History
Supporting public schools
since 1989
For more than 35 years, we have been at the center of innovative efforts to improve public schools in New York City. Today, we support all New York City Public Schools, as well as a growing number of shelters, city agencies, non-profits, and other school districts.
1989
New Visions was founded as the “Fund for New York City” by Richard I. Beattie and Beth Lief, with a mission to secure private sector support for innovative programs in NYC public schools.
1993
From 1993 to 1998, New Visions led efforts to transform large, impersonal NYC high schools into small, student-focused learning environments. By designing and launching 40 new schools, New Visions helped provide thousands of students with new quality educational opportunities while laying the groundwork for the large scale small school creation that would follow.
2001
As part of the New Century High Schools Initiative from 2001 to 2008, New Visions leveraged its expertise in school design to open 99 innovative small schools in partnership with the Bloomberg Administration. This work is widely recognized as one of the most successful efforts to improve student outcomes in the modern history of urban school systems.
2006
New Visions became a Partnership Support Organization, serving as a lead partner to a network of secondary schools. This unique structure, which leverages non-profit organizations to drive innovation within a traditional district, was renamed “Affinity” in 2013, and remains an essential feature of NYC’s current secondary school ecosystem.
2009
New Visions started the Urban Teacher Residency programs in partnership with Hunter and Queens Colleges. From 2009-2021, New Visions implemented a clinical model to certify over 350 new teachers, who outperformed their peers in retention rates and outcomes for their students.
2010
New Visions opened 8 charter high schools starting in 2010 and managed a total of 10 until 2023, when these were transitioned to independent management. Serving a representative population of students from some of NYC’s under-resourced neighborhoods, these schools represented the largest and one of the most consistently high-performing networks of charter high schools in NYC.
2013
In an effort to meet the need for reliable, high-quality curriculum in secondary content areas, New Visions began co-designing high school curriculum with NYC teachers and school leaders. New Visions’ social studies and science courses have become the most widely used curriculum in NYC classrooms and are relied on by thousands of schools across the country.
2013
New Visions launched Cloudlab, a suite of free Google Apps for Education add-on extensions, to provide educators and school leaders with free and flexible tools to promote the redesign of teaching and learning. These viral add-ons inspired vibrant online communities of educators committed to creatively leveraging technology in their schools, and have been installed by over 50 million users.
2014
New Visions began developing a new generation of spreadsheet based tools and flexible methods for aggregating data from the NYC Public Schools’ information systems. This provided educators with tools to support graduation planning, assignment to academic interventions, and other critical tasks. These tools were widely adopted, drove improvements in graduation and attendance rates in NYCs lowest performing schools, and established the foundation on which the Portal was built.
2014
New Visions held a benefit dinner to commemorate its 25th anniversary and celebrate the organization’s unprecedented impact on improving outcomes for students. Richard I. Beattie, New Visions’ founder, was honored for his long-standing commitment to public education.
2017
New Visions launched the Portal, a student planning and school management tool that allows practitioners, from classroom teachers to district leaders, to coordinate in data informed ways to ensure student success. Based on the positive impact of our initial launch, NYC Public Schools expanded access to all high schools in 2019 and to all NYC K-12 public schools in 2021.
2020
In 2020, New Visions collaborated with the NYC Mayor’s Office and the Department of Homeless Services to launch the Shelter Portal, which provides staff working in over 200 New York City housing shelters with real-time student data to support the educational needs of youth residents.
2021
In 2021, New Visions launched Career Academies, an innovative, hands-on, 5-week career exposure program for rising 11th graders, focusing on foundational college and career readiness skills, financial literacy, professional networking, and an exploration of career pathways. Corporate partners include Lazard, Centerview, Evercore, and Silver Lake.
2023
To meet the growing demand for professional learning to support the implementation of New Visions’ and other high quality curriculum, New Visions launched Navigate in 2023. Navigate offers comprehensive professional learning packages for school districts and individual schools, drawing on New Visions’ years of experience supporting New York City Public Schools. Through Navigate, New Visions has brought the “commitment to excellent instruction in every classroom” to districts in 8 states.
