Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1454 on Tuesday at the Alexander Science Center School, launching a statewide effort to improve how California students learn to read.

The law, authored by Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, includes $200 million in the state budget to implement the measure, which empowers teachers and is supported by decades of peer-reviewed research.

“The state of California created a new era of literacy instruction, developing and adopting critical standards over the past four decades, the adoption of curricular materials that are aligned to the best standards, and ushering in also a new era of professional development for our great educators in the state of California aligned to those standards,” said Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Alberto Carvalho.

AB 1454 helps teachers and administrators deliver instruction aligned with the framework and support English learners effectively. It also calls for adopting instructional materials that follow the framework and recent research.

“AB 1454 is a milestone for California’s students and teachers. It reaffirms the state’s commitment to help 1.1 million English learner children in California build strong literacy and language skills through instruction grounded in California’s English language arts and English language development framework, our research based foundation for literacy education,” said Marta Hernandez, executive director of Californians Together.

State test results show California students made gains in English language arts this year, with 48.81% meeting or exceeding the state standard in 2025, up 1.77 percentage points from 2024, according to data from the California Department of Education.

The increase follows statewide investments in literacy instruction and teacher training. Two years earlier, only 46.66% of students met the English benchmark, marking steady improvement since 2023.

“Reading is more than sounding out words. It’s about making meaning, combining phonics and fluency with oral language, writing with background knowledge and comprehension, and English language development. These are the skills that enable students, including multilingual learners, to thrive as readers, writers and thinkers,” she added.

Despite the hard times and the divided opinions those days, the bill passed unanimously, a rare show of unity among lawmakers who, advocates said, put children first.

Education advocate Marshall Tuck of EdVoice said AB 1454 will benefit every elementary and middle school classroom in the state. “Students will have instructional materials that are aligned with what science and research say are the most effective ways for children to learn to read,” he said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said an independent review of the first group of community schools showed “extraordinary improvement in reducing suspensions, reducing chronic absenteeism, and long-needed gains in math and English language arts.”

“It’s working,” Newsom said, adding that the program is now being expanded statewide as part of California’s unprecedented education investments.