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 […]

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 […]

News Release – NewSchools Ignite Announces “Middle School & High School Math Challenge”

NewSchools Ignite, an initiative of NewSchools Venture Fund, a nonprofit venture philanthropy firm, is now accepting applications for its Middle and High School Math Learning Challenge, which will offer grant funding to edtech startups addressing market gaps in secondary mathematics. “Right now, one of the toughest math problems is figuring out how to get innovative […]

New investments… and a new video!

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/18677353 w=500&h=281] Back in September, we made a promise that if 150,000 people pledged to see the movie Waiting for “Superman”, we would invest $5 million in entrepreneurial organizations that improve public education for low-income kids. The movie gets viewers outraged—as they should be—at the fact that in some communities, a quality education is […]

Education Innovation… and Alan Greenspan?

It wasn’t so long ago that events about education innovation were seen as the province of a few futuristic fanatics. For those who even put education and innovation in the same sentence, it was rarefied stuff. When folks got together to talk about innovation in education – and it wasn’t often – they could easily […]

School reform vs. school jobs? No.

Tucked away in a military spending bill in the House of Representatives is a false choice: saving jobs vs. education reform. The proposal, by Rep. Dave Obey (D-Wis), who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, came to light yesterday thanks to the considerable candlepower of Alyson Klein, half of the dynamic duo that covers federal education […]

The Secretary and the Chairman: A conversation with Arne Duncan and George Miller

Attendees at the NewSchools Summit 2010 were treated to a special conversation between Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Representative George Miller, and NewSchools CEO Ted Mitchell.  The lively conversation covered the topical Investing In Innovation Fund (application deadline is this afternoon!), Race to the Top funding, special education, financing college, teacher training, and much more. […]

Scaling Impact: Answering the Administration’s Call

Susan Colby of The Bridgespan Group took audience members on a brief history tour of the education reform movement while highlighting the significant media attention and success stories from the charter school movement. At each turn, Colby focused on the growth of the entrepreneurial sector in the past decade, drawing attention to their influence on […]

i3: Anyone got a match?

For everyone who’s up late or early putting the finishing touches on an Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund application, this coffee refill is for you. Those i3 applications are due at 4:30 pm Eastern time tomorrow, May 12, so if you sneak out of Summit at 3:45, we’ll know why. (Yes, the due date got […]