Press Releases

New York, NY, January 3, 2008 –  As voters and candidates await the results of the Iowa caucus, the New York based group, The Opportunity Agenda, is challenging presidential hopefuls to make a commitment to incorporate America’s most prized value, opportunity, into their policy proposals.

In an effort to achieve this goal, the organization sent each candidate a copy of their book, All Things Being Equal: Instigating Opportunity in an Inequitable Time, which argues that opportunity in America is at a crossroads and provides a framework for restoring it to all Americans.

“Opportunity is at risk in America,” said Alan Jenkins, The Opportunity Agenda’s Executive Director and co-editor of the book.  “Families across America are without health care. Our public education system is broken. Despite progress in past decades, discrimination and other barriers to opportunity based on race persist." We urge the candidates to take a fresh look at these and other critical domestic problems though the lens of opportunity.”

In the book the authors explain that opportunity is not only a condition, but a national commitment to a core set of values: Equality, Mobility, Voice, Redemption, Community and Security.  

The book presents emerging national trends in healthcare, education, racial and gender equality and criminal justice to demonstrate how these values not only play an important role in American consciousness, but are essential to creating a pathway for all Americans to access opportunity.

“We urge the candidates to adjust their own agendas to acknowledge the barriers that exist between so many Americans and their opportunities for social mobility, and restore the great American dream by working to break those barriers down” said Brian D. Smedley, The Opportunity Agenda Co-Founder and co-editor of the book.

As part of their work to engage with presidential candidates, Jenkins served as an advisor for The Heartland Presidential Forum that brought together Iowans, Midwesterners and other citizens to address important issues within local communities. The forum, which drew an estimated 5,000 voters, placed a special emphasis on health care, clean elections, workers' rights, and immigration related issues.

Founded in 2004, The Opportunity Agenda is a New York and Washington, D.C based communications, research and advocacy organization dedicated to building the national will to expand opportunity in America.