Despite six years of state investments to improve literacy instruction, California ranks among the bottom dozen states in preparing future educators to teach reading, according to a new report from the National Council on Teacher Quality.

Fifty-two elementary teacher preparation programs in California submitted their coursework for review, while 37 declined to participate. Among the programs evaluated, fewer than a quarter received an “A,” 13% a “B,” 23% a “C,” 6% a “D” and 35% an “F,” placing California among the bottom 12 states in the nation.

The report also found that 60% of California programs devoted fewer than two hours of instruction to teaching candidates how to support English learners, while 37% spent fewer than two hours preparing future teachers to work with struggling readers.

State Educators Challenge the Findings

But some California education leaders disagree with the findings in “Decoding Progress in Reading Preparation,” questioning the report’s methodology and saying the state has put all the necessary pieces in place to ensure tomorrow’s teachers use evidence-based literacy instruction.

For the report, NCTQ analysts reviewed coursework, assignments and assessments from 721 teacher preparation programs nationwide between March 2025 and this spring. Just over half of the programs were fully aligned with evidence-based reading instruction, also known as the science of reading.

Research has shown that evidence-based instruction, which includes phonics, fluency, comprehension, vocabulary and phonemic awareness, improves academic outcomes for students.

“Learning to read is essential to a student’s ability to succeed in life, their ability to get a job, to understand how to read a bill,” said Ron Noble, chief of Teacher Prep at NCTQ. “Right now, too many children in our country, and in California specifically, aren’t learning to read effectively.”

The stakes are particularly high in California, where fewer than half of third graders were deemed proficient in English language arts in 2025. Third grade reading proficiency is widely considered a predictor of future academic success. 

New Focus on Reading

California’s low ranking in the report comes on the heels of changes to how reading is taught in the state.

Since 2020, the state has invested approximately $1 billion in literacy initiatives, including $500 million for literacy coaches and $200 million for teacher training.

Efforts to improve literacy in California began in earnest in 2020 with state leaders allocating $50 million for the Early Literacy Support Block Grant. Lawmakers also overhauled how new teachers are trained to teach reading.

Senate Bill 488, passed in 2021, requires new California teachers to pass a literacy teaching performance assessment, which replaces the former written test. It also mandates that teacher preparation programs undergo a rigorous certification process to prove they are instructing teacher candidates to use evidence-based strategies to teach literacy.

Emma Hipolito, director of the UCLA Teacher Education Program, said the state certification process was much more vigorous than the NCTQ review.

“(It) felt more, I mean, honestly, like a mini accreditation,” she said.

Every teacher preparation program in California has now been certified under the state’s new standards for literacy instruction, said Mary Vixie Sandy, executive director of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. And, although results from the first year of the literacy teaching performance assessment will not be released until October, early data show a very high pass rate, she said.

Teacher preparation programs with low pass rates will receive technical assistance and oversight, she said.

“So, we’ve got alignment and I think a very, very strong and robust standard for teacher preparation,” Sandy said.

Despite California’s low NCTQ ranking this year, it is an improvement over the 2023 report, which gave only 5% of California’s teacher preparation programs an “A” and 59% an “F.”

Nationally, the scores are also up, with more than double the number of teacher preparation programs, 53%, earning an A or A+ this year compared to 2023.

The improvements come as California and other states join a national effort to change how reading is taught in schools, focusing on a method that teaches students to decode words by sounding them out, a process known as phonics.

Lawmakers in at least 44 states have passed legislation and made unprecedented investments to improve literacy in their schools, according to the NCTQ.

UCLA Gets an ‘F’

The UCLA Teacher Education Program was among the programs that received an “F” for literacy instruction from NCTQ.

“I think our students and my faculty do incredibly good work,” Hipolito said.

UCLA was already shifting toward more evidence-based reading instruction and away from other methods of literacy instruction before the state made it mandatory, Hipolito said.

She has gotten used to the negative feedback from NCTQ, she said.

“Every year we try to respond in a different way, but I think at this point, all the people who actually participate in teacher preparation are like, ‘OK, here we go again. Here we go again.’ ”

Stanford Gets an ‘A+’

The Stanford Graduate School of Education received an “A-plus” for literacy instruction from NCTQ in this year’s review, a dramatic improvement from the “F” it received in 2023.

Stanford professor Rebecca Deffes Silverman said the higher grade reflects California’s new teacher certification process more than any change in the university’s literacy curriculum. Other than increasing classroom practice opportunities for student teachers, not much has changed between the two assessments, she said.

“In the past, we would’ve had to gather all the material for NCTQ. I think, to be perfectly honest, people just didn’t feel like it was worth the time. … But now we had to do it anyway, so we just gave them everything we submitted to California,” Silverman said.

In 2023, when the university received an “F” from the NCTQ, the university didn’t submit coursework to the NCTQ, so researchers used information on the university’s website to evaluate the program, Silverman said. Since then, the university has added course slides and other information to the website to more clearly outline what student teachers are learning.

Silverman agrees that phonics are an essential part of literacy instruction, but would have liked to see NCTQ give the same level of emphasis to comprehension skills.

“When you emphasize something, people focus on that and not necessarily the big picture,” Silverman said. “I want our teachers to get the right message that, yes, phonics is important. Yes, we need to teach it, and we also have to teach other stuff as well.”

Methodology Questioned

Critics of the NCTQ report argue that reviewing course materials is not enough to make a meaningful evaluation of how a teacher preparation program trains future educators to teach reading.

It doesn’t take into consideration coursework in classes other than reading that support literacy, and the time the student teachers spend in district classrooms, Hipolito said.

That criticism was echoed by Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy, president and CEO of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, which represents more than 800 postsecondary institutions and teacher preparation programs.

“Research on teacher effectiveness should consistently demonstrate the importance of strong clinical preparation, expert mentoring, content and pedagogical expertise, and opportunities to apply evidence-based instructional practices in authentic classroom settings, all core elements of high-quality educator preparation,” Holcomb-McCoy said in a statement. “These elements are essential to teacher effectiveness and student success, yet they are difficult to measure through document reviews alone.”

Holcomb-McCoy acknowledged that teacher preparation programs have made significant progress in aligning their curricula with evidence-based reading instruction. But she said that the report should be viewed as an opportunity to build on those gains rather than assign blame.

“This year’s report should serve as an opportunity to build momentum, recognize progress and invest in the work that remains,” she wrote.

NCTQ Defends Its Research

NCTQ staff, who completed similar reviews in 2013, 2020 and 2023, have heard these criticisms before, Noble said. He remains confident that examining course materials provides a reliable picture of how programs teach reading.

“We believe you can learn a lot about how a program approaches reading instruction from reviewing their documented curriculum, which are the materials that we request,” he said. “I am highly skeptical that a program is teaching scientifically based reading instruction if their foundational course materials don’t make reference to the five core components of reading instruction.”

Analysts identify the most relevant reading courses for review, but teacher preparation programs are given the opportunity to identify additional required courses where they’re providing literacy instruction that may have been missed, Noble said.

Each program is also given a copy of its analysis and allowed to submit additional evidence before the report is finalized, he said.

“We have a dialogue back and forth with the programs where we try to obtain the most accurate and up-to-date records that we can to make our analysis as accurate and complete as possible,” Noble said.

Despite the criticism, Noble said he is encouraged by the progress states have made over the past three years.

“With the recent policy changes, I would expect and hope that the next time we do this in 2029, California looks a lot different,” he said.