Blog

The following post was written by Juanita Tolliver, America Forward Manager.

We are on the eve of a new Administration, a new President, and a new approach in government, and with this comes a lot of questions – questions about our nation’s path forward; questions about federal policy priorities; and questions about the influence of Washington’s newest crop of power players.

The past week has been marked by a flurry of Senate Confirmation hearings for Cabinet nominees including Betsy DeVos, nominee for U.S. Secretary of Education; Ben Carson, nominee for U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; Elaine Chao, nominee for U.S. Secretary of Transportation; Jeff Sessions, nominee for U.S. Attorney General, as well as others, including White House staff appointments (click here for the latest on the Inauguration and Cabinet nominations). Regardless of who lands in different Administration positions, America Forward is committed to amplifying our mission and our collective policy priorities as we have for the past decade.

We are committed to uniting social innovators with policymakers to advance a public policy agenda that champions innovative and effective solutions to our country’s most pressing social problems.

We will continue to leverage data and promote what works through our Pay for Success agenda and policy priorities, and we remain dedicated to driving more efficient use of government resources toward programs achieving evaluated outcomes that measurably improve people’s lives.

We will promote key education policy priorities that address the needs of all learners from early childhood through K-12, as well as in post-secondary opportunities, while also leveraging community partnerships, innovation, and Pay for Success models.

We will leverage the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act to highlight the challenges facing Today’s Student and work to ensure that they have the resources and opportunity to pursue, and complete, post-secondary opportunities.

We will work to create pathways for youth and adults to connect with real-world training and skills development opportunities that will enable them to succeed in our increasingly competitive global economy and 21st-century workforce. Click here for more information on our Workforce Development policy priorities.

Now more than ever, the importance of our work is clear. And as we engage the next Administration and the 115^th Congress in the coming months and years, we will not only work to promote our policy priorities in partnership with our Coalition of more than 70 entrepreneurial organizations, but we will also work to ensure the sustainability of the policy efforts such as Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Pay for Success, and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), we have advanced on since we launched in 2007.

As the nation transitions from the Obama Administration to the Trump Administration, America Forward is committed to our policy priorities and to elevating local, community-based solutions to our nation’s most pressing social challenges. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ as we roll up our sleeves, and join our efforts. Contact Jessica Crawford for more information about the America Forward Coalition, and contact Nicole Truhe for more information on our work with the incoming Administration and the 115^th Congress.