by Quintessa Williams
Imagine a Black kid in California starting kindergarten this fall. They’re bright, curious, and, above all — excited about school. Their teacher may be nice enough but inexperienced or untrained in the science of reading. And by third grade, this child will likely be labeled “behind.”
By middle school, honors classes are out of the question. If this student graduates from high school, they enter a world where job applications, lease agreements, and even voting ballots are a struggle to understand. Years later, their own bright, curious child heads to kindergarten in another under-resourced classroom.
Only, this isn’t hypothetical. It’s an intergenerational reality. Education advocates say the fact that low-income Black K-12 students have the lowest reading proficiency in the state isn’t just a policy failure, it’s a civil rights issue, and it’s a crisis so entrenched that, at current rates, the state won’t close its racial literacy gap until 2070. This isn’t just a California problem, either. Standardized test scores nationwide show 17% of Black fourth-graders aren’t reading on grade level.
But a coalition of Golden State educators, civil rights leaders, and elected officials believe they have a solution.
Newly introduced legislation — Assembly Bill 1121 — would overhaul how California teaches reading by mandating evidence-based training for teachers, updated instructional materials, and consistent statewide strategies..
“This bill is different,” says Assemblymember Blanca Rubio, a former educator representing northeast Los Angeles County suburbs. “It’s time to cut out the systems that often write Black students off. It’s about giving them what they need.”
In February, she introduced AB 1121, which is co-sponsored by the NAACP California Hawaii State Conference, EdVoice, the Children’s Defense Fund of California, and several other advocacy groups. Since then, more than 40 education, equity, and advocacy organizations have thrown their support behind it.
This is “a bill about Black students,” says Rick Callendar, president of the NAACP California-Hawaii State Conference.
“Reading is not only an education issue — it is a civil rights issue,” he says. “If kids aren’t reading by third grade, they’re four times more likely not to graduate. And when Black kids don’t graduate, we know what happens — it’s a direct pipeline toward prison. This bill is about disrupting that pipeline.”
Tonya Craft-Perry, an educator and member of the Black Parent Network, says the connection between early literacy and incarceration is all too real.
“In both education and criminal justice, we know the data — if a child isn’t reading by third grade, the odds of them entering the system increase dramatically,” she says.
Even in her own classroom, Craft-Perry saw Black students being left behind. “They weren’t at grade level. And the system seemed OK with that — like it was normal for our kids to be the ones struggling.”
But can a single law undo decades of failure?
What AB 1121 Would Do for Black Students
Like most states, California’s approach to teaching kids to read has been a series of experiments.
“The difference is that this bill is based on science, not guesswork,” Rubio says. “We’ve spent years bouncing from one literacy trend to another — what I used to call ‘program du jour.’ But nothing was grounded in real data. This bill is.”
Rooted in research-backed literacy practices, AB 1121 mandates that all K–5 teachers and school leaders complete training focused on how students actually learn to read. California has already identified evidence-based reading instruction and materials as essential for teaching children to read, but Rubio says the state doesn’t have a cohesive implementation plan to enforce these policies.
The bill also requires schools to adopt evidence-based instructional materials and report on teacher training and curriculum compliance through annual monitoring and a statewide database.
“If we align instruction across the state, if we stop pointing fingers and start collaborating — we can do this,” Rubio says.
Callender also adds that Mississippi and Louisiana adopted similar strategies and saw their reading proficiency results skyrocket. “We know what works — we’ve seen it work,” he says. “And if it can work in Mississippi, it can work in California.”
Black Students Deserve More
Callendar believes the legislation could set a precedent for other states. “So goes California, so goes the rest of the nation,” he says. “If we can lead on reading proficiency the same way we’ve led on other civil rights issues, we’re setting the tone for what education equity can look like across the country.”
Passing AB 1121 won’t solve the Black literacy crisis alone. Rubio, Callender, and Craft-Perry all agree success requires collective care and effort from lawmakers, educators, families, and communities — and the belief that Black students deserve more.
Craft-Perry says parents also need to show up at school and advocate for their student — but doing that is easier if schools are welcoming. “Schools need to stop treating us like outsiders. If we want to prepare our kids for life, not just for tests, then this work has to happen hand-in-hand.”
And she hopes AB 1121 will send a different message — that California won’t wait until 2070 to do right by Black students. “Literacy is a life skill,” she says. “If this bill can create consistency and help our students feel safe, seen, and challenged, it could change their trajectory — not just in school, but in life.”
Source: Seattle Medium
