<h2 style="margin-bottom: 20px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 20px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: normal; font-family: 'Serifa W01 55 Roman', Georgia, serif; line-height: 24px; color: #6cb7; background: transparent;">Our Mission</h2>We are dedicated to ensuring that all New York City public school students, regardless of race or economic class, have access to a high-quality education that prepares them for the rigors of college and the workforce. Further, we are committed to sharing innovative tools, strategies and lessons learned in New Visions schools with others in New York and throughout the country to prove that meaningful change is achievable at scale and success is possible for every child.
<h2 style="margin-bottom: 20px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 20px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: normal; font-family: 'Serifa W01 55 Roman', Georgia, serif; line-height: 24px; color: #6cb7; background: transparent;">Our Values</h2>Throughout our history, we have worked intensively with a core group of schools while fashioning strategies to improve student achievement across the board. Today, with 70 district schools and six charter high schools serving nearly 50,000 students, we support a network similar in size to some of the nation's largest school districts. We are committed to proving what no urban district has yet to realize: that large numbers of urban students can graduate on time and be successful in college and in the workplace.
These core values define our work as an organization and with our schools:
- Focus on instruction: Everything -- from curriculum to scheduling to facilities -- is about supporting teaching and learning.
- Data-driven decisions: Data define our strategies and allow us to personalize and customize supports to schools and students.
- Practice must be public: We learn, grow and improve by making our practices transparent and collaborating with others.
- Continual improvement: Our work embodies a continuous process for improvement -- analyzing data, developing and implementing actions, assessing impact, and refining strategies to re-imagine the systems that foster innovation and transformative change.
- Stakeholder engagement: Multiple stakeholders who bring assets and expertise to solving challenges must be mobilized to ensure widespread support and ownership of student success.
<h2 style="color: #6cb7; font-weight: normal; font-size: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-family: 'Serifa W01 55 Roman', Georgia, serif; line-height: 24px; background: transparent;">Our History</h2>
Since it first opened its doors in 1989, New Visions for Public Schools has acted with the belief that educational improvement requires everyone involved -- the public school system, government, businesses, community groups, parents and students -- to work harder and do better together with a focus on improving student achievement. While some questioned the possibility of success in a school system as vast and complex as ours, others knew that improvement was not an option; it was a necessity.
The link between a quality education and quality of life cannot be disputed. Educational quality not only defines the options that enable children to lead healthy and productive lives, it determines the economic and cultural success of our city.
New Visions for Public Schools has worked with every district in New York City in nearly 800 schools with hundreds of thousands of students, parents, teachers and community members. For more than 25 years, New Visions has improved the educational opportunities of students through multiple strategies, including:
<h2 style="margin-bottom: 20px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 20px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: normal; font-family: 'Serifa W01 55 Roman', Georgia, serif; line-height: 24px; color: #6cb7; background: transparent;">Creating new schools</h2>
- New Visions created 139 small schools throughout New York City;
- We secured additional funds from the New York City Council for building improvements to schools.
<h2 style="margin-bottom: 20px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 20px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: normal; font-family: 'Serifa W01 55 Roman', Georgia, serif; line-height: 24px; color: #6cb7; background: transparent;">Working with communities</h2>
- New Visions mobilized 225 community groups, institutions and businesses to support New Visions' schools;
- We engaged parents through bilingual workshops and parent-centered publications focused on getting students ready for college.
<h2 style="margin-bottom: 20px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 20px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: normal; font-family: 'Serifa W01 55 Roman', Georgia, serif; line-height: 24px; color: #6cb7; background: transparent;">Developing innovative solutions</h2>
- New Visions initiated a highly successful school improvement model that links leadership certification to increasing student performance;
- We launched the Urban Teacher Residency, a teacher recruitment, preparation and retention initiative based on the medical residency model;
- We pioneered a principal mentoring program and mentored more than 600 principals in their first year of service;
- We created new data tools for students, parents and teachers to measure progress toward graduation.
<h2 style="margin-bottom: 20px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 20px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: normal; font-family: 'Serifa W01 55 Roman', Georgia, serif; line-height: 24px; color: #6cb7; background: transparent;">Taking reforms to scale</h2>
- The New York City Department of Education adopted New Visions' school creation model, resulting in the opening of more than 200 new schools;
- Boston and Oakland, Calif., launched leadership certification programs based on New Visions' model;
- The New York City Leadership Academy and Palm Beach County, Fla., adopted New Visions' principal mentoring strategy;
- The New York City Department of Education instituted a school improvement strategy (called "inquiry teams") based on New Visions' model.