SECTION 1.

 The Legislature finds and declares the following:

(a) Early literacy has proven to have a significant relationship to graduation rates because early literacy interacts with many other factors that contribute to academic success. According to research, third graders who are not reading at grade level are among the most vulnerable to dropping out of school later.

(b) A long-term study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that pupils who were not proficient in reading by the end of third grade were four times more likely to drop out of high school than proficient readers. In fact, 88 percent of pupils who failed to earn a high school diploma were struggling readers in third grade.

(c) Third grade has been identified as important to reading literacy because it is the final year children are learning to read, after which pupils are “reading to learn.” If they are not proficient readers when they begin fourth grade, as much as one-half of the curriculum they will be taught will be incomprehensible.

(d) High-quality early education programs provide an opportunity to get children on the right track by building a strong foundation for prereading and school readiness skills.

(e) Research documents the importance of early experiences on brain development, and educators and policymakers now have a deeper understanding of how to best foster young children’s learning. Research shows that participation in high-quality early care and education programs, including transitional kindergarten, prekindergarten, Head Start, and Early Head Start, can increase children’s language and literacy skills before school entry.

(f) There are many strategies for addressing early literacy, including aligning standards to enhance kindergarten readiness, improving instruction and teacher preparation, and using developmentally and linguistically appropriate assessment and interventions, such as pupil interviews.

(g) Teacher librarians are the backbone of literacy in California, yet only 9 percent of schools have prioritized funding to maintain a full-time teacher librarian position as a resource to both teachers and pupils. Teacher librarians play a pivotal role in empowering and guiding pupils to use educational resources and become critical thinkers and competent researchers.

(h) Multilingual programs prepare pupils for linguistic and academic proficiency in English and additional languages, and require thoughtful design. Multilingual programs are based on research that demonstrates the program model’s effectiveness at leading pupils toward linguistic fluency and academic achievement in more than one language.

(i) One mission of the State Department of Education is to equip pupils with world language skills to better appreciate and more fully engage with the diverse mixture of cultures, heritages, and languages found in California and the world, while also preparing them to succeed in the global economy. The department has set specific goals in the Global California 2030 Initiative. By 2030, one-half of all kindergarten through grade 12 pupils will participate in programs leading to proficiency in two or more languages, either through a class, a program, or an experience. By 2040, three out of four pupils will be proficient in one or more languages, earning them a State Seal of Biliteracy.

(j) Career ladder and apprenticeship programs have demonstrated strong efficacy in recruiting, training, and strengthening new members of the workforce across different employment sectors. In the education sector, several local educational agencies have used these approaches to grow their workforce in high-needs areas and retain highly qualified bilingual educators.

(k) The health policy brief, titled “Parental Reading and Singing to California’s Young Children – Trends, Predictors, and Association with the Talk. Read. Sing. Campaign,” indicates nearly 90 percent of parents read and sing to their children three times or more per week.

(l) The Talk. Read. Sing. campaign promotes and encourages the engagement of parents and caregivers to talk, read, and sing with their babies from birth. Brain science confirms babies learn from day one and build billions of neural connections by stimulating their brains through experiences, such as when others are talking, reading, and singing with them.

(m) A main mission of a public library is to support literacy. It is to everyone’s benefit that we have a literate society, and one way to help achieve this is to encourage pupils to read and to remove as many barriers to their using local public libraries as possible.

(n) When school libraries close, either due to COVID-19, summer vacation, or any other reason, kids still need and deserve access to e-books, books, periodicals, and the wealth of other online resources libraries have to offer.

(o) All pupils should have equal access to all library resources to level the educational playing field. They should not be penalized due to where they live or the income level of their parents. It is the intent of the Legislature to support programs that will allow thousands of pupils presently denied equal access to have the same access to library materials as all other pupils. Public libraries represent a crucial public service for all of California pupils and families regardless of immigrant status.