In a destructive year in which districts everywhere in California are eliminating summer school and cutting way back on training for teachers, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation is stepping into the breach. It has awarded nearly $2 million in grants for summer and after-school programs and year-long professional development for middle school teachers in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.

The target is smart and strategic: The money will go toward improving algebra instruction and substantially increasing the numbers of students, particularly from low-income minority districts, who are proficient in algebra by the time they enter high school. This  will put them on track toward meeting the math and science courses required for admission to a four-year college.

About 2,000 students will benefit from the summer and after-school programs. In San Mateo County, the focus will be on summer bridge programs for entering high school freshmen who are struggling with math. In Santa Clara County, most of the money will go toward preparing seventh graders for pre-algebra and eighth graders for Algebra I. A partnership between ALearn and the Silicon Valley Education Foundation’s four-week Stepping Up to Algebra program will reach 1,260 students in nine Santa Clara County school districts – a big expansion of last year’s program.**

The Silicon Valley Community Foundation and the Silicon Valley Education Foundation will be more assertive this year to ensure that students who do well in summer school advance to the right course. A new study for the Noyce Foundation found that unexpectedly large percentages of Bay Area students who would have been expected to take Geometry in ninth grade were instead reassigned Algebra I for two, sometimes three years in high school. Researchers believe that some of the same assessment problems may be keeping back students who would be ready for pre-Algebra and Algebra in middle school. As a result, the community foundation and the education foundation will require that participating districts consider success in summer school before assigning students math courses for the fall.

Math coaches and training

The $1 million for teacher training will reach about 200 new and veteran teachers through a baker’s dozen grants to non-profits, school districts, two San Jose charter schools, San Jose State and Teach for America, which places top college graduates into low-achieving schools. Some teachers will take Intel Math, a program that offers basic algebra concepts that teachers may have missed in college. Others will be taught pedagogy by math coaches associated with the Silicon Valley Math Initiative. Teachers in a Daly City district will learn a new program, geared to students learning English, developed by the Lawrence Hall of Science. And teachers participating in a program at the Krause Center for Innovation at Foothill College will become versatile with technology that can enhance math instruction.

This will be the second year that the community foundation is funding summer school and professional development in math. It’s part of a five-to-seven year commitment to reverse numbers of minority students in Silicon Valley who are failing or dropping out. The timing couldn’t be better, with districts enlarging classes, cutting back on after-school and extra instruction, and eliminating positions for instructional coaches.

“Without these investments, this persistent achievement gap will get worse. We cannot afford to let that happen,” Silicon Valley Community Foundation CEO Emmett Carson said in a press release.

** The usual disclaimer: I and The Educated Guess are affiliated with the Silicon Valley Education Foundation.