Event Recap – NewSchools Venture Fund https://www.newschools.org We Invest in Education Innovators Thu, 10 Oct 2024 14:27:41 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://www.newschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Group-4554.png Event Recap – NewSchools Venture Fund https://www.newschools.org 32 32 Summit 2024 Sessions https://www.newschools.org/blog/summit-2024-sessions/ Thu, 30 May 2024 17:56:08 +0000 https://www.newschools.org/?p=34435 ]]> 34435 Building better and braver coalitions is just the beginning https://www.newschools.org/blog/building-better-and-braver-coalitions-is-just-the-beginning/ Wed, 18 Oct 2023 20:04:41 +0000 https://www.newschools.org/?p=33214 Cross-posted to The Building Bridges Initiative

Earlier this month, my organization, NewSchools Venture Fund, gathered venture leaders, staff, funders, and supporters from every chapter of our history to celebrate twenty-five years of impact. Weeks later, I’m still smiling from the many inspiring moments shared with the people who have been closest to our work. What continues to stand out is the provocation to tell the truth about the real challenges facing K–12 education and to engage with candor, courage, and compassion as we collaborate on the important work ahead.

This time in education is different from anything we’ve experienced before, and it’s a moment when our students need us to stand with them more than ever. They need and deserve our belief in them and our investment in their futures so they can become the problem solvers our society needs most. But how can we stand up for students when there’s so much polarization that’s getting in the way? To me and others, it’s very clear that we need to build new, broader coalitions to bring about true change in education.

I am proud to have participated in The Building Bridges Initiative, which started with a group of almost twenty education advocates from left, right and center who came together to align on an aspirational vision for change in education. Following on this group’s work, I thought it was important to invite four of my fellow coalition members—Jennifer Alexander, Executive Director, PIE Network; Eugene Pinkard, Director K12 Leadership, The Aspen Institute; Keri Rodrigues, President, National  Parents Union; and Luke Ragland, Senior VP Grants, Daniels Fund—to share their experiences with the broader NewSchools community.

At the event , each panelist talked openly about their initial hesitations to join a bridging effort, especially since similar efforts have failed in recent years. They acknowledged the things we all know too well—that our nation is painfully polarized, that we have purity tests to determine whether someone is in and outside of our tent, and that we have forgotten how to compromise and work across lines of difference. We discussed the messy, non-linear journey to finding common ground among our group and what kept us all coming back to the table.

In a nutshell, we were able to find consensus because we had built relationships. Before every meeting, we broke bread together. Over dinner we talked about our children, our favorite movies, our shared goals, and saw ourselves reflected in each other. During our meetings, we disagreed with each other without being disagreeable. We engaged in respectful debate and brought in evidence and examples to support our claims. And even when we faced what felt like an impasse, we kept coming back to the table because of our deep belief in the power of standing together and standing up for our young people.

I’m proud that we created a joint statement outlining what we want to be true for today’s students, and I want more leaders to undertake the hard messy work of coalition building. But I also want us to do it with eyes wide open. Building better and braver coalitions isn’t the end goal, it’s table stakes. If we can’t even talk to each other, we will never get to the actual work that our students, families, and educators are counting on us to do.

For the Building Bridges Initiative, we found convergence and momentum by agreeing on what we wanted to be true for all students and then working from there to answer the question, “What will it take?” We agreed that public education is a critical player in preparing citizens to effectively participate in our democracy and a critical engine of social and economic mobility in America. We defined the need for a future education system that is adaptable, centered around student needs, and rooted in a broader definition of student success. We agreed that parents should have more resources at their disposal to invest in student enrichment activities and support to complement what their children are learning and doing in schools. We were excited about the possibility to redesign the role of educators and attract new talent to power student learning.

As anticipated, we didn’t agree on everything. In those moments of tension, we had to decide what mattered most — centering students and sustaining our coalition or allowing our ideological differences to stop us from making progress. We chose to care more about what students and educators need in this moment in time. And that’s the choice we must continue to make in the future, especially when it’s hard. The process required each of us to hold strong to our values, while being willing to compromise on how we get things done but never on if we get things done.

I believe we can choose to be better and braver education leaders, and this experience has affirmed for me that I’m not alone. As I lead the team at NewSchools into our next chapter, we will center our values as we put dollars to work, not just in service of strengthening coalitions, but advancing meaningful solutions that hold the most promise for students who need them most. And we will keep listening, learning, and finding common ground because achieving educational equity is too big for any one organization to solve alone. It’s going to require all of us.

Frances Messano is CEO at NewSchools Venture Fund

]]> 33214 Summit 2022 Sessions https://www.newschools.org/blog/summit-2022-sessions/ Fri, 06 May 2022 16:51:45 +0000 https://www.newschools.org/?p=34432
]]> 34432 Seeing the World Differently – A Summer Reading List (Summit 2021) https://www.newschools.org/blog/seeing-the-world-differently-summer-reading-list/ Thu, 01 Jul 2021 17:36:47 +0000 https://www.newschools.org/?p=30802 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 genres and subjects, all relevant to our work of reimagining education. Many of these books remind us that for all our differences and the time we were apart, we are still very much bound to one another.

Happy browsing and reading!   

  • A Good Time for the Truth, edited by Sun Yung Shin
  • A Joyful Pause by Nicole Taylor
  • A Measure of Belonging: Twenty-one Writers of Color on the New American South, edited by Cinelle Barnes
  • A Promised Land by Barack Obama
  • A Search for Common Ground: Conversations About the Toughest Questions in K–12 Education by Pedro Noguera and Federick Hess
  • Acts of Faith (Daily Meditations for People of Color) by Iyanla Vanzant
  • All Students Must Thrive by Patrick Camangian, Tyrone Caldwell Howard, Earl J. Edwards, Andrea C. Minkoff
  • Always Running by Luis J Rodriguez
  • American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
  • Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur
  • Awakening the Natural Genius of Black Children by Amos N. Wilson
  • Becoming by Michelle Obama
  • Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and It’s Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie Glaude Jr.
  • Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
  • Better Allies: Everyday Actions to Create Inclusive, Engaging Workplaces by Karen Catlin
  • Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
  • Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, with accompanying workbook
  • Brave, Not Perfect by Reshma Saujani
  • Brown is the New White by Steve Phillips
  • Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
  • Catfish and Mandala by Andrew X. Pham
  • Change: How to Make Big Things Happen by Damon Centola
  • Charter Schools and Their Enemies by Thomas Sowell
  • Churchill by Andrew Roberts
  • Citizen by Claudia Rankine
  • Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson
  • Color of Law
  • Combined Destinies: Whites Sharing Grief about Racism by Ann Todd Jealous
  • Courageous Conversations About Race by Glenn E. Singleton
  • Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy by Gholdy Muhammad
  • Dare to Lead by Brene Brown
  • Daring Greatly by Brene Brown
  • Decolonizing Wealth by Edgar Villanueva
  • Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need by Sasha Costanza-Chock
  • Despite the Best Intentions by Amanda Lewis & John Diamond
  • Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns by Clayton M. Christensen
  • Educated by Tara Westover
  • Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935 by James D Anderson
  • Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman
  • Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Maree Brown
  • Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker
  • Everyone Communicates, Few Connect by John C Maxwell
  • Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling, Richard Harries, Anna Rosling Rönnlund, Ola Rosling
  • Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain
  • Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
  • Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching by Jarvis Givens
  • Gather by Octavia Raheem
  • Ghosts in the Schoolyard by Eve L. Ewing
  • Grading for Equity by Joe Feldman
  • High Conflict by Amanda Ripley
  • Home Body by Rupi Kaur
  • Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
  • How Children Succeed by Paul Tough
  • How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates
  • How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
  • Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende
  • Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
  • Language at the Speed of Sight by Mark Seidenberg
  • Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box by The Arbinger Institute
  • Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading by Heifeta and Linsky
  • Leapfrogging Inequality by Rebecca Winthrop
  • Looking Like A Language, Sounding Like A Race by Jonathan Rosa
  • Makes Me Wanna Holler by Nathan McCall
  • Mamaleh Knows Best: What Jewish Mothers Do to Raise Successful, Creative, Empathetic, Independent Children by Marjorie Ingall
  • Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong
  • Moral Leadership by Thomas Serviovanni
  • My Grandmother’s Hands by Reesma Menakem
  • Nightjohn by Gary Paulsen
  • No Justice in the Shadows: How America Criminalizes Immigrants by Alina Das
  • Panther Baby by Jamal Joseph
  • Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools by Monique Morris, EdD
  • Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha by Tara Brach
  • Radio Golf by August Wilson
  • Raising Free People by Akilah S. Richards
  • Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein
  • Reading With Patrick by Michelle Kuo
  • Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky
  • Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much by Sendhil Mullainathan
  • See No Stranger by Valerie Kaur
  • Shifting by Charisse Jones and Kumea Shorter-Gooden
  • Sisters of the Yam by bell hooks
  • Subtractive Schooling by Angela Valenzuela
  • Tattoos on the Heart by Gregory Boyle
  • Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks
  • Teaching with Fire by Sam M. Intrator
  • The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership by Diana Chapman, Kaley Klemp, Jim Dethmer
  • The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater
  • The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
  • The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker
  • The Black Excellence Project: Bard Early College D.C. written by 9th and 10th grade students
  • The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
  • The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
  • The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen
  • The Education We Need for a Future We Can’t Predict by Thomas Hatch
  • The Element by Sir Ken Robinson
  • The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and the Others In Your Life by Helen Palmer
  • The Essential Conversation by Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot
  • The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge
  • The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
  • The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak
  • The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
  • The Gardener and the Carpenter by Alison Gopnik
  • The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E Baptist
  • The Healing Wisdom of Africa: Finding Purpose through Nature, Ritual, and Community by Malidoma Patrice Some
  • The Inequality Machine – How Colleges Divide Us by Paul Tough
  • The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek
  • The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
  • The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
  • The Leavers by Lisa Ko
  • The Lost Education of Horace Tate by Vanessa Siddle Walker
  • The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter G Woodson
  • The Overstory by Richard Powers
  • The Power Within Me: The road back home to the real you by Dr. Annice E. Fisher
  • The Price of the Ticket by James Baldwin
  • The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen
  • The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace by Jeff Hobbs
  • The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail–but Some Don’t by Nate Silver
  • The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
  • The Sum of Us by Heather McChee
  • The Sun Does Shine: How I found Life and Freedom on Death Row by Anthony Ray Hinton
  • The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
  • The Universe Has Your Back by Gabrielle Bernstein
  • The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
  • The World According to Fannie Davis by Bridgett M. Davis
  • There There by Tommy Orange
  • Think Again by Adam Grant
  • Think and Grow Rich: A Black Choice by Dennis Kimbro, Napoleon Hill
  • This America: A Case for the Nation by Jill Lepore
  • Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg
  • To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  • Waking Up White by Debbie Irving
  • We Got This by Cornelius Minor
  • We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  • We Want to Do More Than Survive by Bettina Love
  • What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker by Damon Young
  • What I Know For Sure by Oprah Winfrey
  • Whistling Vivaldi by Claude M. Steele
  • Who Do We Choose To Be? by Margaret Wheatley
  • Who Gets In and Why by Selingo
  • Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson
  • Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink
  • Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Tatum
  • Winners Take All by Anand Giridharadas
  • Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby
  • Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
]]> 30802 Our Moral Imperative: Racial Equity and the Public School System https://www.newschools.org/blog/our-moral-imperative-racial-equity-and-the-public-school-system/ Tue, 23 Jun 2020 04:34:27 +0000 https://www.newschools.org/?p=30294

Educators are preparing for a fall as their school communities — and the rest of the world — grapple with the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and systemic anti-Black racial injustice. As a national nonprofit that supports and invests in promising teams of educators and innovators who want to reimagine learning, NewSchools is well-situated to help educators cope with the onrushing wave of change. To help educators prepare to reopen their schools this fall, we have launched the Distance Learning Lessons webinar series. The webinars and accompanying resources share creative, effective, and actionable solutions from our school leaders and other experts.

We decided to launch our series with a webinar entitled, “Our Moral Imperative: Racial Equity and the Public School System.” We believe that designing and redesigning schools for equity is an essential step in addressing systemic inequities. As one of our school leaders, Shawn Hardnett, said, “His school is his protest.” We wanted to consider what it would look like if we designed schools that truly met the needs of all students — schools where learning outcomes are not predictable by race, ethnicity, income, gender, language or ability, and where educators work closely with families to design schools that embody their aspirations.

In this first webinar, Caroline Hill, founder of 228 Accelerator and Thaly Germain, founder and CEO of Onward, led participants in a discussion of the challenges and the opportunities that schools are currently facing. They grounded the conversation in the compounding adverse effects of four centuries of systemic racism coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic, which disproportionately sickens and kills Black people. Hill and Germain then asked participants to consider three provocative design questions related to the purpose of school, space, and healing. Those questions are explored below with examples from the webinar and schools in our portfolio.

“How might we resource the public school to become a catalyst for America’s Healing and Reconciliation?”

The long legacy of racism in America’s education system is well known, and the pandemic has made learning even more difficult for our most vulnerable students. Shuttered schools and the subsequently well-intentioned but hastily-made plans for distance learning have harmed low-income students, students with special needs, and students of color the most. To be clear, schools were not working well for Black and brown students before COVID-19. As one participant wrote in the webinar’s chat, “The differences are being magnified and laid bare.” Simply re-creating the same systems in a new context won’t result in progress toward equity.

So how do you give all students access to the opportunities once reserved for the privileged? Webinar participants mentioned bringing more Black teachers into schools, ensuring equitable resources, moving beyond technical answers to the root causes of inequities present in schools, providing historically informed and accurate instruction, combining social-emotional learning with rigorous academic work, and a broadening of academic standards. As one said, “Stop solely focusing on narrow academic standards that do not address our nation’s true history.” Webinar participants also pointed out that leaders in education need to advocate for children and their families outside of school systems to achieve real equity.

“How might we design a pedagogical approach that creates spiritual and emotional intimacy while respecting the need to be physically distant?”

COVID-19 has exacerbated the existing separation between people from different backgrounds, which has contributed to racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia, among other forms of hate. Shelter-in-place orders have added physical distance to the emotional and spiritual gap that already existed. Hill and Germain suggested that creating an equitable society and learning environments requires radical inclusion, enabling us to become more proximate to the experiences of others.

Participants shared ideas for creating more connected learning environments. One participant pointed out that students will be meeting in smaller groups when school restarts in the fall. Others suggested that educators group students to prioritize diversity and deliberately celebrate differences. In this way, they can create intentionally diverse learning communities. Scott Bess, the CEO of one of our ventures Purdue Polytechnic High School (PPHS), provides a good example of prioritizing this. The school is an intentionally diverse school that strategically groups students for complex, problem-based learning. In addition, Scott believes that schools need to step into the role of teaching history accurately and dismantling white supremacy. At PPHS, there is a commitment to rejecting the narrowing of the academic curriculum.

“How might we create an aligned curriculum that comforts the spirit, heals the body, develops the mind, and soothes the soul?”

COVID-19 has elevated the importance of staying physically and mentally healthy, yet that’s proven difficult under such extreme circumstances. Many essential workers don’t have the privilege of working from home. Others face the stressors of job and economic insecurity while juggling increased child or eldercare responsibilities. The ongoing violence against Black Americans has surfaced how many members of our community do not feel safe simply living life because of the color of their skin. As a result, mental health needs have only increased for families, students, and educators. As Hill and Germain shared, there is a need “to heal and think about the ways we can attend to the traumas of the physical body, the emotional body, and the universal body of the community.”

Links between schools and communities can strengthen healing in both places. At Statesman Preparatory Academy for Boys, establishing warm, caring and trusted relationships is central to their model so that students feel emotionally safe and know that they belong. When Statesmen moved to distance learning in March, the team immediately focused on maintaining strong relationships with students. They mapped which staff member had the strongest connection with each student and assigned every staff member five students to check in with during planned advisory sessions and by phone. Every student had at least two daily touchpoints from a staff member. The full school community continued to come together twice each day online, just as they did before the pandemic, during a morning meeting and an end of day check-in. Ninety-five percent of their boys logged in to learn every day. The school also provides mental health support for its teaching staff, predominantly Black men, through Georgetown University so that they can process their own trauma and better support students. CEO and Founder, Shawn Hardnett, says that the school emphasizes “physical distancing” rather than “social distancing,” a distinction that is important for maintaining a focus on healing and community even when students are not in school.

Where do we go from here?

“Truth-telling, reconciliation, and healing in schools will look different than they have in the past,” Hill observed. Schools and other organizations will need to acknowledge how they have upheld inequitable environments. And as Germain pointed out, “Black educators cannot carry the full burden of the work to be done. Everyone needs to own the change in schools.” If you are interested in learning more about how to redesign your school to put equity at the center, please see this list of resources Hill and Germain shared.

We also hope that you will participate in the Distance Learning Lessons series, including the upcoming webinars that will occur throughout June and July:

  • June 24th: What Will Learning Look Like This Fall: Scenario Planning for an Uncertain Future
  • July 8th: Grade-Level Instruction or Personalized Pathways: Is It Possible to Prioritize Both in Distance Learning?
  • July 15th: Meeting the Social-Emotional Needs of Our Students: Spotlight on a School Model
  • July 22nd: Meeting the Needs of All Learners: Spotlight on English Language Learners

If you’re a school leader or a school system leader, check out our #DistanceLearningLessons webinar series for lessons and resources that can inform the decisions you’re making now to reopen schools safely in the fall.

]]> 30294 Summit 2019 Full Session Videos https://www.newschools.org/blog/summit-2019-full-session-videos/ Wed, 29 May 2019 16:54:50 +0000 https://www.newschools.org/?p=30101 Opening Plenary: District Leaders to Watch

Bridging the School to Home Divide 

Engaging Latino Entrepreneurs

Is There a National Reading Crisis?

Next Generation Accountability Systems

What Do Teachers and Students Really Want from Ed Tech?

Expanding the Definition of Student Success: Lessons from NewSchools’ Portfolio

No Tech versus Mo’ Tech

Reimagining Schools with Model Providers

Students as Agents of Change

Town Square @ Summit

Bias in Algorithms: Implications for Equity in Ed Tech

Integrating Mental Health Supports Into Schools

The Foundation of Learning: Executive Function

Transforming the Criminal Justice System

Closing Plenary: How Millennial Educators are Changing Education

]]> 30101 ICYMI at Summit 2018: Moving Beyond Diversity to True Inclusion https://www.newschools.org/blog/icymi-at-summit-2018-moving-beyond-diversity-to-true-inclusion/ Tue, 05 Jun 2018 16:53:20 +0000 /?p=23648 Guest post by Xiomara Padamsee, Founder & CEO of Promise54

This is the first in a series of insights and reflections from panelists from NewSchools Summit 2018. The series can also be found on Medium.

Leaders often shy away from public discussion of our work to deepen diversity, inclusion, and equity in our organizations for fear of saying the wrong thing, being or making others uncomfortable, taking credit for the work of the collective, conveying that we have “the answers”, and so many other reasons. At the recent NewSchools Summit, my colleague Jovian Zayne and I organized a session where four courageous leaders did the opposite – they stepped up to share a bit about their individual and organizational journeys, imperfections and all, with the hopes that their perspectives could help to inform and fuel others’ continued progress. It was a truly inspiring set of TED talk style testimonials, followed by a panel full of honesty and vulnerability. I encourage you to watch the full session if you have time. But if not, here are a few highlights:

Demographics Are Not Enough
The underlying theme of the session, and a message driven home in the 2017 Unrealized Impact report, is that having a team that looks diverse doesn’t mean we’ve created a space where everyone experiences a sense of deep belonging and connectedness so that they can do their best work for kids, families, and communities. Likewise, solving for representative demographics does not automatically translate to equitable internal systems, structures, and behaviors. In fact, based on the data, we are not seeing equity in organizations until both diversity and inclusion are in place. And this was true for each of the presenters, too, regardless of where they were at in their journeys.

Defining Moments
Many of the panelists talked about a “turning point” or “defining moment” that brought this work to the forefront for their organization. For Dr. Tonya Horton, Vice President with TNTP, it was an outside event: when Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, TNTP’s response plan included a meeting between the organization’s CEO and the Latinx Affinity Group. After soliciting input, the organization’s CEO committed to returning to the affinity group before making a final decision. However, this final step was missed. In the interest of efficiency, leadership made their decision without consulting the group again. After a facilitated workshop on white dominant culture at a TNTP leadership retreat, a member of the affinity group spoke up, and it became clear this instance was symptomatic of larger, ongoing issues. Responding in real time, the leadership team decided to scrap that day’s agenda to make room for dialogue. Following that retreat, and a public acknowledgement and apology from the CEO, the TNTP staff team has continued to lean into the uncomfortable conversations that were previously avoided, and have started talking about and working to actively decenter dominance in the TNTP culture.

Share the Burden of Difficult Conversations
Hilary Darilek, CEO of E.L. Haynes Public Charter School, shared an instance where offensive comments were made to her staff by an outside visitor. While she noticed and felt her own discomfort, she didn’t speak up in the moment. Instead, two of the school’s staff members of color did speak up. Later that day, Hilary sent an email to the whole community but she realized it was “too little, too late.” She shared how important it is to push ourselves as leaders to speak up in critical conversations when our community needs us, even – especially – when it’s hard. Hilary also recognized her unique role as a white leader in shouldering the burden of disruption in these critical moments so that her colleagues of color (or from other historically marginalized identities) could bear a little less of that burden. Tonya also emphasized the need for raw, vulnerable conversations, and sitting in the discomfort. Going forward, she said, TNTP is going through a personal discovery experience and “staff appreciate that we’re finally listening.”

Moving From Talk to Action
Many of the panelists emphasized the importance of taking action. Athena Palmer, Executive Director of Teach for America – Memphis, said she hasn’t found talking to be helpful. She has found discussions around DEI to consistently center whiteness at the cost of non-white people in the room. Athena has been working hard to move past talking to concrete changes in actions and behaviors. For her, this means constantly assessing her organization against their DEI goals, changing the definition of who was able to work on her staff by reversing priorities and focusing on cultural competency above technical skills, holding people accountable to DEI measures at all levels, choosing Black-owned businesses as vendors first, clearly showing values in social media, and ensuring the decision-making body is diverse.

Pamela Inbasekaran, COO of Relay Graduate School, told us they took action following extensive internal conversations with each staff member and external research with other organizations and publications. Relay used what they learned to create a Diversity Steering Committee, adopt best practices in anti-bias hiring, encourage more informal mentorship and development of strong leaders of color, and become vigilant about collecting staff racial and ethnic data then using it to as a foundation for decision-making and investments.

From Optional to Necessary
In the panel we heard how Hilary focuses on diversity, equity and inclusion every single day because “interrupting these inequities is my work.” She shared the steps she takes to continue making progress: create spaces for conversations for people to learn together and have conversations about equity, truly listen to diverse voices in your community across roles, tenure and expertise, and be willing to make financial investments and tradeoffs in service of equity.

This theme has guided Pamela’s work as well. As Relay works to set its organization’s strategic plan for the next three years, Pamela told us that diversity is no longer a separate strand of their work, but a critical piece that’s woven in to their planning. As a result of what they’ve learned in the past three years, Pamela said, “diversity, equity and inclusion are at the foundation of our ambitions to strengthen and scale our institutions.”

None of us consider ourselves experts. We are learning as we go but we put this session together because we find inspiration, power, strength, and restoration in sharing our steps and missteps while learning from others. In that spirit, I hope you’ll be willing to share yours, too – please leave a comment!

]]> 23648 Live From Summit 2018: Closing Plenary on the Future of Work  https://www.newschools.org/blog/live-from-summit-2018-closing-plenary-on-the-future-of-work/ Thu, 10 May 2018 16:39:54 +0000 /?p=23601 This blog is also cross-posted on Medium.

A day full of learning, sharing and networking closed with a lively panel on the future of work. Young entrepreneur Moziah “Mo” Bridges opened the session.  This teen entrepreneur is the founder and CEO of Mo’s Bows. Sporting one of his fashionable bowties, he informed the Summit audience, “I am a fashion designer.” His designs have attracted the attention of the National Basketball Association, which asked him to be a fashion correspondent for the NBA draft. He has also been engaged to provide neckwear for every NBA team. 

Says Bridges, “At 16, I’ve done a lot, but I’m just getting started.” He closed by encouraging Summit attendees to surround students with love and patience. “We are the future of work.” 

Before kicking off the final panel, NewSchools CEO Stacey Childress joined Bridges on stage, wearing one of Mo’s Bows specially ordered to match her dress.  She later moderated a panel with Michael Chiu, Partner at Mckinsey Global Institute; Nicole Isaac, Director of U.S. Public Policy and Government Affairs at LinkedIn; Byron Auguste, CEO and Co-Founder of Opportunity@Work; and Tess Posner, CEO of AI4ALL.  

A McKinsey study predicts 40 percent of current jobs will be fundamentally changed. Michael Chiu, who authored this research on the future of work, assured attendees that a robot apocalypse is not coming to take all our jobs…but things will be different. “There are things we need to work on. But, it’s redeployment, rather than unemployment,” he explained. In theory, 50 percent of the tasks we currently do at work could be adapted using existing technology.  In reality, we are still quite far from being able to even do this. And, given the labor shortfalls predicted in the coming decades, we might need them to help out. Some of us might even enjoy having a robot to take some tasks off our plates – NewSchools CEO Childress joked that she’d like to have a fundraising robot. 

LinkedIn is preparing for the future of work by helping cities understand labor trends and workforce development challenges. Using the vast amount of data collected by LinkedIn on career opportunities, they are able to determine which skills are most in demand. They are also able to see migration patterns. For example, data might indicate a particular skill set is declining in one region, but growing in another. According to Isaac, LinkedIn is able to see 50,000 skills.  

Byron Auguste and Tess Posner both explained how their companies are using technology to support job seekers. Auguste’s company, Opportunity@Work, uses software that makes it possible for people to show what they can do to potential employers. “We help companies by replacing the screening process. Candidates get feedback on what they’re missing, or what types of positions they might be more qualified to do, given their skills,” explained Auguste. The company also coordinates “talent equity training,” which allows employers to invest in a potential employee’s skill development. When the training is finished, the candidate has no debt and the employer can decide whether to move forward with offering a position. AI4All prepares people who are most likely to be affected by automation with support and training. The organization particularly targets low-income people. 

After a spirited and engaging discussion with all the panelists, Childress closed out NewSchools Summit 2018.  

 

]]> 23601 Live From NewSchools Summit 2018: Opening Plenary Celebrates 20 Years of NewSchools and Looks to the Future  https://www.newschools.org/blog/live-from-newschools-summit-2018-opening-plenary-celebrates-20-years-of-newschools-and-looks-to-the-future/ Thu, 10 May 2018 02:10:26 +0000 /?p=23598 This blog was also cross-posted on Medium.

NewSchools CEO Stacey Childress officially opened NewSchools Summit 2018 this morning to a sold-out audience in Burlingame, Calif. The provocative and inspiring opening plenary gave a nod to the organization’s founders, who Childress acknowledged are all still involved in NewSchools’ work. Following a video tribute to the contributions of its ventures, she announced that the much of the day’s content would be forward-looking, challenging attendees to grapple with some of toughest issues in our society and how they will impact all of us in the years to come.  

She noted that changes in technology have given people power to connect on a bigger scale than ever, and the pace of technology is moving at breakneck speed. The challenge is whether technology will be used to help solve problems or to exacerbate them. 

Childress also noted while NewSchools is celebrating its 20th anniversary, many others in the broader education sector are also reflecting on the past 20 years. While some of our collective efforts led to progress, some did not. She commented that some people will say it’s best to stick with what we’ve been doing over the past 20 years, while others will point to another specific intervention as the perfect solution. NewSchools sees a case for a smart blend of interventions that effective.  

“We see an opportunity to reimagine school. We are wrestling with these things as a field because no single way of thinking holds the full answer to access, equity and excellence. What we can do is get better at fundamentals while also reimaging how to do those fundamentals even better. But, a key ingredient is to resist saying that we shouldn’t try things that aren’t proven,” said Childress. 

Giving an overview of the rest of the day, Childress explained, “We’re going to be focused on the future.  While we’re in this room during plenaries, there will be loose connections to PreK-12 education.” She added, “My goal is to challenge the limits of our collective understanding about these larger issues – the future of our democracy, the future of technology and the future of work, and to figure out what we need to do to equip students for the future.”   

To set the stage for a discussion about the future of our democracy, two young people gave moving testimonials on their own civic engagement. First, Lizbeth Gonzalez told the audience how she learned to use her voice in her own community to make education experiences better for students like her who have been bullied and are English Language Learners. After testifying at her first school board meeting, she recalls, “I realized I had power to create change. Since that day, haven’t stopped using my voice as my power.” 

Born in Pakistan, Ruba Tariq shared her story of becoming a student activist after participating in a class at her high school. “I am the present and future of American Democracy,” she proudly declared. Her class decided to support a bill to require all police officers in New York to wear body cameras. She made calls, sent emails and demanded to be heard. “Our age is not our weakness, it’s our strength.”  

These young women joined Childress and three other panelists on the stage for an entertaining, informative and thoughtful discussion. 

Micheal D. Rich, President and CEO of RAND Corporation, shared highlights of his new book, Truth Decay, which chronicles a 20-year decline in truthfulness, which has been marked by four trends: heightened disagreement about facts, blurring of lines between fact and opinion, an increase in the relative volume of opinion compared with fact, and lowered trust in formerly respected sources of factual information. Rich cautioned that these patterns threaten our democracy. 

DeNora Getachew, New York City Executive Director of Generation Citizen, explored how her organization goes into schools to teach “action civics.”  Students take a problem that is local to them, and do something about it. They learn to work collectively – building consensus – and come up with a plan. This gives students a real opportunity to effect change in their local communities, and teaches them how our government works.   

Ryan Streeter, Director of Domestic Policy at American Enterprise Institute, shared his insights on the politics of distraction and how there is an increasing trend of people creating blanket judgements on abstract ideas, coupled with a collapse of their confidence in institutions. He offered that social connections are valuable, and suggested we focus more on how to engage at the local with people who want to fix problems, and give them the flexibility to do so. 

So, what was the ultimate takeaway? The future of our democracy depends upon our ability to engage with people who have different opinions, and our willingness to get involved in problem-solving in our local communities. And, all of this requires engagement from the next generation of leaders.  The good news is they are already doing it. We must do our part to empower young people and give them the tools to do more of it.  

]]> 23598 Live From Summit 2018: The Future of Technology https://www.newschools.org/blog/live-from-summit-2018-the-future-of-technology/ Thu, 10 May 2018 01:30:42 +0000 /?p=23596 This blog was also cross-posted on Medium.

NewSchools CEO Stacey Childress kicked off the Summit 2018 lunch plenary by recognizing everyone who has contributed to NewSchools’ 20 years of investing in education. She highlighted founders, previous leaders, board members and alumni, and specifically called out co-founder Kim Smith and previous CEO Ted Mitchell. Stacey also recognized our current and former ventures in the room, who are at the core of our work. Then, she turned it over to two inspiring students – 8-year-old Samiah Turner and 10-year-old Phoenix Gray – who attend Phalen Leadership Academy, part of the NewSchools family, in Indiana.

Samiah and Phoenix shared what they’re learning about science and technology as participants in the STEMNASIUM Learning Academy at Phalen, and how they’re not waiting to put their knowledge to use. As Samiah told the room of 1200+ educators, “Grown-ups often ask what we want to be when we grow up. But we don’t have to wait to grow up, we’re already investors.”

Earlier this year, these inspiring third and fifth grade students were the only elementary students at a state-wide science competition where they showcased their designs of remote operative vehicles (ROVs) that were made to operate underwater. They explained the process to connect the control boxes to the motors, and to waterproof the wiring. They even designed their ROVs to look like different types of fish. Beyond the STEM knowledge they gained through STEMNASIUM, they’re also learning about teamwork, collaboration and patience, and getting ideas for what they want to focus on in their careers.

Phoenix told us she wants to be an architectural and electrical engineer. Her brother wants to be a doctor, and she plans to use her engineering skills “to build him the best hospital,” and also wants to focus on improving prosthetics. Samiah’s favorite part of STEMNASIUM is being able to find a problem and build something to fix it. Or, as she calls it, design thinking and prototyping. Next on her list of inventions is building a hologram screen for iPhones so the screens don’t crack. Samiah finished out their talk with wise advice to everyone in the room: “Show kids how to discover their STEM super powers. And tell them you believe in them so they believe in themselves even more.”

Then, we transitioned into TED-style talks from three leading technologists: Dr. Vivienne Ming from Socos Labs, Jeremy Bailenson from Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, and Chad Jenkins from the University of Michigan. They discussed the technological breakthroughs that are already affecting our lives, the sweeping changes we can expect to see in the next 20 years, and how we can support students to thrive in that future.

Vivienne is guided by one central question: “How do we make better people – people who can go out and construct their own purpose?” She is a self-proclaimed mad scientist who is using AI for good – from building AI to treat her son’s diabetes to creating the fancy face recognition used on the latest iPhone, her work is transforming the world around us. She sees endless opportunities for technology to improve our quality of life, but is more concerned with how technology can make us better people.

The next TED-style talk came from Jeremy Bailenson, who started by posing the question, “VR is cool, but what’s the point?” Jeremy has a long history in designing VR for social good, and he laid out many exciting ways VR can be used beyond the wow factor. He cautioned the audience that “VR is not for everything – save it for something special.” And he had a lot of examples of special VR uses we all can benefit from, including providing diversity training, teaching empathy, informing policy, promoting environmental conservation, and learning what it’s like to live as a member of a different race or as someone with a visual impairment.

The final technologist to speak was Chad Jenkins, a roboticist and computer scientist who designs autonomous robots. This technology is used in autonomous cars, but Chad thinks robots have much more to offer us. Think improving healthcare, infrastructure and education, allowing space exploration and reimagining agriculture and the food supply chain. But even more important than robots’ technical abilities, Chad wants to know, “who will define this robotic future?” He finished his talk by calling on technologists to work harder to diversify the tech workforce by working with schools and understand how to reach diverse populations, and partner with K-12 schools to create this diverse workforce.

Heather Hiles, CEO of Imminent Equity, then moderated a panel with Vivienne, Jeremy and Chad on how we can prepare the next generation of craftspeople. The panelists emphasized the need to building a society of creative, adaptive problem solvers. After all, technology is a tool we are all going to need to adapt to, and as Vivienne told us, “Tools without a craftsman are pointless.”

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