Prestigious national award recognizes outstanding educational innovation; provides winner, nine finalists and twenty three semifinalists with $13 million in combined funding
Dec. 13, 2023 (NEW YORK, NY) – Today, the $1 million Yass Prize was awarded to Valiant Cross Academy, a trailblazing all-boys Christian school based in Montgomery, Alabama.
Now in its third year, the Yass Prize, known as the Pulitzer of Education Innovation, seeks, rewards and celebrates innovative organizations trying to break the cycle of ineffective education failing students across the country. Combined, Valiant Cross Academy, the nine finalists, and 23 remaining semifinalists received $13 million in funding through this year’s Yass Prize program.
“Valiant Cross Academy represents the gold standard of education innovation in America,” said Janine Yass, co-founder, with her husband Jeff Yass, of the Yass Prize and the Yass Foundation for Education. “Our goal is to accelerate all our prize winners’ efforts to scale up and drive impact in the lives of the students they serve. America’s children desperately need innovative solutions to overcome the learning loss and falling test scores observed over the past several years.”
Since 2021, the Yass Prize has identified more than 6,000 education innovators who are delivering for students in unique ways, in different places, and for all kinds of kids for whom their assigned school district school was either closed, not working for them, or both. The Yass Prize will continue to award and amplify the folks who will bring American education back from the brink and toward a new era in education of innovation, personalization, and freedom.
Founded by brothers Anthony and Fred Brock, Valiant Cross Academy follows a faith-based approach to student instruction while also focusing on workplace learning through a dual-enrollment partnership between three local universities.
“This is so amazing, I’m so excited,” said Anthony Brock, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Valiant Cross Academy. “I want to give this opportunity to every boy of color in America. I’m going to go back and work even harder. Thank you Janine and Jeff Yass, Jeanne Allen, and the Yass Prize team!”
Valiant Cross and the nine finalists, who each received $500,000, were selected for their alignment with the Yass Prize’s four core STOP principles: Sustainable, Transformational, Outstanding, and Permissionless education.The other finalists include:
- Black Pastors United for Education, a network of innovative hybrid learning centers embedded in churches in communities with failing education infrastructure.
- Cristo Rey Network, an innovative and disruptive faith-based high school network transforming the landscape of opportunity for the least advantaged youth.
- Detroit Achievement Academy, a Detroit, Michigan-based charter school network that champions the mastery of knowledge and skills, character development, and high-quality work.
- National Fellowship for Black and Latino Male Educators, a national nonprofit that aims to address the underrepresentation of Black and Latino men in America’s education community.
- Odyssey, a tech startup that developed and operates a payment management platform for states designed to help families by distributing Education Savings Account and microgrant program.
- Odyssey Charter School, an independent charter in Wilmington, DE, that instills a love for and proficiency in the classics, languages, and democracy among typically underserved student funds.
- St. George Municipal School Unit, a Maine public school district that provides students with classroom rigor, career-orientation, and experiential learning opportunities.
- The Melanin Village, a New Jersey-based organization addressing the growing demand by Black and Brown moms to educate their children at home by providing parents with the resources they need to provide an outstanding education.
- West Virginia Academy, a groundbreaking success story that defeated special interest’s fierce takedown attempts to become the Mountain State’s first charter school.
The remaining 23 Yass Prize semifinalists each received a $200,000 STOP Award. Additionally, Indi-ED of St. Petersburg, FL, won the $100,000 Parents Choice Award, a new initiative determined through the 65,000 votes cast from parents and others closest to the students of each semifinalist.
“Tonight’s awardees exemplify the best of American endeavors in education – people and organizations that defy traditional roadblocks and stop at nothing to deliver highly personalized, pathbreaking education for kids,” said Jeanne Allen, who heads up the Yass Prize and related initiatives.
For more information on the winner of the $1 million Yass Prize and the 9 finalists, visit: YassPrize.org/Awardees.
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The Yass Prize, powered by the Center for Education Reform in partnership with Forbes, is a rapidly growing effort to find, reward, celebrate and expand best-in-class education organizations from every sector. In conjunction with the $1 million Yass Prize, the STOP Award Initiative will have distributed over $40 million in 2023. Learn more at YassPrize.org.
Media Contact:
Cathleen Healy
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