Shelby County’s New Year’s Resolutions
If you’re anything like us, you’re struggling to stick to your New Year’s resolutions, and it’s hardly been a week. That’s because it’s way easier to carry on the status quo than to make important, difficult changes to your life. Memphis is the same way—our local governments, education systems, nonprofits, and budgets can easily fall into the same playbook year-in and year-out.
Just like our personal resolutions, we won’t achieve our community resolutions without a plan. While we still face low educational outcomes, entrenched poverty, and a myriad of other challenges, a set of shared resolutions and commitments across our efforts can begin to change how we support our children and families in 2026.
Study Confirms: Community Schools Are Great!
A recent study from Harvard and Cornell Universities evaluates the impact of Communities In Schools (CIS), the nation’s largest integrated student support program, on students in high-poverty schools. Researchers found that providing personalized and coordinated supports (otherwise known as Full-Service Community Schools) leads to significant improvements in academic performance, high school graduation rates, and early-career earnings for students at highest risk.
So what about Memphis?
A Brief History: Pell Grants & the Short-Term Training Debate
For more than 50 years, the federal Pell Grant has helped millions of undergraduates afford associate and bachelor’s degrees. But until now, Pell could not be used for short-term training programs. With the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July 2025, Congress created a new Workforce Pell Grant program that expands Pell access to short, workforce-focused programs while adding unusually strong performance guardrails.
In this update, we explain the new Workforce Pell Grant and how Shelby County can take advantage of the change to make sure local families actually gain living-wage work.
Good data drives systems change.
Pre-K is a long-term investment. Children benefit from Pre-K across a lifetime. Pre-K enrollment has demonstrated positive effects onthird-grade reading, high school graduation, postsecondary success, and adult earnings. These benefits are why we were able to help secure investment from the Memphis and Shelby County governments in local Pre-K.
But to make the case for Pre-K, we need long-term data. Seeding Success and First 8 Memphis have taken on the task of data analysis to help schools, non-profits, and other institutions improve the lives and learning of students.
Data is vital infrastructure. Learn more in this week’s policy update.
Big Shifts in Federal Education Policy
This week, the U.S. Department of Education announced interagency agreements to move several offices currently under the purview of the Department of Education to other federal agencies. This unilateral executive effort follows President Trump’s campaign promise to shut down the Department of Education, though only Congress has the authority to officially shutter the agency.
Such a large change comes with risks and concerns, especially for students of color, disabled students, Native students, and female students. Yet a coordinated, strategic response could present an opportunity for states to innovate and change the landscape of education to meet the needs of their population. We discuss these considerations further in the full update