100 Black boys enter California kindergarten this fall.
By 27, an estimated seven of them are working in a professional career. This page is what happens between.
Every number on this page is sourced. View methodology →
Age 5 · Kindergarten
Here they are.
Every dot is one of them.
Each section ahead is a milestone — a credential, an enrollment, a degree, a job. Watch what fraction reach it.
Sources: CA Department of Education / ACLU State of Black Education California 2024 · report PDF · CDE DataQuest (2023–24 enrollment).
Age 9 · 4th-grade reading
17 of 100 are reading at grade level.
For California 4th graders overall, the number is 47.
The reading gap for Black students in California has not narrowed since 1998. The state’s own equity office projects parity around 2070.
Sources: CAASPP 2023–24, NAEP 2024 Reading (CA), EdTrust-West Black Minds Matter 2025. CDE, NAEP CA.
Age 11 · Gifted identification
10 of 100 are placed in GATE, honors, or gifted programs.
Of every four Black students who test as gifted, only one is identified.
The same teacher discretion that suspends Black boys at twice the rate filters them out of GATE at half the rate.
Sources: US Dept of Education Office for Civil Rights, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020–21; EdWeek analysis; CRDC.
Age 13 · Still in the seat
7 of 100 have made it through middle school without a suspension.
Black boys are suspended at roughly three times the California statewide average. A single suspension by 9th grade roughly doubles a student’s odds of dropping out.
The gap doesn’t start in middle school. Black boys make up 9% of California preschool enrollment and 23% of preschool out-of-school suspensions. The gap starts at age 3.
Sources: CDE DataQuest; EdSource 2025; EdSource; US Dept of Ed OCR Discipline & School Climate 2020–21.
Age 17 to 18 · The credential gate
67
Of every 100 Black boys who entered California kindergarten, 67 leave high school ineligible to apply to a UC or CSU.
California’s A-G sequence — Algebra II, two years of lab science, two years of a single foreign language, a year of visual or performing arts — is the minimum coursework that makes a student eligible to apply. Without it, the application doesn’t get read.
Black students finish A-G at 33 of 100. The California average is 45. The door closes before they reach it.
Source: ACLU CA State of Black Education Report Card 2024 (A-G completion 2022–23). ACLU.
Age 18 to 25 · The college years
Each step is narrower. The gap widens at every one.
83 of the original 100 Black boys graduate high school on time. 27 enroll directly in a four-year college. 11 walk out with a bachelor’s degree six years later. The comparison cohort holds onto a bigger share at every step.
Black boys
From original cohort of 100
California average
All California boys, for comparison
These are population baselines — not chained from the K-8 academic-foundation funnel earlier on this page. They answer “of all 100 starters, how many reach each credential?” The graduation rate is the strongest gate the cohort passes through; the bachelor’s degree is the narrowest.
Of the 27 Black boys who enroll in a four-year college, only about 40% complete a bachelor’s degree within six years — one of the lowest 6-year completion rates of any major demographic group. Black male college students are over-concentrated at under-resourced institutions, work more paid hours during school, and graduate with the highest average student-debt load.
Sources: CDE 2024 Dashboard (graduation); NCES Condition of Education · immediate enrollment; 6-year bachelor’s completion. Full methodology →
Age 27 · The career
7
7 of 100. Out of every thousand, seventy.
An estimated seven Black boys reach a professional or managerial career by their late twenties. Across all California boys, the figure is around 17.
The work to change that number had to start twenty years ago, and at every stage between then and now.
Endpoint combines NCES bachelor’s-completion data with BLS occupational data on degree-required “management, professional, and related” roles. This is a magnitude estimate, not a literal count — a lower bound for one common definition of a professional career. BLS CPS Table 10 · Full methodology →
The answer
These are the boys who made it through.
For [N] years, 100 Black Men of Silicon Valley has run mentorship, academic enrichment, college access, and family programming for Black boys across the Bay Area. We work at every stage of the pipeline this page describes — at the reading level, in the honors classroom, on the college admit, into the first professional role.
Of our scholars, [N]% graduate high school. [N]% enroll in a four-year college. [N] are in a professional career today.
The funnel is what happens by default. We are what happens when somebody intervenes.
Three paths
If you are a Black man in Silicon Valley
Become a mentor.
A scholar in your area is waiting for someone who looks like the future they're trying to build.
Interested in Membership? →
If you have benefited from Silicon Valley
Fund a scholar's year.
Cover the cost of one scholar's programming year — SAT prep, college tours, laptops, the full track.
Donate →
Either way
Send this to someone who should see it.
A school administrator. A parent. A Bay Area engineer. The page does the work.
Share →