Aspen Institute

The Aspen Institute Congressional Program seeks to deepen the knowledge of members of Congress and key staff on significant global and domestic issues, and it has played an important role in building bipartisan relationships in Congress. This grant will provide a final year of support for Congressional Program participants to discuss ideas and analyze policies, in a series of breakfast meetings and in three or four multiday, invitation-only conferences, in person or in virtual formats.

The Aspen Institute, founded in 1949, is a global nonprofit organization committed to realizing a free, just, and equitable society. The Aspen Institute Education and Society Program works to improve public education by informing and influencing education leaders to take action on matters of education policy and practice. The pandemic has revealed deep inequities in our education system, underscoring the need for much better data on learning opportunities for students. This grant empanels a group of experts to review existing Opportunity-to-Learn data and develop recommendations for how these data can be incorporated in state and federal education policy. (Strategies: K-12 Teaching and Learning and Open Education)

The Aspen Institute Education and Society Program provides a neutral forum for education practitioners, researchers, and policy leaders to engage in focused dialogue about their efforts to improve student achievement and ways public policy changes can accelerate progress. Urban superintendents educate a disproportionate share of low-income students and students of color; this forum gives a group of nationally prominent advisors and foundation leaders a unique opportunity to learn more about the challenges of leading reform in some of the country’s most challenging, complex school districts. This will be a tie-off grant.