School choice Yass Prize awards continue, $20M worth of grants awarded nationwide

By Bethany Blankley
The Center Square

School choice awards continue nationwide through a Yass Prize launched five years ago.

A deadline for a $1 million Yass Prize school choice award is approaching June 1 for education providers nationwide to apply, The Center Square reported. The prize is an outworking of the Center for Education Reform.

The prize is just the first of many types of support the center is providing parents, Caroline Allen, founding director of the Yass Prize, told The Center Square in an exclusive interview.

In addition to the funds driving innovative educational options for parents and students, they have also created an unexpected community, she said.

The prize “started as a competition for the $1 million prize but quickly turned into a community,” she said.

The Yass Prize concept has also expanded to meet additional needs.

This year, 16 organizations that previously received Yass Prizes were also the beneficiary of more than $20 million worth of grants and interest-free loans. The funds translate to more than 37,000 opportunities for students, the center says.

Eleven previous Yass Prize winners received grants and interest-free loans “to scale their outstanding models.” Five were awarded grants to support program growth and new student seats.

“This new, refined Alumni Award program is the next step in providing some of our most accomplished awardees with critical support to expand their footprint in areas where families are actively seeking innovative education options,” Yass Prize Founder Janine Yass said. “It reflects what we are seeing every day: growing demand from families for new opportunities and extraordinary leaders ready to meet that demand.”

The expanded grants include interest-free loans for organizations that reflect the center’s commitment to “sustainable, transformational, and truly permissionless education.”

Sustainability refers to schools that ultimately operate on public funding already allocated for students. Seed capital enables alumni to expand campuses with a renovations, add locations to serve more students or move into new states, the center explained.

“We hope this model sends a clear signal to states: It is no longer equitable or effective to continue directing disproportionate funding to systems students are leaving,” Yass said. “Families, educators, and communities are asking for something different – and it is time for policy and funding to catch up with that reality.”

Recipients of the $20 million worth of grants and interest free loans were in multiple states, including California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and West Virginia.

They include City on a Hill Christian Academy in West Virginia, HOPE Ranch Learning Academy in Florida, Liberty STEAM Charter School in South Carolina, Liguori Academy in Pennsylvania, Charleston Classical in South Carolina, 4 Learning in Minnesota and California, Odyssey Charter School in Delaware, Onward Learning in South Dakota, Partnership Schools in Ohio and Texas, SOAR Academy in Georgia and Oklahoma, and St. Mary’s Academy in Louisiana. They also include KaiPod Learning and Oakmont Education in multiple states and Big Picture Learning, Rock by Rock and National Fellowship for Black and Latino Male Educators, which all have a national reach.

Allen said she really wanted people to know that the prize is more than a prize. Applicants who were initially competitors and became grantees are working together to find ways to innovate and improve education outcomes, she explained.

“One of the surprising moments that came out of this entire process that continues to drive how we think about the foundation and the grant making process,” she explained, was they “didn’t anticipate that grantees would learn and be empowered by one another.”

“It’s been beautiful to watch” how the grantees aren’t just “redefining what they do but they are strengthening their individual schools based on being in this community. It started as a competition for the $1 million prize but quickly turned into a community,” she said.

She also said that the applicants have been excellent and “We knew we would find diamonds in the rough, who were doing exceptional things for kids. That has definitely played out in our grant making process.”

Applications for the Yass Prize are due June 1 by noon Eastern Time. The winner will be announced Oct. 6 in Philadelphia.