Beneficiaries

Tech Search Party has partnered with Reading Partners for this year’s event. All money raised will go directly toward providing one-on-one literacy tutoring to K-5 students at low-income elementary schools in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Reading Partners Program & Impact:

  • The Bay Area enjoys the highest per capita GDP in the world, yet one in five Bay Area residents live below the poverty line. Unfortunately, economic opportunity is correlated with children’s literacy rates.
  • According to the California Department of Education, only 53% of the Bay Area’s fourth graders from economically disadvantaged homes read at a proficient level. For students struggling to read proficiently, there exists a serious risk that the defeat they feel in 4th grade will follow them throughout their academic careers and beyond.
  • Fortunately, independent and external evaluation has demonstrated that Reading Partners is highly effective in improving students’ reading skills.
  • We harness the power of community service to provide high-impact differentiated instruction for students who are falling behind. We are narrowing the achievement gap for Bay Area students by the time they leave elementary school, thereby providing them with more opportunities for long-term success.
  • This past year, Reading Partners volunteers provided more than 46,000 hours of tutoring to 1,366 students in the San Francisco Bay Area.
  • During the upcoming 2014-15 school year, Reading Partners will operate programming in 27 San Francisco Bay Area elementary schools, providing one-on-one literacy tutoring to 1,485 low-income students who have fallen below grade level proficiency.
  • Our students consistently make outstanding gains during their time in the program. Prior to enrolling in Reading Partners last year, students were gaining only .6 months of literacy skills for every month in the classroom. After joining Reading Partners, our San Francisco Bay Area students gained 1.6 months of reading skills per month on average, a dramatic leap in their literacy acquisition.