The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching was chartered by an act of Congress in 1906. Since then, it has pioneered a remarkable range of advancements in K–12 and higher education, including the creation of the Carnegie Unit; TIAA; standards for schools of law, medicine, education, and engineering; the Educational Testing Service; the GRE; Pell Grants; the Carnegie Classifications; the U.S. Department of Education; and the use of improvement science and networked improvement communities to improve student learning. 

Today, Carnegie is singularly dedicated to improving educational outcomes for Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian and Pacific Islander, low-income, and first-generation students, and to addressing long-standing educational inequities that impede economic mobility and exacerbate racial inequality.