Opportunity Starts With Education
Aligning Arizona’s education, workforce, and economic goals to ensure that every Arizona learner has access to quality pathways that lead to degrees, certifications, and high-wage, high-growth sustainable careers.
What We Do
Our Partnership With ABEC
Education Forward Arizona will carry forward ABEC’s legacy, expanding business-education partnerships to strengthen Arizona’s education-to-workforce pipeline and build a more aligned, sustainable talent ecosystem statewide.
Aligning Education & Workforce
Education Forward Arizona is leading a phased effort to align education and workforce systems, clarify roles, reduce fragmentation, and develop a coordinated statewide strategy with shared accountability.
Tracking Education Progress
In partnership with the Center for the Future of Arizona, we created the Arizona Education Progress Meter, a nonpartisan data tool that tracks progress toward the state’s Achieve60AZ goal and helps leaders identify gaps, align action, and improve student outcomes across Arizona.
Attend An InspirED Evening
Join Education Forward Arizona for An InspirED Evening, our annual celebration and awards dinner honoring education champions across the state. The event recognizes collaboration, innovation, and impact while raising support to help more Arizona students succeed.
Our Strategic Direction
Arizona faces a pivotal choice: Build a leading education-to-workforce ecosystem or fall behind competing states. Despite strong public support for education improvement, progress lags, threatening individuals and families as well as statewide economic growth. This requires urgent, cross-sector action to strengthen education, credentials, and talent pipelines across the state.
Our strategic direction aims to turn urgency into coordinated action—and deliver a statewide strategy that produces results.
Bridging Education & Workforce
Education Forward Arizona is a statewide bridge between education and business, fostering collaboration, elevating proven models, and advancing shared solutions. Through partnerships, convenings, and data tools, we are working to align efforts, connect attainment to workforce demand, and build a more coherent, responsive education-to-workforce ecosystem that delivers results for learners, employers, and the state’s economy.
Expanding Access & Attainment
We are working to reach Arizona’s statewide attainment goal: By 2030, 60% of working-age adults (ages 25-64) will hold a certificate, license, or degree. We also aim to expand postsecondary attainment opportunities aligned to workforce needs. Our approach focuses on strengthening accountability through data, partnerships, and advocacy. By updating key metrics, engaging partners and investors, and tracking progress across the education continuum, we support informed decision-making, strengthen alignment across sectors, and advance statewide attainment goals for students and adult learners.
Scaling Effective Models
We are driving innovation by aligning high school experiences, college access models, and workforce priorities through strategic partnerships. By scaling proven approaches, targeting scholarships to high-demand sectors, and sharing playbooks and case studies, we will support effective implementation, inform policy, and expand what works to more students and communities statewide.
Influencing Policy & the Public
Education Forward Arizona is a trusted, nonpartisan voice on educational and workforce alignment, shaping public opinion and informing policy. Through storytelling, data, strategic engagement, we build understanding among leaders, mobilize communities, and strengthen support for investments and accountability measures that connect education outcomes to workforce and economic needs.
Subscribe & Stay Updated
Join our mailing list to receive updates on Arizona’s education progress, policy priorities, and efforts to align education and workforce systems.
Connect on Social
Follow Education Forward Arizona’s social channels for stories and data regarding education progress statewide.
Support Our Work
Support efforts to expand attainment, align education and workforce systems, and drive statewide progress for learners, communities, and Arizona’s economy.