Advocating Nationally

At Gould, we believe that all qualified students, no matter their background, should receive an education that prepares them to succeed in college, graduate and bring lasting value to the workforce. The best way to effect the systemic change needed to level the playing field is by advocating on the national level while implementing strong solutions on the local level, throughout the greater New York City area.

Recent Advocacy

• Program Model
COACH Program (Coaching Our Adolescents for College Heights)
Every year, there are 1.5 million high school students who don’t earn college degrees despite having ranked in the top half of their high school class. One key reason is the lack of college guidance in under-resourced high schools. To remedy that, the proposed COACH Program borrows on the successful model of Teach For America, calling for a corps of committed, well-trained recent college graduates to advise, inform and guide public high school students to successfully enroll in—and ultimately graduate from—college. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton developed a bill based on the Foundation’s COACH Program and introduced it to the U.S. Senate in May of 2008.
>Read more about the COACH Program
>Read Hillary Clinton’s Statement for the Record
>Copy of U.S. Senate Bill #S3027-COACH Bill

Democratic Policy Committee’s Horizon Project
In 2007, Michael Osheowitz, Chairman Emeritus of the Gould Foundation, developed the COACH initiative as part of five recommendations for education reform for the U.S. Senate’s Democratic Policy Committee’s Horizon Project. Included in those recommendations was the COACH initiative, which addresses the need to prepare high-achieving, low- and middle-income students to compete in the global economy. 
>Read the Complete Horizon Report