We promise to be a different kind of funder. To us, this means being responsive to the field and addressing real-time needs, being flexible about where we deploy resources to get better results, and being reasonable about what we expect from applicants and grantees. We have a plan to help us get there. Here’s a preview of what we’ll focus on in the year ahead. 

Increase opportunistic and responsive funding: 

Over the next year, NewSchools will invest nearly $40 million in early-stage innovations, schools, and organizations. NewSchools is well-positioned to support students through the Covid-19 crisis and beyond, by providing what school and school system leaders need most right now: Schools and solutions that accelerate student learning, provide students with social-emotional support, and put equity at the center, which includes ensuring that students see themselves reflected in what they are learning and who they are learning from. 

Our organization will continue to fund new ideas through our Innovative Public Schools, Learning Solutions and Diverse Leaders investment areas. In addition, we will deepen our focus on participatory grantmaking through our Racial Equity strategy. Alongside that, we will invest more than $5 million through our EDge Fund, which is how we deploy resources to meet pressing needs in the sector in responsive ways. Through this fund in 2022, we will invest in solutions that extend beyond any single investment area, with a focus on innovations that empower students with learning differences, specifically those who are also facing the impacts of poverty and racism, as well as innovations emerging in response to the pandemic. 

We are interested in hearing your best ideas for how schools can recover and rebuild from the pandemic and chart new paths for students to realize their full potential. There is a need to focus on addressing human capital shortages and rethinking the role of teachers, providing stronger mental health support for educators and students, engaging parents as full partners in their children’s education and helping students successfully navigate the transition to college and careers. These are some of our observations, but we are open to ideas that address other pressing issues too.

Expand access to capital:

Whether it’s by expanding our approaches to participatory grantmaking, creating advisory groups or partnering with other funders, we will continue to push ourselves and our peers to think differently about how we expand access to capital. One of the most important ways we do this is by investing in racially diverse innovators. When we include all leaders of color who have received NewSchools funding since 2015, the total tops $89 million. These leaders are launching innovative and affirming schools and developing breakthrough learning and talent solutions. 

We also want to ensure that we are listening to our grantees and partners, and improving our approaches based on what we learn. Over the years we’ve heard feedback from applicants that it can be hard navigating our different funding opportunities. Applicants are eager to share their ideas with us but don’t always know how to do it. To make our processes more accessible and equitable for applicants, we have decided to launch a new, centralized funding opportunity for our Learning Solutions, Diverse Leaders and Racial Equity investment areas, as well as the EDge Fund. 

Lay a foundation for the future: 

NewSchools turns 25 next year. Everything we learn together over the coming months will help us clarify our vision for the future and define the next strategy phase. We are embarking on a brand refresh effort to help us tell the bigger impact story and spotlight the innovators across our portfolio who are leading the way toward a more equitable and excellent education system. 

If we have learned anything from the past two years, it’s that change is constant. We are stepping into this year with hope and humility, ready to make adjustments and respond as events unfold. We are looking forward to working with you and learning alongside you this year. 

This post was originally published in Medium.

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 first six months of investing, we see positive signs that we are on the right track. We are excited to share this update with you, which highlights three promising trends emerging from our first 62 investments.

We have increased diversity across our applicant pipeline, with a record-breaking response from diverse leaders and innovators.

In the past six months, we have reviewed 980 applications across our investment areas, which represents a 40% increase in applications over 2019, and there is more investment activity to come. This story is about more than just how many applications we received. It’s about who the applicants are and how they are finding us.

The team continues to spend countless hours deepening and broadening our pipeline and designing more inclusive and affirming processes for engaging with potential grantees. And it’s paying off. Our pool includes more Latino leadership, district representation and geographic diversity. Of the applications we received, 68% came from people of color. More than 80% of applicants were applying to NewSchools for the first time. In our innovative schools portfolio, close to 30% of applicants and funded school teams were from traditional public school districts, more than any previous year.

We are investing more intentionally in racial equity and diverse leaders to ensure students of color have equal access to a high-quality education.

The disproportionate impact of the coronavirus pandemic on people of color and the compounding effects of racially motivated violence have made deeply rooted and systemic inequities in our country hard to ignore. Bringing about real change requires schools and support organizations to do more than say they are committed to social justice. They must adopt new practices and approaches that meet the unique needs of students and leaders of color.

That’s why we made two important pivots as part of our new investment strategy: We created a Racial Equity investment area and expanded our Diverse Leaders work to include supporting parent advocacy organizations. Over 300 innovators of colors responded to our Racial Equity open funding opportunity. Now a council of educators, parents, and students is deciding which ideas to fund. It’s the first time our organization has experimented with participatory grantmaking, and we’re excited to see how the council’s investments will improve and equalize the educational experience for children of color in this country.

We are investing in ideas focused on meeting this moment and reimagining education today.

Our portfolio of innovators this year offers a glimpse into what could be the future of learning, one in which all students receive a strong academic preparation, robust social-emotional and mental health supports, and culturally rich and relevant learning experiences. The 39 teams opening schools this fall and next year are embracing an expanded definition of student success and building schools that center students’ identities, expose them to diverse content and teachers, and equip them with the academic and social emotional skills they need in life.

This focus on equity is also shared by the innovators in our learning solutions portfolio, where we have invested in 17 organizations who are either developing interventions to improve literacy education or creating comprehensive, equity-based solutions to meet the needs of school system leaders today.

Across both of these portfolios, we also saw more innovations targeting the specific needs of students who continue to be overlooked by the education system such as English language learners, students who recently arrived in the U.S., LGBTQIA students, and students with learning differences. These innovations will not only tell us how to support these specific student groups better, but also how to serve all students more effectively, lessons that can inform and reshape education and improve outcomes for every child.

Across our investment areas, we are excited about the momentum, passion, and fresh thinking our ventures are bringing at a time when we need innovation more than ever. We look forward to learning and sharing the lessons from these innovators as their organizations grow and have an impact over time. Stay with us on this journey.

EXPLORE OUR CURRENT VENTURES 

Edgar Palacios founded Latinx Education Collaborative on the belief that representation matters. Teachers of color can enhance academic outcomes for young people, especially students of color. Since 2018, with funding and support from NewSchools, his organization has been working to recruit Latinx prospects to credentialing programs in the local region, connect certified educators to open positions, and retain current teachers through culturally responsive professional development. 

We talked with Palacios to find out what made him take the leap into social entrepreneurship and what his organization is doing to build a thriving community of Latinx educators and influential system leaders. The interview has been edited for clarity and concision. 

How did you become aware of the lack of diversity in the teaching profession? 

In my previous role, I had the opportunity to travel and visit different schools. Once, I walked into a school with 99.9% Latinx students and not one teacher of color. It’s something I noticed time and time again that was starting to eat away at me.

Why were there no educators of color at these schools?

One principal told me that it was hard to find educators of color in a competitive environment. But I thought that the real problem was with what the principal said next: ‘We can teach anybody to teach, but they have to be a good culture fit.’ I thought, ‘If you can teach anybody to teach, then why aren’t you teaching more Black and Brown folks to become teachers?’ And when someone says ‘You have to be a good culture fit to teach,’ whose culture are we talking about?

What were Latinx teachers telling you?

I found it interesting that for many Latinx teachers, isolation is a main reason they don’t feel sustained in the work. I expected the reason to be their pay. But it’s because often they are the only Latinx teachers at their schools. They become the ‘Chief Latino Officer’ or the ‘Chief Translator.’ Everything that’s related to the Latino community they have to handle. I could really empathize with that feeling of isolation and not belonging based on my own journey growing up.

What experiences made you feel like you didn’t belong? 

Growing up in Miami, I never felt like an outsider. I never felt othered. Miami was a place where I could speak Spanish at school and nobody would bat an eye. That all changed when my family moved to Spokane, Washington. I remember my first day in sixth grade sitting next to a girl who told the teacher, “I don’t want to sit next to a dirty Mexican.” I was confused: I’m not Mexican. My parents are actually from Nicaragua. They came to this country as immigrants fleeing the civil war. I also took a shower that day. So there was no reason to call me any names. But at the time I didn’t understand these things and the teacher didn’t address it. It was one of many such incidents that happened to me along the way. 

Is this what sparked the idea for Latinx Education Collaborative?

What I’ve learned is that there are a lot of little Edgars in places like the Midwest where they don’t see themselves in their teachers. They don’t see themselves reflected in important leadership roles. This is not a problem that’s going to magically solve itself.

I had this idea that there had to be a space where Latinx teachers could come together, commiserate, share resources, and build community because that’s crucial for the work. 

How are you supporting Latinx teachers to remain in the field longer?  

Our retention work is a mixture of coaching and convening. We use Clifton Strengths as a tool to get educators to know their strengths and as a framework for how they can survive and thrive in schools. We’re also bringing people together around topics of interest and the needs they have and we try to fill those gaps with professional development tailored to them. We’re also focused on providing recruitment support to local schools. We help them build cultures that will attract and retain Latinx educators. 

You are focused on developing pathways to teaching as well. How are you doing that? 

We love talking to middle school students about becoming teachers one day. Teaching was never an option I considered when I was growing up. My options were to be an attorney, a doctor, or an engineer — someone who makes money. Now we are starting to change that narrative within our own community and we’re getting students excited about becoming teachers. We’re working to scale this program to the high schools to start building bridges between those transitional years and so we can keep reminding students that they should consider teaching as a career. 

What difference have you seen since you launched Latinx Education Collaborative? 

We’ve been able to reach people beyond Kansas City; educators from small towns across the Midwest who now engage with us on a regular basis because they’re missing resources in their neck of the woods. We’re thinking about how we can encourage them to start their own local initiatives. We also released a report that started a conversation about the fact that only 1% of teachers in the Kansas City metro area are Latinx. We’ll use this baseline data to measure our impact and refine our strategies moving forward. 

What support has been critical for your organization to become sustainable? 

Obviously, the funding is great, but what is even more valuable are the additional layers of support from NewSchools. I have received technical assistance. I have been able to build relationships with other venture leaders. And I have a relationship manager who provides coaching support. 

Did you ever see yourself as the leader of an organization doing this work? 

I remember thinking, ‘One day I will have my own organization, maybe one day that’s a possibility.’ But it seemed so far away from my reality early on in my career. A year later, the Teacher Diversity funding opportunity came up. When I saw it, I was like, ‘That one is for me. That’s my opportunity right there.’

Photos courtesy of Latinx Education Collaborative.

(OAKLAND, CA – July 13, 2021) NewSchools Venture Fund is hosting a virtual event with support from the Walton Family Foundation on July 14, 2021 to explore research, learning and best practices for diversifying the teaching workforce. This event coincides with NewSchools’ current open call for applicants for a $2.5 million teacher diversity funding opportunity. 

Less than 20% of educators identify as people of color, while students of color compose more than 50% of the entire PK-12 student population. NewSchools seeks to close this gap given the significant research base that shows greater teacher diversity within a school yields higher expectations, lower discipline referral rates and better academic results for all students, especially students of color.

During the event, viewers will hear from NewSchools about the organizations’ commitment to diversity and the initiatives they are leading. Travis Bristol, assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education will provide data on the current state of teacher diversity, the impact on students and schools, and what is at stake if the diversity gap is not addressed now. Practitioners and current NewSchools grantees, Dr. Diarese George of Tennessee Educators of Color Alliance and Ushawnda Mitchell of the Connecticut Teacher Residency Program, will share what compelled them to start their programs, how they are effecting change, and the opportunities ahead for students and teachers. 

“We’re sharing the stage with some amazing leaders who are defying the odds as new innovators, especially during the pandemic, supporting teachers of color to have tremendous impact in their schools and communities. We have so much to learn from them, including how we can apply their approaches across the country,” said Frances Messano, President of NewSchools Venture Fund. 

“The deep, personal connection between educators and their students is at the foundation of a great education,” said philanthropist Alice L. Walton. “When more classrooms and schools are led by educators of color,  more children can reach their full potential.”

Through the Teacher Diversity funding opportunity, NewSchools supports innovative approaches to advance educator diversity, including recruiting new teachers of color to the field and supporting efforts to retain existing educators. Innovators with bold ideas to enhance the recruitment, development and retention of Black, Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander and Indigenous teachers may apply for funding. Leaders of color and those in central and midwestern states are especially encouraged to apply. This is the second year that NewSchools Venture Fund and the Walton Family Foundation are collaborating on initiatives aimed at supporting diverse teachers, as part of their work to reimagine education. 

Register for the event at bit.ly/TDWEBINAR21

About NewSchools Venture Fund

NewSchools is a nonprofit venture philanthropy that invests in promising teams of educators and innovators with the vision and skills to reimagine learning. We help them accomplish their missions to achieve outstanding results for the students, educators and schools they serve. We are committed to helping students finish high school prepared and inspired to achieve their most ambitious dreams and plans. Through our investing, management assistance, network building and thought leadership, NewSchools helps to reimagine PreK-12 education.

To learn more, visit www.newschools.org and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

About the Walton Family Foundation

The Walton Family Foundation is, at its core, a family-led foundation. The children and grandchildren of our founders, Sam and Helen Walton, lead the foundation and create access to opportunity for people and communities. We work in three areas: improving K-12 education, protecting rivers and oceans and the communities they support, and investing in our home region of Northwest Arkansas and the Arkansas-Mississippi Delta. In 2018, the foundation awarded more than $595 million in grants in support of these initiatives.

To learn more, visit waltonfamilyfoundation.org and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

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 flag on her desk, gave instructions in Spanglish and  often said, “but you need to know that’s not the full story,” while teaching U.S. history. (In case you’re wondering, that’s me on the top row, first from the left, on Picture Day.)

Being Latina and the daughter of Ecuadorian immigrants, I felt connected to Ms. Heyward because she too was Latina. She spoke Spanish, like me and mami, who until then had relied on me to be her interpreter at parent-teacher conferences. I still remember the smile of relief that came over mami’s face when Ms. Heyward said, “No te preocupes. Hablo español tambien” “Don’t worry, I speak Spanish too.”

A few months later, Ms. Heyward was gone. I don’t know if she took a job at a different school or if she left teaching. All I know is that mami never came back for a parent-teacher conference and my connections to teachers from then on were few and far between. She was the first, and only, Latina teacher I had throughout my K-12 public school experience. 

Teachers of color like Ms. Heyward are still few and far between these days. 

Only about one in five educators in public schools are teachers of color. Meanwhile, students of color account for more than half of the PreK-12 student population. In some communities, students go all 14 years of their schooling without having a single teacher who looks like them.

Now more than ever, as the education sector plans for recovery from an unprecedented year, we must prioritize teacher diversity in our public schools. Hiring and retaining effective teachers of color is one of the ways that we can reimagine education to work better for all children, especially those most affected by racial and economic inequities. 

Today, NewSchools, with lead funding from the Walton Family Foundation, is opening a $2.5 million funding opportunity focused on recruiting, developing, and retaining educators of color.

Today, NewSchools, with lead funding from the Walton Family Foundation, is opening a $2.5 million funding opportunity focused on recruiting, developing, and retaining educators of color. A significant body of research shows greater teacher diversity within a school yields higher expectations, fewer discipline referrals, richer curricula, less bias, and better academic results for all students, especially students of color and Black boys in particular. 

As the new Senior Partner leading the Diverse Leaders investment area, I am excited to work in partnership with innovators to launch bold ideas to diversify our nation’s public schools. I am also looking forward to supporting our existing ventures as they move from early stage planning to sustaining and scaling their ideas for increasing teacher diversity.

In 2019, our funding and customized support helped 14 organizations develop, pilot and scale their ideas. Our ventures are currently cultivating and sustaining teachers through a variety of efforts, including through teacher residency programs, fellowships, and experiences focused on providing affinity spaces, mentorship, resources, and support. 

Aside from grooming and sustaining teachers of color, these organizations are preparing teachers to lead in a different way. And in doing so they are causing schools to rethink how they engage and support students. Robert Hendricks III, one of our grantees, is the founder and executive director of He Is Me Institute, an organization working to grow the number of Black male educators. For him, teacher diversity is a means to a larger goal. “It is not just about the face of education being different but also about bringing in a difference of perspective and different impact, so that kids can grow up with a different relationship with school,” he tells us. 

“It is not just about the face of education being different but also about bringing in a difference of perspective and different impact, so that kids can grow up with a different relationship with school.” —Robert Hendricks III, NewSchools grantee and founder of He Is Me Institute. 

This brings me back to Ms. Heyward, the first teacher of color I had. Although she was my teacher for only a brief time, she connected with me and mami. I felt seen — we felt seen. It’s past time for all students, especially students of color to be seen and to see themselves reflected in the adults responsible for their learning. 

If you’re an innovator focused on recruiting and supporting teachers of color like Ms. Heyward, we want to partner with you and help you achieve your vision. Learn more here.

In my role at NewSchools, I co-lead the Diverse Leaders strategy. And, as one might imagine, I get a great deal of feedback from entrepreneurs, funders, education leaders…and skeptics. While many support the concept of advancing Black and Latino leadership in education, there are many leaders who wonder:

• Are our goals ambitious enough? Are they too ambitious?
• How do you know that diverse leadership will yield better results for students?
• I want to hold myself and others accountable to advancing diversity, equity and inclusion, but what benchmarks can I use?

The lack of diversity-related data in education kept coming up and I feared it would limit our progress as a field. This was especially troubling to me because I thought the case for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in education was compelling, obvious and clear. Numerous studies have shown diverse, equitable and inclusive organizations are more innovative, make better decisions and have higher levels of staff satisfaction. And education studies have shown Black and Latino students taught by teachers who share their racial background have improved academic results, benefit from a culture of higher expectations and fewer discipline referrals. But, I needed more data to make my case.

So, I started making plans to do a study, but also recognized that this was an opportunity to influence the field. It was high stakes; we needed to get it right and I didn’t have all the answers. I reached out to funders who were committed to advancing DEI to hear their ideas for what was needed. I learned that Bellwether talent leaders – Xiomara Padamsee and Becky Crowe – were doing diversity-related projects, so I reached out to them to learn more.

We put our heads together, and that culminated in “Unrealized Impact” – a groundbreaking study on the state of DEI in the PreK-12 education sector – a year’s worth of work with more than 50 education leaders contributing to the design, 200+ organizations responding to the survey and nearly 5,000 individual staff members sharing their perspectives. While it was hard to coordinate a group of this size, the results have made it all worthwhile. We now have solid data that represents a collective, field-wide commitment to prioritize DEI and take action.

So, what did we learn?

The study indicates that, as a whole, the education sector is not yet as diverse, equitable or inclusive as it should be:

• The percent of Black and Latino leaders in education, when compared to the percent of Black and Latino students in the nation’s schools remains unbalanced. This is especially troubling as the percent of children of color served by our public school system continues to climb. The underrepresentation is particularly pronounced for Latino leaders;
  • Whites represent 24 percent of students, 49 percent of staff, 64 percent of leadership and 74 percent of CEOs.
  • African-Americans represent 21 percent of students, 16 percent of staff, 16 percent of leadership and 9 percent of CEOs.
  • Latinos represent 40 percent of students, 25 percent of staff, 8 percent of leadership and 8 percent of CEOs.

• Organizations with strong performance on both diversity and inclusion experience the greatest impact on staff recruitment, retention and overall favorability, regardless of race. Focusing on diversity, equity AND inclusion is a talent best practice. Staff of all races are three times more likely to recommend organizations that are diverse, equitable and inclusive to a friend.
• Twenty-four percent of all survey respondents report experiencing discrimination in the workplace. Staff of color were 50 percent more likely to report such an experience.

The DEI gaps that exist across the field show we are leaving impact on the table when it comes to supporting positive outcomes for students. By highlighting this unclaimed impact, we hope to encourage education leaders to prioritize and invest in DEI practices as a powerful lever for change.

We have the data now. So, what’s next? I invite you to do something about it. Steep yourself in the insights and develop a plan for change. Our students are counting on you.

Jahari Shelton, a tenth grader from Washington, D.C., was the first voice we heard this morning at NewSchools Summit 2017. And, if you don’t know who he is, you should. He is a young man on a mission to design, create — and one day lead – an innovative school. And, not only does he have tremendous dreams, he’s also putting those dreams into action.

“The great education I received changed my life, and helped me think about creating the school of the future,” said Shelton. He is acutely aware of the power of a great education and the role of young people in shaping the educational experience. “If we show up and demand attention, our voices will shake the ground of tradition. Demand, demand, demand.”

Following Jahari, our CEO Stacey Childress took the stage to officially open Summit 2017. She acknowledged that today’s young people are the most diverse and connected generation we’ve ever seen. Thanking Jahari, she added, “Can’t wait to see what he comes up with for his new schools!”

Stacey set the tone for a day of celebration, connection and challenge. She noted that parents from all over the country are going to take to the plenary stage at lunch. And, in our closing session, we will continue an ongoing conversation that began last year at Summit. That conversation will be about areas of disagreement and finding common ground.

“One-third of Summit attendees are Black and Latino. That number was 12 percent five years ago. We are also thrilled to say that 50 percent of today’s speakers are black and Latino. If we’re going to reimagine learning, we’re going to need the best ideas from everybody. We need to repair fissures that are in our current coalition. And, we have to dream big enough to create a broad coalition that can create lasting change,” said Childress.

She continued, “The gap between the aspirations kids have for themselves and the preparation they receive is huge. This something we must all be focused on. Kids need a strong academic preparation, but we know they also need mindsets, problems solving skills, and a sense of belonging. They need agency, perseverance. The truth is most schools aren’t working well enough for students.”

Providing an overview of the day, Stacey offered, “We have 17 or 18 breakout sessions, in addition to the plenaries. There are a mix of veterans and new voices to help us grapple with new challenges like how to ensure rigor in personalized learning environments…or how are state and district chiefs using ESSA to spur innovation. We also have a great session on rural schools. It’s a jam-packed day.” With a laugh, she teased the crowd, “I hope you’ll go to at least a little bit of content, in between meetings in the hallway with your funders!”

She then introduced The Founders session, noting that NewSchools is part of a dynamic network of innovators that set out to create a new kind of school, creating opportunities for low-income students so every one of them makes it to college.

Richard Whitmire, author of the book, “The Founders,” led a conversation with Don Shalvey about the lessons learned when founding the first generation of Charter Management Organizations. Shalvey is founder of Aspire Public Schools, and currently a Deputy Director at the Bill & Melinda Gates

Foundation. Shalvey took us back to 1998 and recalled the collective energy when this CMO movement got started.

“We figured out there was a way for a single board of directors to oversee multiple charter schools, and we knew we’d created an opportunity for a limitless number of charters,” said Shalvey.

Nancy Bernardino, Todd Dickson, Derwin Sisnett and Diane Tavenner then joined Shalvey on the stage to discuss their own journeys as the next generation of innovative school leaders.

When asked what does impact mean, Derwin defined it as “how can we create many cities that are anchored in high-performing schools. We should be thinking about the students and families we serve and paying that forward.”

Todd described it as “empowering all students to live and lead with purpose.”

Nancy said it’s about having the responsibility to prepare this next generation of students to lead. She added, “The idea of opening an all-girls school came from my own opportunity to attend a school like that. I wanted to figure out how to give it to more girls — and more girls who look like me. It’s tremendous to see kids blossom and see the impact they will have on the greater community.”

When Don asked about what innovation means to these school leaders, Diane said it is about innovating around the entire model of the school. “We have to ask how do we look at science and what it tells us about people … and what they can learn and how they can learn. We are committed to new ideas. It’s painful to look at a new idea and say we already tried that. But, we have to be actually moving forward and not just retreading what someone else has already done. We are not going to get further by redoing the same thing someone else has.”

Todd cautioned the audience to beware of the tension between innovation and change fatigue. “How much innovation should you do to make sure it’s effective? Many of us get focused on our big idea and how to execute it. But, you need to be designing an innovative culture. It can be a big mistake to overlook that.”

When asked about what funders should know, Derwin said, “We will fail, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have the opportunity to try and try and try.”

Adding laughter and levity, in the way that only Don Shalvey can, he closed by asking each panelist to select a song title that speaks to their experience. Responses included “It’s Tricky,” “Call Me Maybe” and a crowd favorite, “Leave your Lover,” by Sam Smith. Derwin Sisnett encouraged funders to stop only funding the thing you feel comfortable going home to. Go with the thing you really can’t explain, but it just feels right.”

Highlights from the Year

I joined NewSchools at a pivotal time. The Diverse Leaders investment strategy was less than a year old, formalized in October 2015 based on a series of learning investments in 2014 and 2015. The team had already made its first round of investments, and our next steps were to capture our early results, ramp up our field-building work, and also look inward to make NewSchools a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive organization.

Fast forward a year. We have invested nearly $2.5 million in entrepreneurs working to advance Black and Latino leadership in education, and they are showing incredible early results. Collectively, our entrepreneurs have supported more than 2,300 leaders who serve more than five million students. They’ve gone on to raise more than three times our original investment amount. And they’re just getting started – their impact will only grow as they pilot new programs and expand existing efforts.

We are also getting others excited about diversifying education leadership by presenting at conferences, highlighting pioneers in this work, and encouraging other education funders to deepen their commitment to the work. In addition, we recruited several funders to partner with us and Bellwether Education Partners on a project to better understand the current state of diversity in the field. The early insights are compelling, and we look forward to previewing the data at NewSchools Summit 2017 this May.

NewSchools is also working internally to make sure that we, as an organization, are well equipped to deliver on our goals. Our staff and leadership team are racially diverse, with more than 40 percent people of color. We also have Black and Latino representation on our board of directors, helping us fully deliver on our commitment to diversity.

At the same time, we are committed to helping every NewSchools staff member develop the skills and mindsets to foster an inclusive and equitable organization. For us, this means teaming up with the Fellowship for Race & Equity in Education (FREE) and its founder, Michelle Molitor, on staff training and organizational culture work. It also means updating our policies and practices to institutionalize our commitment to equity across all we do.

What I’ve Learned

My job has truly been a master class for me over the past year. In addition to my team’s investing, field-building, and internal work, I have learned much from leaders across the education sector. Here are just a few of my key takeaways:

1. To an early stage entrepreneur, coaching and connections are just as important as funding. This is especially true for diverse entrepreneurs who tend to be first-time founders and disconnected from traditional education networks and resources.
2. Few funders are focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in education right now; and while several are considering it, in the short term, the market is capital constrained. Black and Latino entrepreneurs feel this constraint most acutely as they are far less likely than other entrepreneurs to have the personal reserves to “bootstrap” their ventures, or to have friends and family who can lend financial support.
3. There is no “right way” to engage in DEI work, and the work is never done. I’ve heard dozens of DEI journeys, and no two look quite the same. Despite this, or perhaps because of this, I’ve gathered that the most important, impactful step is to get started.

What’s Next

Armed with new insight, I’m excited to announce our game plan for the remainder of 2017:

1. Invest another $1.5 million to support Diverse Leaders.
2. Deepen the management assistance we provide to our ventures to accelerate their success.
3. Continue to encourage funders to prioritize DEI in their grant making strategies.
4. Tell stories that highlight how education leaders are advancing DEI to “de-risk” the work and inspire action.
5. Share insights from the data collection project at upcoming conferences and workshops.

How You Can Get Involved

We love it when folks are proactive in connecting with us, so please, get in touch! Here’s how:

• Sign up to receive updates on our Diverse Leaders work, including our next funding opportunity, which will open in August 2017.
• Reach out to us directly, and get to know us; we are always eager to connect with entrepreneurs who fit our strategy and education leaders who are open to share their DEI journeys.

The roundtable and summary are part of a number of related activities we’ve been part of at NewSchools over the past year, including my essay in an Education Next forum last October. We’ll continue the dialogue at our annual Summit on May 17^th. In the meantime, I encourage you to review the discussion summary.  And more importantly, I hope you will engage in your own way…by talking with folks on all sides of these issues, identifying areas of agreement, and finding concrete ways to work together.

If we are going to reimagine education so that every young person finishes high school with a wide range of options and the freedom to pursue them, we need the best ideas from everyone. Bringing those ideas to life will require us to find ways to work together, even when we disagree on critical issues. Let’s keep at it.

I always enjoy Black History Month.  It’s a time to recognize and honor the many contributions of Black Americans to our country. But this year, I’m especially happy because I’ll also get a chance to help make some new history — by supporting the next generation of diverse leaders in education.

It is no coincidence that we have chosen Black History Month to announce our latest round of diverse leaders investments. Education has always been at the core of Black history – from the earliest scholars and educators like Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass and Mary McCloud Bethune to the student activists who changed the world during the Civil Rights Movement and the countless other Black educators who gained national prominence for their commitment to creating opportunities for all students to reach their greatest aspirations.

The leaders and  organizations in our latest cohort build on that proud history and have taken up the charge for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in education with the same verve.

Five of our ventures are first-time investments, selected from a national pool of 70 submissions. The other four are reinvestments. We provide reinvestment capital because we know there is a lack of dedicated funding for DEI efforts in education, particularly early efforts, and we want to ensure our most promising ventures are properly supported to do their best work and ultimately realize the impact they seek.

We are proud to be investing a total of $1 million across the following ventures:

 First-Time Investments

• Cambiar, The School Systems Leadership Fellowship: A spin-out program from TFA incubated through Cambiar, the School Systems Leaders Fellowship will prepare high-potential, diverse education leaders to take on take on instructionally focused cabinet-level roles within two to three years of completing the program.

• Chiefs for Change, Future Chiefs: Chiefs for Change is a nonprofit network of diverse state and district education Chiefs dedicated to preparing all students for today’s world and tomorrow’s. NewSchools is funding Chief for Change’s Future Chiefs initiative, helping to expand the program beyond its initial pilot of diverse fellows.

• Community Equity Partners: Community Equity Partners’ (CEP) goal is to retain and develop senior leaders of color within education by disrupting the dominant and exclusive organizational culture through cross-racial relationships and coaching. CEP’s theory of change supports organizations in creating inclusive environments that support the advancement of Black and Latino senior leaders.

• Education Reform Now, Leaders of Color Initiative: The mission of Education Reform Now (ERN) is to build networks of progressive champions, allies, and supporters across the political and policymaking arenas to expand what works and change what is broken in the public education system. ERN is creating a Leaders of Color Initiative to alleviate the barriers to entry for elected leaders of color. ERN will support participants from candidate identification to training to support when in office.

• Tennessee Charter School Center, Charter Board Leaders of Color Collaborative: As the primary charter support organization in Tennessee, Tennessee Charter School Center plans to launch the Charter Board Leaders of Color Collaborative (CBLCC). The goal of the CBLCC is to convene and connect existing charter board members of color in Tennessee and increase the number of Black and Latino leaders who serve on charter boards.

Reinvestments

• Education Leaders of Color: Education Leaders of Color (EdLoC) is a membership organization dedicated to elevating the leadership, voices, and influence of people of color in education and leading more inclusive efforts to improve education. EdLoC seeks to dramatically increase the number of Black and Latino leaders in high-level positions in education and adjacent fields. EdLoC recruits, develops, connects and advances a cadre of values-aligned leaders who, individually and collectively, are transforming the educational and life trajectories of low-income and underserved children.

• Latinos for Education: Latinos for Education’s (LFE) mission is to develop, place and connect essential Latino leaders in the education sector in order to ensure that all Latino children get access to an excellent education. LFE believes that Latino leaders should be at the forefront of ensuring Latino students receive an equitable education.

• National Charter Collaborative: National Charter Collaborative’s mission is to create a flourishing ecosystem of high-performing, diverse-led, single-site charter schools by providing their leaders access to essential resources and support. NCC pursues its mission through a three-part program strategy: an online network, a consultancy program, and a cohort-based fellowship program. 

• Ops360: Ops360 provides leadership development and training to finance and operations leaders to support the creation, growth, and management of high quality school operations. The result: Ops360’s charter school partners get more things done and spend less money while achieving excellent operational support for their academic teams.

If you or someone you know might be a good candidate for investment under the Diverse Leaders strategy at NewSchools, we’d love to know more. NewSchools will offer its next Diverse Leaders funding opportunity in Fall 2017. In the meantime, please share your contact information to receive updates relevant to our Diverse Leaders work.