Reflecting on 2023: A Year of Growth, Advocacy, and Milestones in Education and Work at New America

As we bid goodbye to all that was Year 2023, the Education and Work cluster at New America is taking stock of its robust efforts and initiatives that informed important policies and practices that were adopted, adapted, or considered across communities this year.

Below is a snapshot of the milestones, measurable progressions, and even some challenges that have defined our year—from fortifying the educator workforce amid alarming teacher shortages to championing reform of child care and the school funding system, to advocating for greater accountability on college campuses, to making sense of emerging technologies and advancing the field of youth apprenticeship.

Working at every level of education, starting with early childhood care and moving from Pre-K, elementary school, high school, and college to the world of work, we share the many ways our team has advanced equity and opportunity this year and that will continue to shape our work into 2024. This snapshot, listed in no particular order, isn’t comprehensive and we encourage you to sign up for our newsletters to stay abreast of developments.

1. Strengthening the educator workforce. Our commitment to strengthening and diversifying the educator workforce grew in both scope and influence. We launched a second cohort of our Grow Your Own Educator National Network to address local gaps in the teacher workforce, introduced a national database of state teaching requirements with an interactive data visualization tool to show how state teacher preparation policies intersect with filling classroom hiring needs, and partnered with RTI International, TEACHMeducation, and WestEd to launch an educator-registered apprenticeships (ERA) intermediary that will help states and districts design and implement teacher apprenticeship programs.
   
2. Promoting equity in school finance, accountability, and accessibility. We expanded our efforts to ensure that all students have access to fairly financed schools and high-quality teaching and learning. We launched a new Education Funding Equity Initiative, which released a report on school districts’ experiences receiving and using K-12 COVID-19 relief funding and began a project on the extent of economic and racial segregation that exists across school district borders in America and its connections to funding inequity. To improve English learner education, we synthesized expert insights on equity gaps in funding, updated our English Learner Accountability Hub with key state policies that are rarely found in one place, and authored a collection of briefs, posts, and articles to raise awareness and promote equitable outcomes. To improve accessibility for students with disabilities, we partnered with the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) Office of Educational Technology to host a convening of edtech designers and developers, researchers and policymakers, and educators and learners with disabilities, and subsequently co-published recommendations with ED to facilitate a deeper understanding of the needs and perspectives of learners with disabilities and the educators who support them.
   
3. Making sense of the curriculum wars. Our work to advance inclusive and open educational resources helped make sense of the curriculum wars that continue to impact local and state policy across the country. We hosted a series of roundtables with key stakeholders, unpacked survey research findings on classroom limitations on race and gender, hosted an event on banned books, and published a case study of an open online hub of curricular materials. We also published 10 in-depth interviews about the Alexandria, VA library sit-in of 1939 and its many lessons for today’s campaigns for the “freedom to read” and the need for inclusive educational materials in libraries and schools.
   
4. Advocating for greater access to quality early care and education. We made the case for expanded state and federal investments to ensure greater access to early care and education, with a specific focus on young children with disabilities and dual language learners. We published a brief highlighting how district-level leaders can support the expansion and improvement of pre-K, and highlighted the need to reimagine assessment, data, and curricula to improve pre-K outcomes and kindergarten readiness. Our work continued to focus on expanding access to infant and toddler care and promoting state and local policies to improve and strengthen the kindergarten experience for all students.
   
   While we were disappointed by Congress’ inability to address the expiration of federal pandemic aid for the child care industry, we were heartened by the Biden administration’s April executive order, the most comprehensive set of executive actions any president has taken to improve the country’s care infrastructure.
   
5. Expanding access to apprenticeship for high school-age youth. The Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship (PAYA) celebrated five years of growing momentum around our efforts to equitably expand access to high-quality apprenticeship opportunities for high school-age youth. PAYA’s 14 grantee partners continued to grow their programs, connecting more than 1,700 young people to apprenticeships at over 400 businesses. Meanwhile, our national community of practice, the PAYA Network, added 25 new member communities and engaged 635 individuals through webinars, virtual convenings, and in-person events like the National Youth Apprenticeship Summit. PAYA also continued to play a critical leadership role in state and federal policy debates, including launching a policy academy in partnership with the National Governors Association and convening national experts to discuss pending federal policy proposals.
   
6. Pushing boundaries with community colleges. Our community college work has expanded and pushed boundaries this year. We launched our Workforce Transformation Cohort to help 15 community colleges enhance their workforce programs by aligning to economic development, improving how they use data, and finding sustainable financing models. We started a learning community to help rural community colleges learn about starting bachelor’s degree programs, a solution that can provide much needed access in rural places. We began a research project around support for child care at community colleges for student parents. Through this project, we are exploring how community colleges are successfully supporting child care in different ways and what types of barriers they are facing. We also kicked off a body of work around community colleges supporting and scaling apprenticeship programs with a brief and an event.
   
7. Launching the Future of Work and Innovation Economy initiative. Technological innovation and social change are rapidly changing the nature of work and expectations of our education, labor, workforce development, and place-based policy systems.
   
   In response, we have launched the Initiative on the Future of Work and the Innovation Economy (FOWIE), which will mark our third pillar of work in the Center on Education and Labor at New America. FOWIE will conduct the research, storytelling, and policy analysis to leverage public investments in emerging technologies, R&D, and regional innovation to build better, fairer systems of learning and work. FOWIE’s work has focused on building the capacity of community colleges to expand equitable pathways to good jobs in emerging technology fields; making sense of how labor unions are evolving to help workers maximize the benefits and mitigate the risks of AI and workplace technologies; and how America can maximize federal investments toward workforce training.
   
8. Protecting and supporting millions of higher education students. This year, the Biden administration finalized the strongest ever regulations protecting students from low-quality and predatory college programs, enacted reforms that will improve financial aid offers, and help millions of former students access previously blocked academic transcripts. Our higher education team advocated for students throughout the process, improving and strengthening the new regulations. We championed a rule that will hold schools accountable for student success, dispelling myths spread by low-value institutions with accurate estimates of the policy’s effect. We also pushed for new rules to prevent transcript withholding—a practice that held millions of students' proof of academic achievement hostage—so colleges can no longer hold back proof of credits students already paid for. And, in an effort to increase transparency in financial aid, our team advocated for new regulations making financial aid offers easier to understand, reducing confusion for students.
   
9. Promoting access in the wake of the end of race-conscious admissions. This past summer, the Supreme Court of the United States effectively ended race-conscious admissions by considering two cases, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions v. the University of North Carolina.
   
   Now, more than ever, it is crucial for federal, state, and institutional leaders to develop robust policy solutions that safeguard the rights and access to educational opportunities for underrepresented and marginalized students, ensuring a pathway to economic mobility in the country. Leading up to the decision, our team utilized the New America platform to spotlight the perspectives of students (those most central to the issue), admission experts, and legal scholars to raise awareness of the deep implications ending race-conscious admissions would have on the higher education landscape.
   
10. Advocating for better student loan policies, particularly for older borrowers. The number of older Americans with student debt grew 500 percent over the last two decades, a trend driven by borrowers who took out loans for their own education. Many did not receive a financial return on college, and when they entered loan repayment, they did not get the relief for which they were eligible. These borrowers disproportionately struggled to repay: Close to one-third of seniors are in default on their loans, a status that comes with severe financial consequences, including garnished wages, tax refunds, and federal benefits.
    
    Our research on seniors with student debt contributed to advocacy—through rulemaking processes, legislation, and the return to repayment—based on three principles: Any debt borrowers take out should fuel their success, the default system should be restorative rather than punitive, and long-struggling borrowers should receive targeted forgiveness.
    
11. Understanding Americans’ perceptions regarding the value of higher education. Varying Degrees, our annual survey on Americans’ perceptions of higher education, continues to add to the ongoing discourse around the value of college. Released in August, the survey shows that a majority still don’t think higher education is fine how it is. Democrats and Republicans aligned in their responses on this issue: 42 and 40 percent, respectively, agree with the statement. This agreement, while still in the minority, has been increasing and is the highest we’ve recorded since 2017.
    
    However, Americans are still concerned about many issues in higher education, one of them being cost: Only half think that Americans can access high-quality post-secondary education that is also affordable, and more than 80 percent think that states and the federal government should invest more to make college more affordable.