Breakthrough San Francisco’s annual event, “Raise Your Hand,” brought some 150 supporters to San Francisco Day School on February 3. Presented by AT&T, the evening raised more than $105,000 in crucial operating funds for Breakthrough, while sparking a conversation about educational access in the city. Our sincere gratitude extends to all event sponsors, volunteers, and guests, with particular appreciation to event co-chairs Barbara Abbott and Lea Stevens, as well as featured speakers Richard Carranza, SFUSD’s deputy superintendent, and Daniel Lurie, founder and CEO of Tipping Point Community.
Click here to see photos from the night, and click here for video. Read on for excerpts from two of the evening’s speakers.
Tomicia Blunt – Breakthrough Student
Many of you might be wondering why Breakthrough is special. Well I’m here to tell you. Breakthrough is not an average academic program. It does not have an average staff. The students aren’t average either. The teachers and students take learning to the next level. We learn inside and outside the classroom. We take in everything we see, feel, and hear. The teachers are creative and make learning fun. They even make homework fun.
At Breakthrough, we have a lot of special opportunities. During the summer, I got to do fun experiments in my science class. I liked dissecting the cow’s eye and sheep’s brain. It was fun because I learned about the specific parts of the eye and the brain. The eye was cool because since it was taken out of the cow, you couldn’t see the pupil anymore. The brain was cool because it was squishy and didn’t look like a human brain. I might want to be a scientist when I grow up, so learning about anatomy will be very useful for me.
Daniel Lurie – CEO and Founder, Tipping Point Community
When it comes to breaking the cycle of poverty for the next generation, there’s simply no better lever for change than education. Education equals choices. High school dropouts are four times more likely to be unemployed than college graduates. San Francisco’s district attorney, Kamala Harris, reports that 94 percent of all homicide victims under the age of 25 are high school dropouts. Half of Oakland high school students don’t graduate. 75 percent of Latino and African American students in Oakland don’t complete high school. The numbers are staggering, and I think you all agree that they are unacceptable. On the flip side of those numbers, earning a Bachelor’s degree increases a person’s earnings by one million dollars. Education prevents poverty. One of our biggest goals at Tipping Point is to ensure that all students, regardless of race or zip code, have access to college prep education.
As President Obama said last week in the State of the Union address, “In the twenty-first century, one of the best anti-poverty programs is a world-class education.” In this country, the success of our children cannot depend more on where they live than on their potential. The statistics tell us what happens when kids aren’t supported to stay in school. In five to ten years, I hope that we see a real tipping point in access to phenomenal education and comprehensive after-school support programs that can prove what they’re doing works. By giving kids the best shot at education, programs like Breakthrough are not only increasing students’ lifetime earnings potential; they’re giving them the opportunity to break the generational cycle of poverty for good.
