About Us

Our Story

Since its inception in 2000, New Leaders for New Schools has attracted, prepared, and supported outstanding individuals to become the next generation of school leaders in response to the immense need for exceptional principals in our nation's urban public schools.

The organization was first conceived by a team of five graduate students in business and education. Throughout the planning and design phase, the team drew upon their extensive interviews with school leaders and district superintendents, their own experiences as classroom teachers and leaders, and the most current thinking in education and policy making. The result is our unique model, which trains aspiring school leaders in instructional, transformational, and organizational leadership through a combination of coursework and practical application.

New Leaders for New Schools has grown rapidly in a short amount of time along two key dimensions - the number of individuals trained and number of district partners. We began to train a cohort of 13 exceptional individuals in New York City and Chicago in 2001. Since then, the total number of New Leaders has grown to 431 school leaders in 2006. At the same time, New Leaders for New Schools has added one new city partnership each year - Oakland in 2002, Washington, D.C. in 2003, Memphis in 2004, Baltimore in 2005, Milwaukee in 2006, and both Prince George's County, MD and New Orleans in 2007.

In a short amount of time, New Leaders for New Schools has also created catalytic impact on the public education system. After introducing the New City Competition in 2002, there has been increasing demand from districts for New Leaders principals and program. At the same time, both our city partners and 20+ other cities have adopted elements of the New Leaders for New Schools model in developing their own principal training programs. Looking forward, we are poised to effect change in a number of cities, where New Leaders already make up a significant percentage of the public school leaders.

Learn More | Our Mission | The Program | Results to Date