Track Record of Success
For over 35 years, New Visions has designed and implemented large-scale innovative programs at the center of successful efforts to improve outcomes for students in public schools. Below are a few ways our initiatives have created lasting and transformative change.
New Visions’ data tools supported successful efforts to reduce chronic absenteeism, boost credit accumulation, and improve graduation outcomes in NYC’s Community and Renewal Schools. Even after our most intensive coaching support ended for NYC’s lowest-performing high schools, those which adopted our tools continued to make dramatic improvements in graduation outcomes.
New Visions led one of the nation’s most impactful urban education reforms—the creation of small, themed schools that replaced struggling large high schools in NYC. By fostering stronger student-teacher connections and more personalized educational approaches, this model transformed outcomes for generations of NYC students. From 1993 to 1998, we launched 40 New Visions schools. This laid the foundation for the dramatic expansion of this strategy during the Bloomberg Administration. As a lead partner in the New Century High School Initiative, New Visions opened an additional 99 public high schools. Rigorous evaluations show that our efforts nearly halved the graduation gap between white students and students of color in NYC.
Our innovative teacher and leadership programs have created a strong pipeline of skilled, diverse educators, improving retention and student outcomes across high-need NYC schools. Between 2009 and 2021, over 355 teacher candidates successfully completed our Urban Teacher Residency programs and entered district schools. In partnership with NYCPS, Hunter College, Queens College, and New York Hall of Science, these programs provided a pipeline in high-need areas like STEM and Special Education and improved the retention of novice teachers, especially teachers of color. After 3 years, only 15% of UTR-trained teachers had left the classroom, compared with 34% of all new NYC high school teachers.
The Learning Partners Urban Teacher Residency Project Summative Report (2019)
In 2011, New Visions began opening charter schools to expand opportunities for students in educationally underserved communities. These high schools were open to students from any public or charter middle school, and aspired to create high-quality schools that operated on public funding, under conditions that mirrored the external challenges facing the traditional district. In addition to opening eight charter schools, New Visions took on management of two additional charter high schools that prioritized serving our city’s highest needs students, including justice-involved youth and students living in foster care.
Over the course of the thirteen year period serving as a Charter Management Organization, New Visions created the largest and one of the most high-performing networks of charter high schools in NYC. These schools also served as a laboratory for the development of programs implemented across the traditional district, including a comprehensive approach to adolescent literacy. With a strong foundation in place, New Visions transitioned these mature schools to independent management in 2024.