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We are a network of leaders committed to building an equitable future.
Network Advisor
As Network Advisor, Josh Pollack helps accelerate the work and impact of Cradle to Career Network members who have reached the Systems Change or Systems Transformation gateways along our Theory of Action™. He provides thought partnership, connects network members to resources and facilitates the delivery of various network offerings.
Josh joined StriveTogether from The Bridgespan Group, where he supported nonprofits and foundations with strategic and operational planning, executive team development and place-based impact. Previously, Josh held several roles in the education sector, most recently as a senior leader in Stockton Unified School District, where he built the city’s inaugural Children’s Cabinet and aligned programs, policies and resources to support improved educational outcomes and economic mobility for students. Josh has also worked as a policy advisor at Common Sense Media, as an Obama Administration appointee serving as special assistant to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and as a middle and high school math teacher in New Orleans, Louisiana and Sacramento, California.
Josh holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a MBA from the University of California, Berkeley. He lives in Sacramento, California with his wife and two children.
hear from josh
Share how one of StriveTogether’s core values (community, courage, equity, progress and results) is important to you.
Courage in this work is something I think about a lot. Many of the students I first taught in New Orleans had their childhoods interrupted by Hurricane Katrina, experienced the negative impacts of multiple generations of poverty, trauma, and racism, and had been failed by an educational experience that left them severely behind academically. Despite this, they showed up – day after day – seeking to improve their own lives and those of their families to find a path forward to a better future. Their persistence was an act of resistance against failed systems, policies and structures. I’m driven by an urgent need to shift the burden of courage off of students like mine and on to adults and systems, to ensure all young people have access to the opportunities they deserve.
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