There is an educational crisis in the United States. Children in fragile communities are being left behind. Every child is not succeeding and we must commit ourselves to do everything in our power to intervene and ensure that all Americans have access to a high-quality education.

The Center for Educational Opportunity at Albany State University was conceived to help build the capacity of Historically Black Colleges and
Universities, the largest pipeline of black educators and producers of
researchers worldwide, to provide research that helps to move people living in fragile communities from promise to prosperity, recognizing that “educational attainment for fragile families may be the single most important factor in helping young people and good jobs, acquire the resources to start businesses and contribute to rising prosperity in their families and neighborhoods.” (The State of Opportunity in America: Understanding Barriers & Identifying Solutions 2019).

Since April 13, 2018, through generous funding from the Thurgood Marshall College Fund Center for Advancing Opportunity (CAO), we have established our headquarters on the campus of Albany State University, awarded grants to promising researchers and sought to form strategic partnerships that will help us to accomplish our work, and have aimed to understand the history of education in America.

Sixty- five years after the historic Brown vs. Board decision, schools remain separate and unequal. Disparities in educational attainment, and all that flows from that, pose a real threat to our nation’s security. We have learned in the ensuing years that education reform must include choice; and options for homeschooling, charter schools and public schools cannot be limited by race, income or geography.

Our aim is to build a repository of action-based research from the narratives of those living in, working with, and researching barriers to high-quality education for those living in fragile communities.

Thank you for being a partner.

Kathaleena Edward Monds, Ph.D. Founding Director