September 9, 2021

California is set to launch the nation’s largest college savings program, CalKids, later this year, opening college accounts for all newborns in the state and low-income students in first through 12th grade.

Long before California’s college savings account program, an Oakland woman “adopted” her own class of first graders and promised to pay for their college educations if they graduated from high school. What did she learn? And what can California learn from her?

Guests:

  • Carolyn Jones, Senior Reporter, EdSource
  • Oral Lee Brown, Founder and President, Oral Lee Brown Foundation
  • Nekita Noel-Ikulala, Former student sponsored by Ms. Brown
  • Jeffery Toney, Former student sponsored by Ms. Brown
  • Daishar Young, Former student sponsored by Ms. Brown

Read more EdSource articles on this topic:

Transcript:

Anne Vasquez:

Welcome to Education Beat. I’m Anne Vasquez, executive director at EdSource. College has become out of reach for some Americans. That’s because the rising cost of a college education has made it tough for many to afford. Many will turn to loans to help pay for college. But that comes at cost for the student and the economy. The amount of student debt in the US more than doubled over the past decade. College savings plans, like California’s Cal Kids Program, aim to provide a foundation for future college savings. Experts say the very act of opening a college account for a young child can motivate that student to excel its school and seek a college education. Long before California’s college savings account program, an Oakland woman adopted her own class of first graders. She promised to pay for their college educations if they graduated from high school. What did she learn? And more importantly, what can California learn from her? Here is this week’s Education Beat with host Zaidee Stavely.

Zaidee Stavely:

For Oral Lee brown, it all started 34 years ago. She was at her corner store in Oakland buying peanuts. A little girl asked her for a quarter. And Miss Brown assumed it was for candy.

Brown :

I just said to her get whatever you want can. And then the first thing she picked up was a loaf of wonder bread. And when I looked at her, she just stopped. I said, no, baby, get whatever you want. And she got wonder bread, baloney, and cheese. I gave her the little bag and we walked out. And I said, where is your mother? And she said, at home. I said, do you go to school? She said sometime. And she almost like froze. So I didn’t say another word to her.

Zaidee Stavely:

This is Education Beat, getting to the heart of California schools. I’m Zaidee Stavely. This week, Mama Brown. How one woman changed the lives of dozens of kids in her neighborhood. Miss Brown couldn’t get that little girl who needed bread, baloney, and cheese out of her mind. She just couldn’t stop thinking about her.

Brown :

Then my nights became her vision. When I would close my eyes, she was what I saw. I couldn’t go to sleep.

Zaidee Stavely:

Miss Brown wanted to do something to help that little girl. So she decided to visit her neighborhood elementary school to see if she could find her. The principal took her to see both first grade classes. She didn’t find the girl, but she did find a whole lot of other kids that moved her.

Brown :

And when I went into Mrs. Water’s class, it was just something about them. It was just like the gleam in they eye.

Zaidee Stavely:

She decided that she’d adopt a class of first graders to help save money for them to go to college.

Brown :

And I go into the class and I make the announcement that I would like to adopt this class to try to work with them. And once a year I would get them ten thousand dollars. They were so happy. And when I left school and got in my car, it was like a reality check. I got ready to drive and my hand… I couldn’t even drive. It was like, what have you done? You gonna give away $10,000. You’re making forty five thousand. And the only thing I think that helped me to get through this was knowing that, okay, you lived off of two dollars a day. I still I just sat there. And I guess it was maybe two months or so before I even told my husband.

Zaidee Stavely:

I’m here with my colleague, Carolyn Jones, who wrote the story about, Oral Lee Brown for EdSource. Carolyn, so Miss Brown adopted this class of first graders. And what did that mean? She put money into a savings account for them. What else did she do?

Carolyn Jones:

Well, she realized that the undertaking it’s not just money. Money alone does not send a kid to college. It’s gotta be tutoring and support and love and care and food and a safe place to sleep every night and clothes and school supplies. And that’s what she committed to. She devoted countless hours, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week for years helping these children. She hired tutors. She took them on field trips to San Francisco. She took them to nice restaurants. So they would know, you know, what it’s like to go to a nice restaurant. She took them to the Oakland zoo, which even though it was just a mile or so away, most of the kids had never been to. She took them on college tours to the east coast. She took the on tours to historically black colleges and universities. She hired tutors. She just devoted, you know, countless hours and resources to help these children succeed.

Zaidee Stavely:

Carolyn, you spoke to Mama Brown and she talked about giving the kids food and clothes.

Brown :

The school would call me, a kid would call me. Cory’s not in school… Mama Brown, I don’t have no shoes… Trey said, mom, I don’t have nothing to wear, my clothes not washed. You know? So even friends were saying to me, well, you agreed to pay for the education, but not they clothes. Well, you know what? In order for them to get an education, they gotta go to school. In order to go to school, they gotta have clothes. So you could not do one without the other.

Zaidee Stavely:

Carolyn, what happened to that first class of first graders that she adopted?

Carolyn Jones:

Well, there were twenty three children in that class. And of those twenty three, one of them went directly to work. One of them went to culinary school. Two of them died of gunshot wounds. And nineteen graduated from college. Which is an extraordinarily high figure that is better than even some of the highest performing districts in California. And at the time it was extraordinary for Oakland, which at the time had some of the lowest college going rates in California.

Zaidee Stavely:

Wow. Carolyn, you interviewed several of Mama Brown’s students. Let’s hear from Nekita Noel-Ikulala, Daishar Young, and Jeffery Toney.

Daishar :

It’s a lot more than the money. It’s her love that she gives you, her aura, her energy that she shares with all her students. And then the connection which each and every student has a connection with her. You know, as you get older, you tend to have more, serious conversations as I did as a student. And she, you know, she lays it out all on the table. And then she, you know, helps you navigate. She never really tells you that you need to do this, but she shares stories with you. And she, you know, gives you a chance to come up with solutions on your own.

Nekita:

Ms. Brown was very hands on with us. Like she was not, she was like a mother or a mentor or a grandma, whatever you wanna say. She was like that kind of lady to us. It wasn’t just some random lady that’s just here for the spotlight. She was literally there for us even like through personal problems. Like if my mama called her and said, Nekita’s acting out, it was like, okay, let me put her in line. Let me get her straight. Let me get her together. You know, it was that kinda relationship.

Jeffery :

The role that Miss Brown played was a mom figure. She was like a mother because it wasn’t just about, oh, I’m giving you this opportunity to go to school. It was life lessons. She showed us love. She showed what it meant to care about somebody. So it was more than just a school opportunity. It was a family structure. We would take trips. She would invite us over for dinner. Do car washes together. It was all a family structure. So all the students would come together and participate in whatever functions that they had. And it was just like one big family.

Zaidee Stavely:

We just heard from Nekita Noel-Ikulala, Daishar Young, and Jeffery Toney. Carolyn, how did those relationships matter for them? How did it make a difference?

Carolyn Jones:

Well, I think all of them, you know, they’re still in touch with her, they still consider her family basically. A role model. I think they all refer to her as a real life angel. Jeffrey Toney, his story was a little bit different than a lot of the other students. I think a lot of the students were very motivated to go to college. Jeffrey had decent grades in high school, but he was homeless. He had a lot of family problems. He was involved with crime and drugs. College was not really something he was thinking about. But you know, Miss Brown just pushed him and pushed him and pushed him and took him on college tours and did not give up on him. And she paid entirely for him to go to a private school in Chicago, and get him out of Oakland, get him in a new environment, get him studying something he was interested in, which was music and art. I asked Jeffery, you know, what kind of impact she had on him and what would’ve happened to him if it wasn’t for her.

Jeffery :

Honestly, dead or in jail. If I didn’t reunite with the Oral Lee Brown Foundation my freshman year, I probably would’ve ended up dead or in jail.

Carolyn Jones:

And now he’s back in Oakland and he’s a successful artist and musician and raising a daughter and helping other people in the community. He actually wrote a song in her honor. It’s called Real Life Angel.

Zaidee Stavely:

What about Nekita? I remember reading in your article about what happened when she went off to Chico State. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Carolyn Jones:

Yeah. She had good grades in high school and she was very motivated to go to college. And her family was very excited for her and she chose to go to Chico State. But then when she got there and thought, oh my gosh, there’s hardly any other black students here. I think there was a lot of cultural differences. I think she felt very overwhelmed, very homesick. Not unusual for a lot of college freshmen. And she wanted to come home. I think within a week, she said, I’ve made a huge mistake. I want out out.

Nekita:

When my mom first took me to Chico State, I called her, I said, come back. I’m I’m not staying here. Come back and pick me up. And she was like, I don’t know what to do. I was like, come get me now. And so she called Miss Brown and Miss Brown told her, she said, Diana, if you go get her, she’s not gonna ever finish school. And I remember Miss Brown calling and she said, I know it’s hard, but baby, this is your chance. You need to finish. Do not go back. And she was like, it’s more to life, and getting this education would definitely help you become more.

Zaidee Stavely:

Wow. And she stayed, right?

Carolyn Jones:

Yeah. She stayed there for two years and then transferred to Sacramento State, which was a little closer to home and she felt a little more comfortable at. Now she’s gone on to receive multiple master’s degrees. She’s social worker in Sacramento. She’s married. She has a child.

Zaidee Stavely:

Carolyn, what made Miss Brown or Mama Brown as her students call her, decide to keep doing this? I mean, it wasn’t just that first first grade class. Now she’s helped lots of students. How many students has she helped?

Carolyn Jones:

Well over one hundred and twenty students that she’s paid for entirely to go to college. And the graduation rates are 80 to 90%, college graduation rates are 80 to 90%. Which again is almost unheard of. So I think what motivates her, what she told me is that, these children, they come to her and they say, we wanna go to college. We can’t go unless we have help. And she has been there herself. She knows what it’s like. And also she’s seen the difference that just a little nudge, a little push can make. And so that’s why she keeps doing it.

Zaidee Stavely:

You know, we heard earlier from her talking about how she pledged the ten thousand dollars a year. And then she went back to her car and she was shaking because she, she thought, oh no, how am I gonna do this? How am I gonna get by? It was a big chunk of her income, but she also said that she remembered living on two dollars a day. And that that was kind of a reality check for her.

Carolyn Jones:

She grew up in poverty, in Mississippi, living in rural Mississippi. And segregated Jim Crow south. And was miserable and hated it and desperately wanted to get out. And she told me that she made a deal with God. Get me out of Mississippi and I’ll do anything you want. And I think that when she met that class of first graders and met that little girl on the street corner, I think she somehow felt that, okay, this is my end of the bargain here. This is what I’m gonna do.

Zaidee Stavely:

Carolyn, a lot of these students were really poor and they probably qualified for financial aid anyway, and a lot of people would say that, college savings accounts, you know, this isn’t really for poor kids, it’s for maybe more middle class kids who can’t afford college, but also are not gonna get that much financial aid. How is it helpful to have something like this, have a college savings account, even if you probably would qualify for financial aid?

Carolyn Jones:

Well, that’s good question, Zaidee. There’s been a lot of research into that. There are some researchers at Washington University in St. Louis who looked really closely at that issue. Kids who have college savings accounts are three to four times more likely to graduate from college. And among very poor children it’s more of a symbolic thing. You’re right in that most of them are gonna qualify for financial aid anyway. But just this notion that, hey, the state believes in me, somebody believes in me, somebody thinks I can go to college and have a future. And it’s helpful for parents too. There was a study in Oklahoma that said that low income mothers who had these accounts for their children were less likely to be depressed. They were more likely to be engaged in their kids’ schools. More likely to have higher expectations for their children. So what was interesting about that study is that they were seeing the positive impact of these accounts before the kid even got to college. So right from the beginning, they were seeing positive impact, even though it might have just been, you know, a couple hundred dollars.

Zaidee Stavely:

And what kind of positive impact? Like kids coming to school more often?

Carolyn Jones:

Yeah. Yeah. And just basically higher expectations, you know, pushed a little bit harder by their parents. You know, parents more engaged in school. The kids have a little bit more self confidence. Maybe higher goals for themselves.

Zaidee Stavely:

So California is starting a big college savings plan this year. And I know some other states and cities have done it in the past. How much of a big deal is California’s plan?

Carolyn Jones:

California’s will be the biggest one in the country when it starts. A lot of other states have started this already. These kind of government sponsored college savings accounts, a lot of individual cities, Oakland and San Francisco both have them. Other cities and states around the country have them, but California’s, when it starts next year, will be the biggest one in the country. I think they’re expecting 500,000 students to enroll in it right away. And the state will start with giving each kid, I think twenty five dollars as seed money. And then the expectation is that private foundations will donate over time and parents will donate. And even if it’s, you know, just on birthdays or Christmas or whatever, or as a reward for getting good grades. What it’s shown… the results in other areas that have done this is that it does increase the number of children who go to college and who have less debt or no debt when they go. And they graduate quicker because of that too.

Zaidee Stavely:

Are there other benefits to the savings account?

Carolyn Jones:

Yes. There are tax benefits. The money that you put into these tax accounts is tax free and when you withdraw the money and you spend it on college expenses, it’s also tax free. There’s the issue of children decide not to go to college, then the money is taxed. So in other words, there’s a big incentive to use it to go to college.

Zaidee Stavely:

So, Caroline, I know you asked some of Mama Brown’s students about what they think California could learn from their experience and what they think of California doing the same kind of thing for other kids. What did they say?

Carolyn Jones:

Well, they said, it’s a great idea because, you know, for all of these people, it just made an incredible difference in their lives. But they also emphasize that it really isn’t just the money. A lot of it was academic support, tutoring. I think all these kids had to go to Saturday school with Mama Brown, doing homework, getting academic support. She brought in students from UC Berkeley to help them. I mean it was really this multi-pronged effort. And then just plus having someone to talk to, someone to, you know… It’s hard being a teenager. Just having someone you can call up, if you just broke up with a boyfriend or girlfriend… Just like support at every level in every way is what really made the difference. Feeling that somebody believed in them, someone was there on their side, rooting for them and helping their family. It wasn’t like their family wasn’t there. I mean, just supplementing what their family was able to do for them.

Zaidee Stavely:

What is Mama Brown doing now?

Carolyn Jones:

She’s still at it. She’s in her seventies. And she goes to graduations, goes to birthday parties, talks to her current students and former students every day on the phone. When I was interviewing her, her phone just rings nonstop. She is a hundred percent still involved in this.

Zaidee Stavely:

What’s the big lesson that Mama Brown can teach?

Carolyn Jones:

Well, what really struck me is that the money was huge. I mean, the money allowed these students to go to college debt free. They didn’t have to work. They graduated on time. The money made a huge difference in their academic careers and their life beyond that. But leading up to that, it wasn’t just the money. It was also the academic support. It was having someone to talk to. It was just feeling like there was somebody out there helping their family, helping them, rooting for them, pushing for them, there for them twenty four hours a day, that really made the big difference. So it wasn’t just the money. It was also the love.

Zaidee Stavely:

Thank you so much, Carolyn.

Carolyn Jones:

Sure. Thank you Zaidee.

Zaidee Stavely:

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of Education Beat, getting to the heart of California schools, a production of EdSource. Our producer is Coby McDonald. Special thanks this week to Carolyn Jones, Andrew Reed, Oral Lee brown, Nekita Noel-Ikulala, Daishar Young, and Jeffery Toney and our director Anne Vasquez. Our theme music is from Blue Dot Sessions. This episode was brought to you by the Kresge Foundation and the Silver Giving Foundation. I’m Zaidee Stavely. Join me next week and don’t forget to subscribe.