We all want children to grow up to be successful, thriving adults. Parents, educators, and policymakers advise kids to go to school, get good grades, and graduate. That good advice is not enough. We need to know which PK–12 skills and competencies boost students’ long-term success and how the contexts students exist in, such as the school system or their neighborhood, affect those outcomes.

With 7 in 10 kids born into poverty never making it to the middle class, it’s time to do something different. We believe schools can better support students’ lifelong success if they have a more complete picture of what drives it.

Our mission is to support students’ economic mobility by establishing a set of skills and competencies in PK–12 education—across academic achievement; cognitive, social, and emotional skills; health and well-being; social capital; and career preparation—that educators and policymakers can use to shape practices, programs, interventions, and broader systems change.

With only a handful of studies on these topics, the field has a long way to go. The Student Upward Mobility Initiative will accelerate progress and increase opportunities for education-to-economic-mobility research by funding innovative projects that develop, identify, and validate measures of skills and competencies in PK–12 education that drive students’ economic mobility and by improving researchers’ access to the data assets needed for this work.

Who We Are

The Student Upward Mobility Initiative is a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors with programmatic leadership provided by the Urban Institute.

Team

Maggie Reeves is the Student Upward Mobility Initiative’s coprincipal investigator and project director. She is director of K–12 education at the Urban Institute.

Karishma Furtado is the Student Upward Mobility Initiative’s coprincipal investigator. She is a senior research associate at the Urban Institute.

Matthew Chingos is a Student Upward Mobility Initiative Emeritus Principal Investigator. He is an Institute fellow at the Urban Institute and is on leave while he serves on the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

David Figlio is a Student Upward Mobility Initiative senior adviser. He is a nonresident fellow at the Urban Institute and the Gordon Fyfe Professor of Economics and Education at the University of Rochester.

Rekha Balu is a Student Upward Mobility Initiative senior adviser. She is vice president for the Center for Equity and Community Impact at the Urban Institute.

Eden Phillips is the Student Upward Mobility Initiative’s project manager. She is a research assistant at the Urban Institute.

Rachel Lamb is the Student Upward Mobility Initiative’s data asset manager. She is a research analyst at the Urban Institute.

Kristin Blagg is the Student Upward Mobility Initiative’s research adviser. She is a principal research associate at the Urban Institute.

Emily MacLachlan is the Student Upward Mobility Initiative’s engagement coordinator. She is a training and technical assistance coordinator at the Urban Institute.

Mitch Rybak is the Student Upward Mobility Initiative’s business analyst. He is a project manager at the Urban Institute.

We thank Emberlin Leja, Victoria Nelson, and Fanny Terrones for their tremendous contributions to SUMI.

Advisory Council

The advisory council is made up of researchers and practitioners from disciplines ranging from economics to psychology. Together, they help shape the initiative by informing funding priorities, outreach, proposal strategies, and field building.

Jennifer Alexander, Executive Director, PIE Network

Robert Alexander, Vice Provost and University Dean for Enrollment Management, University of Rochester

Robert Balfanz, Distinguished Professor of Education; Codirector, Center for Social Organization of Schools; Director, Everyone Graduates, John Hopkins University

Mesmin Destin, Professor of Psychology; Faculty Director, Student Access and Enrichment, Northwestern University

Benjamin Domingue, Associate Professor of Education, Stanford University; Faculty Director, Policy Analysis for California Education

Julia Freeland Fisher, Director, Education Research, Christensen Institute

Laura Hamilton, Senior Associate, Center for Assessment

Frances Messano, CEO, NewSchools Venture Fund

G. Ryan Moore, Executive Director of Strategy and Governance, Fulton County Schools

Constance Parham, Director, Innovation and Design, DC Public Schools

Jesse Rothstein, Carmel P. Friesen Professor of Public Policy and Economics; Director, California Policy Lab, University of California, Berkeley

We thank Jennifer Bell-Ellwanger, Angela Duckworth, Camille Farrington, John Freidman, Andrew Ho, Heather Hough, Pedro Noguera, Gene Pinkard, and LaShawn Richburg-Hayes for their incredible insights that helped shape SUMI and our successful first round of grantees.

What We Do

• Fund research and development into which measures of skills and competencies in PK–12 education lead to economic mobility, especially for children starting in or near poverty, so that educators, policymakers, and program designers have a road map for supporting students’ long-term success
• Invest in novel data assets that can catalyze research on the skills and competencies that drive students’ later success
• Build a field of education-to-economic-mobility researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to share insights and innovations
• Synthesize and translate emerging research to ensure the field can drive systems change

This application is now closed. Subscribe to our newsletter for hear about future opportunities. For more information, view our Apply for Funding page, or email us at [email protected].

Our Funders

The Student Upward Mobility Initiative is a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors with programmatic leadership provided by the Urban Institute. Funding for the initiative is provided by the following:
 

The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Student Upward Mobility Initiative (SUMI) or to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Funders do not determine research findings or the insights and recommendations of SUMI experts and grantees and Urban Institute researchers. Further information on Urban’s funding principles is available at urban.org/fundingprinciples.