July 29, 2021
For Gov. Gavin Newsom and anyone else promoting college savings accounts for low-income children, Oral Lee Brown has some advice:
“It’s not about the money.”
Brown, an Oakland real estate agent now in her 70s, has been promoting the same idea since 1987, when she “adopted” a class of first graders from Brookfield Elementary School in East Oakland, promising to pay their college costs if they stayed in school.
Credit: Oral Lee Brown Foundation
Oral Lee Brown with the first grade class she adopted from Brookfield Elementary School in East Oakland in 1987.
Of that original class of 23, one went to work, two died of gunshot wounds, one went to culinary school and 19 went to college — a college-going rate that rivals the highest-achieving districts in California. At the time, Brown’s students vastly outperformed their peers. In the 1990s Oakland Unified had some of the lowest test scores and highest dropout rates in California.