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During the course of one conversation last Sunday, Gov. Gavin Newsom emerged as an unexpected new spokesman for people with dyslexia — while also stirring up a small-scale controversy over learning disabilities and the politics of literacy.
At an event to promote his new memoir, the California Democrat revealed that he “cannot read a speech” and feels he hasn’t overcome dyslexia even after a decades-long struggle. His learning disability has long been publicly known in his home state, but Newsom’s phrasing would soon lead to a flurry of headlines.
“I’m just trying to impress upon you, I’m like you,” he told the Atlanta audience. “I’m no better than you. You know, I’m a 960 SAT guy.”
A raft of conservative influencers and media figures seized on the remark to accuse Newsom, currently seen as the favorite in the 2028 Democratic primary field, of insulting his African American supporters by association with his own reading challenges. (Black residents make up a plurality of Atlantans, though the crowd Newsom addresses was reportedly racially diverse.) South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, an African American Republican and close ally of President Trump, blasted Newsom and other Democrats for stereotyping their own voters as academically underachieving.
The tempest soon passed, with the governor dismissing the criticism as “MAGA-manufactured outrage.” Yet the episode stood out as a wobbly foray from a Democratic star into the evolving discussion around literacy education.
Over the past few years, lawmakers in over a dozen states have reoriented their ELA instruction around what experts call the science of reading, a long-running corpus of research reflecting what is known about how people learn to recognize and use written language. Many of the early leaders in that movement have been Republican-controlled states like Mississippi and Louisiana, generating widespread plaudits for the so-called Southern Surge in standardized test scores. But the problems surrounding early literacy is one that voters around the U.S. recognize, with achievement in the subject still mired in a post-COVID slump.
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With Democrats preparing for both a slew of gubernatorial campaigns this fall and a race for the presidential nomination next year, a question remains over how to address reading within the wider portfolio of K–12 education priorities. Most blue states, including California, have taken action on the science of reading, but some voices on the left have also been skeptical of the academic progress made in the South and elsewhere. With his personal background and national profile, Newsom could make the issue his hallmark. Some political observers are waiting for him and others to step into the spotlight.
John White, the former state superintendent of Louisiana and a longtime voice for reading reforms, said he was puzzled by the apparent reluctance of leaders in both parties to put their achievements in that area front and center. He struggled to name a politician who has built a brand predominantly around the science of reading.
“Literacy is a complicated issue, not like cutting taxes or landing a new corporate headquarters,” White argued. “If you don’t articulate what’s been accomplished, and you don’t place big political stakes on it, there’s no political gains to be reaped from it.”
Linda Diamond, a former teacher and veteran advocate for evidence-based reading instruction in California, said she believed that lawmakers in most blue states have woken up to the need for improved reading legislation. The mission now, she added, was for presidential contenders like Newsom to preach that gospel from a national pulpit.
“I think the message to convey to Democrats is to take this up, make it a winning issue,” she said, acknowledging what she called her governor’s “unfortunate turn of phrase.”
“Sure, look at the Republican states that have done so well on reading. But don’t let the myopia of thinking that it’s only Republicans distract from the fact that the greatest harm [of literacy failures] is being done to children in poverty.”
‘We need to see action’
Local Democrats’ legislative agenda on K–12 schools has been fairly busy over the last few years.
In 2023, Newsom signed a bill to mandate dyslexia screenings for children between kindergarten and second grade, making California the 40th state to adopt such legislation. The legislature pushed even further last year, passing a law that will provide elementary school teachers training in the science of reading and mandate the use of teaching materials that reinforce that pedagogy.
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But those steps were taken only after years of intra-Democratic battles in Sacramento. The state has often been characterized as a laggard when it comes to literacy reforms, and previous bills had been sunk by a coalition of advocacy groups for English learners and the California Teachers Association. That faction argued that universal dyslexia screening would over-identify students with the disability and that mandates for evidence-based teaching would threaten educators’ autonomy.
Megan Potente, head of the nonprofit group Decoding Dyslexia’s California branch, said she was heartened by the recent legislative activity and considered Newsom an inspiration to children diagnosed with the condition. Still, she added, the party needed to speak more loudly on the issue — both in California and elsewhere.
“The topic has been elevated, as it needs to be, but we need to see action,” Potente said. “I hope that the Democratic Party can uplift it and not ignore the successes of other states, as they’ve done so far, and really hone in on how they’ve achieved what they’ve achieved.”
At least one prominent Democrat has questioned whether blue states have anything to learn from those that have pursued strategies based explicitly on the science of reading. While running her winning campaign for governor of New Jersey, then-Democratic Rep. Mikkie Sherill downplayed the successes seen in Louisiana and Mississippi, calling schools there “some of the worst in the entire nation.”
The bad feelings run both ways, with Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves tartly offering to send Newsom assistance from his state’s core of reading tutors after the book forum last week.
It’s possible that Newsom’s personal experience with dyslexia could give him credibility in speaking for the interests of the tens of millions of Americans who struggle to read. Reeves’s predecessor as governor, Phil Bryant, cited his own early setbacks in the subject as the reason he pursued a lengthy slate of new reading laws in 2013. But in the wave of partisan brickbats against Newsom, some have even questioned whether he truly is dyslexic, pointing to alleged inconsistencies in previous recountings of when he was assessed.
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In his memoir, Young Man in a Hurry, Newsom describes grappling with the condition “one of the struggles of [his] life, writing that his difficulty spelling in childhood could cause him to “run out of the room screaming that I didn’t know what was wrong with my brain.”
White called Newsom’s frankness about his diagnosis a “double-edged sword” in the context of U.S. politics. Though he hoped it could lead to bipartisan cooperation with others who have focused on dyslexia awareness — including Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana — he warned that the needs of dyslexic children could be “lost in the partisan swirl.”
“While the issue will benefit from the attention, it is almost inevitable that it will be wrapped up in questions of veracity and identity politics and ugliness,” he concluded.
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