare system” that deemed immigrants less worthy of quality coverage.

“That was an incredibly disappointing backslide,” said Amanda McAllister-Wallner, executive director of Health Access California, which advocates for universal healthcare.

This year, Trump’s budget reduced the federal government’s share of funding to Medi-Cal, requiring the state to pay more to provide the same benefits. California is projected to spend at least $1.3 billion more to implement that change, a figure that could reach $5 billion by fiscal year 2029-30, the LAO estimated.

The Martin Luther King Community Hospital in Los Angeles.

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Pablo Unzueta

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CalMatters

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Assemblymember Mia Bonta, an Oakland Democrat who chairs the Assembly Health Committee, said solving the state’s budget crunch shouldn’t come at the expense of health care.

“California needs its state and federal leaders to look for more innovative solutions to fill the gaps, make healthcare affordable, and keep our families healthy,” she said in a statement that did not offer specific alternatives.

Any cuts to Medi-Cal could bring political consequences for Democrats who often pride themselves on expanding social services. Rolling back Medi-Cal could hurt Newsom’s legacy, too, since it was under him that the state began offering Medi-Cal to immigrants.

“Democrats are the party of expanding healthcare,” Maviglio said. “To slash it goes against everything they stand for.”

McAllister-Wallner acknowledged she isn’t optimistic about the budget outlook. But she said she hopes the state finds new revenue through taxing corporations instead of making cuts to vulnerable populations.

If “we are addressing this through cuts only, and cuts to the most vulnerable, that’s … not the leadership that we are looking for,” she said.

State leaders could also walk back some of last year’s funding commitments in other areas. While state lawmakers negotiated $500 million for homelessness to counties and delayed it until next year, it is not guaranteed. Newsom, who has blamed the state’s homelessness problem on local governments, could withhold the money.

Newsom also promised last year he’d reach a deal with Bay Area transit advocates over state funding. But last month, in light of the budget shortfall, Newsom urged advocates to dip into previously allocated dollars to save the regional transit network, instead of a $750 million loan the advocates had requested.

Taxing the rich a nonstarter for Newsom

It’ll be hard to muster the political will in Sacramento to raise taxes.

Former Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, a Los Angeles Democrat running for state superintendent of public instruction, said he’s long supported higher taxes on industries that have “skated away from taxation for a long time.”

But even the most progressive Democrats in California have had little appetite to raise taxes, he said, because many represent affluent areas such as Silicon Valley where their wealthy donors live.

Even when the state faced a projected $56 billion deficit over two years in 2023, Rendon said Democrats were “shrugging” at the problem and pointing to the state’s reserves as a solution, which he said reflected a culture of reliance on the rainy day fund.

This year, Newsom has already spoken out against a proposed labor-backed wealth tax ballot measure, consistent with his past opposition to similar proposals.

The ballot measure, titled “The 2026 Billionaire Tax Act” and filed with the state attorney general’s office in October, seeks to tack a one-time 5% tax on those with a net worth of at least $1 billion and use the money to fund the state’s healthcare and education programs. The effort is led by the SEIU-UHW, a powerful labor union representing healthcare workers, and St. John’s Community Health, one of the largest nonprofit healthcare providers in Los Angeles County.

State. Sen. Roger Niello, a Roseville Republican and vice chair of the Senate Budget Committee, applauded Newsom’s opposition to the proposed tax increase.

“To have a situation where we have developed an increasing deficit in the face of an economy that is not in recession, and revenues are increasing, it would seem to be silly to solve that by further increasing revenue,” he said.

While taxing the rich is a popular Democratic talking point, backing a proposal like that could mean alienating the wealthy donors Newsom will likely rely on for his presidential run.

There would also be no political gain for Newsom in his last year to stabilize the state’s progressive tax structure, which heavily relies on high-income earners, despite him promising to do so when he took office.

“He’s going to make more enemies doing it than he would not doing it,” Maviglio said.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

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After just over two months, Southern California Edison has drawn more than 1,800 customers to a compensation program meant to settle scores of lawsuits against the company over the deadly Eaton Fire. As of Monday, the company has made offers to 82 of those who applied, Pedro Pizarro, chief executive of Edison’s parent company Edison International, told CalMatters.

Fire survivors, who have been providing feedback to Edison since before it launched the settlement program still have strong criticisms of the utility’s compensation effort, called the “Wildfire Recovery Compensation Program.” They complain that it requires participants to forego lawsuits against the company and blocks them from seeking further compensation for fire-related health claims. Many said the program’s payment caps, which limit the amount claimants can receive, were too low and enable Edison to pay less than the utility might otherwise owe should it be found responsible for the fire.

The Eaton Fire burned 14,000 acres of Los Angeles County in January and killed 19 people. While the official cause has not yet been determined, a leading theory is that Edison’s equipment sparked the blaze. The U.S. Department of Justice is among those who have blamed the utility for the fire.

Insurance money and personal savings are running out for people who lost homes, livelihoods and loved ones in the fire, they and their advocates say. Many are unhoused or facing housing insecurity. One survey estimated 80% of Altadena residents were still displaced by the fire as of October. The Eaton Fire Survivors Network, a prominent grassroots organization, called on Edison to provide up to $200,000 per displaced household “based on verified costs” to help cover housing costs.

“It’s Edison’s responsibility to solve all of this,” Joy Chen, executive director of the group, said. “It’s their fire."

About $7.6 billion in insurance claims related to the Eaton Fire were paid out as of November, according to the California Department of Insurance, the most recent figures available. About 90% of the payout was for residential property.

Edison offered a collective total of $34.4 million to settle the 82 claims, and none of the offers were declined, it said.

About half of the claims that received an offer from Edison as of December, Pizarro said, were for total losses, and about half were related to smoke and ash damage. While he did not provide specific numbers, Pizarro said that the claims were spread across geography, income levels and home values. Many of those that have been made offers are part of the program’s fast-track option.

At a Dec. 16 press conference held by the survivors network, displaced residents spoke about how unstable housing and the loss of their homes has affected their lives. Gabriel Gonzalez, a plumbing company owner, lost his home, business and about $80,000 worth of tools in the fire. He lived out of his car for an extended period before receiving a small amount of financial assistance that helped him stay in a rental for a few months. But that money is expected to run out this month.

“As of the first of January, I’ll probably be back in my car,” he said at the event.

Pizarro told CalMatters that Edison will not be providing money to residents for housing outside of its compensation program, citing the need to validate expenses. The survivors network request for housing cost assistance was limited to verifiable costs.

One criticism of the program was that children do not receive the same compensation as adults. Under the current version of the program, children receive between 50% and 65% of the compensation adults receive for a loss of their residency, depending on the damage category. If their primary home that they live in was destroyed, adults would get $115,000 and children would receive $75,000. These rates are slightly higher than a draft version of the plan Edison released in the fall.

An open letter at the time from the Eaton Fire Survivor’s Network said giving children less than an equal valuation to adults “treats their suffering as lesser when it is, in reality, greater.”

Pizarro said Edison went with a lower valuation because children often don’t receive as much as adults do under similar programs and adults “end up bearing more responsibility and more cost” for the household and “arrangements for the children.”

“The reality is that adults carry much more burden here,” he said, “and so it’s fair that they, you know, that we have more compensation targeted at the adults.”

Another frustration those affected by the fire expressed was the requirement that participants waive their right to sue the company. Legal representatives of fire survivors who are suing the company cautioned that the settlement program through Edison could short people of any damages and suffering compensation a court might award, as well as potential long term health care compensation or monitoring.

“We are approaching this as a way to settle litigation,” Pizarro said. “It is a form of legal settlement, and legal settlements are typically settlements of all matters, otherwise they’re not really, you know, they’re not really a conclusion to litigation.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Monday that it would rescind a series of Biden-era rules governing one of the largest federal funding sources for child care. The move comes less than a week after HHS confirmed it was freezing all federal funding through that same program.

The Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) sends money to states, tribes and territories to help make child care more affordable for low-income families.

The Biden administration's rules encouraged states to base payments to child care providers on enrollment rather than verified attendance, pay providers in advance of services and favor guaranteed slots with providers over vouchers.

Now, HHS says it plans to restore attendance-based billing, it will no longer require that providers be paid in advance and it will reprioritize vouchers.

"When controls are not in place, bad actors can bill for children who aren't there," said Alex Adams, assistant secretary for family support at HHS's Administration for Children and Families. "Families and taxpayers deserve proof that services are being delivered to children."

But child care advocates told NPR that states already have many controls in place to prevent fraud.

"What we know to be true is that there are longstanding program integrity requirements that have been in place and are regularly updated, annually updated," said Susan Gale Perry, CEO of Child Care Aware of America, which helps families access affordable child care across the country.

Approximately 1.4 million children and 857,700 families per month received child care assistance through CCDF in 2019, according to the latest data posted on the HHS website.

Melissa Boteach, chief policy officer at Zero to Three, a nonprofit that advocates for infants, toddlers and families, said the proposed policy changes introduce "chaos and confusion" by rolling back provisions that aimed to make the child care industry more stable and affordable.

This follows a funding freeze announced over the holidays

Monday's announcement comes days after HHS said it was freezing the federal funding provided through CCDF.

HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon told NPR on Wednesday that the agency was freezing CCDF funds effective immediately, and said the agency would unfreeze funding after individual states provided certain "administrative data."

"It's still unclear to many states who have to administer these programs what exactly this means." Boteach said. "And that lack of clarity has real consequences for families and for early educators."

She also said there has "not been clarity provided on whether or not funding is forthcoming, on what needs to be done for it to turn back on and what states are supposed to do in the meantime."

HHS has not yet responded to NPR's request for clarity on how Monday's announcement relates to the funding freeze.

"What we do know is that child care providers operate on [a] very thin … margin of profit," said Perry of Child Care Aware of America.

She said going "even a month" without funding could result in child care centers closing – which would impact both children who benefit from CCDF funding and those who do not.

A focus on child care providers in Minnesota

The recent focus on federal child care funding comes in response to allegations of fraud by Minnesota day care providers.

As NPR has reported, the day after Christmas, Nick Shirley, a right-wing social media influencer, posted a video in which he claimed to show Somali-American-run day care centers cheating the federal government out of millions of dollars. The video doesn't offer clear proof, but it went viral.

On Dec. 30, HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O'Neill posted on X about "the serious allegations that the state of Minnesota has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to fraudulent daycares across Minnesota over the past decade." He announced actions "against the blatant fraud that appears to be rampant in Minnesota and across the country," including requiring "a justification and a receipt or photo evidence before we send money to a state."

In Monday's HHS announcement, O'Neill said, "The reforms we are enacting will make fraud harder to perpetrate."

According to HHS, the rule changes are subject to a 30-day public comment period.

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