The Center for the Future of Arizona is helping to shape and define Arizona’s future through an action-oriented agenda focused on issues and topics critical to the state.
More than a think tank, the center is an independent “do tank” that combines public-policy research with collaborative partnerships and initiatives that will create opportunities and quality of life for all Arizonans.
The Arizona Gallup Poll
The Gallup Organization has completed interviews with 3,600 Arizonans as part of the Center for the Future of Arizona’s major public policy initiative “The Arizona We Want.” The Arizona Gallup Poll explored citizens’ opinions and priorities regarding education, health care, job creation, energy and infrastructure. According to Center CEO and Chairman Lattie Coor, it is one of the most comprehensive public opinion polls ever administered in Arizona.
Pathways to Postsecondary
Too few Arizona students are graduating high school, and many who do are inadequately prepared for work or further study. To address this problem, the Center for the Future of Arizona and the Helios Education Foundation have launched Pathways to Postsecondary, an initiative to facilitate system-wide, transformational change of the state’s education system.
Beat the Odds School Partners
Nine metro Phoenix-area schools have reached the first milestone on the road to becoming a “Beat the Odds School.” The schools are participants in the Beat the Odds School Partners Program, which helps principals implement ways of thinking and working together that research has found to characterize schools with better than expected student achievement.
Grad Gap Research Study
A Center for the Future of Arizona research study of Arizonans’ education and income data shows the lifelong value of programs that allow students to graduate high school with college credits, an occupational certificate or job-related training.
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Arizona Announces Plans to Overhaul State Education System
Arizona has joined a national consortium of six states committed to significantly improving student achievement through a dramatic overhaul of its state education system.
Sybil Francis, the center's executive director and leader of Arizona's "Tough Choices or Tough Times" private stakeholder group, will work in a three-way partnership with the Arizona Department of Education and the National Center on Education and the Economy in the coming year to plan pilot projects involving five percent or as many as 50,000 of Arizona's K-12 students at schools and districts that volunteer to participate.
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