For more than a dozen years, What Kids Can Do and our Next Generation Press have championed what we call “powerful learning with public purpose.” Through research, documentation, storytelling and multimedia, we have showcased schools and programs that engage adolescents as collaborators, knowledge creators, and citizens. We have amplified student voice and work, in every way we can.

At a time of fierce debate about how to make and keep our nation’s schools strong (and whose schools they are), we’ve been building a portfolio we call “how youth learn.” Amid the unprecedented push for common core standards, teacher quality, accountability, and school choice, we don’t hear enough — we believe — about what motivates students to learn and do their best.

We offer this portfolio as a stake in the ground — and will add to it regularly:

• what the relevant research says (our own synthesis for non-researchers)
• what students tell us (we've talked with thousands over the years)
• what our documentation of exemplary practice shows (we’re in schools a lot)
• and educator resources (including a new "enhanced e-book" on motivation)

As always, the youth who concern us most are adolescents, ages 12 to 19, whose quest for accomplishment and participation are complicated by poverty, race, and language.