Minority Math Skills

I am recently elected to the Board of a Silicon Valley non-profit group, named ALearn, whose mission is to increase the number of underrepresented minority students prepared to attend and succeed at college.  Our metric is math skills, based on numerous studies that have repeatedly shown that Algebra I success is the best predictor of students achieving college eligibility.  Algebra II success in high school is the best single predictor of college completion, regardless of major field of study.

You've all heard of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) deficiency in American youth in recent years.   President Obama managed to mention them in the State of the Union speech on Tuesday night (I didn't hear Marco Rubio mention them though).  And you might have heard some of the statistics by ethnic group, but every time I see them written down, I stare in wonder:

In Santa Clara county, the center of Silicon Valley, 48% of all students 15 years and older are judged proficient in 8th grade algebra.  Get ahold of that number -- LESS THAN HALF in America's most technically aware county.  But the ethnic mix shows a decidedly mixed picture.  78% of Asians, 56% of Caucasians, 32% of African-Americans, and 23% of Hispanics have 8th grade math proficiency.

Algebra II -- the best predictor of college success -- shows 62% of Asians, 35% of Caucasians, 12% of African-Americans, and a mere 9% of Hispanics, in SILICON VALLEY schools are proficient.  This is a local disgrace, but it mirrors the situation in Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Florida all too well.  Three of the four most populous states in America have Latino populations approaching (or already exceeding) the Caucasian populations; all need some program ala ALearn.

Across California, 51% of students are Latino, while only 14% of Latino adults have an Associate degree or higher.  So in six out of seven family units for half the population of the most populous state in America, the least skilled and most at-risk students  (in terms of success predictors) have no role model at home to say, "knuckle down, you need this to be successful in life".

ALearn tries to change this, by intervention two ways -- a four week summer intensive in 7th grade math, and a twelve week, 1 hour per day optional math class in spring term.  Approaches are to use young interns with an experienced math teacher, with Khan Academy modules, games, practicums, and team exercises.  Kids ENJOY learning math in these stimulating environments.  What a concept!

ALearn has grown in six years from 100 experimental kids to 3,000 students in 2012.  Does it work?  Early indications are amazing -- 82% of their Latino 'graduates' have been 'college eligible' at the end of high school, vs. 26% of all Latinos in Silicon Valley.

But 3,000 kids is a drop in the bucket, versus 30,000,000 registered Hispanics in America and another 'estimated' 11,000,000 undocumented.   Check out www.census scope.org/us/map.hispanicpop.html to get a sense of how regional the 'immigration issue' really looks for America.  How do we scale from one county volunteer effort to a national impact organization?