California Turns To Robots To Handle Students Who Don’t Speak English

California’s State Board of Education (SBE) is rolling out new kindergarten through eighth grade teaching assistants: multilingual math bots.

In a press release Monday, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s (HMH) announced SBE approval for its “Into Math California” training, expected to nurture “deep conceptual understanding and procedural fluency, building a lifelong love for mathematics.” California currently ranks 30th nationwide in education outcomes, according to the Desert Sun.

HMH program includes “robust resources for multilingual learners and comprehensive accessibility,” and aims to improve math scores while easing classroom bilingualism burdens.

The program also incorporates “language-building routines, vocabulary resources and a Language Development Resource Guide” aligned with the state’s English Language Development standards.

“With this bespoke program, we are ensuring every student has access to meaningful, hands-on learning experiences that foster confidence in mathematics,” HMH’s Core and Supplemental Solutions President Jim O’Neill said in their statement.

New data from the University of California San Diego in 2025 showed that 18% of first-year college students placed below Algebra 1, a middle school–level course. The recent data is a massive jump from 2020 when only 6% of university students placed below that level.

The training is designed to leverage “students’ unique backgrounds through hands-on math activities that promote meaningful discourse.” It includes robust language support.

In 1967, former Republican California Gov. Ronald Reagan signed Senate Bill 53, ending a 95-year-old state education mandate that required schools to teach in English.

That move paved the way for AB 2284 in 1972, which funded school districts to serve English Language Learners (ELLs), giving districts the option to compete for  bilingual education grants. Though the state flip flopped over the years, bilingualism emerged as the governing norm for California educators.

English Language Learners (ELs) make up 1,009,066 out of 5,806,221 students enrolled for 2024–2025, according to the California Department of Education (CDE).

ELs are 17.4% of the state’s total student population, with another 15.7% classified as Reclassified Fluent English Proficient (RFEP), the CDE reported. RFEP students’ are ELLs that eventually met state and local proficiency criteria.

Data from the Public Policy Institute of California shows that more than 80% of ELLs speak Spanish. Other top languages, each representing less than 2% of ELs, include Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese and Arabic.

Since bringing back bilingual classrooms, California has struggled to find multilingual teachers, as the state’s educators are “disproportionately whiter and more monolingual,” according to the education nonprofit The 74 Million.

The new partnership with HMH follows the SBE’s 2023 update of their “California Common Core State Standards for Mathematics,” originally implemented in 2010, which the state claims integrates new concepts rather than “isolating standards by organizing lessons around ‘big ideas.’”

Data from the Nation’s Report Card shows California’s eighth graders score an average of 269 out of 500 in math, while fourth graders averaged 233 in 2024. Both placed below the national math averages of 272 and 237 respectively.