As we wind down 2024, we wanted to reflect on a year of impactful advocacy and significant change across the policy landscape. From celebrating our past to preparing for the future, 2024 was a year to remember.
A Time to Celebrate
We continued celebrating Californians Together’s quarter century of fierce advocacy by honoring our state’s biggest champions of English learner policy. In June, we held The Next 25 Years, an event in Sacramento recognizing four outstanding champions with our Multilingual Champion Award: Asm. Eloise Gomez Reyes, Assembly District 50, Assembly Majority Leader Emerita; Tanya Lieberman, Chief Consultant, California Assembly Committee on Education; Asm. Luz Rivas, Assembly District 43; and Asm. Kevin McCarty, Assembly District 6. Through their efforts in the legislature, these individuals worked to significantly improve education for English learners and raise multilingualism as an asset. You can view photos from the celebration here.
This year marked the most significant milestone in the biliteracy movement. All fifty states and the District of Columbia now offer the State Seal of Biliteracy. This movement, which has its roots in California, is a victory for multilingualism and those who have always believed it is an asset worth celebrating and promoting. Californians Together developed the concept of the seal in 2008, and we were so proud to celebrate its universal adoption with Secretary Miguel Cardona in 2024.
Legislative Victories
This year also marked new victories in the California legislature. Two of the bills we co-sponsored were signed into law.
- AB 2074 (Asm. Al Muratsuchi and Asm. David Alvarez)
- This legislation, which we proudly co-sponsored with CABE, requires the California Department of Education to create a plan for implementing the 2017 California English Learner Roadmap. Actionable items include convening an advisory committee with representatives from diverse stakeholders, creating measurable goals and a system of accountability. By November 2026, the department will create an annual report to the legislature. Passing AB 2074 marks a major step forward in realizing the promise of the visionary California English Learner Roadmap. We are encouraged by this development, and will continue to work with the legislature to ensure districts have the resources they need to continue this work.
- AB 2268 (Asm. Muratsuchi)
- We were proud to co-sponsor this piece of legislation with Early Edge. AB 2268 which rolls back a developmentally inappropriate assessment for our state’s youngest dual language learners. It excludes Transitional Kindergarten (TK) students from taking the English Language Proficiency Assessment of California. As the state moves toward universal TK, it is crucial that assessments only serve to help students, not hurt them.
Stronger Together
Beyond our victories in the legislature, Californians Together celebrates the collaboration across so many areas. Californians Together and the Loyola Marymount Center for Equity for English Learners, both members of the High Quality Instructional Materials Learning Partners (HQIM-LPC) Coalition, which works to ensure that the adoption of the California Mathematics Framework takes into account the unique needs of multilingual learners, teamed up to deliver a webinar elevating the importance of designated iELD in mathematics instruction. Californians Together Executive Director Martha Hernandez also teamed up with another member of that group, English Learner Success Forum’s Crystal Gonzales, to pen a commentary for EdSource on the opportunity leaders have to transform math instruction for English learners.
This year also saw the launch of the second CalNEW Webinar series, a partnership between Californians Together, the California Department of Social Services, California Department of Education, and the California Newcomer Network. This series brings together experts and practitioners to discuss diverse issues in newcomer education. We are thrilled to continue this year’s offerings into 2025. Register for future webinars
In February, Californians Together, Catalyst California, and Early Edge California released the Dual Language Learner Identification Guide. This guide was written for California State Preschool Program providers and seeks to empower them to build relationships with dual language learners and their families.
Our efforts in the Central Valley continue to strengthen through critical partnerships. The Central Valley (CV) Multilingual Consortium, which is co-led by Parent Institute for Quality Education (PIQE) and Californians Together, published a policy agenda in April 2024. The CV Consortium has continued to hold quarterly meetings to engage key partners around opportunities and challenges to address collectively. In July 2024, we also entered into a new partnership with the English Learners Workforce Investment initiative (EL-WIN), an initiative of the Emerging Bilingual Collaborative, in order to gather input from Central Valley and state education leaders on how the state can support a sustainable UPK workforce that is prepared to meet the needs of multilingual students. This project will culminate in the development of EL-WIN State Policy Recommendations in early 2025 with the goal of elevating the experience and assets of our Central Valley education leaders, families, and students.
Educating the Field
We further informed the field on best practices for serving dual language learners through the release of two briefs: Bridging California’s Bilingual Teacher Gap in Early Childhood Education and Enhancing Early Biliteracy for Dual Language Learners. From proposing policies to strengthen the bilingual educator pipeline to providing critical analysis of early literacy education, Californians Together led the field in advocating for the rights of our youngest multilingual learners. Beyond these publications, Martha Hernandez participated in the EdSource Roundtable, Getting California kids to read: What will it take?, where she reaffirmed the fact that multilingualism is an asset and declared that any new literacy policy needs to be a biliteracy policy.
Martha also took to EdSource to write a commentary on the need for policymakers to support districts and schools by funding the English Language Arts/English Language Development Framework—a now ten-year old document that provides guidance encouraging the implementation of a research-informed, comprehensive literacy approach for all students.
This year marked the release of our landmark report The State of English Learners in California Public Schools, which we debuted at our Sacramento reception. This report provides a landscape view of English learners in California, including their demographics, language development status, and academic outcomes and data related to wellbeing and belonging. Additionally, we provide a number of policy proposals to expand multilingualism, create a more equitable and impactful accountability system, and much more.
In August we released the Preschool/Transitional Kindergarten Toolkit for English Learner Roadmap, authored by Board Member Dr. Laurie Olsen. This toolkit provides much-needed guidance and insight for ensuring that everyone, from Head Start administrators to district leaders, has the tools they need to ensure that they are delivering services in line with visionary policies like the California English Learner Roadmap and the California Master Plan for Early Learning and Care.
Californians Together Marches On
Beyond these achievements, Californians Together and our allies also provided testimony in front of state leaders regarding topics ranging from the importance of implementing early learning foundations to raising the alarm on problematic assessments.
We also convened our coalition to discuss how we can work together, and with other partners, to ensure that state leaders are protecting the rights of English learners, newcomers, and their families amid a challenging federal landscape. We let the entire education policy world know that we are prepared.
This blog post can never fully shine a light on the hard work the Californians Together staff does each day and the immense impact of those who support our work by donating their time and resources. We are incredibly grateful to everyone who shares our vision for improving education for our state’s diverse multilingual learners, and we cannot wait to continue this work in 2025.