Policy Brief: Lessons from California’s Early Literacy Policies

Reading is critical but remains a long-standing challenge in California schools

A student's ability to read in elementary school strongly predicts high school graduation, which in turn, predicts college-going, college completion, and earnings. Reading also enables many of life's daily tasks-from opening a bank account to obtaining health care to using public transportation.

Despite the critical role reading plays, many students lack the reading skills they need to thrive. In 2024, 40 percent of American fourth graders scored below basic-a score of 208-on the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress, a standardized test sometimes known as the Nation's Report Card. This means these students cannot reliably "determine the relevant meaning of familiar words using context within the same sentence or paragraph" or "sequence or categorize events from the story."

These worrying statistics are part of a pre-existing problem that goes beyond a phenomenon wrought by the pandemic and its disruptions. On the 2019 test, 34 percent of American fourth graders could not meet the standard. California has performed worse than the national average in every year the test has been administered, although a steep decline in the national average means the gap has narrowed.