08/21/2026
Valor Education has been named one of 25 Contenders for the 2026 Yass Prize, a $1 million national award that recognizes organizations providing an education that is sustainable, transformational, outstanding, and permissionless. In the coming weeks, Valor will take part in the Yass Accelerator to learn more about strengthening scaling our organization — all while preparing for a pitch competition that will take place in September. The winner will be announced October 6 at the Power of Innovation Summit in Philadelphia.
Valor proposes an education that is rooted in wonder and animated by our natural desire to understand. Valor students read great literature and philosophy, acquire a broad understanding of history, memorize a canon of poetry, sing, act, and paint; they study mathematics, science, government, economics, and Latin; they engage in daily seminars that form them in intellectual and social virtues; they spend time with the weak and vulnerable, and they encounter the beauty of the created world.
None of this is possible without teachers who have themselves been formed. Robert Spaemann observed that "you have to already be someone in order to teach," and we have built our faculty formation and culture around this reality. Every teacher, leader, and staff member at Valor schools regularly receives coaching and mentorship, reads and discusses great texts in seminar, attends academic and intellectual retreats, and spends full days at symposia led by university professors from across the country.
Valor is now educating 5,000 students at five campuses across Austin and San Antonio. We have plans to grow to 10,000 students and expand to new regions because too many children are receiving an education that is impoverished, that has reductive and narrow ends in mind. We seek to serve new families and new children, to greet them, to welcome them, and to remind them: “It is good that you exist.”
