Nov 19, 2025

It’s all about coherence: California’s path to transforming educational equity

Written by

ELSF Staff

California’s education leaders are navigating a complex and transformative moment. State and local leaders face concerns around persistent inequalities in student performance, chronic absenteeism, and post-pandemic recovery. Yet, the state of California is committed to addressing these challenges head-on. This is evident in its recent Math Framework and enhanced ELA/ELD Guidelines.

With a strong commitment towards equity, these challenges also present an opportunity to strengthen coherence across the state’s education ecosystem. State, county, and local education agencies each do critical work. Yet, they often operate independently. Building greater alignment, or systems-level coherence, across state, county and local agencies can help ensure every student, especially multilingual learners (MLLs), benefits from California’s investment in curriculum and professional learning.

Each agency plays a unique and critical role in the curriculum adoption and implementation process.

The State Education Agency (SEA) sets the tone, providing structure and leadership by approving curriculum adoption lists and issuing state-level guidance.
County Offices of Education (COEs) support LEAs by approving budgets, facilitating professional learning, providing tools and resources, and serving as intermediaries between state and local entities.
Local Education Agencies (LEAs) bring on-the-ground expertise and a deep understanding of community needs. They know their students and teachers, and have the responsibility for decision-making when it comes to adoption.

Recognizing these complementary roles, California can move from a patchwork of efforts to a coordinated system that builds on shared capacity. Recent discussions with educational leaders and reports generated by various advocacy groups point to several critical areas where streamlined communication and collaboration can make a big impact when it comes to supporting multilingual learners and all students.

State Structured Adoptions: LEAs often rely heavily on state guidance and approved lists for curriculum adoption, partly due to limited capacity. By consistently providing quality reviews and coherent guidance for the adoption of high-quality instructional materials and professional learning the SEA can take an active role in improving the efficacy of the adoption process. Quality reviews should contain MLL-responsive criteria and adoption guidance that centers on MLLs and diverse students.
District Composed Adoptions: Many districts develop their own rubrics and processes, but they face competing priorities and lack the high-quality data needed to inform their decision-making effectively. Local adoption decisions should always be evidence-based and objective and centered on student needs as informed by local data.
County Guided Adoptions: Some LEAs look to their COEs for guidance, but if COEs do not feel empowered to guide LEAs in how to make the best curriculum choices, the gap in support leads to processes that don't consistently result in evidence-based decisions.
Publisher Deliberated Adoptions: Decisions can be heavily influenced by existing relationships with publishers and vendor networks, sometimes leading to emotionally driven choices rather than objective evaluations. Robust evaluation frameworks allow education leaders and adoption teams to assess products more deeply and objectively.

With a consistent standard, clearly defined roles, and strategic collaboration, adoption decisions can become more intentional and aligned, helping to build each agency's strengths.

Selecting new materials is just the beginning. Even when new standards are introduced, alongside strong leadership from the State Education Agency, LEAs need consistent, intentional support to effectively implement new curriculum. Broad and sustained professional development from COEs can build on local strengths and help educators implement materials in ways that honor the assets and needs of their student communities.

When systems work in greater alignment and cohesion, they create stronger conditions to help close the opportunity gaps among marginalized students. A unified and evidence-based approach to curriculum adoption and implementation ensures that all students, especially MLLs, receive the high-quality instruction and support they need to succeed.

Moving Forward: A Call for Systemic Coherence for Equity

To create an environment where equitable learning outcomes can truly flourish, we must build greater instructional coherence across all levels of the California education system. This means:

Clearer Guidance from the SEA: The State Education Agency can be a powerful leader in the adoption process by providing robust quality reviews of HQIM and unambiguous guidance for the adoption of high-quality instructional materials and professional learning.
Empowered COEs: Following the SEA’s lead, County Offices of Education must be equipped and encouraged to provide more consistent and effective support to LEAs in both adopting and implementing curriculum well. As COEs review and approve district budgets, ensuring that funding for professional development and implementation supports is embedded in LEA plans will help strengthen coherence. Expanding access to these resources, especially for teachers of MLLs, creates the conditions for successful, equity-centered implementation.
Evidence-Based Decision Making for LEAs: Districts need tools and frameworks to help them reconcile competing priorities, incorporate data into their decisions, and critically evaluate publishers beyond existing relationships.
Policy to Promote Equity: Requiring LEAs to submit a plan alongside their Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP), one that demonstrates how equity is embedded throughout curriculum adoption and implementation, can reinforce the importance of a strategic and coherent approach. Because COEs regularly review district LCAPs, this process can help ensure that a district’s goals are matched with meaningful investments. An instructional vision without aligned funding often functions like an unfunded mandate; linking equity-focused aspirations with resources for materials, professional learning, and implementation strengthens the likelihood of achieving equitable outcomes for students.

California has the vision, expertise, and will to build an education system grounded in coherence and equity. By engaging in change management efforts that holistically examine the ecosystem and work together to create a more coherent, aligned system, California can move towards a future where all students, regardless of their background, have access to the high-quality education they deserve.

Renae Skarin has almost 30 years of experience working with English learner and minoritized populations through research, advocacy, and program development and implementation with educators nationwide and abroad. She currently serves as the Senior Advisor for Content at the English Learners Success Forum (ELSF) where she leads its research efforts to identify strategies and develop resources for improving education policies and practices with regard to high quality instructional materials for multilingual learners.

Dr. Alma Castro is ELSF's Director of California Initiatives. She serves as the Vice President for the Lynwood Unified School District Board, and President for the Los Angeles County School Trustee Association. For twenty years, Dr. Castro has proudly served in PK-12 public schools as a Teacher and School Administrator. She is actively engaged in legislative advocacy on Education policy at a local, state and national level. Dr. Castro serves on the California School Board Association (CSBA) Legislative Committee, and is a CSBA Delegate for her region.

The mission of the English Learners Success Forum (ELSF) is to collaborate with field-leading researchers, district leaders, teachers, content creators, and education funders to improve the supply and accessibility of high-quality K-12 mainstream instructional materials that address the linguistic and cultural needs of ELs while building smart demand to reach educators at scale – all with the goal of providing ELs full access to grade-level content and quality learning. Unlike most efforts that aim to improve EL learning outcomes, ELSF focuses exclusively on ensuring that full-year core instructional materials guide teachers in addressing these students’ varying needs.