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As school districts grapple with a widespread loss of learning time caused by the COVID-19 pandemic—and as they struggle with how best to spend an infusion of one-time federal funds to address it—a group of education leaders, philanthropists, researchers, and local leaders today announced the launch of Accelerate, a nonprofit organization that seeks to embed high-impact tutoring programs in public schools now and for the long term.
As school districts grapple with a widespread loss of learning time caused by the COVID-19 pandemic—and as they struggle with how best to spend an infusion of one-time federal funds to address it—a group of education leaders, philanthropists, researchers, and local leaders today announced the launch of Accelerate, a nonprofit organization that seeks to embed high-impact tutoring programs in public schools now and for the long term.
Accelerate will fund and support innovation in schools, launch high quality research, and build a federal and state policy agenda to support this work.
With achievement gaps particularly profound among historically underserved students and with research showing that high-impact tutoring can produce sizable gains, Accelerate today issued a Call to Effective Actionto recruit state education agencies, school districts, and tutoring providers, among others, to join the national effort. Those selected to participate will receive financial and operational support to design, implement, and scale tutoring strategies; join a national community in which they can share best practices and resources; and ultimately help inform Accelerate’s national research and policy agenda.
Incubated and launched by the nonprofit organization America Achieves, Accelerate will be led by Kevin Huffman, the former Tennessee commissioner of education, who will be the initiative’s chief executive officer. Dr. Janice K. Jackson, the chief executive officer of Hope Chicago (and former chief executive officer of the Chicago Public Schools), will serve as executive chair. Founding board members are Jackson; Dr. Susanna Loeb, the director of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform and the National Student Support Acceleratorat Brown University; and Jon Schnur, the chief executive officer of America Achieves.
To date, America Achieves has raised $65 million for Accelerate toward a target of $100 million by next year. The initial support is being provided by Arnold Ventures; Kenneth C. Griffin, the chief executive officer of Citadel, who provided the first funding for the initiative; Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; and OverdeckFamily Foundation.
The lead research partners in Accelerate include the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown Universityand the University of Chicago.
Dr. Miguel Cardona, the U.S. Secretary of Education, said, “The evidence is clear: high-impact tutoring works, and I’ve urged our nation’s schools to provide every student who is struggling with extended access to an effective tutor.”
“The effort announced today—Accelerate—is a rallying cry to schools, districts, states, and others,” Cardona continued. “We must seize this moment to use federal relief funds to help students, including those most impacted by the pandemic, to close gaps in opportunity and achievement that grew even wider over the last two years. Together, we can ensure our elementary and secondary school students receive the supports they need to learn and grow.”
(See below for quotes from five former U.S. Secretaries of Education.)
Huffman, the Accelerate CEO, said: “States and districts are trying to address massive gaps in student outcomes, and they need stronger tools and better policies to help kids catch up. We know that high-impact tutoring can close academic gaps, but we need to develop cost-effective models that can be scaled and implemented in the years ahead. Education leaders are anxious for tools with a strong evidence base, and we are striving to build a research base and a practical toolkit that will help schools across the country.” Said Jackson: “Long-term, we want all students—and particularly the students with the greatest needs—to have free and regular access to high-impact tutoring and individualized learning. Our schools worked hard to narrow achievement gaps before the pandemic, but those gaps have now widened and must be addressed. We believe in the potential of all children, and we think it is our responsibility as adults working with public schools to provide tools that help them achieve their goals.”
Tutoring is generally defined as a form of teaching, one-on-one or in a small group, toward a specific goal. The National Student Support Accelerator, an initiative of the Annenberg Institute, defines high-impact tutoring programs as having “demonstrated significant gains in student learning through state-of-the-art research studies” or other “characteristics that have proven to accelerate student learning.” Among those characteristics: “substantial time” each week for required tutoring; “sustained and strong relationships” between student and tutor; “close monitoring” of student knowledge; alignment with school curriculum; and oversight of tutors to ensure “quality interactions.”
The pandemic has exacerbated existing inequities in American education, widening racial and economic gaps in learning. The nonprofit research organization NWEA, for example, has documented the toll of the first year of the pandemic on children, noting lower-than-normal math and reading levels for third through eighth graders this past fall.
At the same time, school districts are struggling with how best to spend billions in once-in-a-generation federal relief funding to accelerate student learning, as well as how to build models that are cost-effective and can be sustained once the federal funding runs out. School districts have already designated more than $1.7 billion in one-time funding for tutoring and coaching, a sum that is projected to grow to $3.6 billion by the time federal COVID relief aid to education expires in 2024, according to FutureEd, an independent think tank at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. And 37 state education agencies have pledged to support tutoring with their share of federal relief monies, as demonstrated by a state-by-state analysis that also includes planned levels of funding.
In his State of the Union address in February, President Joe Biden urged Americans to “sign up to be a tutor or a mentor” in their local schools to “help students make up for lost learning.”
To learn more about Accelerate and the importance of high-impact tutoring, register to join a webinar featuring Sec. Cardona today at 2 p.m. ET and/or visit accelerate.us.
Quotes about Accelerate
“This ambitious, timely project is meeting the moment in K-12 education. The effort brings together academic researchers, education officials, policymakers, and service providers to expand access to high-quality tutoring services and to coordinate and support research. It also builds and disseminates rigorous evidence on which interventions, strategies, and policies help improve academic achievement for students.” – Laura and John Arnold, Founders and Co-Chairs, Arnold Ventures
“We need to accelerate learning for the millions of students who have fallen behind during the pandemic. I care deeply about addressing this urgent recovery challenge and helping America’s students realize their true potential. I am thankful so many people are committed to this undertaking, which is important for the future of our country.” – Ken Griffin, Founder and CEO, Citadel
“After the COVID-19 pandemic, high-impact tutoring offers students critical educational support, closing gaps in foundational learning. We remain committed to ensuring tutoring interventions are cost-effective, so they can be scalable and sustainable in order to have meaningful long-term impact.” – John Overdeck, President, Overdeck Family Foundation
“We have decades of research showing that high-impact tutoring can help students recover from the unfinished learning they experienced—especially our most vulnerable and underserved children and young people. Accelerate will help school systems, states, and non-profits take action—equipped with funding, support, technical assistance, and partnership with a community of best practice. I encourage school districts, states, and nonprofits to respond to Accelerate’s Call to Effective Action.” – John B. King Jr., Former U.S. Secretary of Education
“I am excited to see a highly successful, student-centered superintendent and state commissioner come together to lead this work. Janice Jackson led significant academic innovations in Chicago and brings two decades of experience working successfully with high-need students. Kevin Huffman led the largest state academic gains in the country, working with both rural and urban districts. Their leadership will be critical to the initiative.” – Arne Duncan, Former U.S. Secretary of Education
“While every schoolhouse in the nation was upended by COVID-19, students who have long been marginalized by virtue of their race or income have been hit the hardest. Accelerate will serve as a clearinghouse of evidence-based practices for how tutoring and other interventions can close gaps in achievement and equity—and do so in close coordination with public school teachers and school administrators. This initiative will provide a roadmap and support to local, regional, and state education leaders seeking to advance student outcomes in the near term and long term.” – Margaret Spellings, Former U.S. Secretary of Education
“As we work together to help students and families regain lost ground academically, we have to make sure that we are spending our time and public resources on strategies that work. I am excited about the potential of Accelerate to discern and scale evidence-based practices that help students learn more while pushing for policies that help ensure all students have access to quality learning.” – Rod Paige, Former U.S. Secretary of Education
“To improve education for all, everyone has a role to play—including parents, teachers, students, and tutors from a wide variety of backgrounds. When tutoring is done right, it can be a game-changer for children and young people. That’s particularly true for students who were already lagging before the pandemic disrupted our nation’s classrooms—and who suffered the most from significant instructional loss over the past two years. Quality tutoring takes place one on one or in very small groups, takes place multiple times weekly, and is aligned with a challenging curriculum being taught in class. Accelerate will help states, school districts, and nonprofit organizations offer high-quality tutoring to benefit students right now who need the help—and help lay a foundation for long-term success for all of America’s children. This important effort will provide funding, know-how, and other support as these groups design effective tutoring strategies and aim to make effective use of one-time federal funding.” – Richard Riley, Former U.S. Secretary of Education
“This new organization fills a great need, not only, in the moment, to expand high-impact tutoring—the most promising approach that we’ve seen in research to address pandemic-related learning needs—but also to make sure, through funding research and advocating for policy change, that we can sustain and improve high-impact tutoring so that all students have access to a skilled and caring adult who knows them and helps them thrive.” – Dr. Susanna Loeb, Director, the Annenberg Institute for School Reform and the National Student Support
Accelerator at Brown University
“In an increasingly globalized economy, our country and our communities can’t be competitive and sustainable without leveraging the talent of our young people from every background — including the one in two public school students in the U.S. who are low-income and the nearly 50 percent who are people of color. High-impact tutoring is one of the few practices proven to help students substantially accelerate their learning in the near-term – and lay the foundation for their long-term contributions to our communities. We are pleased at America Achieves to incubate and launch Accelerate in order to help educators, tutors, students, communities, and parents make these evidence-based practices happen across the country.” – Jon Schnur, CEO, America Achieves
The nonprofit organization America Achieves announced today the release of a policy playbook from its State Recovery Now initiative. The playbook provides state and local governments with innovative, step-by-step strategies for offering people effective pathways to good careers and for helping employers fill in-demand jobs – all grounded in a strong evidence base.
The nonprofit organization America Achieves announced today the release of a policy playbook from its State Recovery Now initiative. The playbook provides state and local governments with innovative, step-by-step strategies for offering people effective pathways to good careers and for helping employers fill in-demand jobs – all grounded in a strong evidence base.
Titled Employing Residents in High-Demand Careers: An Evidence-Based Good Jobs-Driven Approach, the playbook is the first in what will be a suite of action-oriented resources. The detailed guide is intended to support states, counties, and cities as they consider how best to allocate and implement hundreds of billions in state and local economic aid that is now available for spending from the American Rescue Plan (ARP) enacted last year.
America Achieves is a national nonprofit organization that incubates, studies, and scales programs and policy innovations to advance equitable access to training, education and economic opportunity. State Recovery Now is an initiative of America Achieves that is building a hub of resources for state and local leaders to access the blueprints, technical assistance, and other support they need to create better outcomes for people across the nation by promoting a sustainable and equitable economic recovery. America Achieves launched the bipartisan State Recovery Now initiative in 2020.
Specifically, this initial guide details options for how state and local governments can build a system to match workers to – and then help them maintain – good jobs in well-paying, high-demand fields by:
While a high school degree once served as a ticket to a middle class lifestyle, most good jobs now require education beyond high school. With only one third of the adult U.S. population going on to obtain a college degree, the importance of alternative post-secondary credentials, such as vocational or technical education, has never been greater. These alternative credentials are often overlooked and undervalued, but can be critical pathways to well-paying jobs in our modern economy. Too often communities lack a comprehensive strategy to help workers gain the skills and support needed for a well-paying, family-supporting career. This playbook can help build and execute a strategy to create a good jobs economy.
Jon Schnur, the chief executive officer of America Achieves, said: “As states and communities work to rebuild after the devastation of the pandemic, it is crucial to help fill in-demand jobs and and offer people pathways to attain good jobs and economic mobility – including by leveraging existing skills, and building new ones. This guide offers practical, evidence-based strategies that states and communities can use right now to address these challenges and build a good jobs economy for everyone.”
Bill Ferguson, the founding project lead for America Achieves’ State Recovery Now initiative added: “State and local leaders are facing an unprecedented moment in time in recovery as they attempt to lead efforts to emerge on the other side of a once-in-100-year pandemic. Building a stronger, more resilient, and more competitive workforce in their jurisdictions is central to every state and local leaders’ recovery agenda. The Good Jobs-Driven Approach playbook provides an outline for leaders to incorporate as they deploy historic federal resources to retool workforce pathways in their states and local jurisdictions.”
Outside of America Achieves, Ferguson also serves as a state senator for Maryland’s 46th Legislative District and as the President of the Senate of Maryland.
Last year, Gallup found that a strong, bipartisan majority (93%) of the public supports a large-scale, ambitious plan to pay people to work and provide them with the skills needed for jobs of the future. This comes at a time when employers competing in the modern global economy face an unmet need for diverse pipelines of skilled workers, especially in high-demand sectors. This need is only expected to grow with the recent passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Meanwhile, workers want good jobs that offer a livable wage, but face too many barriers to attaining the necessary skills and credentials. State Recovery Now’s new evidence-based, good jobs-driven playbook can help workers, employers, and governments alike align to create a fair and equitable economic recovery that works for everyone.
America Achieves is grateful to its partner Delivery Associates, led by CEO Nick Rodriguez, for their project support.
The full playbook can be found here. A two-page summary of the playbook can be found here. For questions or to request a briefing, contact: communications@americaachieves.org
“Workforce development is critical to our nation’s economic recovery, particularly as millions of job vacancies continue to go unfilled. As a former governor, I appreciate the policy playbook outlining some of the best practices across the country for job training programs, including providing supportive services like transportation and child care. I like to quote a friend who says, ‘Find out what works, and do more of that.’ This policy playbook could very well serve as a guide to other states and communities to help prepare more Americans for better-paying jobs. By weaving together what works and removing the barriers that too many individuals face, we can build a more nurturing environment for job creation.”
– Senator Tom Carper, U.S. Senator for Delaware
“The new playbook from America Achieves’ State Recovery Now initiative provides a clear and actionable roadmap for policymakers, communities, employers and workforce organizations to work together to advance innovations and efforts to achieve not only a more inclusive economy but a more equitable society.”
– Maurice A. Jones, Chief Executive Officer, OneTen
“With clear, detailed action steps, America Achieves’ playbook offers comprehensive ways that states, communities and nonprofit organizations can create new pathways for employers and job-seekers alike — and to do so right now. With our commitment to providing Hoosiers with free training in high-growth, in-demand fields and to incentivizing employers to make that training easily available, we are pleased that Next Level Jobs Indiana is featured in this new playbook from America Achieves’ State Recovery Now project.”
– Teresa Lubbers, Commissioner for Higher Education, Indiana Commission for Higher Education
“The skills training I received through Back to Work Rhode Island absolutely changed my life. I can only imagine what it would do for other people if government leaders really put their foot forward to build more programs like these — and the new playbook from America Achieves and State Recovery Now would make that possible. If I was trying to encourage a government leader to invest in more programs like these, I would tell them: We have two hands. One to help ourselves and one to help others.”
— Craig Garner, participant in Back to Work Rhode Island
“This latest playbook from State Recovery Now can be instrumental in advancing 21st century workforce development and ensuring an equitable recovery across America, but only if state and local governments have the courage to commit to a new, intentional approach. We must urgently shift investment into proven programs that work – ones that are evidence-based and high-quality programs, building careers in high-paying, high-growth fields, such as technology. These programs are scalable, changing lives and our national economy along the way. It’s one of the best ways we can ensure workers gain the skills needed for well-paying, family-sustaining careers.”
– Plinio Ayala, President and CEO, Per Scholas
“The State Recovery Now Playbook provides a practical and evidence-based roadmap for solving one of the greatest challenges facing our nation- the education and skilling of our people. While federal student financial aid policy and workforce training policy has accomplished much in the last few decades, the world around us is changing rapidly and too many Americans have been left behind. This work is the right direction just when our nation needed it the most.”
– Monty Sullivan, System President, Rebuilding America’s Middle Class (RAMC): A Coalition of Community Colleges
“The global pandemic has caused a massive loss of jobs that may never come back. Marginalized communities such as Black, LatinX, and women are especially being affected by these economic hardships. As communities work to recover, an emphasis must be made on launching people into jobs of the future quickly. The work we do at Generation USA and the information in this playbook can help those communities find a sustainable path forward.”
– Richard Clemmons, Chief Operating Officer, Generation USA
“Workforce systems too frequently fall short in providing the tools needed by jobseekers to secure good-paying, rewarding employment: from failing to address common financial shortfalls faced by adults with low incomes that serve as barriers to succeeding in many training programs, to little accountability on the labor market outcomes of publicly funded training programs. The Markle Foundation works to advance strategies that overcome these and other critical issues, with the aim of realizing an equitable workforce, higher education, and training system that expands economic security and mobility for all. This playbook provides a valuable roadmap for policymakers to capitalize on the moment to establish dynamic, results-oriented systems that empower workers.”
– Maya Goodwin, Senior Manager for Policy, Markle Foundation
“By pairing employer-driven job training with wraparound support services, the Back to Work Rhode Island initiative has helped eliminate barriers to employment for those seeking new career opportunities in the wake of COVID-19. We are pleased to share our insights with other states and hope that this work can serve as a model for creating a more equitable recovery.”
– Matthew Weldon, Director of the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training
“Forward Delaware is a great example of the Delaware Department of Labor’s leadership and collaborative efforts with various workforce agencies and partners in ramping up successful industry recognized training programs for Delawareans affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a program that embodies what healthy public-private partnerships can accomplish to help local communities and job seekers.”
– Richard Fernandes, Director of Employment and Training, Delaware Department of Labor
“It’s incumbent on policymakers, training providers, and employers to build a workforce system that’s both more effective and more equitable than the one we had before the pandemic. That starts by measuring the outcomes that actually matter to job-seekers. We urge all providers and members of the workforce community to adopt the playbook’s recommendations to join us in setting new standards of transparency and efficacy.”
– Rebecca Taber and Connor Diemand-Yauman, Co-Founders and Co-CEOs, Merit America
“The American Recovery Plan (ARP) provides much-needed investment in economic growth and resilience, especially in broadband capacity that is vital to ensuring equitable access to our critical digital infrastructure. As we carry out this mission, the one thing we can’t afford is delay. These playbooks will provide a clear roadmap for states and municipalities to follow.”
– Jonathan Adelstein, President and CEO, The Wireless Infrastructure Association (WIA)
“By more effectively distributing state-level funding according to evidence-based best practices, state leaders would have more leverage to scale and adapt proven, impactful approaches and programs like Year Up. The result would be very positive in terms of helping local employers meet their workforce needs and in connecting more young adults in need of an opportunity with these companies. Last year, an independent evaluation of Year Up showed that every $1.00 invested in our program results in a gain of $1.66 to society — it’s an investment that benefits young people, their communities, corporations and the broader economy.”
– Gerald Chertavian, Founder and CEO, Year Up
“We know more than ever before about what strategies work to help Americans prepare for, secure and retain good jobs. A key part of that plan includes recognizing the realities of people’s lives and offering supportive services to break down the barriers that prevent them from succeeding – including making those benefits easy to access. With this playbook in hand, more states and communities help empower employers and workers alike to build a strong good jobs economy.
– Joanna Mikulski, Chief Federal Policy and Data Officer, America Achieves
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.
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.
Specifically, in the letter, the signatories called for: a $100 billion investment in workforce development, as President Biden had proposed earlier this year. This investment is seen as critical in making sure employers can find the qualified workers needed to fill infrastructure, clean energy, care and other in-demand jobs–now and in the coming years, and do so equitably. What’s more, upcoming legislation must ensure that millions of people hit hardest by the pandemic, including women, people of color, rural Americans, and those without a college degree, will have a fair shot at accessing good jobs and careers, including millions created by an infrastructure plan.
Analysis from the Georgetown University Center on Education and Workforce found that in a trillion-dollar infrastructure package, most of the jobs created would require at least six months of training and 90 percent would be in historically male-dominated fields where people of color have been largely excluded from top-earnings.
This proposed workforce investment — and scale of funding — is incredibly popular. Earlier this year, Gallup found that a strong, bipartisan majority (93%) of the public supports a large-scale, ambitious plan to pay people to work and provide them with the skills needed for jobs of the future. Meanwhile, the U.S. ranks near last of OECD countries for investment in workforce development as a percentage of GDP.
As we emerge from a once-in-a-century pandemic that has exposed and exacerbated long-standing inequities, Congress has a historic opportunity to make substantial, new economic investments that ensure all Americans have a fair shot at good jobs in a range of in-demand fields, and employers find the skilled workers they need to fill them.
– Jon Schnur, Chief Executive Officer, America Achieves
The pandemic exposed longstanding racial and gender inequities in our labor market, which we have an obligation to address. Upgrading the country’s infrastructure is a critical step toward preparing for the future – and an opportunity to expand access to good jobs. The public workforce system can play an essential role ensuring infrastructure investments support an equitable and inclusive recovery – one in which everyone has access to those good jobs. But to do so, it will need resources and a seat at the table.
– Mary Alice McCarthy, Director of the Center on Education & Labor, New America
A comprehensive and effective workforce development investment is critical to the success of an infrastructure and economic recovery plan.
A full copy of the letter can be found here.
The full list of signatories is below.
America Achieves
New America
Advance CTE
All Home California
Alternative Schools Network
Apprenticeship Carolina (South Carolina Technical College System)
Association for Enterprise Opportunity
The Bay Area Council
Career Connect Washington
Center on Rural Innovation
ClimbHire
Closing the Women’s Wealth Gap
Corporation for a Skilled Workforce
Democracy at Work Institute
Generation USA
Genesys Works
Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce
Goodwill Industries International
Grads of Life
Jewish Vocational Service (JVS)
Jobs for the Future
Merit America
National Fund for Workforce Solutions
National Skills Coalition
National Youth Employment Coalition
NPower
Nurture: Building Financial Security and Mobility in the Child Care Economy
Opportunity@Work
Pacific Community Ventures
Per Scholas
PolicyLink
Program on Skills, Credentials & Workforce Policy, George Washington Institute of Public Policy
REDF
Sandra Grace, LLC
The Wireless Infrastructure Association (WIA)
Women Employed
Year Up
YouthBuild USA
UPDATE: Since this letter was initially released on July 8, additional organizations have signed on. The latest version, with the updated list of signatories listed above, can be found here.
