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Below is the latest America Forward “Tip Sheet,” a weekly update on Federal activity related to education, workforce development, and other priorities of the America Forward Coalition.

What’s Next in Washington

Last week in Washington, President Trump abruptly announced the end of negotiations between Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and Speaker Pelosi over a new COVID-19 relief package. The President quickly walked back the statement – widely seen as officially ending prospects for a bipartisan relief bill until after the election – and said negotiations would restart. Speaker Pelosi and Secretary Mnuchin had another conversation about a legislative package on Thursday. There was confusion in the media regarding the White House’s position on a bill, with the White House communications office and Secretary Mnuchin offering contradictory messages. At this point, there appears to be relatively little chance of a relief bill before the election.

Additionally, Senate Majority Leader McConnell announced early last week that the Senate would not meet as planned, given that three Republican senators have now tested positive for COVID-19. However, he has committed to moving ahead with the President’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court – which began yesterday. Senate Democrats continue to call for a delay in hearings.

Thought Leadership from New Profit

America Forward is the nonpartisan policy initiative of New Profit, a national venture philanthropy fund that seeks to break down the barriers between all people and opportunity in America. Last week, several of our colleagues at New Profit published thought leadership, on topics from more inclusive pathways into the workforce to how data can better inform philanthropic giving.

• Angela Jackson, Partner at New Profit, Tulaine Montgomery, Managing Partner at New Profit, and John Kania, Executive Director of the Collective Change Lab, wrote in the Stanford Social Innovation Review about how creating effective change requires engaging proximate leaders.
• “Philanthropy alone cannot address America’s entrenched and systemic disparities, but the sector has a critical role to play in rearchitecting the country on a foundation of equity,” Montgomery wrote in Worth, as she discussed how data can inform more effective and inclusive philanthropic efforts.
• In the midst of unprecedented disruption and uncertainty, Yordanos Eyoel, Partner at New Profit, shared “10 Actions Nonprofit Leaders Can Take to Support Our Democracy and Their Constituents.”
• Jackson and Joiselle Cunningham, CEO of Pathways to Creative Industries and Senior Advisor at CareerWise NY, wrote in the Harvard Business Review about how businesses can recruit and develop more young people of color.

Advancing Whole-Learning Education

Springboard Collaborative was recently featured twice in the New York Times.

Last week, Springboard was highlighted in an op-ed exploring how different programs across the country – and around the world – are effectively engaging parents in their children’s learning and development. Here’s an excerpt from the op-ed:

“There is no going around parents anymore,” said Alejandro Gibes de Gac, founder and chief executive of Springboard Collaborative, a Philadelphia-based organization that trains parents to be reading coaches. To make sure students continue to learn, he said, “we’ve got to work with and through them.”

Turnout [at Springboard’s family workshops] averages 91 percent — and in some places, such as Washington, D.C., attendance has been 99 percent, Mr. Gibes de Gac said. Among the families Springboard works with now, Gibes de Gac said that parents read more with their children than did parents in the in-person program: 26 minutes per day, as opposed to 22. The longer a child reads with a parent, the more she learns.

You can read the full op-ed here.

Earlier this fall, Springboard was included in an article by Katherine Cusumano about how to forge strong parent-teacher relationships.

From the America Forward Coalition

Opinion: Communicating Through Change: How a CA District Is Supporting Families in the Year Ahead

Kira Keane, Managing Partner of External Relations at The Learning Accelerator, writes about the importance of engaging families as schools navigate an uncertain Fall, and what one California school is doing to successful deliver education, in this piece from EdSurge: “As schools navigate the challenges ahead—and with parents and guardians stepping in as learning coaches and facilitators in remote and hybrid environments—communicating with families is playing an outsized role in successfully adapting to this nontraditional school year.” Read Kira’s full piece here.