Blog

Every week, America Forward is highlighting a few examples of the vital work being done by our Coalition members to support students, families, educators, workers, elected leaders, advocates, and communities across the country. If your organization has resources, an announcement, or a story that you would like to see included, please send it to america_forward@newprofit.org.

Station1

Young people are at the forefront of efforts to create a more equitable, creative, and sustainable world. To help support their work, Station1 has announced their Summer 2021 Station1 Frontiers Fellowship (SFF), “a prestigious, fully-funded ten-week summer experience for undergraduate students that involves socially-directed science and technology education, research, and internship.” To meet the challenges of the COVID-19 moment, the fellowship will be fully virtual, with remote participation only.

Generation Citizen

As leaders across all levels of government continue to shape the response to and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, civic education and engagement is more important than ever. Generation Citizen, in partnership with several other organizations, recently launched 50×2026, “an urgent plan to build and restore generational trust in government, communities, and neighbors through revitalization civics education by state and federal action in all 50 states by 2026.”

uAspire

The COVID-19 pandemic has placed an enormous financial strain on students, families, and communities across the country, especially for those with barriers to access and opportunity. To help students and families navigate the cost and accessibility of college — during the pandemic and beyond — uAspire has created a College Cost Calculator, “a free online tool that helps students compare financial aid offers and the total costs of attending different colleges.”

National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD)

Long-standing education inequities that disproportionately impact students of color, students from traditionally under-resourced communities, and students with learning differences have only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis. The National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD) recently published a new report, Significant Disproportionality In Special Education, highlighting critical data to help “education professionals and policymakers understand the magnitude of significant disproportionality for students of different races and ethnicities and take actions to correct it and prevent it from happening.”

Aurora Institute

As our education systems continue to respond and adjust to the COVID-19 crisis, an intentional and committed focus on an equitable path forward has never been more important. Providing a new resource to help meet this moment, Susan Patrick, Aurora Institute’s President and CEO along with Katherine Casey, Founder and Principal of imaginEDU, authored a new report this month, A Promise for Equitable Futures: Enabling Systems Change to Scale Educational and Economic Mobility Pathways. The report “issues a call to action for states to enact a Learner Promise: a commitment that every learner will have access and support to pursue a certified pathway with system-wide opportunities that guarantee entry into a meaningful, chosen career that will build social and economic capital over the course of their lives.”