It’s hard not to keep singing it in my head.
As the last of the awards had been announced Tuesday night — including our extraordinary $1 million Yass Prize winner, eight new finalists and awards for every one of our 17 remaining contenders—the Bill Jolly Gospel Choir came back into the room singing “Oh Happy Day.”And what a happy day it had been.
It was Philadelphia, the birthplace of American freedom, for the 2026 Power of Innovation Summit, with real conversations about what becomes possible when people are willing to challenge assumptions about education.
From day to evening, it was purposeful excitement, emotion and plenty of pizzazz.
But it’s not just the program or the awards, but the people who were with us. Their belief in something better, their dedication to doing the work, their joy at uniting or reuniting with others, known and unknown; their sense of purpose.
Since Tuesday, the calls, emails, texts and posts have been flooding in. People are talking about whom they met, what they learned, what they are going to do next and what being part of this extraordinary community has meant to them.
One alumnus called the relationships, collaborations and friendships “the real prize.” Another, attending his third Summit, said each one challenges the status quo. From South Dakota’s Onward Learning, Mary Jo Fairhead noted that she couldn’t wait to see what comes next with the two new pioneers from the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations, who work among the poorest communities in the nation.
Those connections—between people, investment and the freedom to build—were on display throughout the Summit. It was a veritable Noah’s Ark.
Michael Smerconish sat down with Jeff Yass for a lively conversation about education, politics and what it takes to change things; Governor Ron DeSantis joined Maggie Fresen and Chris Marker to talk about what Florida has made possible; and Indiana Education Secretary Katie Jenner joined Arizona State Senator Shawnna Bolick, Jorge Elorza of Democrats for Education Reform and others looking at how policy can open doors rather than close them.
But the day kept moving between policy and practice. Emily de Rotstein, whose Chesterton Schools Network won the 2025 Yass Prize, talked about what has happened since; Mimosa Jones-Tunney of the SchoolHouse brought the perspective of people reintroducing proven pedagogical approaches; Kyle Smitley of Detroit Achievement Academy, Tiffany Thenor of WonderHere and other founders brought it back to what this looks like on the ground. And Julie Silverbrook, Jeremy Tate and Katie Gorka took us into the equally urgent question of what and how young Americans are learning about their country.
It was policy, capital, ideas and execution in the same room — Tony de Nicola talking about a simple but powerful national tax credit program for kids, state leaders talking about removing barriers, and educators talking about what they can actually build when those barriers come down.
Janine Yass put a finer point on why we bring all of these people together: she and Jeff consider it an honor to find and support the education heroes who never stop advancing great education for kids.
That is what the Yass Prize does. It doesn’t dictate what a school should look like or prescribe one model for everyone. It seeks out new heroes for kids, invests in them, connects them with others and gives them the opportunity to prove what is possible.
That’s why it was so fitting to have Governor Ron DeSantis with us in Philadelphia.
“No matter what your circumstances are, you have an opportunity to succeed. And it’s up to us, people in my position and other positions of authority, to make sure there’s that open field and fair chance, and education is the best way to do it.”
His comments track with the reality. Florida has become one of the clearest demonstrations in America of what happens when political leaders have the courage to give families real education freedom—and educators and entrepreneurs have the freedom to respond.
The result is an explosion of possibilities: different schools, different approaches and different people stepping forward with answers no central authority could ever have designed.
That’s what freedom can unleash.
Standing on the stage Tuesday, I talked about the people in that room as founders in the truest sense of the word. They aren’t waiting for someone else to fix education. They see something that doesn’t exist and build it.
That’s what freedom makes possible. Freedom is the power to choose — and the power to create.
And that’s what was all around us in Philadelphia: parents, teachers and entrepreneurs who saw something that needed to be different and stepped out to create it.
Give those people freedom. Give families choices. Remove the barriers in their way. Connect them with others who share their determination.
Then watch what happens. The ripple effect. Exponential impact.
This is evident in a remarkable note from KaiPod Learning founder Amar Kumar, who traced a line that confirms what we knew freedom would unleash was truly in play.
The Yass Prize’s first support for KaiPod in 2022 helped it build KaiPod Catalyst. Additional support earned during the alumni award process, helped it grow, to ensure dozens more founders could be reached. And this week, founder after founder who had been helped along the way through that infrastructure was standing among our honorees: Lisa Swinson of Creative Minds Microschool, Tom Dowell of Moreana Boys Academy, Alison Rini of StarLab and Doug Dawson of TriPoint Academy, among others.
Amar called it a “multiplier effect,” resulting from an initial idea, then a ripple that expanded as the founders worked, aided by countless people who believed in them along the way.
And of course, there’s the oxygen that both financial investment and positive policy initiatives give them to sustain their work.
But this is what happens when advocates and associations, individuals and policymakers, foundations and civic leaders give ordinary people a chance, remove obstacles, connect them with one another, invest in what works — and then let them go. In fact, they soon become extraordinary.
I wrote in The Education Avengers that heroes aren’t born. They’re summoned. A parent who needs something different for her child. A teacher convinced there is a better way. An entrepreneur willing to risk everything on an idea. Give those people freedom. Give families choices. Remove the barriers in their way. Connect them with others who share their determination.
Then watch what happens.
Sometimes you can see the whole story in one face.
I’ll have much more to say about the Summit. For now, just a taste, to see some of what unfolded in Philadelphia.
The Evidence Keeps Coming
A happy day, yes. But this week’s news offered some interesting data points that reinforce why expanding educational opportunity remains so urgent.
First, new research from University of Arkansas Scholar Patrick Wolf and his co-authors finds that more than a quarter-million students with disabilities now participate in private school-choice programs nationally, representing 15.5–17.2% of all students in those programs.
Interesting, particularly given how often we hear that choice somehow leaves children with disabilities behind.
Private schools have long served students at every level, despite what the critics say. According to FiftyCAN’s Marc Porter Magee, across every level of poverty, Catholic school eighth graders substantially outperform their public school counterparts in reading, including schools serving higher concentrations of lower-income students. Depending on the poverty level, Catholic-school eighth graders scored 16 to 23 points higher in reading than their public school counterparts.
Put that alongside the new numbers on students with disabilities choosing private-school options and the message is clear: when families have options, education is better for everyone.
So expand them. Fund them. Make it easier for educators to create new schools and for existing schools that work to serve more children. Remove the regulations that keep families from accessing them. And stop treating education freedom as an experiment when we know it works. It’s a brave new world. Cue Columbus…
In Search of a New World
This weekend, we celebrate another kind of freedom — the courage to venture beyond the familiar.
October is the month when Italian Americans across the country celebrate their heritage. This weekend there will be parades and flags and family gatherings — and, inevitably, I’ll wake up to another round of venomous attacks asking why anyone would continue to honor Christopher Columbus.
Well, it’s easy. Columbus discovered America and his voyage changed the course of world history.
And for generations of Italian Americans, Columbus Day has represented something more than pride in our heritage—it represents our place in the American story. I am proudly first-generation Italian American, and that history is not something to discard because it has become unfashionable. The Columbus story also reminds us to sail beyond the familiar. To do that, you have to believe there is something on the other side before you can see it. Columbus had to be willing to be wrong, to encounter the unknown and to go where others had not.
That spirit is quintessentially American, and it was everywhere among the people visiting Philadelphia this week: people who looked at an education system that told them, This is how it’s done, and answered, Why? People who refused to accept that a child’s ZIP code, disability, income or circumstances should determine the boundaries of his or her future. People willing to venture beyond what is known in search of something better.
America became the land of the free because generation after generation has exercised that freedom, the freedom to explore, invent, build, worship, teach, challenge and begin again. Someone has to step out.
Tuesday night, as the choir sang Oh Happy Day and a room full of people who have done exactly that celebrated one another, it was hard not to feel hopeful.
Perhaps that is the thread connecting all three stories this week: Freedom. Discovery. Possibility.
Oh Happy Day, indeed.
Have a beautiful, Columbus Day Weekend! Jeanne