There are moments in history when progress alters the landscape so fundamentally that it demands a pivot—not just in what we do, but in how we think about our work. For those of us who have devoted careers to education reform, this is one of those moments.
For nearly three decades, much of the reform community—my organization included—has been organized around expanding students’ access to high-quality educational opportunities: strengthening schools by putting better teachers in classrooms, improving the quality of instructional materials, and opening more pathways to college. That work delivered meaningful gains for millions of young people. It still does.
But I no longer believe it’s enough.
This moment demands that we address the hard question of whether our education systems are equipping young people with the capability to shape their lives and contribute meaningfully to their communities. By capability I mean the ability to take what you know and actually use it—to solve problems that don’t come with an instruction manual, to make informed decisions about work and life, to adapt when circumstances demand it.
Educators build capability in students when learning connects to real world challenges, and when students learn to use the tools shaping the future with judgment and confidence. When capability is missing, students can do everything we ask—enroll, persist, earn credits—and still not be ready for what’s ahead. This gap between access and capability is one of the most urgent crises in American education today.
The social contract that held for generations—hard work, a degree, a path to stability—has quietly broken. You can feel it everywhere: in low-income communities where opportunity is always scarce. But, also in middle-class parents wondering, maybe for the first time, whether their children will do as well financially as they did. There’s reason for concern: millennials became the most educated generation in American history and also the most economically precarious. Gen Z is following the same path: more credentials, less security.
Young people in schools right now know they need something different. They’re telling us—not only in words, but in how they’re showing up. Chronic absenteeism has surged. Engagement has eroded. They are not disengaging because they don’t care. They are disengaging because what we are offering does not connect to a future they can see or trust.
At TNTP, this reckoning has led us to reshape our strategy. We’ve made a deliberate bet that the field needs to hold access and capability together—and build the systems required to deliver both at scale. Our goal is ambitious and measurable: to help put 50 million young people on a path to economic and social mobility by 2035, providing them with real opportunity along with the preparation to navigate it.
We’ve spent the past two years testing what this looks like in practice, partnering with school systems across the country to learn what works and what doesn’t. We don’t have all the answers. But we know the future will require new instructional infrastructure built around coherence—curriculum that builds year over year, assessments tied to what’s being taught, and support for teachers that’s anchored in student work. It will require education-to-career pathways treated as core architecture, not elective add-ons, as well as serious engagement with AI and other emerging tools as part of preparing young people for the world they will inhabit. And it will require something we’ve too often left to chance: opportunities for students to use what they’ve learned to solve problems that matter.
The question now is whether we’re ready to act on what we know.
Tequilla Brownie is chief executive of TNTP and a FutureEd Senior Fellow.