In the 10 years since its founding, NewSchools has moved from a couple of desks in Silicon Valley to a national force, uniquely positioned to identify and support innovative efforts in public education.
In those years, education entrepreneurs have moved from isolated success to become a movement and, increasingly, a household concept.
The report highlights the accomplishments of these entrepreneurs thus far. It also describes the key supports that NewSchools provides to help these entrepreneurs build healthy organizations that take their ideas to scale, and the powerful impact of bringing together networks of practitioners to collaborate and problem solve together.
The work of NewSchools, however, is far from finished. The goal that these entrepreneurs have set before themselves – not simply to improve schools, but to erase the gap separating the education of low income kids from that of their more wealthy peers – has not been fully achieved. Despite undeniable progress and the remarkable benefits that it has brought, there is much more to do. We need more good schools in our toughest neighborhoods. We need to do more to fix schools that are broken, to put great teachers in front of the kids who need them most, to find smarter ways to measure kids’ learning, to equip teachers and principals with the skills they need. The final section of the report articulates some of the areas that NewSchools sees great potential for entrepreneurial solutions.