This charter network with a focus on STEAM and project based learning for students with autism has big audacious goals. Rapidly expanding due to demand, with hundreds on waitlists, the network’s bold leaders, led by Diana Diaz-Harrison envision a country where there is a charter school focused on serving students with autism in every major city. They will launch a National Alliance of Autism Charter Schools to support, develop, and lead their schools to the next level, including a focus on career readiness to reverse the trends among the 85% of college graduates with Autism who are unemployed.

This K-12 charter with a specialized agricultural science curriculum and a unique AgriSTEM Pathway Program for older students is on a mission to expand student mindsets on what it means to have a career in agriculture. The network’s Deputy Director of Innovation, Wendell Scales Jr., says that knowing how important agriculture is to their local and state economy, they plan to build Arkansas’s first K-12 Ag/STEM school with their unique AgriSTEM Pathway Program and specialized agricultural science curriculum in partnership with the University of Arkansas. Lighthouse will grow over time to serve 1,200 more scholars!

Working to empower a growing army of mothers who want to impact their children’s education with personalized learning, Janelle Wood launched this first-of-its-kind program for urban black moms during the pandemic. The moms help to support their student’s learning, and some run the small group learning centers they set up. The students’ education is powered by a number of great education providers which are financially sustainable on public dollars. Their success is so extraordinary that they’ve been asked to expand throughout the state and beyond. With the state’s new Empowerment Scholarships, as well as charter school partnerships, the potential for the Black Mothers Forum knows no bounds.

For ten years, Brilla has opened schools in communities which previously relied on local private institutions, like Catholic schools, for their education and community building. Students at their six schools currently in closed Catholic schools in the Bronx receive not only education but character formation and a classical curriculum delivered in a blended way. They offer a voluntary afterschool program where students receive more spiritual formation, and the wrap around service that Luanne Zurlo and her team provide to families is helping to reknit the social fabric of the communities they serve. With ambitions to serve 3,900 students at 10 campuses by 2029, and their first campus to open in Paterson which sorely needs a safe, structured, exceptional learning environment for students and families, Brilla is shining, just like its name suggests.

This unique enterprise combines the best of linked learning – career awareness, academics, exploration, and experiential opportunities – with housing renovation and neighborhood revitalization to create an education-based approach to combating poverty and urban blight. Students earn real financial capital through bi-weekly educational stipends as they progress through the program and after learning and engaging in home-building, they are set up to earn middle class wages and become homeowners. Founders Mark Martin & James Sutton actively utilize sustainable public dollars to ensure a student’s education is completely paid as well as the state tax credit scholarship program and a Jim Crow era law that was set up to rectify educational inequity.

With schools in Hartford, Bridgeport, the Bronx, and Harlem, the network Dr. Steve Perry launched has sent 100% of its graduates to four-year colleges since 2006, without regard to when the students started in the network’s schools. An activist leader who believes deeply that anyone compelled by this work should fight not just for themselves but for all students who are left behind, Dr. Perry seeks to open another 7-10 schools serving upwards of 10,000 students. The first school will open in Bridgeport next year.

A public school district with a permissionless approach is a rare commodity, and this one sets itself apart and is a beacon of hope for other districts that may be fortunate enough to have an innovative superintendent like David Wofford. Chickasaw ensures that trades that are in high demand, and also serve society, are the most popular courses of education for students, including refurbishing shipping containers to become solar powered computer labs and using 3D printing to create prosthetics, particularly for those in developing countries. This school district is redefining what is possible for the students in the Gulf area.

Creating equity in a world through the lens of technology and innovation is what Coded by Kids is built upon. This technology education group, managed by innovation expert Danae Mobley and founded by Sylvester Mobley after a career in technology, turns underrepresented students into coders and start-up leaders and serves over 1,700 kids in the greater Philly area alone, but is available to students and organizations nationwide. Offering mentorships and internships along with access to real-world experiences delivering projects for actual clients is the secret sauce to this ed tech company that has national exposure.

Across its three campuses, this progressive competency-based high school personalizes education to each individual, helping them to learn and acquire skills for trades or pursue higher education – or both, and no two students have the same course of instruction or pathway. Da Vinci RISE uses a trauma informed restorative justice model to serve the highest need students, including the foster, transient, and youth in other challenged circumstances. School leader Erin Whalen is working to create small centers throughout the city of Los Angeles instead of one central hub to best support their students.

Most teachers readily report that capturing students’ attention in this highly digital age is a challenge. With that in mind, Jackson Foster created this new Ed Tech venture to help teachers rethink how they can teach. Using a TikTok-like platform, Edily lets anyone – teachers and students alike – create and distribute educational content for free. This platform is interactive, engaging, and adaptive to multiple different domains and content areas, and is ready to scale to reach more students in more cities throughout the country. Personalizing education to every student is the most effective path to success and this tech company is an asset in that mission.

This microschool organization is ready to change the world. After living through the pandemic’s detrimental impact on Detroit families, Bernita Bradley set to work creating opportunities for black moms to home school their kids, providing coaching, access to 21st century curriculum tools like that which 2021 Yass Prize Finalist Rock by Rock created, and creating an advocacy network for parents to lessen the burden of breaking into the homeschool scene for their children. Engaged Detroit believes that thoughtful action and putting money and power into the hands of its community leads to fundamental change for those who need it most – our youth. We agree, and want to see them expand their parent-empowerment and “students-first” attitude to thousands more.

Bringing new blood and a new outlook on how best to help students obtain both education and career skills, Brian Patrick King returned to his alma mater to build a well-respected program that instructs its students in Computer Numerical Control (CNC) Machining, HVAC, and Construction Sciences, helping them gain the knowledge and training around workplace competencies that allow them to hit the ground running at their dream job. Local businesses are lining up to support the innovative school and recruit its graduates, which also plans to add Welding and Automotive pathways. Father Judges leaders are committed to the STOP principles and working to ensure that very student has an education of choice regardless of the socio-economic status of their families.

Neurodivergent learners have long been neglected by traditional education institutions, but there’s HOPE at this private institution providing individualized education for exceptional students, situated on a ranch filled with numerous learning opportunities. The journey of founders Jose & Amparo Suarez began when they ministered to foster kids, leading them to create an ecosystem of services to the community. At their Academy they are seeking to add space to accommodate their 200 person waiting list, as well as a technical school that will ensure a career path for their students long after the adults in their lives are gone. State education scholarships make the path more sustainable, and permissionless.

This pioneering 25 year-old charter school has succeeded against all odds in delivering education to students where traditional education often fails. Founded by the late Thelma Dickerson whose school board tenure was devoted to changing the mindset of the traditional system, Jumoke knows teachers make all the difference. Marie Gordon Hall & Troy Monroe are building a new teacher pipeline and career path option for students to “grow their own,” and new funds would help their Academic Assistants to earn a Bachelor’s Degree to become certified teachers in the subject area of their choice, committed to remaining with the organization for at least three years.

With the expertise to help parents navigate homeschool and virtual options for their children, this innovative group has already opened up more than 12 in-person learning pods across 4 states in communities that want to personalize education for small learning communities. Founder Amar Kumar believes they can build a national brand that allows more than 1,000 families to help transform education in their communities and schools, just for a start. He and his team believe that when parents have power to affect their student’s education, they can ignite massive change across all systems.

Offering online, on-ground, and hybrid learning opportunities with a focus on nature-based projects, this microschool provides students agency over how they learn and instructors freedom to develop and individualize the education they think best meets the child’s needs, which includes a majority with special needs. Given the opportunity for parents in their state to direct their tax dollars to the education of their choice, Iman Alleyne can barely keep up with demand. They are set to expand to five locations in the next few years and to 100 schools in 10 years. Time is their only barrier to also building a more formal private school.

As school leader Geoffrey Roehm explains, 1,000 acres of land sits unused in the middle of Brooklyn, ripe for an experiential learning campus for this Outward Bound charter, which they’d also make available to all schools and learning institutions in their borough. It’s hardly a pipe dream; the concept of “Launch” at Floyd Bennett Field has a supporting coalition of business and civic organizations ready to co-create solutions to issues of sustainability and equity. They plan to develop a marine biology academic and career path for students throughout the area, to prepare students for the biotech and green jobs of the future.

Project-based learning and competency-based are often buzz words in a large, overcrowded curriculum industry, but making these approaches to teaching and learning accessible for students and instructors is rare. Enter David Lipkin, whose platform enables students to design their own education, and measure their own performance in a space where the teacher is right next to them with structure and guidance, supporting and measuring competency, not time on task. LiFT supports teachers to create projects and portfolios no matter whether they run a flipped, open-ended or blended classroom. They will scale to more than 200,000 students in STOP-enabled states throughout the country that offer waivers from traditional grading.

Most people do not think of New Mexico as a state that fails to educate most of its students proficiently, but that’s exactly the condition that led JoAnn Mitchell on a mission to help all students where she grew up to succeed. The first in her family to graduate high school and college, the students in her two schools share similar backgrounds. Her efforts to grow her school, however, have been met with establishment resistance at every turn, but she has kept going, offering more instructional hours than other schools, integrating SEL into a rigorous academic menu and showing that an ambitious learning environment for students will prepare them for anything in life. With plans to expand to a third campus, she will first fight for an expanded charter cap to allow more permissionless opportunities for her and others’ kids throughout the land of enchantment.

Effective schools transform communities, and can be the lifeline for rural America. This pre-K-12 district that serves 6 rural communities with fewer than 250 people each sought out models in other states to guide their rethinking of graduation requirements to reflect the skills, knowledge, and dispositions learners need – what they call “choice-ready skills.” As a recognized innovator, Superintendent Cory Steiner is building a Full Service Community School model so that residents no longer have to travel to Fargo for services that don’t exist at home, offering access to the school 24/7 to not only be the hub for education, but for medical services, childcare and their Wellness Pantry. Doing so keeps families near, supporting their students to be able to focus on the kind of learning that has made Northern Cass a recognized leader in 21st century teaching and learning and a model other rural districts can replicate.

With a mission to find and support students who typically fall through the cracks, this education group helps students recover education and not only graduate, but get on a path for career success. Partnering with 100 businesses in a state that ranks 43rd in the labor market, Oakmont Education offers students mentorship and resiliency training to ensure students have opportunities to build the skills necessary to succeed in the world beyond their school’s walls. Drawing on her own educational experiences as a youth who dropped out of school, Chris Gulacy-Worrel, who leads the group’s advocacy efforts, works to expand opportunities in their communities and beyond. With the capacity to grow to accept hundreds more students, the team is committed to creating an environment that is individualized, self-paced and career-driven as a way to uniquely reengage and support disconnected students toward excelling in their education and their future.

This multi-faceted education provider has supported and managed a growing network of learning environments, including charter schools in Wisconsin, to ensure all students have access to world-class academics, character formation and faith-based educational choices. Jack Preus and his team work “in tireless pursuit of a full and lasting education for all children” and are eager to bring their compelling work to a new endeavor – a national Christian microschool network which will give families of low and mixed income students access to a new kind of education offering with schools of 30-50 students, which will be tethered together across states to multiply their experiences and learning potential. They will begin to scale in choice-hungry Arizona as well as expand to other states such as Florida and Indiana with the goal of serving between 5,000 and 10,000 students over the next several years.

A state which consistently scores at the bottom of national rankings is now home to a plentiful supply of ambitious educators who seek to fill gaps and give students the opportunities they deserve. As a teacher and parent volunteer Portia Green saw the potential at Prichard, and later joined as its leader to grow and develop a great school to give low-to-moderate income families a much-needed choice, to help drive success not just for students but whole communities. With a focus on ensuring all students have access to rich content, music and the arts, the school is on course to double its overall enrollment, adding one section per grade level, in this increasingly friendly choice state. Sometimes innovation is just doing education well and in more expansive ways for students that are often closed out by family or community barriers.

This university-based charter school was initially fueled in 2015 by the vision of Purdue president Mitch Daniels to connect high school to college and careers in critical industries. Since then, thousands of students have received a highly individualized course of study with a focus on engineering and the sciences. Strong industry partners work with teachers to design projects and curriculum, mentor and support students and teach them about career opportunities available in the Indianapolis market, opening their workplaces for student tours and internships, helping students complete their projects and providing feedback on student work. Students leave high school with college credit, in-demand industry credentials as well as preferred admission to 9 out of the 10 colleges at Purdue University. With three schools now, founding leader Scott Bess is now on a mission to reinvent high school, seeking not only to grow its own but to assist as many schools that are willing to take on their innovative approach to student learning.

This financial literacy education company has a unique view of the market and the importance of students learning about the marketplace that fuels the economy. Their name says it all – whereas most people view the world of finance and high returns of Wall Street from an Ivory Tower – inaccessible and out of reach for most, Rapunzl provides the access to allow everyone to climb to financial success. Co-founders Brian Curcio and Myles Gage are passionate about helping students learn about investing through fun, free investment competitions that net scholarships and cash prizes. They have a curated a 10 Module Curriculum which exposes future investors to an array of investing and broader financial literacy concepts. These concepts include Credit & Debt Management, Investing In Alternative Assets, ESG & Social Investing and it’s all done through an app. On track to grow programs from 600 to 1,000 high schools and touching almost 10,000 students in the next year, Rapunzl may just demystify the market for the next generation, and beyond.

The original 66 child development centers near what is called “alligator alley” in Florida were the genesis for the growth of this small but growing network in the same community. Juana Brown’s RCMA which was initially formed to support children of migrant communities, recognized that the pipeline for educating their children from K-8 was lacking in quality and accessibility so they took on the development of charter schools and are continuing to expand their impact into communities that need it most in Florida. The next school is planned for Mulberry, Florida in 2024. The subsequent year, another school is scheduled to open near Miami. The fifth school would be built in Palatka, south of Jacksonville. At full capacity, the RCMA network will serve over 2000 students in grades K-8 in 5 different schools across five counties. They are on their way to creating what could be a national model for how to best serve rural and immigrant communities and broadening the definition of school to extend beyond academics, but rather a place that is a community hub.

This innovative foster care agency and tuition free career prep, project-based high school literally lets students sail to a new future. Their “semester at sea” program focuses on a business/apprenticeship curriculum with a strong background in entrepreneurship, maritime education, culinary arts, and construction. Michael Long has built a program for the highest risk teens in the Saint Petersburg community who have disengaged from traditional models. He would use his prize earnings to develop capacity for a repository of more themed-projects, open another brick and mortar school in Hillsboro County, and expand 6-8 week sailing expeditions to students who don’t attend SailFuture. Students truly chart their own course with this unique education provider.

Another amazing entrepreneur who specializes in serving students with ADHD, Autism, and other Neurodivergent talents, Kenisha Skaggs could educate another 200 students at their current campus if they had additional guidance and resources. With a customized curriculum that is flexible and balanced to the individual needs of students ages 6-18 and a multitude of curriculum styles depending on the student, Soar is innovative and on-point. They also support students with transportation and tutoring, making it a full service community model that gives students access to all they need from one school. The need and demand accelerated after the pandemic, and the existence of two state scholarship programs helps the model become sustainable, and permissionless for parents. Soar is actively working to create pods with other moms in the community and in other states like South Carolina, a step toward their worthy and audacious goal of educating 50,000 students across Georgia and beyond.

With a self-paced, blended and web-based curricula, this innovative microschool from the Acton Schools family also works to replace the 19th century factory model of education that still dominates too many schools, with a learner-centered, personalized experience. In addition to focussing on the whole child, founder Coi Morrison has created a “Forest School,” offering a nature-based learning environment where learners prepare seasonal garden plots and develop animal caretaking skills, in addition to building self-esteem, confidence, independence, and creativity through hands-on experiences. For students in Memphis that rarely have the opportunity to access such a unique, hands-on learning experience, The Lab School plans to scale and add an additional campus, to extend their programs to other families, including homeschoolers, unschoolers, public schoolers and more.

“Building Houses, Framing Character” is what this high school apprenticeship program is all about, working to combat the overrepresentation of white men in construction and the fact that New Orleans has the highest rate of unemployed out-of-school young adults. The demand is real as they receive two times the number of applications as they have spots for. At unCommon Construction, youth earn hourly pay and school internship credit for building a house in a semester. With the revenue from each project, apprentices also earn a matching “Equity Award Scholarship” for further education, industry certifications or the tools needed for long-term employment. Through more than 100 hours each semester, apprentices develop career awareness and exposure, technical, soft skills, and leadership abilities through a work-based learning experience in a real-world classroom. With more resources, Aaron Frumin would work to build the capacity of this pioneering program particularly in cities that have a housing boom combined with a high unemployment rate, starting with expansion into Minneapolis.

The only African American private school in the state of Kansas has a robust waiting list and is empowering more students with a strong foundation based on 21st century skills. The entrepreneurial Pastor Wade Moore, whose journey started as one of 9 kids in the Delta, growing up in a strong community among his grandparents, descendants of enslaved parents, who taught him self-sufficiency and to care for their neighbors no matter what their condition. He started UP to duplicate for others the community that taught him as a child. All students start with a foundation of principles, excellence, character and how they conduct themselves daily. With plans to scale to 12th grade and open a second campus, Moore will work to improve the state’s failing charter school law so that families’ tax dollars can follow them to the school of their choice. Oh, and his kids say the pledge of allegiance every morning, because he thinks America is the best country on earth.

Inspired by The Young Women’s Leadership School of East Harlem founded in 1996, this public school network has been going above and beyond for young ladies in Texas ever since. With most in their families the first to graduate high school and attend college, Lynn McBee and her team ensure that there’s a tight-knit community and high expectations among students well past their graduation, which is one reason districts are inviting them to open schools in other areas in Texas like the Rio Grande Valley, South Texas, and western Dallas County. Once they get there, the network identifies unique student needs and meets them, and is fully sustainable with their unique public private partnership that puts the interests of the students they serve above all other considerations.