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This story first ran in 2023 and has been updated.

A recently issued (initially called the National Partnership for Student Success) shows a dramatic increase in the number of adults who stepped up to serve as mentors, tutors, student success coaches, and more, in the 2022-23 school year, marking substantial progress toward the goal of boosting schools’ capacity by 250,000 adults over three years. In this Q&A, Jonathan Raymond, �鶹��Ƶ’s senior vice president of education policy and systems change, shares more details about the PSS, which �鶹��Ƶ helped to develop and launch, and the report’s findings and why �鶹��Ƶ’s involvement in this partnership is so important.

What is the Partnership for Student Success (PSS)?

The partnership was established in response to the learning impact of the COVID pandemic, to help schools, educators, communities, and families get connected to and have access to the holistic supports – academic and interpersonal – that students need to thrive. It began as a public-private partnership between the Administration – led by the Department of Education and AmeriCorps – and leading national education and youth-serving organizations, including �鶹��Ƶ. Through its “hub” at the Everyone Graduates Center located at Johns Hopkins University, the PSS provides technical supports focused on five key areas: mentoring, tutoring, wraparound support services, student success coaches, and postsecondary transitions. Like �鶹��Ƶ, the PSS wants to ensure that every student in our country gets what they need to realize their potential and thrive.

Why is �鶹��Ƶ’s involvement in this partnership so important?

Being part of the partnership is important for several reasons. �鶹��Ƶ gets to partner with other mission-aligned organizations and work together to bring more holistic supports to students, schools and communities across the country. �鶹��Ƶ can also test the organizing frameworks for implementing a successful student success model beyond the context of a �鶹��Ƶ site, helping to refine and improve the student success coach model. By engaging with other organizations interested in implementing a student success coach model, �鶹��Ƶ enables more young people to serve in and experience the power of service through AmeriCorps and other service programs.

What was the focus of the recent PSS survey?

The survey of public-school principals aimed to learn more about the progress schools are making in providing more holistic supports needed to help students thrive post-pandemic. The findings revealed that an additional 187,000 adults provided high-intensity tutoring, mentoring and student success coaching in schools in the 2022-23 school year, which brings us much closer to the Administration’s three-year goal of adding 250,000 adults in these roles by summer 2025.

What did we learn from the survey that relates to �鶹��Ƶ’s work in schools?

While the survey did not specifically discuss the impact of student success coaching, the report does demonstrate that schools are deploying more adults to support students with their academic growth and interpersonal skills coaching, which is an important and promising finding. The PSS is looking to replicate this survey in the future, and we expect that this effort will yield more details about the impact of student success coaches.

How does �鶹��Ƶ’s growing focus on education policy tie to the NPSS, and what this can mean for advancing our mission?

Advancing education policy is important to �鶹��Ƶ’s expanding mission to advance academic outcomes for all students and develop the next generation of leaders through national service.

As a partner in the PSS, and with our involvement in studies like this one, �鶹��Ƶ has an opportunity to help address some of the most pressing issues facing young people today. Advancing academic outcomes is central to �鶹��Ƶs’ impact and we cannot do this work alone. Partnerships are opportunities to broaden �鶹��Ƶ’s learning, reach, and ability to continuously improve what we do. Whether at the national, state, or local levels, working and learning with others enables �鶹��Ƶ to create programs and services to better engage and prepare our AmeriCorps members for education and careers while helping the students we work with thrive. Simply put – partnerships like PSS allow us to live an important �鶹��Ƶ value – Ubuntu – “I am because we are.”