Today, we unveil our new Education Strategic Framework, the result of a two-year review of our early literacy strategies and opportunities for impact. The Kenneth Rainin Foundation has been funding early literacy efforts in Oakland for more than 15 years. We remain committed to our vision of a world where every Oakland child has the literacy skills to thrive. In this blog, and the corresponding video below, Nicole Kendrick, Education Program Officer, and I talk through our new strategies, which embrace equity and center community knowledge.
Last spring, I wrote about the impact of our literacy investments and shared the findings of an assessment aimed at strengthening our grantmaking. Since then, we’ve engaged a new Community Advisory Council and continued seeking community and partner perspectives to design grantmaking that could have the most impact. These strategic planning efforts deepened our understanding of the factors that influence student access to resources and opportunities for learning to read.
The State Of Literacy In Oakland
Today, fewer than half of Oakland students meet English and language arts requirements, and those who are not meeting requirements are disproportionately living in historically underserved communities. Additionally, Oakland is facing multiple challenges to ensuring that Oakland children have the literacy skills to communicate, learn and thrive by third grade.
- Schools face decreased public funding due to declining enrollment. As school populations decrease, schools must do more with less.
- Schools are also facing budgetary cuts as federal pandemic-related aid expires.
- A number of private funders have directed resources away from Oakland’s literacy efforts.
- Leadership transitions within the school systems could shift priorities and resources, disrupting momentum.
As challenges loom, we’ve learned that Oakland’s literacy foundation is strong:
- There is greater awareness around Oakland’s literacy crisis and momentum continues to build for literacy to be seen as a civil rights issue, which is motivating much needed change.
- Oakland is rich in the people power needed to raise literacy rates.
- School systems have made significant investments in research-aligned curricula and assessments.
- Literacy partners are collaborating and coordinating to amplify impact.
There are many factors that influence student access to resources and opportunities for learning to read. The Rainin Foundation’s contributions are one, among many others, toward strengthening early literacy education. Using what we’ve learned through evaluations as well as input from our grantees, partners and community councils, we are committed to supporting equitable approaches in partnership with communities.
While continuing to be responsive to the evolving context, we’re focusing on opportunities where our funding can make the most impact in this current climate. We offer three strategies to bolster Oakland’s literacy efforts as challenges unfold.
Three Strategies Focused On Structured Literacy
Over the next three years, our Education strategies will focus on a research-aligned approach that intentionally strengthens children’s knowledge of written words and language. This shift builds on our strengths and existing opportunities to help children, from birth to eight years old, in underserved Oakland communities have the literacy skills to thrive. These strategies will support the following equitable approaches to Structured Literacy:
1. Increasing proven literacy programs
We will invest in increasing the number of literacy programs in schools and community-based organizations that explicitly and systematically support decoding, encoding and translanguaging— skills that are crucial to helping students communicate, learn and thrive.
We support approaches that engage translanguaging, which encourages children to use all the languages they know—including dialects—to learn and communicate. This skill helps children fully participate in their own learning.
2. Improving teaching and learning practices
We aim to improve educators’ approach to Structured Literacy, translanguaging and anti-racist, culturally affirming practices.
3. Strengthening family and community partnerships
We’ll prioritize partnerships that nurture and expand the capacity of families to engage in literacy development and that strengthen coalitions seeking to improve conditions for language and literacy attainment.
We will invest in programs that recognize and support parents and caregivers as leaders in their children’s education.
The Tactics That Support Our Strategies
To increase proven literacy programs, improve teaching and learning practices and strengthen family and community partnerships, we will engage in the following tactics:
- Focus on early learning through second grade
- Fund proven literacy models
- Foster interdependence among organizations
- Boost families’ capacity to support literacy growth
- Collaborate with other funders
What Stays The Same And What’s New
The Rainin Foundation remains deeply committed to Oakland children achieving literacy milestones and to families and educators excelling in children’s literacy growth. The changes we are making are designed to strengthen early literacy education and complement existing resources and people power to raise literacy rates.
- Early Care Spaces will continue to support organizations laying the groundwork for early language and literacy development for Oakland children ages zero to five. This open application grant program aims to support learning opportunities for kids, career advancement and upskilling for early care Black providers, and parent and caregiver support for early literacy.
- We will continue to fund coalitions and convenings that advocate for and bolster literacy efforts.
- We will continue to leverage liberatory and participatory approaches, centering the perspectives of our community in decision-making, learning and evaluation.
- Our new invite-only school grant, launching in 2026, recognizes that schools are sites of change where principals, family leaders, teacher-coaches, teachers and tutors all work together to ensure every child in Oakland has the literacy skills to thrive. Our Community Advisory Council was formed in late 2024 to support the development and design of this grant and to identify schools to invite for funding. This school grant replaces our system-level grant, which started in 2016 and will sunset in 2026.
What’s Next
The Rainin Foundation has long seen itself as a nimble funder and our revised strategies reflect and respond to the shifting needs of Oakland and the early education field. As a learning organization, we extend trust to our grantee partners and will apply what we learn to shape our grantmaking and other work. We are grateful to the people who have provided feedback and offered their input to strengthen our grantmaking. I invite your feedback and questions.
