Educational Equity
California is home to the largest population of Multilingual Learners (ML) in the United States. Across our state, 60% of children under age five (approximately 1.7M) and 19% of students in kindergarten to 12th grade (approximately 1.1M) are MLs. Nearly 42% of students in California’s public schools speak a language other than English at home. These children and youth represent the future of California.
At Sobrato Philanthropies, we envision thriving communities for low-wage and housing-insecure residents and families, starting in our home region of Silicon Valley. We believe schools play an important role in the success of communities. Through our educational equity efforts, we work with partners to make bold progress toward a visionary future where all MLs and students furthest from opportunity have access to a strong bilingual education program, leading to identify-affirming experiences, deep learning and academic success, and ultimately economic mobility.
We are part of a movement in California to ensure bilingual programs reach greater scale, so all MLs have access to the educational opportunities they deserve in PreK-12th grade, through:
- Policy: Build on the policy wins to-date to unlock greater funding and ensure the state provides the leadership, guidance, and support for districts to implement well.
- Practice: Strengthen the field’s capacity to deliver good instruction to MLs in classrooms across the state, focusing on growing a bilingual teacher workforce.
- People: Mobilize parents and families to demand what’s best for their children and hold their leaders accountable to providing those supports.
