
Highlights from the 2023 Yass Prize Accelerator
Stay on top of the news with the Yass Prize daily headlines!

Making the News, Making Waves!
Stay on top of the news with the Yass Prize daily headlines!

Moments from Yass Prize Summit and Celebration
Relive all the joy from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Cleveland Museum of Art!

Learn About All The Yass Prize and STOP Award Winners!

Yass Prize Roadshow Continues
Breaking ground on a new building and quadrupling enrollment provides increased opportunities for neurodiverse students at SOAR Academy Evans, Georgia.

Janine Yass interviewed while visiting Discovery Center of Springfield, 2021 $1 Million Yass Prize Winner

Members of the Yass Prize community are making waves.

Join us for the announcement of the $1 MILLION Yass Prize winner December 14, LIVE from Forbes on 5th in New York City!

The $1 Million Yass Prize celebrates the country’s education provider which best demonstrates the STOP principles. In conjunction with The Yass Prize, the STOP Awards initiative provides over $20 million in support annually to honor educators who achieve excellence.

It’s a wrap!
33 Yass Prize semifinalists completed an intensive Accelerator and pitched their education innovation ideas in competition for the $1m prize, TBA on Dec.13. The future is bright for these groups who are redefining and transforming education.
AZ Autism Featured in Raising Arizona Kids
How do we raise strong, independent students with autism? Teach resilience & perservance, says the head of Arizona Autism charter network, winner of the ‘22 Yass Prize.


Yass Prize Semifinalist Verdi EcoSchool on Public Radio
Ayana Verdi of Melbourne, FL-based Verdi EcoSchool, talks with Terry Wright of WFIT 89.5 FM about how the innovative urban farming school works to educate and enlighten students.

Pedal to the Medal in Miami
The 33 Semifinalists for the 2023 Yass Prize gather in Miami for their final Accelerator week for a jam-packed bootcamp filled with lessons in business, policy, education practice and pitching! Hosted at the innovative Mater Brickell Key campus of Academica schools, follow their journey @YassPrize
on X (Twitter).

Janelle Wood Champions Education Freedom in Texas
2022 Semifinalist Janelle Wood, Black Mother’s Forum testifies on behalf of all parents to the Texas Legislature in support of the Education Freedom package. Read more about Black Mothers’ Forum and their incredible work at BlackMothersForums.com.

Accelerating Education Excellence
All Yass Prize Awardees will convene virtually for three weeks starting October 31st to learn how to accelerate their work with the help of accomplished education, business and national thought leaders. Up next: GSV Holdings Founder Michael Moe, the Center for Black Educator Development’s CEO Sharif El-Mekki, and Pitch Advisor Renee Delos Santos.

Special Report from Cleveland
Growing Media Coverage
In the last few days, Semifinalists have been making big news in their towns and cities. From the St. Petersburg Catalyst, to West Virginia Metro News, to Detroit’s NBC affiliate, everyone wants to know why these education providers stand out! Follow all the coverage here.


Coming Soon: The Yass Center for Education!
Partnering with the Forbes ’30 Under 30
Thousands gathered at this years Under 30 Summit presented by Forbes learned more about the new generation of entrepreneurs delivering 21st century education. Photo Credits to McKinley Wiley for Forbes.


Yass Prize Students are Outstanding!
The 2023 Semifinalists for the Yass Prize are actively engaging their parents, their teachers and above all, their students, in their efforts to transform education. Find out what and how they are doing it! Find out what and how they are doing it!

READ: Janine and Jeff Yass commentary in The Philadelphia Inquirer
“We are motivated by the terrible costs and daily hardships wrought by the failure of public school systems across the country.”
SailFuture partnership makes the news in Florida
2022 Yass Prize Finalist SailFuture was recently featured on FoxNews13 in Florida. They announced a new partnership with CareerSource Pinellas to expand job training for students.

Janelle Wood, Black Mothers Forum: An Exclusive Feature on Arizona’s Family/CBS 5!
Watch the dynamic visionary leading the Black Mothers Forum, a 2022 Yass Prize Semifinalist, explain why their trailblazing model of education is crucial for Black students and teachers.


AZ Autism Charter School Cuts the Ribbon on its new Tucson campus
Arizona Autism Charter School—the first charter school network in the Southwest to focus on the specific learning needs of students with autism—opened a new campus in Tucson. Sabria Reid of KOLD News 13 was there to cover the event.

Launch Charter School featured on Spectrum NY1 news!
Recently, Yass Prize awardee Launch Expeditionary Learning Charter School took students to the Brooklyn waterfront to learn about the environmental impact of oysters. NY1 Spectrum News came with them!

BuildUP congratulates first to achieve homeownership!
At just 21, Torrey Washington has become the first student from ‘22 Yass Prize Semifinalist BuildUP Community School to achieve the school’s mission: home ownership. It’s the same house he spent 5 years rehabbing as part of the program.

Mark your calendar and plan to join us for the big reveal!
Yass Prize Applications are in!
Applications represent nearly 27 million students across the entire PreK-12 continuum from all 50 states, and over 1,000 judges will engage in a rigorous review. Next big milestone: September 14th Quarter-Finalist announcement!


The Yass Prize is the Pulitzer of Education Innovation
“We see the Pulitzer prizes, we see the MacArthur Genius Grants, we see the Pritzker prize for architecture. But for the one field that drives everything, education, there is no definitive prize. The Yass Prize has filled that vacuum — it’s more than just the money. It’s about spurring ideas, it’s about spurring innovation. We are very very proud to be a part of it.”
Randall Lane, Editor, Forbes
First STOP on the Yass Prize Roadshow

Latest News
— 2022 Yass Prize & STOP Awards —
Key Dates & Happenings
The Yass Foundation for Education advances the four core STOP principles: Sustainable, Transformational, Outstanding, and Permissionless education. Each year, the Foundation will reward dozens of organizations, building a growing network of innovative providers that
demonstrate these qualities in their commitment to new ideas, technologies, and approaches to learning that bring education into
the 21st century. The Foundation is powered by the Center for Education Reform (CER) in partnership with Forbes.
Being a part of this experience has amplified the access we can give to our students in a way that nothing has, and the access is just critical.
The Yass Prize is almost like Burning Man for education reform.
Because of the Yass Prize, we were able to add an additional pre-K classroom.
It might be the first time you’re speaking where everyone is actually listening and cares about what you’re doing.
I don’t think I’ve been in a room as supportive as the Yass Prize Semifinalist room in Miami.
The Yass Prize is centered around ensuring that this [program] provides you a stepping stone...
We don’t want you to rinse, wash, repeat. We want you to build and sustain.
The Yass Prize is truly changing the landscape of education options across the nation,
and I couldn't be more grateful for what it's done for us, and helping us serve more students and families.
There is absolutely zero downside to being a part of this network by submitting your application and what you will encounter is unlike any other grant.
It's actually mind blowing. I really see myself as an education entrepreneur, but this expanded me.
I'm a Yass Prize finalist from last year.
And through that, we were able to open up our second campus in the city of Wichita.
Education is one of the most fundamental pillars for democratizing opportunities for success that we have in our society.
It’s thanks to organizations like the Yass Prize that our children are going to have a better tomorrow.
The Yass Prize has brought together such diverse leaders
from all different demographics, all different states, all different service provider types that you can learn from.
The foundation of any society is a good education.
When we follow the money, it’s ludicrous how this country is getting away with funding education.
The funding is not following children. We're trying to make better options for kids, for poor kids, middle class kids. Wealthy people have this choice, they opt out of their systems easily, why shouldn't all children have that choice?
One of the missions of the Yass Prize and the Yass Prize movement is really surfacing best practices in innovation—
in innovators who are doing this type of transformational work, so that others can learn from it and replicate it, so that you can actually grow yourselves.
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