AchieveMpls works to harness and mobilize our community’s resources—time, talent and treasure—to produce outstanding outcomes for Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) students and the youth of Minneapolis. We believe that young people can reach their highest academic potential and succeed in school, work and life if they have strong schools and a generous community to support them. We also believe that helping youth to succeed is the best investment we can make in our city’s economic vitality and quality of life.

If we are to overcome the opportunity and achievement gaps which impact the young people of our city, we must redouble our efforts to ensure that our youth can successfully graduate from high school, complete a post-secondary degree and be prepared for both citizenship and the workforce of the future.

This is a task that requires all of us. Our schools simply cannot do it alone. With child poverty rates in our schools at an astonishing 65%, with 1 out of 12 children homeless or highly mobile, and with many young people speaking a language other than English in the home, we must rally as a community to support children and their families in their aspiration to be career and college ready.

Engaging our community to support and invest in young people is not easy, but it reaps rich rewards. Decades of research indicate that family and community engagement leads to increased student achievement, improved social skills and a greater likelihood of graduation. Public engagement has been identified as a key element in achieving the structural and policy changes needed to ensure a quality education for all children.

How AchieveMpls engages our community for student success

• We educate community members about issues impacting public education and the Minneapolis Public Schools, providing information and tools for advocacy.
• We build partnerships with businesses, corporations, foundations, faith communities, the nonprofit sector and higher education to better align resources and better coordinate our work.
• We recruit, train and coach employers who provide significant work experiences for young people.
• We coordinate and train volunteers to work effectively with students to become allies with young people.
• We organize MPS alumni to engage with currently-enrolled students and to be spokespeople for educational reform and change.
• We build the capacity of parents to become stronger advocates for their children
• We ensure student voice in the transformation of education through leadership development and active engagement with our programs.
• We raise awareness about the link between strong public schools, economic prosperity, stable democratic institutions and community stability. We advocate for inclusion, pluralism and expanding opportunity for all.