Reimagine Learning Fund, New Profit

REIMAGINE LEARNING FUND Creating Learning Environments to Unleash the Potential of All Students The Reimagine Learning Fund supports communities and schools to create teaching and learning environments that unleash creativity and potential in all students, enabling them to realize academic and life success. Across the nation, there is a rising tide of momentum to reimagine teaching and learning to creating personalized pathways for students. We are committed to ensuring that those students with more complex needs and challenges and few support resources to meet their needs stand to benefit equally from the revolution in teaching and learning that is underway. Despite making progress on education reform, U.S. schools are systemically failing to serve more than 30% of students, including: - The 20% of students with brain-based learning and attention issues - Students struggling with social-emotional and behavioral issues - Racial/ethnic minority students - English Language Learners - Low-income students As the U.S. becomes a majority-minority country, and as we pass the threshold of having more than 50% of students growing up in poverty, we can no longer ignore the challenges that these learners face. We must ensure that our schools are redesigned to meet the needs of 21st century learners and to support the success of all learners, including those with more complex needs and challenges. Reimagine Learning was set up as an evergreen fund that will evolve its strategy every five years. Phase 1 of the Fund (2012-2017) leveraged $35 million from five funding partners – the Peter & Elizabeth Tower Foundation, Poses Family Foundation, Oak Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and New Profit – to build the foundation of an aligned action network focused on low-income students with complex needs and challenges. Through our work, the Reimagine Learning Fund aims to drive field-wide shifts in teaching and learning practice, influence federal and state education policy to support innovation and change, and build public awareness and engagement to create the urgency for change required to reach a tipping point across the 14,000 districts in the US. Ultimately focused on accelerating and supporting change in schools and districts across the nation, Reimagine Learning selects and funds innovators translating research insights into practice to support high-quality learning and organizations with potential to spread effective practices to schools and districts at scale. Reimagine Learning has provided funding and support to 20 high potential nonprofit organizations and built strong relationships with an additional 30 nonprofit organizations that, together, are reshaping K-12 education across the nation. These social entrepreneur-led organizations are working in our schools and communities to advance the Fund’s core principles: - Students should be engaged in and control of their own leaning, harnessing and strengthening their own voice - Learning environments should be personalized to meet the different talents and needs of every learner - Teaching and learning environments should equally support the development of cognitive, social, and emotional skills We have made 9 multi-year grants and 11 one-year innovation grants in the following organizations: - Multi-year grants: ANet, City Connects, City Year, Eye to Eye, New Classrooms, New Teacher Center, Peace First, Power My Learning, Turnaround for Children - Innovation grants: Big Picture Learning, Branching Minds, CAST, Convergence Center for Policy Resolution, KU Center for Research and Learning, Lawrence Acceleration Academy, MIT Media Lab Learning Over Education project, Teach for America, Transcend, Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative, Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence Reimagine Learning’s grantees collectively serve over 6 million students, 40% of whom are students from low-income backgrounds with more complex needs and challenges. To date, our portfolio grantees have shown an average of 12% annual growth in lives touched over the course of their 2-4 year grant periods, which has resulted in an additional 1 million students directly served in schools as a result our partnership. In addition to selecting and supporting grantees, the Reimagine Learning Fund is engaging in policy change, network building and public awareness work. Through a partnership with New Profit’s policy-arm, America Forward, the Reimagine Learning Fund is supporting district, state, and federal policy shifts to create space for innovation and experimentation in teaching and learning. Reimagine Learning is also seeking to create broader culture change by building an aligned cross-sector network that creates systems-level solutions. We have convened powerful conversations across a diverse network of over 450 individuals from more than 150 organizations who are putting the needs of our most vulnerable students at the center of the national dialogue about the future of learning in the U.S., reshaping federal and state policy, supporting district-level change efforts, and empowering young people, parents, and educators to drive transformative change. The Reimagine Learning network is made up of social entrepreneurs, funders, policy influencers, researchers, educators and district leaders, and thought leaders committed to reimagining learning in the U.S.