While the Bay Area trains the most skilled computer scientists, there is also massive inequity in education. In San Francisco, only 14% of African American students finish high school on time, while in the South Bay, Palo Alto High School’s graduation rate is 99.4%.

Addressing this injustice are corps members like Rebecca Snyder (Bay Area ’09) who are leading their students to transformative success while investing the broader community. Rebecca taught 1st Grade – Spanish bilingual at John Muir Elementary School. She led her students to achieve at least two years of growth in reading and taught them to believe in their potential. She also worked to empower parents to use their voices in their children’s education.

Our 1600 alumni are advocating for students at every level. When the state took over OUSD, it partnered with New Leaders for New Schools, the New Teacher Project, and Teach For America to bring in new leadership and dismantled large, failing schools to create smaller schools. On average, these small schools have significantly outperformed those they replaced. Hae-Sin Thomas (Bay Area ’93) headed up the small schools incubator program, before co-founding, with Jonathan Klein (Los Angeles ’97), Great Oakland Public Schools, a community organizing advocacy group that harnesses the power of parents to promote positive changes in education.

Successfully solving this problem requires us to grow bigger and bolder. We must continue to be innovative, entrepreneurial, and more immersed in our communities in order to tip the scales in favor of Bay Area students.