4 Inclusive Practices to Improve Grantmaking with Communities
By Natalie Wilson, Partner, Racial Equity As a Black mother raising a brilliant Black girl who attends a public middle school, I came to this work because I wanted more for all children, especially those furthest from opportunity. I wanted to be at the table where decisions were made to find, fund, and support the […]
Ceding Power: NewSchools Shifts Grantmaking Power to Parents, Students, and Education Innovators
NewSchools Venture Fund In April, NewSchools launched a new funding opportunity to provide dream capital to innovators of color with bold ideas to advance racial equity in education. This investment area combines a broad focus with a new approach to grantmaking: Ceding decision-making power to a council of parents, students, and education innovators. The council […]
Trends Emerging From Our First 62 Investments in 2021
By Frances Messano Here at NewSchools, we kicked off 2021 with the launch of a new three-year strategy, focused on four investment areas: Innovative Public Schools, Learning Solutions, Diverse Leaders, and Racial Equity. Our team is energized by the tremendous response from education innovators and leaders across the country. As we analyzed data from the […]
Building a Thriving Community of Latinx Educators in a City with Fewer than 1% of Them
In Kansas City, Missouri, like in much of the country, the teaching profession is not as diverse as it should be. For every 200 Latinx students in the Kansas City area, there is only 1 Latinx teacher. Edgar Palacios founded Latinx Education Collaborative on the belief that representation matters. Teachers of color can enhance academic […]
Seeing the World Differently – A Summer Reading List
To build connections during our virtual Summit event in May, NewSchools asked a diverse group of innovators, policymakers, funders, and educators to share the books that helped them make sense of the world or simply inspired them this past year. Here are the 145 books that were recommended to us, covering a wide variety of […]
My First and Only Latina Teacher: Why Teacher Diversity Matters
Katiusca Moreno, Senior Partner Most of us remember the teachers who made a powerful difference in our lives. I remember the ones who felt like family. For me, Ms. Heyward was one of those teachers. She was my seventh grade social studies teacher who kept a small Puerto Rican […]