A June brief from the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) examines the state’s early literacy policies, identifying slow, incremental steps taken to solve a critical, long-standing problem.
In 2024, 40 percent of fourth graders across the country scored below basic on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). While many point to pandemic-related challenges as a core factor, California has performed worse than the national average every year the test has been administered, according to the brief.
Forty states and the District of Columbia have passed new literacy laws since 2013, including Mississippi, which leapt from 49th place in 2013 for fourth-grade reading up to 9th in 2024 after adopting teacher trainings on evidence-based literacy instruction offered to all educators, mandating those trainings for teachers in low-performing schools, and aligning educator preparation programs to those techniques. The state also mandated a universal reading screener be used to identify and support struggling students and retained severely struggling students in the third grade.
California has taken a piecemeal approach, implementing reforms separately into areas of instruction and targeting different groups of students and schools, according to researchers. For example, in 2014, researchers state that “the state approved the English Language Arts/English Language Development framework, which provided recommendations for integrating evidence-backed reading practices. This guidance included standards for students who speak languages other than English at home, a group that makes up more than 30 percent of California’s kindergarteners. The State Board of Education approved complementary instructional materials in 2015, though schools were not required to use them nor funded to do so.”
Since then, the state has also funded block grants targeting professional development, literacy coaches and reading specialists; required teacher candidates pass assessments to demonstrate their understanding of evidence-based methods and for teaching programs to cover early literacy content; and called for all districts to screen students in kindergarten through second grade for reading difficulties and provide support to students as needed.
In each case, student literacy outcomes improved to some degree.
To build a path forward for improving literacy instruction and scores, researchers recommend state policymakers look to the successes and lessons of the Early Literacy Support Block Grant and the Literacy Coaches and Reading Specialists Grant.
“Both programs provided professional development on evidence-based reading practices and additional funding for schools to implement supports such as instructional coaching, student interventions, and monitoring for struggling students. Both programs also highlight the need for adequate staffing and centralized guidance from the state,” the report states. “Centralizing some decisions could speed up results. Schools spent the first year developing and posting job descriptions, sorting through possible new curricula to purchase, and soliciting proposals for professional development. If some of these functions occurred at the state level, districts could implement programs faster.”
This lack of centralized support is central to CSBA’s SOS for Student Achievement campaign, which seeks to close the state accountability gap to improve overall student performance, close achievement gaps and establish comprehensive state-level support for local school districts and county offices of education. Learn more about the campaign and the association’s legislative package here.
