Why California’s diverse classrooms need flexible learning materials

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OPINION — My 2nd graders were huddled over their desks, tasked with writing about how animals survive in the wild.

As I moved through the room, I found Rose, a student still mastering English, completely paralyzed by the assignment. Even with a vocabulary bank of key terms like herbivore and energy displayed, the frustration of trying to decode a text far above her rudimentary grasp of the language became too much.

She let out a sharp cry ­— “I can’t do it!” — and buried her face in her arms.

Rose, whose first language is Spanish, had struggled with these lessons since the first week of school. Yet my district’s rigid schedule and by-the-script teaching materials left no room for the extra support she deserved.

Because the daily plan was so unyielding, my most vulnerable multilingual student was being left behind—forcing me to ask if we can truly call these materials “high-quality” if they fail children like her.

Rose is one of 1.1 million multilingual learners (MLs) in California. Data backs her experience. Research on scripted lesson plans shows that teachers overwhelmingly believe these prescriptive materials are only effective for students already proficient in English.

This proves a flaw in current curriculum adoptions: just because a material is labeled “high-quality” does not mean it benefits multilingual learners if it relies on an inflexible script.

AB 1454, passed last fall, mandates that California adopt evidence-based learning materials. California’s Instructional Materials Reviewers met to evaluate more than 50 curriculum submissions.

As they finalize their recommendations, the State Board of Education must give districts a clear, inclusive definition of “high-quality” and a transparent roadmap to ensure these materials actually work for our diverse student population.

First, California’s official definition of high-quality materials must reject one-size-fits-all pacing. Instead require a foundation built on proven language-development practices. It should mandate that approved teaching materials include both whole-class lessons and flexible, small-group activities so teachers do not have to scrounge for extra resources to embed language supports.

To help students like Rose, the curriculum would include vocabulary learning and strategies such as close reading to give students practice making deeper meaning of a text while building their oral language.

Finally, this definition must explicitly include specific requirements for aligned specialized language lesson plans and tracking tools so educators can accurately measure a student’s progress toward English fluency.

In addition, the State Board of Education should enforce this definition by creating a transparent curriculum evaluation system, mirroring a successful model used in states like Louisiana, which ranked programs on whether they fully met high-quality standards, approached them, or fell short, providing districts clarity on what actually works.

We need the state’s reading and language experts to publicly rank the quality of these submissions before local districts begin their selection process. Curriculum adoptions take a full year and cost millions of dollars, yet the state’s website only tells us which curricula were approved— not how they perform.

Upfront transparency regarding the reviewer’s scores, delivery formats, and multilingual supports would prevent districts from wasting time and money on mismatched materials, guiding them straight to the best student outcomes. The California Department of Education should adapt the Content Review Experts’ notes into a tool districts can use during piloting.

This transparency would inform whether the teaching materials I use with Rose are helping her to master vocabulary development and oral language proficiency, which would be evident based on her reading and writing skills.

When she wrote and then read her paragraph about wild animals, I would have known her skills were at the 2nd-grade level because she would have shown proficiency in writing complete sentences on topic with correct vocabulary usage.

Rose is a brilliant student who comes to school with joy, ready to put in the work. This past year, I bypassed our scripted curriculum to work individually with her, using a graphic organizer to categorize the animals as herbivores, carnivores, or omnivores.

By the end of 2nd grade, she was fluently writing paragraphs with high-level vocabulary, despite having appropriate materials. Academic success should not depend on a teacher’s ability to work around an inflexible script.

All students deserve teaching materials that support their needs, so that their futures are wide open. The state is moving in the right direction for evidence-based curriculum in our classrooms.

Now, we must ensure that the definition of “high-quality” explicitly protects and centers our 1.1 million multilingual learners by providing a transparent understanding of how well these materials will actually meet the needs of students.

Kesha Jenkins teaches at Malcolm X School in Berkeley. She is a 2025-2026 Teach Plus California Policy Fellow.