Educational Resources

ACE is a non-profit IRS 501(c)(3) organization founded in 2000 by Denver businessman and philanthropist, Alex Cranberg, whose vision was to ensure that children of Colorado’s low-income families had access to quality K-12 education through scholarships. Now in its seventh year of existence, ACE is pleased to have worked with 157 private schools to serve over 1,800 at risk students across Colorado with total funding commitments exceeding $9 million.

The Alliance for School Choice is the nation’s vanguard organization for promoting, implementing and enhancing K-12 educational choice. In collaboration with a host of national and state allies, they create opportunities for systemic and sustainable educational reform that puts parents in charge. The Alliance for School Choice works to build support for and implement publicly funded school choice programs that provide low-income families with educational opportunity. In doing so, the Alliance not only protects those programs that are already serving families in need, but also expands and enhances them and -- most importantly -- initiates new, larger and even more effective models.

Building on the legacy of their founder, General Colin Powell, America’s Promise is a leader in forging a strong and effective partnership alliance committed to seeing that children experience the fundamental resources they need to succeed – the Five Promises (caring adults, safe places, a healthy start, an effective education and opportunities to help others) – at home, in school and out in the community.

The Center for Education Reform (CER) creates opportunities for and challenges obstacles to better education for America's communities. Founded in 1993 to translate ideas into action, CER combines education policy with grassroots advocacy to work deep within the nation's communities to foster positive and bold education reforms. Today, this premiere national group serves as a full-service education reform engine working in over 40 states.

Our vision is to create an engaging math culture in each school where students, teachers and parents work together to help all students succeed in math. We envision students becoming powerful mathematicians, confident in their abilities and possessing an enthusiasm and desire to pursue math in higher education and throughout their lives.

The Goldwater Institute was founded in 1988 by a small group of entrepreneurial Arizonans with the blessing of Sen. Barry Goldwater. Like our namesake, the Goldwater Institute board and staff share a belief in the innate dignity of individual human beings, that America is a nation that grew great through the initiative and ambition of regular men and women, and, that while the legitimate functions of government are conducive to freedom, unrestrained government has proved to be a chief instrument in history for thwarting individual liberty. Through research and education, the Goldwater Institute works to broaden the parameters of policy discussions to allow consideration of policies consistent with the founding principles of free societies.

Founded in 1844, Hillsdale College is an independent, coeducational, residential, liberal arts college with a student body of about 1,300. Its four-year curriculum leads to the bachelor of arts or bachelor of science degree, and it is accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. Hillsdale’s educational mission rests upon two principles: academic excellence and institutional independence. The College does not accept federal taxpayer subsidies for any of its operations. In 2002, Foster was awarded the Adam Smith Award, presented at Hillsdale's annual commencement ceremony.

Imagine Schools is an organization, comprised mostly of teachers, that operates public charter schools and independent schools in 9 states and the District of Columbia. Our mission is to help parents educate their children by creating learning communities of achievement and hope. Imagine Schools was founded with the goal of restoring vision and purpose to the learning environment and to returning parents to full participation in their children’s education. Imagine Schools’ founders, Dennis and Eileen Bakke, are passionate about making a difference in education by applying a unique organizational and operational structure guided by shared values of integrity, justice, and fun. This structure puts teachers and school leaders squarely in charge of the decisions affecting the schools they serve.

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) is educational organization whose purpose is to convey to successive generations of college youth a better understanding of the values and institutions that sustain a free and virtuous society. Founded in 1953, ISI works "to educate for liberty" — to identify the best and the brightest college students and to nurture in these future leaders the American ideal of ordered liberty. To accomplish this goal, ISI seeks to enhance the rising generation's knowledge of our nation's founding principles — limited government, individual liberty, personal responsibility, the rule of law, market economy, and moral norms.

KIPP began in 1994 when two teachers, Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, launched a fifth grade public school program in inner-city Houston, TX, after completing their commitment to Teach For America. Since their founding, the original KIPP Academies have sustained track records of high student achievement. While fewer than one in five low-income students typically attend college nationally, KIPP’s college matriculation rate stands at nearly 80 percent for students who complete the eighth grade at KIPP. In addition, KIPP alumni have earned over $12 million in college scholarships.

The mission of the Pacific Research Institute (PRI) is to champion freedom, opportunity, and personal responsibility for all individuals by advancing free-market policy solutions. Since its founding in 1979, PRI has remained steadfast to the vision of a free and civil society where individuals can achieve their full potential. Put simply, public policy is too important to be left just to the experts. Individuals are the real decision makers when it comes to their schools, health care, and environment.

The mission of Step Up For Students is to improve Florida’s K-12 educational system by creating and sustaining affordable educational options for low-income families and their children. By empowering parents to choose the education that best meets their child’s learning needs, parents become consumers of their child’s education. As parents begin to shop for the best academic educational setting for their child, the level of education for all students will rise as schools—public and private—become more productive in an effort to keep and enroll new children.