With literacy policies on the books, advocates target early math

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Top Takeaways

• Despite increased attention to reading, math test scores remain far lower in California and decline as students move through school.
• Senate Bill 1067 would require experts to choose math screeners and for districts to use them for K-2 students starting in 2028-29.
• Some of the same lawmakers and advocates behind the bill also led the charge for changes in reading instruction.

Buoyed by their successful strategies for early literacy, California legislators and advocacy groups are calling for a parallel approach to math.

This week, they proposed that all school districts be required to screen children for math difficulties annually in the early grades, as the first step toward adopting a comprehensive statewide approach to math achievement.

“California is facing a real and urgent math achievement crisis, and we cannot afford to wait until students are already far behind to act,” said Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson, D-San Diego, the primary author of Senate Bill 1067, the math screener bill. “We know the achievement gap in math is evident as early as kindergarten. We also know that students who miss foundational math skills in grades K through 2 rarely catch up.”

SB 1067 would require districts to adopt one or more state-approved screening instruments by July 2027 and use them to determine students’ math challenges starting in 2028-29. English learners would be screened in their primary language “wherever feasible,” to discourage over-identification of math challenges.

Schools would have to notify parents of their child’s math skills assessment and offer services and support, including small-group tutoring, intensive instruction, or further testing for the numeracy counterpart of dyslexia, called dyscalculia, which is more difficult to identify. Dyscalculia is a learning disorder in which children have trouble recognizing numbers and math symbols, understanding quantities, doing simple calculations from memory, telling time on an analog clock and memorizing basic math facts.

“Adopting a screener doesn’t necessarily center on dyscalculia,” said Marshall Tuck, CEO of the education advocacy organization EdVoice, a cosponsor of SB 1067 bill and of the last key law establishing a comprehensive policy for early literacy instruction. “A lot of kids are far behind in math because they didn’t get a lot of exposure to some of the play-based math activities in pre-K and at home.”

By some measures, proficiency in math by fourth grade is a clearer predictor of school performance than reading. If so, the latest 2025 Smarter Balanced test scores are sobering. Only 37% of students scored at grade level in math compared with 49% in English language arts. Only 26% of low-income students and 20% of Black students scored at grade level in math.  

Because knowledge in math is cumulative, building on the acquisition of skills and knowledge, falling behind in the early grades can compound challenges and can contribute to a self-defeating mindset: “I must not be a math person.”

In 2025, 46% of third graders were proficient in math, compared with only 33% of 11th graders.

“We signed on (to SB 1067) because early math is as important as early literacy. We’re not sure there is a wide public understanding about both,” said Sierra Abukins, vice president of communications for Families in Schools, a Los Angeles-based advocacy nonprofit. “For schools, a screener could be a powerful vehicle to bring parents in so they work with the school on a plan for their child.”

“The message ‘Talk to your baby and read to your kids’ has gotten out. Math, not so much. Awareness-raising has to happen,” Abukins said.

‘Screening is the right first step’ 

California was one of the last states to adopt an early literacy screener, but it would be among the first to launch a statewide math screening system.

Just as the Mississippi “miracle” captured the nation’s attention with its phonics-based reading reforms over the past decade, its neighbor, Alabama, has prompted other states to take another look at math. In 2022, it passed the Alabama Numeracy Act, which established early screening and intervention for math difficulties and provided one to two math coaches to every K-5 public school.

By 2024, Alabama was the only state in which fourth grade math scores significantly improved over pre-Covid 2019 scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. According to Education Week, at least nine additional states have passed legislation requiring or recommending early screening and intervention.

California’s mandated testing for reading challenges went into effect in the fall of 2025. Districts chose from a list of screeners, including Multitudes, a multilingual screening instrument developed by UC San Francisco for the state.

Weber Pierson’s bill would follow the same process: By April 30, 2027, the state Board of Education would appoint a panel to recommend screeners and select the list by Jan. 31, 2028, followed by local adoption.

The last state budget included money to train teachers to use screeners. The math screening bill includes no funding, but, as a state mandate, districts would be eligible to seek reimbursement.

In an email, Weber Pierson said she sees her bill as the “foundation for a broader, coordinated math strategy,” similar to the approach it took with early literacy. 

“Screening is the right first step because you cannot effectively address a problem you have not identified,” she said.

In the past three years, California’s literacy reforms have included funding literacy coaches for high-poverty schools, providing professional development for district teachers and adopting evidence-based reading materials.

California is further along in math, having revised its math instructional framework and adopted textbooks aligned with it. Weber Pierson cautioned, however, that those efforts will be less effective without a screener. State funding for textbooks and teacher training under the new math framework has been far lower than the nearly $500 million allocated to literacy over the past five years.

Arun Ramanathan, CEO of PowerMyLearning, a national nonprofit focused on math learning in elementary grades, said that while he is “very supportive” of a math screener, he noted, “there is no real strong consensus in the field as to what constitutes children who are falling behind in math.”

He encouraged the state to consult authorities in early math — developmental psychologists, brain researchers and special education experts — and not to rely on publishers’ assessments tied to their own curricula. Many students falling behind may have had poor math instruction, he said, and this must also be addressed.

California should model how it adopted an early literacy screener, Ramanathan said. “It’s a good template to repeat for the math side.”