New Leaders
At a Glance
Focus area(s):

Description
New Leaders is a national nonprofit that develops transformational school leaders and designs effective leadership policies and practices for school systems across the country.
Through our leadership programs, New Leaders develops talented educators into transformational school leaders who create a vision of success for all students and engage the whole staff and community in realizing this vision. Through our leadership services, we also collaborate with districts, charter management organizations and states to foster the conditions that enable highly effective school leaders to drive results for students.
Over the past decade, New Leaders has trained almost 800 educators who are serving more than a quarter million students every day. Students in schools led by New Leader Principals consistently achieve at higher levels than their peers, have higher graduation rates and are making progress in closing the achievement gap.
Impact and Outcomes

What Major Funders Say
Matching Gift
Mission & Goals
Mission
New Leaders mission is to ensure high academic achievement for all children, especially students in poverty and students of color, by developing transformational school leaders and advancing the policies and practices that allow great leaders to succeed.
Vision
We envision a day when there is educational excellence and equity in America – when our country’s public schools ensure that every student is prepared for success in college, careers and citizenship.
New Leaders has the following Core Beliefs:
- Every student can achieve at high levels.
- All adults must take personal responsibility for student learning and achievement.
- Great schools are led by great leaders.
- With access to outstanding public education, all students can unlock their fullest potential in the classroom and in life.
- Delivering high-quality public education to all students is critical to a just society.
Program
The Emerging Leaders Program
The Emerging Leaders Program expands the adult leadership skills of talented teachers and administrators, providing them with tools to improve instruction and raise student achievement across their schools. At the culmination of the program, the program helps all candidates gauge where they are on the principal preparation pathway. As part of this process, feedback is provided on their readiness to begin the New Leaders Aspiring Principals Program. While many will go on to join the Aspiring Principals Program, those who do not will have strengthened their skills in adult leadership and raising student achievement across a school.
The Aspiring Principals Program
The best-in-class Aspiring Principals Program continues to include both a strong academic foundation and a year-long residency experience in a high-need school. The Aspiring Principals Program combines rigorous coursework with significant hands-on experience in the form of a full-time, paid residency. Supported by a mentor principal and a leadership coach, Residents serve on school leadership teams and are directly responsible for raising student achievement by leading teachers and advancing school-wide goals.
Principal Institute
After completing the Aspiring Principals Program, first-year principals (and second-year secondary principals) join the Principal Institute, a professional learning community that provides substantial professional development and support in the crucial early years on the job. Throughout the year, participants learn from their local network of New Leader Principals, refine their leadership skills and work together to drive student achievement gains.
After Principal Institute, New Leader Principals join a national network of almost 800 New Leaders across the country and have access to a wide range of resources and support.
Impact
An Independent, External Evaluation
The RAND Corporation is conducting a longitudinal evaluation of New Leaders' work. The multi-year study involves annual student achievement analysis, principal surveys, case studies and analysis of district-level factors that could provide leading indicators of success. The study supports New Leaders continuous improvement by providing confidential internal interim reports regarding program implementation and effectiveness.
Highlights of from preliminary findings include:
- Students in New Leader schools achieve at significantly higher levels than their peers specifically because they have a New Leader Principal. Using a type of research that removes the influence of all other factors, RAND has found this “New Leader effect” for five years in a row.
- New Leader Principals tend to make the most dramatic gains with the lowest performing schools, catapulting them to new levels of performance.
- The more years a student spends in a New Leader school, the more likely it is for him or her to make significant achievement gains.
Growth Plan
New Leaders plans to expand its scale from 800 New Leaders impacting 250,000 students over the past ten years to 2,000 New Leaders impacting 500,000 students by 2015 – and to do so in a cost-effective way.
New Leaders is currently undertaking two key changes:
- First, it has expanded the scope of its work to include programming along an expanded leadership development continuum that begins with early identification and support of promising leaders through the Emerging Leaders program and concludes with targeted support to New Leader Principals during their critical first years as school leaders through the Principal Institute.
- Second, it launched a division within New Leaders that will work with a sub-set of districts and states to develop the policies, practices and conditions that enable transformative leaders to thrive – expanding the scope of our work to drive broader systemic change.
New Leaders is committed to establishing a solid financial foundation by aligning its expenses to its revenue and creating a more financially sustainable program model. New Leaders has critically addressed the expense side of its operating model by strategically and fundamentally changing the way it identifies and develops talent. Moreover, by tailoring its revised program model to districts’ school leadership needs, New Leaders can run leaner and more efficiently – creating a lower-cost, more sustainable program.
Location of Sites
To make a contribution to a program site:
- Click on the "Make a Contribution Now" button and include the name, city and state of the program you would like to support, in the "notes" text box on the organization's donation form, if available.
- If a "notes" or "designation" box is not available, write the city and state on your check in the "notes" section or call the national office to designate your contribution to a local program site.
Locations in the following states:
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Financials
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Major Funders
$1,000,000+
Noyce Foundation
Pearson Foundation
$500,000-$999,999
The Broad Foundation
Carnegie Corporation of New York
Hyde Family Foundations
$250,000-$499,999
The Boeing Company
Domenic & Molly Ferrante
Foundation for Newark’s Future
McCormick Foundation
MetLife Foundation
NewSchools Venture Fund
SalesForce Foundation (In-Kind)
Wells Fargo
$100,000-$249,999
The Abell Foundation
The Booth Ferris Foundation
The Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation
The Louis Calder Foundation
The Charina Endowment Fund
Crown Family Philanthropies
DC Public Education Fund
Sidney E. Frank Foundation
JPMorgan Chase Foundation
Red Door Interactive (In-Kind)
Rogers Family Foundation
Tiger Foundation
$50,000-$99,999
Capital One
The Belk Foundation
Peter Bennett
The Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Foundation
The Morton K. and Jane Blaustein Foundation
Cornerstone OnDemand (In-Kind)
Fund for Public Schools
The Walter and Elise Haas Fund
Lockhart Vaughan Foundation
MCJ Amelior Foundation
Polk Bros Foundation
T. Rowe Price Foundation, Inc.
Quest Foundation
Shippy Foundation
The W. Clement & Jessie V. Stone Foundation
$10,000-$49,999
Citi Financial
The Frances L. & Edwin L. Cummings Memorial Fund
The Mary A. Crocker Trust
Susan & Thomas Dunn
Flamboyan Foundation
Goldsmith Family Foundation
Charles M. and Mary D. Grant Foundation
Reginald F. Lewis Foundation
Thomas J. Long Foundation
The J. Willard & Alice S. Marriott Foundation
Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation
Melanie & Lawrence Nussdorf
William J. and Dorothy K. O’Neill Foundation
Patrick F. Taylor Foundation
Craig Powell
Reuben Mark
RGK Foundation
The Saint Paul Foundation
The Irene S. Scully Family Foundation
Naomi Seligman
Barbara K. Shapiro
The Diana Davis Spencer Foundation
Southern Wine & Spirits of Illinois
The Alvin and Fanny B. Thalheimer Foundation
Victoria Foundation
The World Bank Foundation
$5,000-$9,999
Peter & Randy Aberg
The Almar Foundation
Blue Foundation
R.R. Donnelley Foundation
Dudley & Michael DelBalso
HSBC
McGraw Foundation
Philip Lord
Pitney Bowes Literacy and Education Fund, Inc.
Josh Schwartz