Over 2.2 million students in California schools speak a language other than English at home, yet our state does not have enough bilingual teachers to meet this need. Research continues to show that multilingual learners thrive when they can develop their home language alongside English. But without a strong educator pipeline, too many students are missing that opportunity.
Earlier this year, Assemblymember David Alvarez introduced AB 2325, co-sponsored by Californians Together and Early Edge California. This forward-looking legislation takes a critical step toward building a sustainable, multilingual-ready educator workforce. On Wednesday, April 15, 2026, it passed out of the Assembly Education Committee with unanimous, bipartisan support and a vote of 9-0. It is now headed to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
AB 2325 creates a competitive grant program, administered by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, to support partnerships between LEAs, community colleges, and four-year institutions of higher education to establish or expand articulated pathways that prepare bilingual students to become bilingual teachers. Grant awardees may use funds, up to $500,000, to support pathway development and implementation, including designing aligned coursework across institutions, providing release time for faculty and educators to build partnerships, developing dual enrollment opportunities that allow students to begin college coursework in high school, and creating recruitment and advising systems that support multilingual students interested in teaching careers.
“AB 2325 enables meaningful coordination between systems to identify teacher candidates early, including high school students eligible for the California State Seal of Biliteracy. If only 5% of students who have earned the seal entered the teacher workforce each year, we would fully end the bilingual educator shortage. This legislation is a major step toward creating the teacher pipeline that meets the multilingual moment.” – Martha Hernandez, Executive Director, Californians Together
We applaud Assemblymember Alvarez for advancing a solution that meets the scale of California’s multilingual reality.
As we celebrate National Bilingual/Multilingual Learner Advocacy Month, now is the time to elevate solutions that grow and sustain a workforce prepared to serve multilingual learners. Join us in uplifting policies like AB 2325 that invest in the educators our students deserve.