Dosa - build - Our priority

Our Priority

The City of Berkeley is home to the nation’s most renowned public institution of higher education. Yet its school system has one of the widest racial achievement gaps in the entire state of California. In 2007, only 25% of African American and 30% of Latino elementary students were proficient in Language Arts, compared to 84% of White students. These alarming disparities increase as children progress through the school system, so that by junior year of high school only 13% of African Americans and 21% of Latino students scored proficient in Language Arts compared to 76% of White students.

To address the troubling inequities dividing Berkeley's children, the City Council recently passed the 2020 Vision, pledging to work collaboratively with the school district, UC Berkeley, and other key partners to end the achievement gap by the year 2020. A major priority of the collaborative is achieving universal reading proficiency among 3rd graders. A national study released in April 2011 shows that children who do not read proficiently by 3rd grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school than their peers.