Yvonne Flores didn’t always expect to become a special education teacher, but looking back it feels like the path was inevitable.
Her two oldest children have struggled with reading, an experience that deepened her passion for working with children and solidified what she now sees as her calling.
“As a parent, I can’t help but think, ‘What did I do wrong?’” said Flores, now a special education teacher at San Fernando Early Education Center. Working with preschoolers, she has spent years witnessing not only her own children but many others struggling with literacy from an early age.
Her experiences at home and in the classroom reinforced what she already knew: California’s schools need stronger reading instruction, starting with better teacher training and better instructional materials.
That is why Flores is backing AB 1121, a proposed bill aimed at improving early literacy education across California.
Introduced on Feb. 21 by Families In Schools, EdVoice, and the grassroots parent-led movement Decoding Dyslexia California, and carried by state Assemblymember Blanca Rubio, D-Baldwin Park, the bill seeks to address a literacy crisis that has disproportionately affected lower-income families and students of color.
The legislation is the brainchild of former LAUSD Board member Yolie Flores — who is not related to Yvonne Flores — and is now president and CEO of the nonprofit Families In Schools.
At the core of AB 1121 is the “science of reading,” a research-backed method that explains how the brain learns how to read. It emphasizes phonics instruction during which students learn how letters and groups of letters represent specific sounds. This method is based on research showing how the brain processes and links up letters to sounds.
A previous version of the bill, AB 2222, introduced by the groups last year, never made it to a hearing in the Assembly Education Committee, due to opposition from organizations such as the California Teachers Association (CTA) and some English learner groups.
For her, this fight is more than policy, it’s a mission she refuses to abandon.
“It was the issue that I harped on the most as a board member,” said Yolie Flores, who had a seat on the LAUSD board from 2007 to 2011. “I did everything I could to figure out how to change the system. I’m not letting this go. I can’t let this issue go because everything I know about how children succeed in this economy, in how our industry and jobs work—you have to know how to read.”
Her passion for literacy reform is also deeply personal. Her father never learned to read, and she witnessed firsthand how that shaped his life.
“I saw how much he struggled to get a good job, to fill out a job application, a rental application, he couldn’t do any of that,” Yolie Flores said. “So it was always a dead end for him because he didn’t know how to read.”
Now, she hopes AB 1121 will change the way California teaches its children to read, particularly for the state’s 3.6 million low-income students.
“Without children having the ability to read at grade level by third grade, their chances of succeeding in school and succeeding in life…are very slim,” she said.
What does the bill do?
AB 1121 focuses on two key areas: teacher training and instructional materials.
It would require literacy training — rooted in “science of reading” strategies — for all elementary teachers and administrators. The costs would be covered by the state, and teachers who have already completed similar training could opt out.
It would also require the State Board of Education to create a new list of approved instructional materials based on proven literacy research. School districts would be required to choose from that list but could apply for waivers if they needed to use alternative materials, as long as they aligned with the science of reading approach.
This effort is part of a broader push to ensure that literacy instruction reflects the latest research on how children learn to read.
Flores said early literacy instruction is critical in kindergarten through third grade, when youngsters learn to read — a skill they rely on. After third grade, fluency becomes essential for understanding complex subjects such as math, and other subjects across all disciplines.
“Most teachers never receive the kind of knowledge, training information about how children learn to read, about brain science, about the various elements of teaching children to read,” she said. “This bill tries to address that.”
California’s literacy crisis underscores the urgency of these changes, supporters say.
Only four in 10 third graders in the state are reading at their own grade level—a number that drops to three in 10 for low-income Latino students and two in 10 for students with disabilities, English learners, and low-income Black students.
The percentage of children who struggle with reading have remained mostly flat for the past decade.
California also lags behind other states in reading proficiency. The state has the widest achievement gap nationally in fourth-grade reading between low-income and non-low-income students and one of the largest gaps between English learners and non-English learners.
One of the few districts in California to align its curriculum with the science of reading approach is Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Over the past two years, LAUSD has implemented systemic changes to literacy instruction, focusing on phonics-based learning and structured literacy strategies.
According to the California Smarter Balanced Assessments (SBA) results from spring 2024, LAUSD students made modest gains in reading and math compared to the previous year.
In English Language Arts (ELA), 43.06% of students met or exceeded the state standard, a 1.89% increase from 2023. Math scores also showed improvement, with 32.83% of students meeting or exceeding the standard, a 2.33% increase from the previous year.
While the gains are small, Flores said they indicate early progress in LAUSD’s shift toward evidence-based reading instruction.
“What we know from other districts that have made these changes (best example is Bonita Unified) is that it will take several years before we start seeing the outcomes we want,” she said. “So, for LAUSD the most important thing for them to do, in my opinion, is to stay the course with their changes to literacy instruction and deepen their family engagement efforts.”
The push for a statewide approach faces opposition
Expanding these reforms beyond LAUSD to school districts across the state has faced resistance.
Opponents—including the California Teachers Association (CTA) and English learner advocacy groups—argued that AB 2222, the earlier version of this year’s AB 1121, does not adequately address the needs of English learner students and could limit teachers’ flexibility in tailoring instruction to their students’ needs.
They also question the bill’s push for a singular approach to literacy instruction, arguing that the science of reading should not be treated as a one-size-fits-all solution.
“The science of reading is an expansive and evolving body of research, and not a one-size-fits-all approach that this bill seeks to codify,” California Teachers Association legislative advocate Seth Bramble wrote in a March letter last year to the Assembly’s Education Committee, in opposing AB 2222.
Bramble wrote, “In our state, literacy instruction is already rooted in an understanding of the science of reading and decades of research that serve the needs of the most diverse set of students in the country.
As of Friday, opponent groups, including California Teachers Association and the California Association for Bilingual Education, said they are still reviewing the bill and have not yet taken a position.
“We have not yet had the opportunity to fully analyze AB 1121, and we are still assessing whether it supports a truly comprehensive approach that includes all the essential elements for multilingual learners,” Martha Hernandez of Californians Together, one of the groups that opposed the bill last year, said in a statement.
“At this time, we recognize that there may be components missing, and we look forward to engaging in discussions with our partners and key legislative leaders to better understand the bill’s implications,” she added. “We do not have an official position at this time.”
Yolie Flores acknowledged the concerns raised by opponents but said her group and its partners have been working closely with them to address key issues in the revised bill.
“We’ve been trying to be very collaborative and open in our communication from the time we were working on the bill last year to this year,” she said. “We made a lot of changes from the bill last year to this year. So it was much more streamlined and aligned to already existing policies.”
With AB 1121 about to move through the legislative process, Assemblymember Blanca Rubio, who is carrying the bill, said she sees it as a way to improve literacy outcomes for all students, particularly those who have historically struggled the most.
“I want kids to be successful,” Rubio said in a statement Friday. “I am a teacher, a mother and grew up as an English Learner. Knowing that in California, only four in 10 third graders are reading at grade level, with worse statistics for low income students, black, brown and disabled students- it was in me to fight for these kids.”
Rubio said supporters of have taken steps to address concerns raised by critics, and momentum is growing behind AB 1121.
“We have our bill introduced, we are waiting for our hearing and we go from there,” Rubio added. “We have the energy, the passion and a lot of people who are excited about this bill. People want kids reading, they want kids to be successful, believe it or not- they are our future!”