>> thank you guys so -- you guys are really all 16 years old? not your 16th birthday? really? you are 5? you are all five? but why do you guys look like you are 16? you all look older than 5. do you think you look older than 5? yes, you kind of do. how old do you think i am? am i, like, 50? am i, like, 100? could i be 100? really? do you think? do you think i am 15 years old? >> yes. [laughter] mayor newsom: do you think i'm 20 years old? 25? that is, like, really, really

old, 25. how about 30? that is too old, i know. so it is not your 16th birthday, all of you. but you are in high school, right? you are not? you are in kindergarten? wow. are you guys going to college? >> yes. mayor newsom: all of you are going to college? why are you not going to college? but when you are bigger, you are all going to college, right? yes. if you eat lunch, you will get big and go to college. that is true. but you have all heard of college? yes? what is college? this college like a foreign country? >> yes. mayor newsom: what is it?

is it a place you go for vacation? is it school? it is still school, but it is like a long time. so you are in school forever. it starts at your age, at 5, and then when you are -- i don't know -- 15, you are still in school. 20, and you are still in school. maybe beyond. but college is important, right? don't you think college -- he went to college. and look how important he looks. [laughter] but he does not just look important. he really is important because he has all the money in san francisco. you know what money is, right? yes, he has it all. all of your money. like, all of it. really, he does. how much of their money do you

have? >> we have billions of dollars. mayor newsom: that is a lot, right? what do you do with their money? >> dns it and keep your money safe. mayor newsom: -- need to invest it -- we invest it and keep your money safe. we help a community and use it to make businesses successful. isn't that great? mayor newsom: it is very exciting, isn't it? so all of you guys are going to college because that is what you told me earlier. right? college is important, we agree? and you are excited about college? really excited? do you think it is more homework or less homework than kindergarten? you think it is more? college kind of has more? do you have a lot of homework

now? not really? do you want more homework? you do? nice. i agreed. this is a good kindergarten class. you have homework at home? it is really interesting. the best part about homework is that is where it is, at home. yes, you can run stuff at college. that is very good. what else happens in college? what was that? it is okay, guys. yes, you get bigger in college. your mind gets bigger, too. how about you? you probably get a little more homework, but -- i do not know if it gets easier. does it get easier in college? >> a little bit easier.

>> you are smart, though. i had a hard time with homework. how about you? did you have your hand up? that is okay. do not worry about it. how about you? we're going to get money, and that is why we are here. i'm so glad. we've worked this out, right, before? he said way, mr. superintendent. is money important to go to college? >> yes, it is. it costs a lot of money to go to college. you have to buy books. you have to find a place to live. you need to have a lot of money. you need to eat while you are in college. mayor newsom: she has college

cash? really? she put money aside? she has money in a savings account? that is good because that is what we are going to do today. all of you are going to be given a savings account so we are going to put money aside so when you are ready for college, you will have the resources, the money itself to actually afford college, and you are one of the first class is that is going to get -- one of the first classes that is going to get the college savings account, because of the wisdom of our supervisors, and all of these folks here, these apparent leaders, community leaders, and these folks that are part of something called foundations. what is a foundation? [laughter] >> [inaudible] mayor newsom: all right, that is

pretty good, huh? >> [inaudible] [laughter] mayor newsom: but green tea is healthier. do you think college helps you get a better job? who wants to get a job when they grow up? what kind of job do you want to get? you want to work on a house? >> [inaudible] mayor newsom: that is great. i hear that pays well. back here. you want to what? policeman? that is a very, very important job. all right. anybody want to be a doctor?

do you know that for almost all these jobs, do you know what you need to do? you need to go to college to get these jobs, so who is going to go to college? >> me! mayor newsom: fabulous. now you can go to lunch. we are popular now. >> good morning, everyone. i and the treasurer of san francisco. i want to welcome you to this fantastic announcement for the kindergarten to college program. and let you could join us to see some of our account holders. i would like to introduce the champion of this program, mayor gavin newsom. [applause] mayor newsom: thank you all for being here. this has been a long time

coming. we have been talking about this six or seven years. i remember reading a clip about then senate candidate in new york state hillary clinton talking about college savings accounts, talking about some countries that experimented with these from the world and how she had a decided to do something along these lines. i remember talking to some members of my staff about looking into the possibility of putting something like this together. a couple of things -- a couple of years went by. candidly, a couple of other things became priorities. this allowed working families to keep more of what they are earning and draw down more of the federal income tax credit. we started to work on another program that has national attention, again, a program jose has stored it, called bank on

san francisco, now called bank on california, and the president put down money on a program called bank on u.s. aid to deal with check-cashing places, and people needing to get their checks not only cast, but needn't pay day loans, which was the third leg of the story announced, and that is the notion of getting people out of the business of having to go to these predatory hated lenders. it has all been part of this narrative of literacy, to focus on building public/private partnerships and connecting to foundation, the academic community, and leaders throughout the city and really focus on stabilizing our diverse population, to provide resources, both the academic resources as well as the financial resources for people to move ahead and move forward. i have always thought cities are

laboratories of innovation, states are laboratories for democracies. this is where new ideas should be promulgated in should be pushed and should be advanced, and that is what we should be doing. this narrative that extends many years later to this program, a kindergarten to college, first of its kind in america. no city has done this. we tried for years ago, but members of the board of supervisors did not like the idea then rejected it. we did not even get a hearing. then, we got some other faces and learned a political lesson, and they took the lead, and we got a lot more support. supervisors campos and dufty felt this was an idea worth pursuing, and they led the charge of the board of supervisors to make sure there

was a fair hearing and make sure the community was part of the process and made sure we got the support of their colleagues to steward this forward, and jose cisneros had been trying to organize this, but knowing it would happen, he had to put the whole thing together, and he reached out to some partners in city bank, and we got some folks in stanford, university stanford university interested -- we got some folks at stanford university interested. all these groups said, "we love this idea." de gates foundation said they were interested in the idea, and we are here because all of that has come together. the notion is simple, and i will not take up much time except to say this -- once a mind is stretched, it never goes back to its original form. if you can create that quality of imagination, you can give

kids as young as kids that were just a year, a kindergarten, thinking beyond lunch and beyond recessed and talking about a college education. that has a transformative impact on their lives. do not underestimate the notion of a mind that is stretched. if you cannot think it and cannot see it, you can never necessarily be it, but if you start thinking and talking about things, the remarkable thing about life -- it tends to manifest. the one thing manifesting now is to think about something you can now afford because you have something a lot of families cannot afford. one-half of african-american and latino families do not have access to a san francisco -- do not have a checking account. one in three san franciscans do not have a checking account. they end up going to these check cashing places and 80 lenders. these kids now have something their parents do not have -- a

college savings account. they have friends in the private sector that will match the contributions of the city. then, you have a group saying this is about fiscal discipline and we want to create a financial literacy program around this. so we want to create other things in their lives beyond the notion of a college savings account. i think this could be profound. we may be wrong, but it sure is worth trying something new. 1/10 of low-income families ever graduate from college. this is serious stuff. we are the lowest percentage of parents that have not graduated from high school of any state in the united states of america, so how difficult it is for a parent who never graduated high school to imagine sending their kids to college, but here, we bring that stewardship and that mind set home, and i think it can dramatically change people's lives, and i think it will disproportionately benefit diverse communities, so i could not be more enthusiastic,

massachusetts -- more proud of the incredible support from carlos and how he immediately saw this as an opportunity to build on san francisco promise, our guarantee of a four-year college education. we just announced the gates foundation last week at colleges, preschool, and all these really wonderful things that are happening here in this city, and i want to again reinforce the incredible year ship of bevan and david and jose. i am really proud of them because they are the ones who will deliver on this. i want to thank the teachers and parents who stood up and stood side by side with us. with that, my time is expired five minutes ago. [applause]

>> thank you, mayor newsom. i want to spend a couple of minutes talking about the program itself. let me talk about the goals of the program. it really is about building aspirations in the hearts and minds of every child who enters the san francisco public school system. think about it -- the chance to let every child know that they have the equal opportunity to be successful, like everybody else in our city. that is the most important thing we can do, and to do that, we are going to use some city funds. we're going to open accounts and used city funds to put an initial small feat deposit into those accounts to make them real. the city will be voting either 50 or $100 in the account, depending upon the situation of the family, and that is meant to get the account established. the account will be open automatically, and that is a key feature of the program -- automatically opening up these

accounts. this is something that has never been done before, giving folks an opportunity to save in a fashion that is as easy as it possibly could be. it just shows up. it is just there. then, to make the accounts successful, obviously and $50 or $100 deposit is not going to amount to enough money to go to college. we need to engage the families, in gauge their relatives, and that is what we're going to do. we are going to work with the schools, teachers, parents, organizations, and we are going to do everything we can to help families learn how they can grow these accounts and make it successful for their kids. if they can find a way to put $5 or $10 a month into their child's college savings account, there will be significant money there when the child is ready to go to college. that is what we need to get parents to understand, and the way we are going to do that is work to private partners, many of whom are here today, to help

us educate folks. we are going to launch with financial incentives in the first year of the program. you will hear about those today. parents will be able to save money and have that money matched dollar for dollar in the program. true cash incentives to make this money available. that is what the program is about, changing the landscape, making the difference, but we cannot launched a program without solid backing and solid account support, and that is what we are here to announce today. we are here to announce that we are going to be working with citibank to open up accounts for all of our interim kindergartners, and we are going to work to get those accounts opened this fall. with that, i would like to introduce from citibank the head of the micro finance group there. bob. [applause] >> thank you. when san francisco came to us with this idea, and it was a very ambitious one, it did seem

very ambitious and an allied air in many ways, but i think the leadership of the city has a clarity and vision to put together a program that can be scaled and implemented in a way that will probably be an example for many of the cities. -- many other cities. we believe we will learn to build a platform above financial inclusion that will include all the students entering life. the other part is the collaboration of players here today. to start at the beginning, and the challenge to build a platform that every child will have an account, can see their accounts online, that they will see their balances, they will see the incentive account, but we need to go beyond that and think over the next 12 years, how do we take that excited group of kindergartners through a whole learning process about building and saving? we know that through recent reports, children who saved are

seven times more likely to go to university than those who did not. and it is not just the amount of money in the account that makes a difference. it is a lifetime of learning to manage funds, have the incentives and prioritization around managing their own assets. we are very excited to be part of this launch, and we look forward to working with the community to make it successful for all the children in the city. [applause] >> thank you, bob. we could not make this program is success without the incredible support of the school system, and i would like to introduce carlos garcia, the superintendent of schools. >> for us, this is like frosting on the cake. we have been working the last three years in san francisco unified to have a cultural shift in the district. many school districts same -- i do not think they aim high enough.

they say they want the kids to graduate from high school. i'm sorry, but in this day and age, that just is not good enough, so we started about three years ago an effort to include preschool, to have a conversation in kindergarten, to go through all the greats and start talking about -- there is a reason why we call graduation ceremonies in high school commencement ceremonies because it is actually the beginning, not the end. this plan -- yes, it is a commencement. what we forget is we cannot do this by ourselves. to have gavin and jose here -- we have been talking about this for a while. forjose first approached me about this, i thought that he was a little out there, and then

gavin -- we all know he is out there. but to have the supervisors jump in and say this is not about politics. it is really about creating a city where -- dogs get treated great year. no offense because i have a little dog. i know we are dog-friendly, but how about creating the most child-friendly city in the united states? that is what we want to do. what is great is that these folks here had the vision to realize that we cannot just expect the school district to do it all. that is why i think the streets have failed by an american. the only way school district are successful is one entire cities, communities get behind them and start believing in the children. hear, these faults are walking the talk. what really helped us last year, every ninth grader and every single high school is now required to take the a-g

requirement. that means you are not going to take classes that are a waste of your time. every course will get you into college or into a career. about regulating. it is about planning the rest of your life. i do not know about you -- i grew up dirt for. i did not have an account until i went to college and had a girlfriend who was smart enough to say to me that i needed to start putting money away. to have kids who have never had an opportunity for their parents to have an account to start planning for college is fabulous. just think of how we could grow this. we talked about partnerships, and it is great that we have partners who have stepped up, but imagine creating something where students who attend school, if we could find a donor or foundation that would say for every child that shows of all the time, has 90% attendance, we

will grow another $100 into the account. if we got everybody in this community we are born to start throwing in money for the kids. kids are wonderful thing but we need to put our money where our mouth is. we appreciate they are doing great things and we are going to reward them. that is what america is, the most capitalistic country in the world. let's reward these kids so by the time these kids graduate from high school and are ready to go to college, let's have some real money for them. one of the biggest obstacles when you speak to kids in high school, their kids, the no. 1 obstacle why they think they cannot go to college is they cannot think how they would pay for it. that should be out of our vocabulary's. every town that does make it

there, we pay for it tenfold in other ways. of what to think everybody who has stepped up. it seems only appropriate that now i get to introduce one of the parents. that is what we are here for. [speaking spanish] >> [speaking spanish] >> first, thank you for

implementing this program for our kids. it also prepares us, as parents, to think ahead for our kids. thank you. [applause] >> thank you so much. at this time, i want to introduce some of the other elected leaders who are strong chance of this program. this program is supported by the elkton family of san francisco. with that, i want to introduce supervisor bevan dufty. >> good morning, everybody. this morning, i picked up " chronicle" and i was thrilled to see this as the opening story.

i was reading this story and the reporter presented both sides. how are we going to pay for this, the reporter asked? he was being described as fiscally responsible and tight- fisted, and those are not usually words that are thrown in my direction, but it costs over $300 a day for a child to be in juvenile hall. we spend $114,000 a year to keep a young person in juvenile hall. the children we saw in the room today, by the time they are in second grade, what are david and i together? we share the community and children and schools with each other. by the time they are in second grade, they will know the difference between red and blue. it is a dividing line in our community and city. how wonderful it couldb