Reading is a crucial skill for future life success, and yet many U.S. schools fail to prepare students adequately in this area. The last decade has seen a wave of new legislation at the state level to remedy this crisis. As part of those efforts, California has instituted two large-scale grant programs that aim to improve literacy outcomes through school-determined actions, rather than a prescribed blueprint. This technical report summarizes prior research showing the efficacy of the first grant (the Early Literacy Support Block Grant, ELSBG) and introduces new research on the efficacy of the second (the Literacy Coaches and Reading Specialists Grant, LCRSG).
Using quasi-experimental methods, this technical report estimates program effects of LCRSG on its nearly 400,000 students. Results indicate small but positive effects on achievement (0.04 SD) in the first year and larger positive effects (0.08 SD) in the second year. Qualitative evidence from school staff suggests that the small first-year impact reflects delayed spending as schools took time to identify their site-level needs. In year two, as schools completed their planning processes and implementation matured, most schools directed resources towards instructional coaches and professional development, likely fueling the observed gains.
The success of both grant programs strongly bolsters the evidence base for their similarities – professional development about evidence-based reading practices and additional funding for schools to support literacy development with some flexibility on spending. The differences in effectiveness between these programs, however, suggests that targeting, cost, and advance planning can meaningfully change the degree of literacy improvement achieved by state intervention.
