The 2026 $1 Million Grand Prize Winner
FREE SCHOOL THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL IN PHILLY
This Scholarship will provide $8,000 annually for 500 students displaced by the Philadelphia school closures.
On the Road: The 2026 Yass Prize Roadshow for Opportunity
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3 Philly Schools Awarded $600,000 from Jeff and Janine Yass
On the Road: The 2026 Yass Prize Roadshow for Opportunity
This year’s Roadshow for Opportunity Series was designed not simply as a celebration of finalists and winners, but as an investment in relationships, in shared learning, and in capitalizing on the strengths within the Yass Prize community.
Monthly News Brief about our Nation’s Best Education Leaders
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Latest News
The “Pulitzer of Education Innovation” Awards More Than $6 Million to Transformational Education Leaders
26 Education Innovators Named Contenders for $1 Million Yass Prize
The Yass Foundation for Education advances the four core STOP principles: Sustainable, Transformational, Outstanding, and Permissionless education. Each year, the Foundation will reward dozens of organizations, building a growing network of innovative providers that
demonstrate these qualities in their commitment to new ideas, technologies, and approaches to learning that bring education into
the 21st century. The Foundation is powered by the Center for Education Reform (CER) in partnership with Forbes.
The Yass Award is about celebrating and rewarding those who make students the priority.”
The Yass Prize process has created an awareness of the education freedom movement within churches and communities.
It's given us an opportunity to start critical discussions with our congregations, parents, community leaders and members, about the laws that govern education in Pennsylvania.
The Yass Prize has brought together such diverse leaders
from all different demographics, all different states, all different service provider types that you can learn from.
Having the status of Yass Prize Semifinalist has opened doors that we’ve been knocking on for years,
including public recognition from our Governor and partnership conversations with other education innovators from around the country.
Believe in your mission… Ground yourself… Never give up…
We used the Yass Prize to launch a program called Skypod catalyst, which is essentially an accelerator to help other people start microschools.
We believe very much that microschools should be bottoms up, they come from the community. They're founded by educators who know their community really well. And they want to design a learning environment for the kids in that community.
Because of the Yass Prize, we were able to add an additional pre-K classroom.
Education is one of the most fundamental pillars for democratizing opportunities for success that we have in our society.
It’s thanks to organizations like the Yass Prize that our children are going to have a better tomorrow.
I'm a Yass Prize finalist from last year.
And through that, we were able to open up our second campus in the city of Wichita.
There is absolutely zero downside to being a part of this network by submitting your application and what you will encounter is unlike any other grant.
It's actually mind blowing. I really see myself as an education entrepreneur, but this expanded me.
We have a tremendously transformative model that could stand for a little disruption.
The Yass experience has given us “permission” to do exactly that.
It might be the first time you’re speaking where everyone is actually listening and cares about what you’re doing.
I don’t think I’ve been in a room as supportive as the Yass Prize Semifinalist room in Miami.