teacher

Abby Zwerner, 28, was shot in 2023 as she sat in a first-grade classroom and sustained life-threatening injuries.

A jury in the state of Virginia in the United States has awarded $10m to a former teacher who was shot by a six-year-old student.

The jury on Thursday sided with former teacher Abby Zwerner’s claim, made in a civil lawsuit, that an ex-administrator at the school had ignored repeated warnings that the six-year-old child had a gun in class.

Zwerner, 28, was shot in January 2023 as she sat at a reading table in her first-grade classroom and spent nearly two weeks in the hospital, required six surgeries and still does not have the full use of her left hand.

The bullet fired by the six-year-old narrowly missed her heart and remains in her chest.

Zwerner, who did not address reporters outside the court after the decision was announced, had sought $40m in damages against Ebony Parker, a former assistant principal at Richneck Elementary School in the city of Newport News, Virginia.

One of her lawyers, Diane Toscano, said the verdict sent a message that what happened at the school “was wrong and is not going to be tolerated, that safety has to be the first concern at school”.

Zwerner’s lawyers had claimed that Parker, the assistant principal at the time, had failed to act in the hours before the shooting after several school staff members told her that the student had a gun in his backpack.

“Who would think a six-year-old would bring a gun to school and shoot their teacher?” Toscano had asked the jury earlier.

“It’s Dr Parker’s job to believe that is possible. It’s her job to investigate it and get to the very bottom of it.”

Parker did not testify in the lawsuit.

The mother of the student who shot Zwerner was sentenced to four years in prison after being convicted of child neglect and firearms charges.

No charges were brought against the child, who told authorities he got his mother’s handgun by climbing onto a drawer to reach the top of a dresser, where the firearm was in his mother’s purse.

Newtown Action Alliance, an advocacy organisation that supports reforms aimed at addressing gun violence, said that the case points to the need for greater regulations over the storage of firearms in homes with children.

“Abby Zwerner was shot by her 6-year-old student using a gun from home,” the group said in a social media post, adding that “76 percent of school shooters get their guns from their homes or relatives”.

Abby Zwerner was shot by her 6-year-old student using a gun from home.

76% of school shooters get their guns from their homes or relatives.

Urge your Members of Congress to cosponsor Ethan’s Law.

Congressional Switchboard: (202) 224-3121#SafeStorageSavesLives #EndGunViolence pic.twitter.com/YZyuo0KxXj

— Newtown Action Alliance (@NewtownAction) November 6, 2025

Zwerner no longer works for the school district and has said she has no plans to teach again. She has since become a licensed cosmetologist.

While accidents involving young children accessing unsecured firearms in their homes are common in the US, school shootings perpetrated by those under 10 years old are rare.

A database compiled by US researcher David Riedman has registered about 15 such incidents since the 1970s.

The overriding questions remains, though. How long will O’Neill have to improve Celtic?

His return, alongside assistant Shaun Maloney, has brought back a feelgood factor but that was only going to last so long.

The laughs had over O’Neill’s matchday fit have faded, while Celtic’s deep-rooted problems have returned in stark fashion.

Captain Callum McGregor was at the heart of the happiness on Sunday, scoring in the extra-time win, but he was quick to assure no-one had got carried away.

“Nothing’s been solved after a really good game at the weekend,” the midfielder said after defeat in Denmark. “We know that we don’t get too up or too down.

“We come away here against a really good side, a good club, who do a lot of good things and they know what they are.

“There’s a lot of growth still left in our team as well. We know where we are and we know where we want to get to.”

It appears Celtic are far from the latter, and it’s lined up to be an almighty task to get them there, for whoever is charged with taking them there.

On a sobering night, it’s not the interim manager who will take the heat. It’s not even the players being taught by him.

It’s the board who have managed to quieten the clamour aimed in their direction for a few days with the reinstatement of O’Neill who will be feeling the pressure once more.

High school basketball in Southern California will be without one of its finest coaches this season.

Stephen Singleton, who guided Eastvale Roosevelt to state and Southern Section Open Division championships last season, announced his retirement from coaching on Thursday after 10 years at Roosevelt and 25 years in the business. He will continue as a teacher.

Singleton intends to spend more time coaching his young son.

He also won a state Division I title in 2017 with Roosevelt and won a state Division II title coaching briefly at Dominguez in Compton in 2001.

He was The Times’ coach of the year for the 2024-25 season.

With official basketball practice starting soon, Roosevelt intends to open the position to all candidates, but there’s two assistants who are teachers at the school that could possibly ease the transition if they are interested in the head coaching position.

Insolent schoolkids and educators with the stamina and sensitivity to reach them is a sentimental formula so familiar, it could stand a pantsing in the hallway between classes.

Which makes it a good thing that “Steve,” starring Cillian Murphy as a dedicated, troubled head teacher at a struggling reform school for chaos-inclined teenage boys, brings a raucously corrective attitude to bear.

Teachers are sorely undervalued in this world, and a more thorny, realistic view of the profession’s challenges has made its way into the culture of late, between the Oscar-nominated German film “The Teachers’ Lounge,” Hirokazu Kore-ada’s “Monster” and Netflix’s Emmys-gobbling hit “Adolescence.” And while “Steve,” which takes place over a day, is ultimately too messy itself to measure up to those more tightly coiled efforts, its energy makes a statement, as if the legacy of the late, system-smashing British director Alan Clarke were close at hand.

“Steve” marks the second feature collaboration between Murphy and Belgian director Tim Mielants, following their excellent 2024 adaptation of Claire Keegan’s story “Small Things Like These.” This one, too, derives from a book — “Shy” by Max Porter. In adapting his own work, Porter shifts focus from his novella’s title adolescent, a disturbed soul in mid-tumble, who in the film is still a central figure (vividly rendered by Jay Lycurgo), to the teacher character for whom the movie is named, which the Oscar-winning Murphy turns into another immersive portrayal of dark-hued, guilt-flecked intensity.

Steve’s compassion is the beating heart of Stanton Wood, a privately bankrolled school in an old manor in the English countryside, whose core staff — including Steve’s plain-talking deputy, Amanda (Tracey Ullman), and unflappable therapist Jenny (Emily Watson) — are committed to its last-chance ethos of pulling unhappy delinquents from the brink. But this is Britain in 1996 and these hot-headed young men (played by a lively mix of first-timers and experienced actors) prefer the numbing tempo of drum and bass or a well-timed punch or thrown object.

Stopping fights is a full-time a job, and Steve’s chummy de-escalation style attests to how much he cares. But on top of the day’s regular behavior management, there’s also a prying documentary crew, a visit from a local MP (a perfectly pompous Roger Allam) that goes south and what turns out to be a bad-news report from the school’s wealthy backers. When Steve explodes on them, one senses his volatile students have been teaching him something too.

And yet “Steve,” sincere in its hardcore concern, believably acted, is too scattered and schematically plotted to fully pull us into the emotional toll and scruffy joys of this work. Its social realist roots are kept from growing the more it relies on visual/sonic turbulence (hallucinatory images, a flashy drone shot) and narrative shorthands (the overdone documentary framing).

But when “Steve” zeroes in on its characters — Shy on a disturbing call with his fed-up mum, Steve fighting his own demons or in the zone — the movie captures the electric hum of unpredictability and vulnerability. At its best, we understand why these people want to keep the lights on in a dark, unforgiving world.

A SCHOOL teacher has been suspended for allegedly showing a video of Charlie Kirk’s horror assassination to kids as young as 10 in class.

The teacher also reportedly told their students that the MAGA influencer “deserved” to be killed.

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Graphic footage of Kirk’s death has been widely circulated online in the aftermath of the shocking attack.

But in Toronto, a teacher allegedly “traumatised” their class by showing school children the grisly clip.

The Corvette Junior Public School teacher, who has not been named, was relieved of their duties after the incident pending an investigation.

Kids aged 10 and 11 were made to watch the horrifying video of Kirk’s final moments, the Toronto Sun has reported.

The staff member is understood not to be the class’ regular teacher and was simply supervising the group that day.

Everything we know so far…

A source close to the situation told the paper: “Several students from his class went home and complained to their parents, traumatised at witnessing the on-camera death, which they were forced to witness numerous times over.

“Parents subsequently reached out to school administrators, who will be putting him on leave at the start of the school day September 12, 2025.”

They added: “While playing this video repeatedly, he gave a speech to his students regarding anti-fascism, anti-trans, and how Charlie Kirk deserved for this to occur.”

The school’s principal Jennifer Koptie sent a letter to the parents of the affected children to explain the situation.

It reads: “We are writing to inform you about an incident that is reported to have taken place in your child’s class yesterday.

“During class, students were said to have been shown a portion of a violent video in response to questions being asked about a recent tragic event in the United States.”

“The teacher has been relieved of all teaching responsibilities pending the outcome of the investigation and will not be at the school.”

Koptie added that the school is providing support to any kids who were traumatised by the video.

“The video is believed to have been shown once by a staff member supervising the class who is not the homeroom teacher,” she wrote.

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“While an investigation must still be conducted to learn all of the details, the report of this incident is extremely troubling and completely unacceptable.

“We recognise the seriousness of this matter and have taken immediate steps to follow all appropriate policies and procedures.”

It is just one of several firings and suspensions across schools and universities in the wake of Kirk’s death.

At the University of Mississippi, a staff member was let go for sharing “hurtful, insensitive comments” about the assassination.

Broadcaster MSNBC has also fired one of its analysts over comments made in the wake of the shock attack.

Kirk was hit in the neck by a bullet at a student debate even on Wednesday in Utah.

His death was confirmed by President Donald Trump within a couple of hours.

After a multi-day probe, cops apprehended Tyler Robinson as a suspect in the investigation.

The 22-year-old was arrested after his dad turned him into the police.

He had “excitedly” bragged about his long-range shooting skills last year, according to a former colleague.

The alleged shooter also shared twisted jokes with his friends on Discord as the FBI frantically searched for a suspect.

After a grainy image was released during the probe, Robinson had reportedly joked that his “doppleganger” was on the loose.

On a Discord forum, he also mocked the police investigation, saying he had “better also get rid of this manifesto and exact copy rifle I have lying around”.

A firebrand conservative commentator, Charlie Kirk was perhaps best known for his key role in the pro-Trump think tank Turning Point USA.

His funeral is scheduled to take place on September 21 in Arizona.

Kirk was a hard-line supporter of President Donald Trump, who has pledged to attend the ceremony.

It’s not easy being from California, especially if you’re hoping to leave the Golden State’s fires and rising home costs behind and move to a more affordable red state.

In Texas, some politicians have adopted “Don’t California my Texas” as both a rallying cry and a fundraising appeal.

In Montana, rising home prices prompted lawmakers to pass a package of bills this year that increased property taxes on people — including many Californians — who own second homes in the state.

And now, in Oklahoma, education officials have entered the fray by requiring teachers from California and New York to take an exam aimed at guarding against “radical leftist ideology.”

The test is being developed by leadership from the Oklahoma State Department of Education and PragerU, a nonprofit advocacy group that produces videos promoting conservative views of history, finance and other topics. PragerU videos have already been approved for use in schools in several states, including Oklahoma.

“Our teacher qualification test is very simple,” PragerU CEO Marissa Streit said in a statement to The Times. “Frankly, every American should be able to pass it. Certainly, every teacher should be able to pass it.”

She added that the full test will be available in the coming weeks. “We encourage you to take a look at the test yourself and make your own decision on whether it’s reasonable or not,” she said.

Superintendent Ryan Walters poses for a portrait in his office.

(Nick Oxford)

Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s state superintendent of public instruction, told The Times that he launched the test out of concern over state standards in California and New York that require teachers to instruct students about gender identity.

The test comes at a time when Californians are increasingly relocating to other states in search of a slower pace of life and more affordable housing. Some cities seeking to reverse years-long population declines have created incentive programs to attract remote workers.

Tulsa Remote, which pays workers $10,000 to move to the second-largest city in the Sooner State, has attracted more than 3,600 remote workers since its inception in 2019. More than 7,800 Californians have applied to the program and 539 have made the move, cementing California as the second-most common origin state behind Texas.

Amid a nationwide teacher shortage, the Oklahoma schools system has launched a $50,000 signing bonus program — the largest in the country — to help recruit new educators for some of the most difficult to fill jobs, including early elementary and special education instruction.

The so-called “Californian exodus” accelerated during the pandemic, with places like Texas, Florida and Tennessee seeing major influxes from the West.

But by 2024, the exodus had ended, according to state data. The state’s population rose slightly in 2024 after three years of decline.

A Public Policy Institute of California survey in March found that many Californians who leave are either favoring nearby states such as Arizona, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon; larger states such as Texas; or locations without income taxes — not necessarily Oklahoma.

And the emigration of Californians to other states has done little to shift political demographics in their new homes, according to Eric McGhee, a policy director and senior fellow with the Public Policy Institute of California.

“The partisan balance of people moving to different states tends to be an exaggerated version of the partisan balance of the state they’re moving to,” he said. “So states that are more Republican tend to have migrants from California who are even more Republican than people in the state they’re moving to.”

The number of teachers that would be mandated to take the test in Oklahoma is unclear, but some data indicates that it might be small.

Information from the Commission for Educational Quality and Accountability — which oversees the education department and reviews out-of-state certification assessments for comparability with Oklahoma’s testing standards — shows that since 2020, the agency has reviewed only 19 out-of-state applications from California and New York. In 2025, only one applicant came from California, and none from New York.

Critics say the exam will discourage educators from accepting jobs in Oklahoma, which has been struggling with a teacher shortage and continues to lag behind the national average in reading and math, according to national data.

“This MAGA loyalty test will be yet another turnoff for teachers in a state already struggling with a huge shortage,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said.

“[Walters’] priority should be educating students, but instead, it’s getting Donald Trump and other MAGA politicians to notice him,” she said. “Teachers are patriots, and whether they are conservative or liberal, they want what students need: safe and welcoming public schools that are engaging and relevant and that prepare kids for college, career and life.”

Dennis Prager, founder of PragerU, in 2024 in Los Angeles. A test for new teachers in Oklahoma is being developed by leadership from the State Department of Education and PragerU.

(Araya Doheny / Getty Images for DailyWire+)

Experts say the creation of a test where teachers are forced to adhere to a certain viewpoint to get a job is unprecedented in the American education system. It also highlights the growing foothold PragerU has on the education system in certain states, said Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history of education at the University of Pennsylvania.

“What they’re doing is they’re making Prager into a central player in the operation by vetting teachers based on their affinity for what Prager believes,” Zimmerman said. “I think the other thing that’s unprecedented, frankly, is the involvement of the White House in all of this.”

In January, Trump signed an executive order titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” which sought to cease funding any schools that teach gender ideology or curriculum that portrays the United States as “fundamentally racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory.” The order emphasizes the need for a “patriotic education.”

“I don’t think we’ve ever seen the White House engaging directly in these sorts of questions,” Zimmerman said.

“Historically, in the United States, school has been a state and especially a local concern and it still is,” he added. “The bulk of money for schools comes from states and localities, but I think something’s really different about our moment in the way these issues have become nationalized.”

With respect to California and New York educators, Walters has taken issue with the “gender fluidity argument,” which details that a person’s gender identity is not fixed and can shift or change over time, which he says is a “lie that they continue to push.”

The California Healthy Youth Act, which took effect in 2016, requires that districts provide comprehensive sexual health and HIV prevention education for students in grades 7 through 12 in public schools. The lessons, which parents can opt to take their children out of, include discussions of gender and sexual orientation.

Oklahoma public schools are not required to teach sex education, including gender. In 2021, the state passed a bill, HB 1775, that restricts the teaching of certain concepts related to race and gender in public schools and universities. The ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging what they called “unconstitutional censorship” in schools. That case is ongoing.

New York and California were “the first states that we’ve seen that are actually requiring their teachers to do things that are antithetical to our standards,” Walters said, adding that the test’s goal is to ensure they’ll teach to Oklahoma state standards. Walters is also looking at requiring the test for teachers from other states including Massachusetts, Maine and Minnesota.

Still, the notion that waves of Californians moving to other states are changing the political leanings on a large scale of their destinations isn’t borne out in the research.

The 50 question multiple choice exam, which is expected to be rolled out in the next few weeks, will include questions about gender, civics and American history. A preview of the exam released by the department of education included the question: Why is freedom of religion important to America’s identity?

Teachers must answer all 50 questions correctly to pass the test, Walters said, noting that the state is proud to be focusing on creating good citizens and being “unapologetic about a patriotic education.”

Zimmerman sees the creation of a good citizen a bit differently.

“To me, a good citizen, is somebody who has the capacity and skill to judge matters for themselves. Now how are you going to teach a future citizen to do that if you’re simply giving them one answer? I don’t think you can,” he said.

Tudor Lakatos challenges Roma discrimination through Elvis Presley’s musical legacy.

Sporting a rhinestone shirt, oversized sunglasses and a classic 1950s quiff, Lakatos captivates audiences across Romania with his distinctive renditions of songs like Blue Suede Shoes.

Rather than being an impersonator, Lakatos harnesses Elvis’s universal appeal to dismantle stereotypes about Roma people and inspire Roma youth.

“I never wanted to get on stage, I did not think about it,” Lakatos, 58, said after a recent gig at a restaurant in the capital, Bucharest. “I only wanted one thing – to make friends with Romanians, to stop being called a Gypsy,” he added, using an often derided term for people belonging to the Roma ethnic group.

The Roma, with South Asian origins, have endured centuries of persecution throughout Eastern Europe and continue to face poverty, unemployment and prejudice. In Romania, they represent approximately seven percent of the population, with one-fifth reporting discrimination experiences in the past year, according to European Union data.

Lakatos began his mission in the early 1980s as an art student during Nicolae Ceausescu’s communist regime. When anti-Roma sentiment was widespread, he discovered that Elvis’s music created connections with ethnic Romanian students while simultaneously symbolising resistance against government oppression.

Now, 40 years later, his audience has expanded. As a teacher for 25 years, Lakatos uses music to show his students they can aspire beyond the limited opportunities of their northwestern Romanian village.

“The adjective Gypsy is used everywhere as a substitute for insult,” Lakatos said. “We older people have gotten used to it, we can swallow it, we grew up with it. I have said many times, ‘Call us what you want, dinosaur and brontosaurus, but at least join hands with us to educate the next generation.’”

Despite his teaching career, Lakatos continues performing throughout Romania at various venues.

The eclectic mix of languages can sometimes lead to surprises because there is not always a literal translation for Elvis’s 1950s American English.

For example, “Don’t step on my blue suede shoes” does not make sense to many of the children he teaches because they are so poor, Lakatos said.

In his version, the lyric Elvis made famous becomes simply “Don’t step on my bare feet.”

It is a message that Elvis – born in a two-room house in Tupelo, Mississippi, during the Great Depression – probably would have understood.

Israel’s attacks on Tehran have not only targeted military bases and nuclear sites, but they also have penetrated the bedrooms, kitchens and living rooms of ordinary citizens. Children have been killed. Teachers have fallen silent. Athletes have been buried in the rubble. All of them were as far removed from politics as possible.

The attacks between Israel and Iran started on Friday, when Israel launched what it called preemptive air strikes targeting more than a dozen Iranian sites — including key nuclear facilities, nuclear scientists and military leaders — in an operation it said was aimed at preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

According to the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education, at least 224 people have been killed and 1,481 wounded.

Iran has retaliated with a wave of ballistic missile strikes against Israel, claiming the lives of at least 24 people and wounding 380, in an escalation that has raised fears of a broader regional conflict.

In Tehran, the full scale of the destruction remains to be seen. But in the streets, evidence of the lives lost emerges from the wreckage of bombed-out buildings. A child’s lifeless body in the rubble. A dirt-covered doll abandoned in the street. A sketchbook lost among the concrete and dust.

For many Iranians, these scenes evoke memories of the Iran-Iraq War. But this time, the war is not at the borders; it’s in the heart of the capital. Residents say the night sky in Tehran — now dotted with missiles and fires — is not the one they know.

In a mass panic, people are fleeing the city in droves. Petrol stations are overrun. Highways are jammed. Homes that once promised safety stand vulnerable with no emergency shelters or warning sirens.

Here are some of the victims who died in the recent attacks on Tehran.

The Pilates instructor

On Saturday morning, Tehran reeked of dust and smoke. Israeli missiles had landed on homes that were filled with laughter just hours before. One of the silenced voices belonged to Niloufar Ghalehvand, whose friend Ghazal* recalled the last time she saw her at a cafe sipping coffee, just one night before the bombs fell.

Ghalehvand, a 32-year-old Pilates instructor, was killed along with her father, Kamran Ghalehvand, and her mother, Fatemeh Sedighi, in their home on Ozgol Street in northern Tehran.

“We were at the cafe, having coffee, and she said, ‘Iran is so beautiful. I just wish we could live in peace, like people in other countries,’” Ghazal told Al Jazeera. “I still can’t believe she’s gone. We were making plans to celebrate her 32nd birthday on June 28. She was so full of hope.”

Ghazal said Ghalehvand lived near the residence of Iran’s highest-ranking military commander, General Mohammad Bagheri, the target of the strike.

“They were ordinary people,” Ghazal said of Ghalehvand’s family. “They didn’t engage in political activity.”

Ghalehvand dreamed of becoming a famous Pilates instructor.

“The last time we met, she asked me to help her launch an Instagram page to post her workout videos. She never imagined she would become famous for her death.”

Ghalehvand had been a professional instructor for eight years, but Ghazal said her income was never enough. She worked on commission at local gyms and was always seeking more private clients.

The athlete

On Friday morning, Parsa Mansour, a 27-year-old professional paddle tennis player, was asleep at home in Shahrara, a densely packed district in northern Tehran, when an Israeli missile struck nearby.

The blast shattered the windows, and debris collapsed on top of him, killing him instantly. His parents, who were in the next room, miraculously survived.

“Parsa was full of laughter and always joking,” said Saman*, his best friend. He noted that Parsa was a self-made athlete who trained alone without a coach.

“When I saw the Tennis Federation’s announcement of his death, I was in shock. I didn’t believe it at first. Then I went to his home. It was in ruins,” Saman said.

“Parsa’s father is in a terrible state. He still can’t believe his son is gone.”

The son who lost his father

On Sunday afternoon, Amin Ahmad, a 30-year-old taekwondo athlete, witnessed his father’s horrific death in eastern Tehran.

“I saw it with my own eyes,” said Ahmad. “My father was blasted out of the house. His face was burned, and his ears were torn off.”

Ahmad’s voice trembled as he recalled his father’s final moments.

“We were trapped inside. I had to force the window bars open and call out for help. Someone brought a ladder, and my mother and I escaped,” he said.

“My father was a teacher. He bought this home after a lifetime of hard work, so he could retire in peace. Now he’s dead, and the house is destroyed. What was his crime? I don’t know what to do.”

The photographer

On Sunday at midday, after two nights of Israeli fighter jets buzzing Iranian airspace, an explosion struck the relatively wealthy neighbourhood of Tajrish in northern Tehran. Water pipes burst, flooding the streets.

Ehsan Bayrami, a 35-year-old freelance photographer and graphic designer who was walking nearby, was killed instantly.

Ali*, a colleague, said Bayrami had just left a work meeting and was on his way home.

“He used to film videos for sports clubs and photograph sporting events,” Ali explained.

On Sunday morning, he recalled telling Bayrami to be careful.

“He told me not to worry because it’s safe during the day. ‘Israel only attacks at night when people are asleep,’ he said.”

Ali paused before adding, “Ehsan was incredibly talented and hardworking. He never let anything stop him from working.”

*Ghazal, Saman and Ali preferred not to use their full names while speaking with Al Jazeera to protect their identities.

This article is published in collaboration with the news consortium Egab.

To look inside Julie Celestial’s kindergarten classroom in Long Beach is to peer into the future of reading in California.

During a recent lesson, 25 kindergartners gazed at the whiteboard, trying to sound out the word “bee.” They’re learning the long “e” sound, blending words such as “Pete” and “cheek” — words that they’ll soon be able to read in this lesson’s accompanying book.

Celestial was teaching something new for Long Beach Unified: phonics.

“It’s pretty cool to watch,” she said. “I’m really anticipating that there’s going to be a lot less reluctant readers and struggling readers now that the district has made this shift.”

Engage with our community-funded journalism as we delve into child care, transitional kindergarten, health and other issues affecting children from birth through age 5.

These phonics-based lessons are on the fast track to become law in California under a sweeping bill moving through the Legislature that will mandate how schools teach reading, a rare action in a state that generally emphasizes local school district control over dictating instruction.

Julie Celestial teaches her kindergarten class a literacy lesson at Mark Twain Elementary School in Long Beach.

The bill is the capstone to decades of debate and controversy in California on how best to teach reading amid stubbornly low test scores. Gov. Gavin Newsom has pledged his support, setting aside $200 million to fund teacher training on the new approach in the May revise of his 2025-26 budget proposal.

“It’s a big deal for kids, and it’s a big step forward — a very big one,” said Marshall Tuck, chief executive of EdVoice, an education advocacy nonprofit that has championed the change.

California has long struggled with reading scores below the national average. In 2024, only 29% of California’s fourth-graders scored “proficient” or better in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP.

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Literacy instruction has been controversial in California for decades, but state legislators may have finally decided on a compromise.

The proposed law, which would take effect in phases beginning in 2026, would require districts to adopt instructional materials based on the “science of reading,” a systemic approach to literacy instruction supported by decades of research about the way young children learn to read, from about transitional kindergarten through third grade.

The science of reading consists of five pillars: phonemic awareness (the sounds that letters make), phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.

“It’s finite. There’s only 26 letters and 44 sounds,” said Leslie Zoroya, who leads an initiative at the Los Angeles County Office of Education that helps districts transition to a science-of-reading approach. “Phonics isn’t forever.”

After a failed effort last year, the bill gained the support this year of the influential California teachers unions and at least one advocacy group for English-language learners. In a compromise, school districts would have more flexibility to select which instructional materials are best for their students and the option to decline teacher training paid for by the state.

Kindergarten student Annika Esser works on a literacy lesson at Mark Twain Elementary School in Long Beach.

For decades, most school districts in California have been devoted to a different approach called “whole language” or “balanced literacy,” built on the belief that children naturally learn to read without being taught how to sound out words. Teachers focus on surrounding children with books intended to foster a love of reading and encourage them to look for clues that help them guess unknown words — such as predicting the next word based on the context of the story, or looking at the pictures — rather than sounding them out.

“The majority of students require a more intentional, explicit and systematic approach,” Zoroya said. “Thousands of kids across California in 10th grade are struggling in content-area classes because they missed phonics.”

Kindergarten student Tyler Madrid raises his hand to answer a question during a literacy lesson at Mark Twain Elementary School in Long Beach.

An extended reading war in California

California embraced the whole language approach to literacy, which took hold in the 1970s and 1980s, said Susan Neuman, a New York University professor who served as assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education under former President George W. Bush. The state became a national leader in what was considered a progressive and holistic approach to teaching literacy, with a focus on discovering the joy of reading, rather than learning specific skills, she said.

Bush then incorporated a phonics-heavy approach in an initiative that was part of his 2002 launch of No Child Left Behind, which increased the federal role in holding schools accountable for academic progress and required standardized testing. States, including California, received grants to teach a science-of-reading approach in high-poverty schools.

But many teachers in the state disliked the more regimented approach, and when the funding ended, districts largely transitioned back to the whole language approach. In the years since, science of reading continues to draw opposition from teachers unions and advocates for dual-language learners.

Many California teachers are passionate about the methods they already use and have chafed at a state-mandated approach to literacy education. Some don’t like what they describe as “drill and kill” phonics lessons that teach letter sounds and decoding.

Advocates for multiple-language learners, meanwhile, vociferously opposed adopting the most structured approach, worried that children who were still learning to speak English would not receive adequate support in language development and comprehension.

A 2022 study of 300 school districts in California found that less than 2% of districts were using curricula viewed as following the science of reading.

But the research has become clear: Looking at the pictures or context of a story to guess a word — as is encouraged in whole language or balanced literacy instruction, leads to struggles with reading. Children best learn to read by starting with foundational skills such as sounding out and decoding words.

“Anything that takes your eyes off the text when a kid is trying to figure out a word activates the wrong side of the brain,” Zoroya said.

Los Angeles County renews focus on phonics

In the last few years, several larger districts in California have started to embrace more structured phonics learning, including Los Angeles Unified, Long Beach Unified and Oakland Unified.

Recently, these districts have started to see improvement in their reading test scores.

Julie Celestial teaches her kindergarten class a literacy lesson at Mark Twain Elementary School in Long Beach.

At Long Beach Unified, for example, the district’s in-house assessment shows significant gains among kindergarten students. In 2023-24, 78% of them met reading standards, up 13 percentage points from the previous school year. Proficiency rates across first and second grade were above 70%, and transitional kindergarten was at 48%. The district’s goal is to hit 85% proficiency across grades by the end of each school year.

In 2019, LAUSD introduced a pilot science-of-reading based curriculum, and adopted it across all schools for the 2023-24 academic year. After the first year, LAUSD reading scores improved in every grade level and across every demographic, chief academic officer Frances Baez said.

From the 2022-23 to the 2023-24 school years, LAUSD’s English Language Arts scores improved by 1.9 percentage points — five times more than the state as a whole, which improved by 0.3, she said.

‘Science of Reading’ makes waves in Lancaster

Teresa Cole, a kindergarten instructor in the Lancaster School District, has been teaching for 25 years. So when Lancaster asked her to try out a new way of teaching her students to read three years ago, she wasn’t thrilled.

“I was hesitant and apprehensive to try it,” she said, but decided to throw herself into a new method that promised results.

Artwork and literacy lessons hang from the ceiling inside Julie Celestial’s kindergarten class at Mark Twain Elementary School in Long Beach.

Teaching kindergarten is a challenge, she said, because children come in at vastly different stages. Many are just learning to hold a pencil; others can already read. She was seeing many children under “balanced literacy” lessons slip through the cracks — especially those with limited vocabularies. When she asked them to read words they didn’t know, “it almost felt like they were guessing.”

But as she began to teach a phonics lesson each morning and have them read decodable books — which have children practice the new sound they’ve learned — she noticed that her students were putting together the information much faster and starting to sound out words. “The results were immediate,” she said. “We were blown away.”

She was so impressed with the new curriculum that she started training other teachers in the district to use it as well.

Looking back at her old method of teaching reading, “I feel bad. I feel like maybe I wasn’t the best teacher back then,” Cole said. Part of the change, she said, was learning about the science behind how children learn to read. “I would never say to guess [a word] anymore,” she said.

This kind of buy-in and enthusiasm from teachers has been key to making the new curriculum work, said Krista Thomsen, Lancaster’s director of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment Department. In schools where the teachers are implementing the program well, scores have started to rise. “But it’s a steep learning curve,” she said, especially for teachers who have long taught a balanced literacy approach.

“We are stumbling through this process trying to get it right and making sure that every one of our kids has equitable access to learning how to read,”Thomsen said. “But we have every faith and every intention, and the plan is in place to get it where it should be going.”

A compromise may bring more phonics to the classroom

Kindergarten student Lauren Van De Kreeke answers a question from teacher Julie Celestial as they work on a literacy lesson at Mark Twain Elementary School in Long Beach.

A bill introduced by Assemblymember Blanca E. Rubio (D-Baldwin Park) last year requiring a science-of-reading approach in California public schools did not even get a first hearing. This year, Rubio introduced another version — Assembly Bill 1121 — that would have required teachers to be trained in a science-of-reading approach.

Opponents included the California Teachers Assn. and English-language learner advocates, who said in a joint letter that the bill would put a “disproportionate emphasis on phonics,” and would not focus on the skills needed by students learning English as a second language.

The groups also voiced concern that the bill would cut teachers out of the curriculum-selection process and that mandated training “undermines educators’ professional expertise and autonomy to respond to the specific learning needs of their students.”

Martha Hernandez, executive director of Californians Together, said the group opposed both bills because they were too narrow in their focus on skills such as phonics. “They’re essential. But English learners need more, right?” she said. “They don’t understand the language that they’re learning to read.”

Rubio said she was shocked by the pushback. “I was thinking it was a no-brainer. It’s about kids. This is evidence-based.” Rubio, a longtime teacher, was born in Mexico, and was herself an English-language learner in California public schools.

In 2024, just 19% of Latino students and 7% of Black students scored at or above “proficient” on the fourth-grade NAEP reading test.

But with the support of Democratic Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister), the groups reached a compromise that not all teachers would be required to participate in the teacher training.

Hernandez said she was pleased that the compromise included more of an emphasis on oral language development and comprehension, which is vital for multi-language learners to succeed.

AB1454 requires the State Board of Education to come up with a new list of recommended materials that all follow science of reading principles. If a district chooses materials not on the list, they have to vouch that it also complies. The state will provide funds for professional development, though districts can choose whether to accept it.

This article is part of The Times’ early childhood education initiative, focusing on the learning and development of California children from birth to age 5. For more information about the initiative and its philanthropic funders, go to latimes.com/earlyed.

DAVE ALLEN has lived several lives, from supply school teacher to gambling addict and now, thankfully, a beloved boxing star.

Allen started as an amateur aged 16 and had just ten bouts before turning professional in 2012 – snubbing the chance to join the GB Squad.

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He was 20 when he made his debut but only three years later Allen had only fought seven times and was in need of cash.

The heavyweight made ends meet as a sparring partner – earning around £500 a week – but it was not enough.

So he got a job as a supply teacher – lying on his CV to get the gig – before returning to the ring in 2015.

But by then, Allen was gripped by a horrific gambling addiction which started after making a £1 bet on the horses with his dad when he was just eight.

And after being introduced to online betting, the boxer’s life began to spiral.

He bravely said on ex-middleweight champion Darren Barker’s podcast: “It just snowballed really.

“I used to go to the bookies and play on the machines there, they were great times.

“But the online stuff is where it got bad for me because it was so easy, it was numbers on the screen.

“Probably at the worst? It’s difficult to say really. I wasn’t gambling that much in my early 20s, but I was gambling everything that I had.

“As I got a bit older, I was gambling way more, tens of thousands of pounds. Maybe into hundreds of thousands overall.”

Allen – who has sparred Anthony Joshua, Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk – said winning the bets was the route of his addiction not the cash.

He explained: “I have no interest in the money at all.

“The kind of gambler I am, it’s not about the money for me. When the money runs out, that’s the only issue.

“I never wanted to withdraw any money, I just wanted to keep winning. To be honest, at that time it was like an escapism from real life.”

Allen revealed his routine consisted of going to bed at 6am and waking up by 2pm to catch the first race of the day.

Fortunately, Allen has overcome his addiction with the help of his sister and wife, who he shares a son and daughter with.

As I got a bit older, I was gambling way more, tens of thousands of pounds. Maybe into hundreds of thousands overall.

Dave Allen

He said: “Since I was 26, I’ve not been in control of my own money.

“So at 26, I said to my sister, ‘You’re going to have to look after my money, to be honest.’

“My sister set me up a bank account and for the last seven and a half years if I want any money at all, I have to text my sister and now my missus, I get a card and they send me money.

“Because, if I could still gamble now, I think I would. I’ve spent mad money on mad s***, I was spending ridiculous money and when I boxed Luis Ortiz, I did it for the money, really.

“I think I owed a few quid at the time of the Dillian Whyte fight, I think I lost about eight grand on the day of the fight, I didn’t clear too much more than that really.”

Allen has also become a trainer and manager to young fighters to also keep himself on track.

He said: “I need it as much as them, start training the kids seven or eight years ago and that’s my sustainability really.

‘He’ll get knocked out’

“It’s really kept me on the straight and narrow.”

Allen initially retired from boxing in 2020 aged 28 after a brutal knockout loss to 2008 Olympic bronze medallist David Price.

But he returned a year later and has fought eight times since, remaining a hugely popular figure amongst British fans.

Allen, 33, is coming off a controversial split-decision loss to Johnny Fisher, 26, in Saudi Arabia last December.

But the pair now rematch on Saturday at Fisher’s adopted home of the Copper Box Arena.

And Allen – who dropped Fisher in round five – warned: “If he fights me May 17th he’ll get knocked out because I’ll be sharper, a little bit fitter.

“If he boxes me it will be hard work, of course it is. But I don’t think at the Copper Box he’ll hold it together and box.

“He’ll get in a fight at some point. I’m not the biggest puncher but I hit too hard for him and I’m too strong for him. He’s tough, though.”

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Nareg Dekermenjian had Mother’s Day brunch with the Stanley Cup, which caused more than a little anxiety since no one was sure what hockey’s championship trophy liked to eat.

“I’m thinking all-meat diet for the Stanley Cup,” Dekermenjian said before sliding into a large corner booth at Stanley’s Restaurant (no relation to the Cup) in Sherman Oaks. “Anything less than that, I’m going to be very, very disappointed.”

As it turned out, the Cup was fasting so the plate in front of it remained empty. But then the trophy wasn’t the one being feted Sunday, Dekermenjian was. Last week he was named the winner of the NHL’s Future Goals Most Valuable Teacher Program, chosen from a field of hundreds of candidates from 31 of the league’s 32 cities.

For the fifth-grade teacher, who left a well-paying job as a financial advisor for a classroom four years ago, being honored by a visit from the Stanley Cup was a full-circle moment in several ways. For starters, it was an acknowledgment of the role hockey played in helping him adapt to his new country after his father, Edward, a jeweler in Lebanon who spoke only broken English, wagered everything when he left Beirut for the West Valley so his three children could have a chance at a better life.

Nareg Dekermenjian and his family eat lunch while the Stanley Cup sits in the middle of the table. Left to right are Edward, Ian, Zovig, Oliver and Nareg.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Dekermenjian, the youngest, was just 5 and he immediately had trouble fitting in.

“Making friends or having some kind of link with the kids my age, coming from a different country, that was really different,” he said. So one day his mother, Zovig, pushed him out the door to join some neighborhood kids in a street-hockey game.

“I’m glad I did,” Zovig said Sunday. The game, it turned out, would change everything.

“They gave me a roller-hockey stick and I just kind of fell in love with the sport immediately,” Dekermenjian said. “I’d never been really good at anything before, especially athletics. But I took to roller hockey.

“What it helped me do is create a lot of self-confidence and self-esteem, which is turn helped me in social situations.”

Dekermenjian went on to play at several levels, became a Kings season-ticket holder and now coaches his two sons on the concrete rink he built in their backyard. He’s also using hockey to break down social and cultural barriers at the Dixie Canyon Community Charter School in Sherman Oaks, where many of the nearly 700 students come from immigrant families new to the U.S.

Nareg Dekermenjian, a teacher in Sherman Oaks who won an NHL award, watches as Stanley Cup keeper Howie Borrow sets up the trophy.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

“We have a big melting pot here,” assistant principal Maria Silva said.

But if all those children speak different languages, wear different clothes and pack different foods for lunch, they all understand sports. Even hockey.

“One hundred percent,” said Dekermenjian, 41. “That’s kind of why I do it.”

There are parallels between the challenges athletes face and the ones students face. The grit and perseverance needed to make it through an NHL season is just as necessary to make it through an academic year. There are goals and victories and defeats and teamwork, both on the ice and in the classroom.

“That connects a lot of the dots for these kids that aren’t used to hearing it that way,” Dekermenjian said. “I actually show clips and videos of hockey games when teams are down by multiple goals and they don’t give up and then they come back, they pull the goalie, and they take it.

“That’s, I think, a better way of starting a session. Having these kids look at something so incredible and then looking at themselves and thinking, ‘You know what? I can do this.’”

Nareg Dekermenjian takes a selfie with his son, Oliver, and the Stanley Cup during lunch at Stanley’s Restaurant.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Silva said few teachers at Dixie Canyon are requested by parents more frequently than Dekermenjian, whom she calls Mr. Deker. She often stop by his class herself just to listen.

“I’m just captivated by the stories that he’s sharing. And I don’t want to leave,” she said. “I want to be a kid and listen to him too. When they announced that he won [the NHL award,] I definitely felt they got it right.”

The stories don’t always work, however. And when they don’t Dekermenjian, like a good coach, changes his game plan — as he did in his first year as a teacher after welcoming a shy Ukrainian girl named Maria, who understood little English.

“We’re going over U.S. history and I’m like, ‘What does this child need to know about the Constitution?’ There’s way more important lessons we need to teach,” he said.

Maria loved art so Dekermenjian asked her to draw each day and then, after class, he and a translator would discuss the meaning behind what she had drawn. She was soon thriving in her new environment.

When kids struggle, Dekermenjian said, the problem often isn’t the student, but rather an engagement issue with the teacher.

“Educators, we need to kind of step it up and engage them in nontraditional ways,” he said.

“I’ve seen it work in the classroom. So I do it more and more and the feedback has been overwhelming. I’m creating a bunch of hockey fans and Kings fans in the process, so everyone wins, I guess.”

Speaking of the Kings, that’s the second reason Sunday’s meal was a reunion with the Stanley Cup. The first time he met the trophy was in 2014, when he posed in front of it with his wife, Lori, and then-infant son Ian, who actually owes his existence to the Cup.

During the 2012 Stanley Cup playoffs, Lori came up to Dekermenjian and suggested that if the Kings won the Cup, they should have a baby. Dekermenjian, uncertain whether he was ready to be a dad but certain the Kings had no chance to win the NHL title, agreed — and a little more than a year later, Ian was born. They have since added a second son, Oliver.

“It’s a full-circle thing,” he said.

“I definitely feel like I found where I need to be in life. And I’m 100% certain that I was meant to teach.”

On Sunday the NHL agreed, giving him an afternoon with the Stanley Cup to prove it.