Kathryn Hanson

Santa Clara, CA

In 2007, I co-founded ALearn, a nonprofit that delivers high-quality math and college readiness programs to low-income students, to prepare them for the “college track” in high school. To date, we’ve served 8,000 students, all for free.

The year we founded ALearn, my son was a senior in a local public high school. I noticed that there were no Latino kids in his Advanced Placement classes. I decided to do something about that.

I partnered with a like-minded friend, Julie Cates, and we researched what would make the biggest difference in launching low-income kids on a trajectory to college. Algebra was the answer. We designed a program, started raising money, and held our first classes in 2008.

ALearn has been a passionate labor of love for me. For our students, we have seen clear benefits: In 2015, ALearn middle school students showed 20% higher growth than their peers throughout the U.S. on the Pearson Navigator math assessments; ALearn high school students’ pass rates for Algebra are consistently around 80%, versus the ~45% school-year pass rate; and our high school students graduate college-ready (having passed their “A-G” Requirements to enter a California State University or University of California) at 2.2 times the rate of their peers.

The wisdom and experience of older workers is very valuable. Staying engaged in good work is invigorating. I highly recommend it.