In Silicon Valley, where some of the world’s smartest people live, many of the best young minds are wasting. The dichotomy is as stark as the Route 101 divide – a geographical shorthand for class and race (east, poor; west, rich) – separating them.

• A youth unemployment rate that one workforce nonprofit executive estimates at 35 percent;
• A high school dropout rate of about 27 percent;
• A minuscule number of Hispanic students in a six-county area – 182  out of 13,700 – to pass the CSU Early Assessment Program in math.

For seven hours last week, more than 100 school, business and non-profit leaders in the valley heard leaders’ pleas to reach out to disengaged youths, and discussed how to do so at a conference co-sponsored by Cisco Systems, the Silicon Valley Education Foundation, James Irvine Foundation and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Organizers from Harvard approached Cisco and local foundations out of the  recognition that disengaged youths and high tech companies – Cisco, Apple, Google, Intel – could be a good match. The former lack opportunities; the  latter need  workers. One way to bind them , many at the conference  agreed, is through internships and mentoring. In the state with the nation’s lowest ratio of high school teachers and counselors to students, more contact  with adults is critical.

“The issue is a lack of exposure to new careers and thinking, not a lack of motivation or curiosity” among students, Rosa Perez, chancellor of the San Jose/Evergreen Community College District, told conferees.

One model program is Year Up, a 10-year old program with an operation in San Francisco. It takes 18- to 24-year old urban youths and gives them six months of intensive technical IT skills training followed by a paid six month corporate internship. Four-fifths of the San Francisco grads have then found entry-level tech jobs within four months, according to the organization.

But schools should be challenging students before they drop out. They should be helping students see a future beyond their neighborhoods. Partnership academies  – small schools within high schools that prepare students for careers and college in such fields as engineering, health and technology – can do that. What makes them successful are four common elements: rigorous academic courses, tied to college admissions; multiple year-long applied courses in career fields; internships and apprenticeships; and extra services that help students with math and reading proficiency and study skills.

Partnership academies break down the false division between preparation for college and careers. As a legislative priority, they’ve expanded in California, despite cutbacks in school funding – except in Silicon Valley, where they remain scarce. The Silicon Valley Education Foundation (my employer) is discussing with the Irvine Foundation, the biggest private funder of these programs, about piloting a middle and high school science and technology academy in East San Jose.

Often, conferees said, it’s adults who set up  barriers to engaging students: Teachers who don’t communicate with each other about students they suspect are in trouble. Districts that ignore the difficult transitions between middle school and high school. State and federal school sanctions that require students in failing schools to double up in math and English, to the exclusion of science and art. Students with B’s in high school who end up in remediation courses in college.

Speaking from Washington, where she is now Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter, the former Chancellor of Foothill-DeAnza Community College District, challenged valley companies to create high school apprenticeships in green technology and create a corps of mentors in every school. If South Korea can make online tutoring for K-12 students 24/7, why not Silicon Valley?

The Harvard organizers were hoping that a corporate CEO or community leader  in Silicon Valley would  step forward to lead a major, multi-year effort, involving schools, nonprofits and companies, to address the dropout crisis. None has emerged yet. But conferees, having identified model programs and barriers to change, at least pledged to keep talking.

By John Fensterwald on January 26th, 2010