Our Vision

We seek to live in a country where education, health and career opportunities allow every individual to pursue a thriving, productive and meaningful life; where childhood circumstances do not determine destiny, disadvantage is not inherited, and racial inequality is no longer perpetuated.

Our Mission

We work to increase social and economic mobility and advance racial equity through partnership and collaboration with those seeking to promote systems change. We aim to drive systemic change by connecting efforts around policy, and practice, underpinned by science and research, to support holistic learning and development of all young people.

Our Work

Our current work focuses on whole child equity, adolescent learning and development, resource equity, and equity indicators.

To make progress toward achieving our mission, we need to:

  1. Identify innovative, evidence-based, high-impact policies and practices.

  2. Influence policy actors, advocates, thought leaders, and leaders from marginalized communities to adopt and implement change at scale.

  3. Strengthen the equity ecosystem, especially focused on racial equity, and be seen as a strong/critical partner. 

To achieve this, we approach our work as investigators, consensus-builders and, ultimately, problem-solvers. Our work is in education and adjacent areas of social and economic policy. In each program area or project, we marshal whatever disciplines and professions the problem requires, tapping not only our internal capabilities but also those of our partners. 

We pursue our mission by:

  • Focusing an equity lens on all aspects of the work.

  • Pursuing collaboration, rejecting competition.

  • Building partnerships and collaborations wherever possible; working with government insiders as well as outsiders—advocates, excluded communities, and independent researchers and policy thinkers.

  • Developing innovative projects to test the effectiveness of a proposed policy idea or strategy.

  • Working to take effective practices, strategies and policy ideas to scale — seeking systemic changes.

  • Being advocates for the evidence, not advocates for an ideology or for evidence-free prescriptions.