Innovating with Generative AI: Examples from the NewSchools Portfolio

Ten years ago, Antoinette Banks was in Los Angeles navigating the educational system for her daughter with autism and ADHD. Her child, often seen through the lens of labels, was in reality brimming with untapped potential. Confronted by a system that struggled to see beyond these diagnoses, Banks was propelled into action and developed a tool that would enable her child, and eventually many others, to thrive beyond conventional expectations.

“They woke up the mama bear in me,” Banks said. “People were not honoring who my daughter was as a student. They were more focused on the overall diagnosis,” rather than recognizing her strengths and potential contributions.  

Years later, this experience fueled Banks to champion a personalized, inclusive educational approach for children with learning differences. Motivated by her daughter’s transformation into a high-achieving student, Banks, now a cognitive science student at the University of California, Davis, created a more sophisticated solution. Leveraging her background and expertise, she built an app that customizes Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) to each child’s strengths and needs, breaking free from traditional models. 

Designing Expert IEP: A Tool for Empowerment and Inclusion

Through her work, Banks, who is Black and Latina, sought to address another significant gap she had encountered while navigating the IEP process — a glaring lack of research and resources on autism tailored to families like her own. She made the app to not only meet the diverse needs of families but also to acknowledge and embrace the rich and unique experiences of underrepresented communities.

Banks spent many months researching and seeking feedback from educators, parents, and experts in special education and technology. As Expert IEP began to take shape, its potential became increasingly apparent. By integrating machine learning algorithms, Expert IEP could adapt to a child’s progress over time, suggesting adjustments to keep them on track toward achieving their full potential. The algorithms were built from a database of IEPs shared by families of color. But it was Banks’ human-centered approach that truly set Expert IEP apart. She understood that technology was only part of the solution. The other equally important part was empowering families to advocate for their children. Expert IEP was designed to demystify the often complex and opaque IEP process, providing parents with the knowledge and tools they needed to be active participants in their child’s education. 

A Leap Forward: The NewSchools Boost

NewSchools was drawn to Banks’ bold approach to reimagining the IEP process and, in 2022, awarded her a $150,000 grant to elevate her project. “The grant from NewSchools represented the first significant investment from a national funder in both my vision and the potential of Expert IEP,” Banks said. With it, she was able to recruit additional talent to help her expand the capabilities of Expert IEP.

Banks also gained access to a network of experts and resources that could help refine and scale her vision. She noted that NewSchools’ approach to supporting founders was like a “breath of fresh air.”

“I was given a platform to share my vision and collaborate with other education leaders who are really interested in moving the needle for diverse learners,” she said. Banks described the NewSchools network and communities of practice as a “powerful think tank” that helped her grow as a leader and make better choices.  

Changing Lives: Expert IEP’s Success 

One of the most significant indicators of success has been the academic progress by students using Expert IEP. In a pilot program in Oakland, California, students with IEPs at three schools demonstrated substantial improvement, with many advancing at least one letter grade in reading and math. Teachers and parents alike noted the app’s role in facilitating more meaningful, personalized educational experiences that resonated with students strengths and interests. Expert IEP helped students like Adam improve his reading and public speaking skills, culminating with him being able to confidently read a book aloud to his peers by year’s end. 

Beyond academic achievements, Expert IEP fostered a sense of empowerment among families. Parents who once felt overwhelmed by the IEP process now reported feeling more equipped and motivated to advocate for their children. “What matters most to me is that we put families at the heart of what we do”, Banks said. “If we want a student-centered education system and better outcomes, then we must empower and amplify the voices of families.” 

Reaching New Milestones: A Vision for the Future 

Banks’ work has caught the attention of other philanthropic organizations and investors. In 2023, Expert IEP received a $100,000 award as a YASS Prize quarterfinalist and the prestigious Pharrell Williams Black Ambition grand prize of $1 million. Banks is set to publicly launch her app, Expert Parent, in fall 2024 and is committed to expanding the reach of Expert IEP, aiming to serve an additional 10,000 families on a waitlist. As her business expands, she plans to introduce new products for both students and educators. 

Banks’ goal is not just to improve academic outcomes but to foster a more inclusive and equitable education system that recognizes and nurtures the potential in every child. Through Expert IEP, Banks has changed the trajectory for her daughter’s life and is laying the groundwork for all children, regardless of their learning differences, to have the opportunity to achieve their fullest potential. 

Check out our impact report for more stories of innovation and impact. 

I’m thrilled to announce that NewSchools this year is investing $25 million in 102 ventures. These visionary teams are designing solutions with support from their communities. They are listening to students, parents, and educators and working to make education more engaging and relevant for all learners. Four trends emerged across the applications we received that are worth highlighting. Taken together, they provide a roadmap for who and what to fund to achieve meaningful change in education. 

Diverse and experienced leaders with deep community ties leading the way

We believe diverse, experienced education leaders with deep community relationships build the most effective, sustainable solutions to meet student needs and aspirations. In 2023, 70% of our funded ventures are led by people of color, and 62% by women founders, surpassing national averages. We strategically invested in more seasoned leaders, many of whom are former teachers, administrators and systems leaders who bring invaluable expertise to navigate the sector’s challenges and uncertainties. For example, in our Diverse Leaders portfolio, 40% of venture leaders have experience leading systems-level talent work, like supporting school districts to successfully address staffing challenges or scaling local teacher training programs to a national level. Our innovators also bring deep connections to the communities they serve.  For example, in our Learning Differences portfolio 60% of ventures are led by a person who has a learning difference or is a caregiver to someone with a learning difference. These leaders have unique insights into the experiences of students with learning differences, and their perspective is a superpower that unlocks more impactful solutions.

Schools offering new pathways to college and career

Today’s youth are eager for engaging and relevant learning experiences that nurture their talents and allow them to explore their interests, especially during their high school years. As a result, we’ve seen an increase in the number of applications for new high school designs, which accounted for over 55% of funded ventures in this year’s innovative public schools portfolio. These teams are creating high schools with comprehensive college and career pathways focused on work-based learning, dual college enrollment, or both. They tailor their approaches to students’ career interests and partner with local colleges and corporations to provide practical skills, real-world experiences and meaningful credentials. Schools like BELIEVE Circle City High School and Design Works High School forge partnerships with local universities and community partners to support students interested in advanced coursework, credentials, and college credits. Our team is eager to support more innovations that expand access to both college and career pathways, while enhancing students’ academic foundation. 

Unlocking new opportunities with AI-powered solutions

In 2023, we invested in 10 new ventures that are leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to create new possibilities for students and educators alike. For example, LitLab uses generative AI to empower students and teachers to create personalized, decodable stories and content aligned with student interests and the science of reading. Other solutions focus on supporting educators and enhancing their practice. Enlighten AI streamlines and automates tasks like personalized feedback on student writing, allowing educators to allocate more time and energy to effective teaching and building relationships with students. AI technology can also aid high school students in becoming more competitive and prepared for college and careers. LivedX, for instance, is an online portal that translates students’ everyday life experiences into credentials, helping them build portfolios of highly-valued skills that can be recognized by educational institutions and workplaces. We’re excited to see how innovators and educators continue to embrace AI as a powerful lever for learning and equity. 

Empowering youth through project-based learning

Project-based learning (PBL) has long been used by educators as an effective method for nurturing students’ complex problem-solving skills through interdisciplinary, real-world projects. This year, we’ve observed a notable increase in how PBL Is being used, both within and outside our schools portfolio. Fifty-percent of school teams in the planning stages have PBL as a core component of their model, and they are leveraging high-quality frameworks from organizations such as PBLWorks, High Tech High, Big Picture Learning and EL Education. Venture leaders recognize the power of PBL in cultivating student agency, amplifying students’ voices and helping young people to understand the world around them. For example, in our Racial Equity portfolio, The Roots Initiative is employing PBL to empower Black middle school students in Southside Chicago to design and implement solutions to address injustices in their communities while learning more about themselves. 

We are proud to invest in a future that supports all students to grow into the leaders and problem solvers our world needs. And our work is far from finished. In the months ahead, we will make reinvestments, unveil our investment priorities for 2024-26, and share insights from our current three-year strategy. For now, please join me in congratulating our new ventures. We can’t wait to see their impact in action.

See all 2023 new ventures

Learning differences are a critical facet of students’ identities and should be understood as assets that can create new opportunities for all students to learn and grow together. Research shows that 1 in 5 students learn and think differently. Some students with learning differences may have a formal diagnosis such as dyslexia, but many learning differences go unnoticed until later in life or not at all. 

Often these students are not served well in traditional classrooms.

A national survey finds only 17% of teachers are well prepared to teach students with mild to moderate disabilities.

The lack of training and support for teachers working with students who have learning differences has academic implications. Results from the National Assessment for Educational Progress show math and reading scores for students with disabilities have declined from 2009 to 2019 while their peers in general education have made gains over the same period. These findings show the need for more innovation to equitably support educators and learners.

At NewSchools, I support innovators who are helping to reimagine how to believe in our youth, create opportunities to learn from them, and build communities of educators who have the skills to meet the needs of every student. While students with learning differences have always been an important part of NewSchools’ mission to reimagine education for historically underserved students, our commitment to creating better learning opportunities for these students has only deepened in recent years. Last year, Oak Foundation and NewSchools partnered to mobilize around a unique opportunity — empowering students with learning differences, especially those impacted by racism and poverty – in ways that are responsive to Covid-recovery needs while also driving long-term systemic change. 

As we emerged from the pandemic, with research showing the shift to remote learning had the most severe impact on students with disabilities, it was important for us to begin with a listening tour to understand diverse perspectives in the learning differences community. Since then, we’ve developed a community engagement strategy that centers the voices and lived experiences of youth, caregivers, education leaders, and researchers, especially those impacted by the historical inequities in the special education sector. These critical perspectives alongside key findings from the National Center for Learning Disabilities and Understood, shaped our investment strategy and led us to invest in 11 early-stage ideas focused on reimagining the school experience for students with learning differences. 

What we’ve learned in our first year of investing

The Learning Differences portfolio represents a wide range of research-based equity-centered practices, united by a common focus on increasing voice, choice, and asset based representation of students with learning differences and their caregivers. These innovators seek to reimagine the system and empower families. These three trends from our portfolio hold the potential to create positive student impact as well as help to shape future innovation.

1. Innovations designed for students with learning differences have the potential to benefit all students.

Targeted Universalism and Universal Design for Learning provide frameworks for designing inclusive innovations and systems that center those at the margins, which result in a better education system for all. Several ventures in the portfolio are using these principles to create inclusive practices and provide customized learning pathways. For example, Celebrate EDU and Social Cipher are programs that leverage technology to provide self-paced learning focused on entrepreneurship and social emotional learning, increasing student agency and empowerment. Students were excited about these innovations because they have the potential to “destigmatize neurodivergent thinking, increase representation, and provide opportunities for individual and group learning.” Similarly, the Thriving Students Collective provides engaging on-demand digital resources and professional learning for caregivers, educators,and psychologists in K-12 schools from experts in the field. Rural Opportunity Institute’s goal is to increase mental health services for students by helping schools and community-based organizations put the systems and structures in place to leverage Medicaid funding. While each of these innovations were designed to increase access for students with learning differences and the adults who support them, these innovations increased access to mental health supports, experts, and opportunities for social emotional development for all students, educators, and caregivers. 

2. Diverse teams with personal connections to learning differences are uniquely positioned to design solutions to meet the community need.

Most organizations in the portfolio are led by innovators who are either caregivers or siblings of young people with learning differences, or who self-identify as having a learning difference. These leaders understand how implicit bias towards students with learning differences, especially those impacted by racism and poverty, affect long-term outcomes on both academics and overall self-esteem. Resha Conroy, who leads the Dyslexia Alliance for Black Children, is a Black mother to a son with dyslexia. She shared that “public school gave [her] the ‘wait to fail’ language…there was no expectation for [her son] as a reader and a learner.” This experience, coupled with her background in education, drove her to launch Dyslexia Alliance for Black Children to provide Black families with the community, resources, and skills to advocate for their children. Similarly, Antoinette Banks, a Black mother of a young woman on the autism spectrum and with ADHD, was told to have no expectations for her daughter’s future. This motivated her to learn how to set concrete goals for her daughter’s growth so she could advocate for resources needed and celebrate progress. She founded Expert IEP and is now leveraging her experience to help families advocate for better Individualized Education Program (IEP) goals. Families can also use her services to track their student’s progress in school and understand their own strengths as parents. 

3. Approaches need to address adaptive as well as technical challenges in serving students with learning differences, especially those impacted by racism and poverty.

Research has shown that teacher bias leads to Black students being underdiagnosed with autism and overdiagnosed with emotional disturbances and intellectual disabilities, as well as Latino students being underdiagnosed in childhood and overdiagnosed in high school. Several innovations in the portfolio are actively addressing issues of implicit bias. The All Means All Leadership Fellowship and the Special Education Leader Fellowship (SELF) are 15-24 month-long school leader programs that leverage a cohort model to pair the practicing of key equity levers with intensive coaching, feedback, and collaboration to encourage sustainability of these efforts. Cognitive ToyBox reduces teacher bias towards Black students through a gamified version of an executive functioning assessment. An initial pilot revealed self regulation scores from the assessment were higher for Black students compared to teacher ratings. This solution has the potential to raise awareness about bias, improve access to core instruction for students who may have otherwise been pulled out of the classroom, and provide teachers with a more accurate understanding of student’s executive functioning skills, which are critical for later success in school and life. The Inspired Community Project and IEP&Me are both focused on providing specialized services to families and are designed to center the voice and agency of caregivers and students. One community member shared, “it is refreshing to read an idea that heavily focuses on improving personal relationships between education professionals, families, and students.”

Doctors said my sister wouldn’t live a week and she thrived for 25 years building a better world by demanding people see the possible in the impossible. Students with learning differences deserve to have access to a great education that allows them to thrive and excel — in and out of the classroom – and we all have the opportunity to make that possible. 

At NewSchools, we will continue to listen and learn from the community as we make a new set of investments focused on students with learning differences. If you are working to reimagine education to empower students with learning differences, we’d love to hear from you. Learn more about our funding opportunity and apply by March 29th!

Watch our BrightSpots episode “Empowering Students with Learning Differences” live on March 14, 2023.

The urgency to bring new solutions and approaches has never been greater in education. Last year, we started with a promise and a plan of action and we funded innovators to support students through Covid recovery and beyond. We invested in solutions that accelerate student learning, provide students with social-emotional support, and put equity at the center by ensuring that students see themselves reflected in what they are learning and who they are learning from. We listened closely to what our venture leaders need to deepen their impact and improve our approaches, while piloting new approaches to how we fund. As I look back on the results we achieved in 2022, there are many milestones to celebrate and also reminders of how much work there is yet to do. Here are three themes that emerged that I’m excited to share: 

Strong entrepreneurial energy in education from seasoned, diverse leaders

We received 889 applications in 2022 across our investment areas and 2 out of every 3 submissions were from first-time applicants. We are trending back to “steady-state” levels after seeing an influx in applications immediately following a Covid-era pause of funding new ventures. Even more exciting than the number of submissions is the diversity in our applicant pool. Nationwide, 80% of entrepreneurs are White and 65% are male; in our 2022 applicant pool, 67% identified as leaders of color and 57% identify as female. More seasoned educators are joining our ranks of innovators and sharing promising ideas. These leaders’ experience is critical for ensuring young people get access to what works, and their focus on introducing new solutions is energizing. We are also seeing more ideas from the South and Midwest regions where we historically had fewer applicants. We still have work to do, though. For example, we continue to experience racial demographic gaps in our applicant pool, namely an underrepresentation of Latino, Asian, and Native leaders, and we want to encourage more geographic diversity as well. 

Innovators are developing holistic student-centered solutions and pursuing impact in new ways 

Across our portfolios, we see more student-centered solutions focused on helping young people thrive. This has taken many forms. Innovators are balancing the need to focus on unfinished learning due to school interruption at the height of the COVID outbreak, while also maintaining a strong focus on social-emotional learning and equity-centered design. 

We are encouraged to see more school leaders embrace and implement an expanded definition of student success. This approach is essential for students to realize their full academic potential. Students who believe their abilities and skills can grow with effort and who feel physically and emotionally safe at school demonstrate additional learning similar to moving from the 50th to the 67th percentile on national assessments. Most notably, we observed that when students’ social and emotional needs were met within a positive school culture, it served as a protective factor against pandemic-era learning loss.

There have also been meaningful shifts in how leaders approach their work. We have noticed innovators put greater emphasis on deeper local community investment over efforts to scale into new places. Innovators in our portfolio are also pursuing ecosystem change by codifying their models, training partners, and sharing their approaches to achieve impact in new ways. Lastly, there is an increase in consolidation activities and leadership transitions across our portfolio, with ventures merging, getting acquired, sunsetting their organizations and/or succession planning. 

We are putting dollars to work in real-time and setting the stage for future impact 

Last year, we invested $45M across 141 organizations, 76% led by people of color. The proportion of our grant dollars going to leaders of color is six times more than the national average. We are often among the first to fund these early-stage innovators, and we see proof that our support makes a difference in their long-term sustainability. In our Diverse Leaders portfolio, organizations we fund go on to fundraise 11x our initial investment. We believe this is possible because we do more than write checks. We walk alongside our ventures and provide capacity-building support that helps them build for the future. We are real partners to our ventures, and when asked, 84% said NewSchools positively impacted their organizations to a great extent​. 

Pulling up from a single year, it’s noteworthy that we have invested $305M in nearly 600 ventures over the last eight years, reaching close to 60% of the public school students in the United States and supporting more than 70K leaders. We are incredibly proud of the impact we’ve had and eager to continue our momentum in the year ahead. 

As I often say, we are onto something at NewSchools, and I’m excited to continue building together the public education system that all our children deserve. If you have an innovative solution that you believe will help us reimagine education, my team wants to hear from you. Our 2023 funding opportunity opens this week and we are accepting applications through March 29, 2023. We can’t wait to hear about your ideas. 

It’s an exciting and challenging time to step into the CEO role at NewSchools. For the past eight years, I’ve been an executive leader in the organization and I’ve had the opportunity to design and implement new ways of funding and supporting education entrepreneurs. In 2023, we are celebrating our 25th anniversary and embarking on the final year of our current strategy. Thanks to the incredible generosity and sustained support of institutional and individual partners, NewSchools is positioned to deliver on the promises we made and chart a path for the future. 

As we deepen our understanding of the pandemic’s impact on students across the country, we are confronting the brutal facts on unfinished learning, chronic absenteeism and the increased need for mental health support. Despite the collective fatigue many teachers and school and systems leaders are feeling after three years of the pandemic, we still see their commitment to creating supportive learning environments for students. They are working urgently to help schools rebuild from the pandemic, searching for evidence of what works. All of these efforts are grounded in the belief that every young person in this country deserves an excellent and equitable education. 

The negative education trends we are steeped in aren’t the whole story. It’s true that we are still navigating a difficult time. Being a leader in venture philanthropy and education innovation, however,  has taught me that we can absolutely solve tough problems if we follow the lead of students, educators, and entrepreneurs. There are many bright spots pointing to new lessons and providing fresh evidence of what works. Centering the voices and perspectives of students, while also listening to leaders and innovators across our portfolio is helping my organization meaningfully address current challenges and identify ways to have even greater impact in the future. We are committed to leading with optimism, ambition, and imagination in 2023. Here’s what we’ll be up to in the months ahead: 

Investing $45M across our strategy in partnership with community members

We exist to put dollars to work for educators and students and we plan to invest $45 million in 2023 in early-stage innovations that have the greatest potential for driving change in public education. We will continue to invest in our four investment areas – Innovative Public Schools, Learning Solutions, Diverse Leaders and Racial Equity – while also reinvesting in ventures best positioned for impact. In addition, we will continue to support areas of need, such as mental health support, innovative talent solutions and supporting students with learning differences, this year. While we do this, we won’t operate in silos. Across all our investment areas, we engage students, parents, educators and researchers in our funding decisions to broaden our perspectives. 

Elevating the bright spots from our portfolio as a roadmap for recovery

The NewSchools portfolio has many bright spots and examples that can provide a roadmap on how to navigate Covid recovery, and we are committed to more regularly sharing examples and promising practices from our work. For example, looking across our schools portfolio, we find evidence of resilience and recovery tied to a commitment to positive school culture and social-emotional learning. Our data suggest that with early and targeted interventions focused on creating supportive learning environments for students, it is possible to interrupt and recover from Covid-era academic backsliding. We look forward to sharing impact results from 2022, which point to reasons for optimism in the months ahead. 

Designing our next strategy

During the year, we will be creating our strategy for 2024 and beyond. We are rethinking our current investment strategies and priorities, as well as how we make funding decisions. For example, we wonder if we should adopt new or retire existing investment areas, if we should stay with entrepreneurs longer to support their sustainability, and if we should implement participatory grantmaking across more aspects of our strategy. The core question we’ll be asking is, how should NewSchools lead in this next chapter? And we want your feedback to help us chart the course. During my first 100 days as CEO, I’ll be meeting with education leaders and innovators from across the NewSchools portfolio, as well as with our partners across the nation who are working alongside us to advance a shared vision for equity and excellence in education. 

In the meantime, NewSchools will continue to expand access to who gets to be an education entrepreneur and whose ideas get listened to, while recruiting more philanthropies to join us. I want to assemble the most diverse and dedicated group of innovators, community leaders, and philanthropists to reimagine public education for good. 

I look forward to partnering with you all in the year ahead. 

Finding and keeping diverse and talented teachers is a growing challenge in many parts of the country. Years of disrupted schooling, political and cultural battles, and school shootings have taken a toll on educators. A study by the National Center for Education Statistics in March found that 44% of all public schools reported having teacher vacancies, with 61% of schools citing the pandemic as the main cause. 

At the same time, few schools have made changes to outdated staffing practices despite the fact that people’s needs and attitudes toward work have changed. We believe it is time to rewrite the rules of teaching and reimagine the teaching profession. 

Piloting and scaling innovative staffing models can make teaching a more diverse, rewarding, and sustainable profession while ensuring students have equitable access to educators who can have the greatest positive impact on their learning and wellbeing. Many schools in our portfolio have found creative ways to attract and retain good teachers in the current environment. At these schools, teachers work in teams, not in isolation, share manageable workloads, and receive expert coaching and support as well as higher, differentiated pay. 

Our team found strong positive relationships between a school’s culture and climate, teacher retention rates, and student outcomes. In schools with high teacher satisfaction and retention rates, for example, 60% of students are meeting growth goals in math and 58% are meeting their growth goals in reading. We hope that by sharing what we have learned, more districts and schools will embrace innovative staffing models to attract, develop, and retain the educators that students need to grow, learn, and thrive.

Use instructional time strategically and flexibly to meet teacher and student needs

Instead of the traditional “one teacher, one classroom” model, where a single teacher is responsible for meeting the different needs of every student in a classroom, Atlas Public Schools in St. Louis uses a co-teaching model. With two educators in each classroom, students can get more personalized attention and differentiated instruction. This creates a more sustainable workload for teachers. Atlas also operates year-round, a decision that is just as much about supporting educators as it is about supporting students. In lieu of a long summer break, the school runs in five-week academic cycles followed by two-week breaks. This allows teachers to have a week to reflect, collaborate, and plan and another week to rest. During this time, students continue to access academic and enrichment activities delivered outside the school by community partners. By using a co-teaching model and a year-round academic calendar, the school has seen positive results. Atlas kindergarten and first grade students are achieving at the 60th percentile in math and at the 50th percentile in reading nationally. The school’s staff retention rate is 98%, above the national average. 

Organize teams in ways that optimize for mentorship, relationship building, and manageable workloads

In a typical school, teachers are saddled with responsibilities that often distract from the core work of intellectual preparation, creating joyful and engaging learning environments, and sustaining positive relationships with students. At Third Future Schools, a network of public charter schools in Colorado and Texas, traditional teaching roles are unbundled and differentiated to support students. A team of curriculum specialists is responsible for developing daily lesson plans while teaching assistants are responsible for making copies and grading assignments. By unbundling these responsibilities, teachers can focus on providing high-quality instruction and building relationships with students. CEO Mike Miles likens the staffing model to the way effective hospitals are run, where nurses and doctors own clearly defined aspects of patient care. Experienced educators also provide coaching and mentorship to novice teachers through an apprenticeship model to ensure students always have access to well-trained, well-prepared teachers. This model has been highly effective. At Coperni 3 in Colorado Springs, 77% of students are meeting their growth targets in math and 66% are meeting their growth targets in reading. The school also had 83% of teachers and staff who returned this year. 

Prioritize building inclusive organizational cultures and equitable systems and structures to attract and retain diverse talent 

Schools in our portfolio that consistently prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices have high teacher satisfaction and retention rates as well as positive academic outcomes. Phoenix International Academy, a K-8 public charter school in Phoenix, has had success attracting and retaining diverse teachers. Founder and Executive Director Ivette Rodriguez says she embeds DEI practices into hiring and professional development and pays close attention to teacher data disaggregated by race and ethnicity to guide her decision-making. The school staffing model encourages collaboration and communication across lines of difference and teachers with less experience receive mentorship and coaching from more experienced ones. Rodriguez credits these practices and the work of her team for the school’s high staff retention rate — 81% of teachers and staff returned this school year — and most students meeting their academic growth goals.  

Align compensation with other incentives to keep strong educators 

When thinking about teacher sustainability, it is important to consider benefits beyond teacher salaries.  Innovative schools also consider workplace culture, quality of life, and work-life balance. This is especially true in our current environment of economic uncertainty, rapidly rising costs of living, and real-time shifts in what people want and need from their work.  At Compass Rose Public Schools, a K-12 charter management organization in Texas, which has been certified as a “Great Place to Work”, a strong and healthy organizational culture is at the heart of their employee value proposition. In surveys, staff have shared that relationships between teachers and students are respectful, the organization is charting a path for continuous improvement, teachers are trusted to teach in the ways they think is best, and the overall working environment is positive. Compass Rose Harvest has an 84% staff favorability rating, strong teacher retention (hovering above 90%), and the majority of students meet their academic growth goals annually.

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The last three years of schooling have challenged every educator to reimagine the learning environment for students. Similarly, school system leaders should reimagine the educator experience and create environments where educators feel supported, respected, and valued. The schools we have chosen to spotlight show that there is more than one way to attract, develop, and retain effective teachers. What is the same is their focus on educator wellness and sustainability while keeping the needs of students front and center and developing learning environments that are built to last.

In case you missed it: Watch our most recent Bright Spots broadcast, “Rethinking Teaching for Excellence and Sustainability”