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Based in Providence, R.I., What Kids Can Do (WKCD) is a national nonprofit founded in January 2001 by an educator and journalist with more than 40 years' combined experience supporting adolescent learning in and out of school. Together, they felt an urgent need to promote perceptions of young people as valued resources, not problems, and to advocate for learning that engages students as knowledge creators and not simply test takers. Just as urgent, they believed, was the need to bring youth voices to policy debates about school, society, and world affairs.

Using the Internet, print, and broadcast media, WKCD presses before the broadest audience possible a dual message: the power of what young people can accomplish when given the opportunities and supports they need and what they can contribute when we take their voices and ideas seriously. The youth who concern WKCD most are those marginalized by poverty, race, and language.

On this website, WKCD presents young people's lives, learning, and work, and their partnerships with adults both in and out of school. Our community of readers stretches from youth organizers in some of this country's toughest urban areas to policy makers at the national level. We believe that a good story well told crosses geographies, generations, class and race, and position.

Our publishing arm, Next Generation Press, honors the power of youth as social documenters, knowledge creators, and advisors to educators, peers, and parents.

WKCD is a grant maker, too, collaborating with youth on multimedia, curricula, and research that expand current views of what constitutes challenging learning and achievement.

Starting in 2006, WKCD began working with youth worldwide. WKCD has become an international leader in bringing the promise of young people to the attention of the adults whose encouragement can make all the difference.

Meet WKCD staff and consultants

 

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In every aspect of its work, What Kids Can Do relies on strategic partnerships with:

• Students, teachers, administrators, parents, and community organizations seeking better schools and better outcomes for all youth.
• School networks and community groups that engage youth in real-world problem solving and learning.
• National and international organizations, education leaders, and foundations committed to supporting transformed schools and learning-and to welcoming youth as active partners in this transformation.
• Groups that promote young people's voices.
• Print, television, and new media.

These partnerships provide the ideas, stories, student work, tools, and support that animate What Kids Can Do. At the same time, WKCD adds visibility to the efforts of these allies, many of whom have worked for years to expand prevailing notions of what constitutes powerful learning and achievement for young people.

 

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The following contributors have provided invaluable funds, inspiration, and connections:

Adobe Systems
AT&T Foundation
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Bronx New Century High Schools
Carnegie Corporation
Forum for Youth Investment
Jobs for the Future
Lyndhurst Foundation
Lumina Foundation for Excellence
The McCormick Tribune Foundation
MetLife Foundation
MTV
Rural School and Community Trust
Shinnyo-en Foundation
Surdna Foundation
The New Press
The Northeast and Islands Regional Education Lab at Brown
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
W.K. Kellogg Foundation

 

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News of WKCD and the work of the youth and educators we support have generated over 150 articles in local and national newspapers, from The New York Times to the Sacramento Bee. We have appeared with our youth collaborators on radio stations across the country. We have published articles about our work in close to two dozen professional journals and magazines. Our Next Generation Press books have sparked reviews in newspapers like the Los Angeles Times, education publications like Teacher's College Press, and trade journals like News Photographer.

WKCD has also provided background material and stories for a wide range of print and broadcast media, including PBS, Jane Pauley Show, Today Show, Lehrer Report, Utne Reader, Salon.com, U.S. News and World Report, People's Magazine, Education Week, and The Chronicle of Philanthropy-along with fielding regular calls from education reporters.