Reflecting on 2024: The Work and Wins That Drove Us

Education Policy Program

Each year, our policy experts exemplify New America's commitment to ensuring that every child in every community gets the education and workforce training needed to achieve a future without limits.

Below is a detailed snapshot of team efforts and initiatives that have informed important policies related to educating students and preparing workers in 2024 and beyond.

• We're supporting America's youngest learners-and their families.
  • …by launching the Early Development and Disability initiative to identify what young children with disabilities and developmental delays need and how families can secure the services necessary for a strong start.
  • …by establishing the Center for Early School Success, a federally funded collaborative that will close opportunity gaps through alignment of early learning systems and promotion of teaching the way young children learn best.
• We're building better K-12 education systems.
  • …by mapping school segregation trends 70 years after Brown v. Board and designing an interactive tool showing how ongoing segregation contributes to unfair and inequitable school funding.
  • …by hosting an AI hackathon that convened our build4good interns alongside educators, developers, designers, advocates, and data scientists to build more accessible edtech.
• We're helping teachers teach.
  • …by spotlighting specific strategies for educators of English learners, and integrating the needs of these students into the national conversation on literacy and the Science of Reading.
  • …by supporting educator registered apprenticeship and Grow Your Own (GYO) programs and proposing clearer licensing and credentialing policies.
• We're improving student learning and assessment.
  • …by designing prototypes for new learning resources through cross-sector teams from media, entertainment, education, research, and social impact entrepreneurship.
  • …by highlighting strategies to improve assessment practices for young dual language learners.
• We're expanding access to college and careers for young adults.
  • …by sharing with leaders on Capitol Hill how they can meet the needs of students and employers at the same time through investment in apprenticeship models.
  • …by amplifying the voices of our inaugural PAYA Youth Council, a group of current and former youth apprentices that presented policy recommendations to senior staff within the U.S. Department of Labor.
• We're reinforcing equity and transparency in higher education.
  • …by advocating for simplified financial aid offer letters and publishing related research congressional leaders used to introduce the bipartisan, bicameral Understanding the True Cost of College Act.
  • …by releasing new nationally representative data in the eighth edition of Varying Degrees, our annual flagship survey that analyzes public opinion on the value of education after high school and how Americans think colleges and universities should be held accountable for the funding they receive. C-SPAN even covered the "scoop" at our summer release event!
• We're strengthening community colleges and addressing the needs of student parents.
  • …by providing technical assistance to colleges across the country to help them better connect to economic development, improve data use, and create sustainable funding models.
  • …by awarding individual grants of $30,000 to five colleges that provide student parents with on-campus child care options to build a better understanding for how administrators in every community can improve student experiences and outcomes.
• We're exploring and promoting the responsible use of emerging
  technologies at school and in the workforce.
  • …by conducting the first-ever documentation of student experiences in AI education programs and ensuring that their insights are featured in related policy debates.
  • …by centralizing worker power and labor unions in the research, development, and deployment of AI along with important sector leaders and in partnership with the World Economic Forum.
• We're shaping the future of work and advancing America's innovation economy.
  • …by initiating the Good Jobs Collaborative, a coalition that puts workers at the center of workforce development policy and reimagines national frameworks to address structural inequities that prevent access to good jobs.
  • …by guiding equitable implementation of the CHIPS and Science Act in partnership with the National Science Foundation through a new project that expands the capacity, effectiveness, and impact of community and technical colleges and establishes a special network to advance technology-based economic development and industrial policy across the country.

In addition to the activities of the program, many New Americans on our teams have had noteworthy years themselves:

1. Stephen Burd published Lifting the Veil on Enrollment Management, an edited volume that exposes a powerful and unseen industry influencing most selective higher education systems in America.
2. Taylor White was appointed to the U.S. Secretary of Labor's Advisory Committee on Apprenticeship to advise and recommend to the secretary how to enhance apprenticeship training models.
3. Mary Alice McCarthy was awarded the John J. Heldrich Center Distinguished Leadership Award by the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development.
4. An-Me Chung was recognized in a special spotlight feature by the Presidential Leadership Scholar Program, a collaboration of the presidential centers of George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Lyndon B. Johnson.
5. ...and our Early & Elementary Education policy team received kudos on social media from the famously fabulous Ms. Rachel for their advocacy of expanding access to early intervention services for families of young children with disabilities. (Yes, really!)

What a year it has been. Well done, team! And Happy New Year!