What It Will Take To Ensure Literacy For All California Students

By Linda Darling-Hammond, EdSource

August 18, 2022

As the pandemic has raised concerns about “learning loss” and widening achievement gaps, California policymakers have focused increasingly on how to strengthen literacy instruction in the country’s most diverse state. In 2021 the Legislature passed Senate Bill 488, which outlines teacher preparation for teaching reading.

Over this past year, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond has convened a Literacy Task Force. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2021 budget included funding for literacy training, early identification of struggling readers and a new screening tool to flag potential reading challenges such as dyslexia. His 2022 budget went further, funding literacy coaches and reading specialists for the state’s highest need schools.

What will it take to ensure literacy for all children? Here I summarize California’s progress and needs, what the science of reading suggests, and what the state can and should do to accomplish this goal.

The current context

After decades of disinvestment that followed the passage of Proposition 13, California’s education system was one of the most poorly funded and lowest achieving in the nation. In 2009, before Gov. Jerry Brown took office, California ranked 48th in f0urth grade reading and 49th in eighth grade reading on national tests. Since then, the state’s equity-oriented investments (through the Local Control Funding Formula) have produced achievement gains in both reading and math, but we are still well below the national norms.

In 2019, when statewide test results were last reported for all districts, 51% of students in all grades met the grade-level standards in English language arts — up from 44% in 2015, the first year the tests were given, and 22% nearly met the standard — but more than one-fourth (27%) were well below the standard. Since then, the effects of the pandemic have expanded these needs, especially for the youngest learners.

What matters most for literacy progress?

Meeting the needs of all students for literacy skills in a state like California — where 43% of students come from homes where the first language is not English — requires not only understanding what all students need to experience in the process of learning to read, but also the particular needs of multilingual learners, as well as the needs of those at risk of reading difficulties and those who may experience dyslexia or other learning disabilities.

Research suggests that at least five policy supports are needed to ensure that every child will become fully literate:

While California has historically lagged many states in providing these elements to all communities, we are making rapid progress today that we can build upon to achieve our goals.

While California is making many investments to support literacy development, and they are essential, more is needed to ensure we have an effective comprehensive literacy plan. On Monday, I will outline an approach to getting there.

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Linda Darling-Hammond is president of the California State Board of Education and an adviser to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

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