David Silver is an innovative leader for educational equity informed by decades of work in deep partnership with the community for social justice. As the Director of Education for Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf for the past eight years, he brought together diverse stakeholders to build public-private partnerships, create coalitions and develop innovative models to increase educational equity that produced immediate impact, generational tranformation, and potential local, state and national models. From his experiences as a teacher in Compton and Oakland, co-founder and principal of Think College Now Elementary for eight years, to becoming a CEO of College Track for four years, David Silver has grown to become a leader for educational equity. He has most recently worked to create and sustain impact for equity working in collaboration with not only the Mayor but also students, families, educators, partners, labor, philanthropy, businesses, Oakland Unified School District, the City of Oakland, the State of California to realize a vision of educational equity for all students in Oakland.

After starting his career as a teacher in Compton and Oakland, David founded Think College Now, a high-performing, innovative, college-focused, community public school in the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland. Serving as the founding principal, David helped lead TCN to unprecedented growth, and it became the first school in Fruitvale to receive a California Distinguished Schools Awards and one of only 50 schools in all of California that was both a California Distinguished School and given the Title One Academic Achievement Award. David later served as the CEO of College Track, a national non-profit organization that empowers students from underserved communities to graduate from college. In David’s five years at College Track, the organization tripled in size while students attained a college acceptance rate of 94%, a college matriculation rate of 89%, and a college graduation rate that was more than 2.5x the national average for students in low-income communities.

David joined Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf’s office as the Director of Education in 2015 and created the Oakland Promise, a cradle-to-career initiative with the goal of dramatically increasing the number of college graduates from Oakland within a decade. The Mayor's Office, Oakland Unified School District, East Bay College Fund, the Oakland Public Education Fund, and other implementing partners, champions, and ambassadors have worked together to realize the Mayor and Superintendent’s vision of every Oakland public school student graduating high school with the expectations, resources, and skills to complete college and be successful in the career of their choice. Oakland Promise has created a cradle-to-career pipeline where medical-eligible babies will have access to Colllege Savings Accounts, has provided over 30,000 kindergarteners with scholarships, and 46% of the first cohort of OP scholars have graduated from college or are still pursuing their degree, compared to 28% of students from low-income backgrounds nationally. To sustain Oakland Promise, David helped ensure it not only created a $50M Generation Fund, but also led the transition from the Mayor's office to become its own 501c3 non-profit with an oustanding Board of Directors with a CEO.

David played a key role in creating and developing the Oakland Generation Fund, which aims to provide financial support to low-income children and help end generational poverty. This past year, Vice President Kamala Harris, Mayor Schaaf, Superintendent Johnson-Trammell, College CEO Sandra Ernst and David announced the culmination of the $50M fund so that within four years, every medical eligible baby will have access to a college savings account and every high school senior from a low-income background will have access to $1,000/year scholarship towards post-secondary education through graduation.

In the 2020-21 school year, David co-founded #OaklandUndivided, which delivered 29,000 computers and 10,000 hotspots, provided culturally-competent tech support and increased home tech connectivity for students from low-income backgrounds from 12% to 98%. Over the past three years, he has ensured that all 50,000 Oakland public school students continue to have access to a computer and internet in their home, and led the expansion from cradle to career by expanding access to OUSD and Head Start families as well as students at eight Bay Area colleges and universities. Today, he is serving as Senior Advisor to strengthen digital equity and support continued cradle-to-career digitial access, and realize #OaklandUndivided's goal to provide access to high-speed internet to all disconnected Oakland residents and increase city-wide broadband to sustain digital access and close the digital divide for good.

David presently leads the Northern California College Promise Coalition, a coalition he co-founded four years ago, that consists of 100s of mayors, cities, college promises, and college access programs serving over 150,000 students by advancing Policy, building campus Partnerships, Workforce development, and facilitating communities of Practice to strengthen conditions to increase opportunties for post-secondary success.