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. (Read more and comment on this post)
- CarolineSF
- CarolineSF
- John McDonald
- John Fensterwald
- John McDonald
- Paul Muench