New Visions for Public Schools (NVPS) is an organization focused on system-wide improvement efforts in New York City’s public schools. New Visions is the support organization for 71 district schools citywide as well as the management organization for 9 New Visions Charter High Schools. In the last five years, at the direction of the NYC Public Schools, New Visions has also begun supporting over 300 additional schools citywide with its suite of data tools and less direct one-on-one support. With this shift, NNVPS data management tools are now used in nearly forty percent of New York City high schools.
Heckscher has supported a number of important New Visions initiatives, including:
Career Directory. High school students across NYC are increasingly choosing not to enroll in college as a first step after high school but have too few opportunities to explore high-quality alternative post-secondary pathways. Educators want to provide students with these opportunities, but, like their students, lack access to resources that are accurate and up-to-date about the pathways available, and which will support them in assessing the fit of a particular opportunity. NVPS developed a basic Career Directory as a direct response to growing requests from school counselors to have a user-friendly and comprehensive view of available career and job training programs for graduating high school students. We supported NVPS in rebuilding the existing directory so that it will be the preeminent tool available to support high school students and educators in understanding the wide variety of career training opportunities in New York. The tool will be open source and used city-wide.
Algebra I Teaching Methods. we underwrote an effort to scale promising Algebra 1 teaching methods and personalized curriculum developed as part of our Harlem Pride initiative. With our support, New Visions will seek to further scale these promising innovations to other New Visions schools, supporting the schools through implementation of the methods and measuring the outcomes.
Data Tools. The core tool, which our catalytic funding helped create, is the New Visions Portal, a comprehensive school management platform built specifically to address the needs of high schools in New York City through the lens of increasing high school graduation. The tool is designed to support schools in making timely and strategic decisions about individual students and in comprehensively monitoring student progress. While there are a number of existing tools that support monitoring of data related to college advising, these tools confront several challenges in effective use.
Direct Coaching. Also with Heckscher’s support, New Visions selected pilot schools to receive direct coaching to help advisers create standardized, transparent, and scalable approaches to college advising. New Visions is expanding the pilot with funding from other sources, a classic example of our venture philanthropy.