Investment Strategy
America faces an educational achievement gap that inflicts an unacceptable cost on this country. The system by which we educate students was designed for another era, but today, we know that all students need and deserve a high-quality K-12 education that prepares them for success in college and in life. The need for new approaches could not be clearer, and in the context of new federal leadership in education, the opportunity for entrepreneurs to make a difference could not be greater.
For more than a decade, NewSchools’ name has been synonymous with innovation. Thanks to NewSchools’ support, education entrepreneurs are demonstrating every day that it is possible to dramatically improve the opportunities available to the most underserved students; in so doing, they are changing the conditions in which low-income children are educated throughout the country.
In recognition of this moment, NewSchools Venture Fund introduces its fourth fund, the NewSchools Innovation Fund. The NewSchools Innovation Fund builds on our first three funds and focuses on what we believe are critical leverage points where entrepreneurial solutions can have a meaningful impact on student achievement. The goal of the NewSchools Innovation Fund is to build entrepreneurial organizations that together can close the achievement gap for underserved students through innovative and aligned work in people, tools and schools. Specifically, the Innovation Fund will make investments in several areas, selected not only because of their impact on student achievement, but also because of their power to leverage wider change and the extraordinary impact that is possible when excellent organizations work in alignment across these areas.
The NewSchools Innovation Fund will invest in:
- People: educator training providers that increase the pipeline of teacher and leader talent and define their performance – and the performance of those they train – in terms of impact on student achievement
- Tools: technology-enabled products, platforms, and services that help educators improve instruction, enable customized student learning, or otherwise maximize student achievement
- Schools, including
— School Turnarounds: organizations that take over and turn around chronically failing schools; and
— Charter Management Organizations (CMOs): organizations that create scalable, sustainable school systems.
As we have done in our previous funds, the NewSchools Innovation Fund will also identify “around the corner” solutions outside of these specific areas to help seed the next wave of innovation in education reform.
To complement our investing work, we will also conduct a variety of venture-building activities, in order to ensure that we support the development and growth of strong organizations and propel broader systems change. NewSchools believes that organizations capable of delivering breakthrough results not only directly benefit the students and families they serve, but also provide “proof points” of excellence that accelerate positive change in larger systems.