While a high school degree by itself was once a ticket to a middle-class lifestyle, it’s now a ticket to poverty. America hasn’t built the ladders needed for most students to reach their choices of higher learning, high-opportunity jobs, and life purpose. These ladders must include effective guidance, social networks, adequate and fair financing, and quality programs that enable the knowledge and skills, wrap-around supports, and a concrete plan of action directly aligned to a student’s goals.
We built an “Action Tank” to make direct impact and inform systemic change, enabling everyone the opportunity to succeed—with a focus on low-income learners and learners of color. We identify exceptionally promising leaders and innovations. We provide long-term incubation to build, grow, and eventually spin off initiatives that directly impact underserved learners. We use these experiences and other research to inform our advising and our recommendations for philanthropy, systems change, and public policy. We do this work across three focus areas.
We help youth and early career adults access the skills and support needed for high-opportunity jobs and careers.
We help low- and moderate-income students apply to, enroll in, and graduate from well-matched, strong colleges.
We help high school students prepare for success in college, careers, and life.
We bring in leaders with extremely strong track records—and give them an opportunity in-house to create and build programs and initiatives. We help develop the idea and strategy and use insights to inform our recommendations for philanthropy and policy. We provide funding and other support, such as help recruiting leadership teams, forming key partnerships, and developing evaluation plans.
PROMOTING EQUITABLE ACCESS TO EDUCATIONAL AND ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY IN A CHANGING WORLD BY INCUBATING AND SCALING PROMISING INNOVATIONS AND IDEAS.
America Achieves, New America, and more than 30 other workforce-related organizations today released a joint letter calling on Congressional leaders to include workforce development in upcoming economic recovery and infrastructure legislation.
February 14, 2020 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Colorado educators, working with nonprofits America Achieves and mindSpark Learning and industry leaders, have developed and piloted a suite of Career-Ready Performance Tasks—industry-aligned, project-based learning experiences and corresponding resources to help students explore in-demand careers and develop and demonstrate learning of essential, in-demand skills. Across the country, […]
SEPTEMBER 10, 2019 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NATIONAL—America Achieves is pleased to announce the release of Quest for Success, an innovative career exploration course designed to help ensure students know about and are prepared for careers of the future. Any educator, school, or school system in the world can now access this high-quality curriculum completely free-of-charge […]