When the New York school system was mired in failure, with graduation rates of only 30 percent in some neighborhoods, New Visions for Public Schools took on the challenge of creating urban public high schools that could be models of excellence.

Since 1989, New Visions has worked in collaboration with educators, families, service organizations and civic leaders to develop innovative programs that help students achieve their fullest potential.

New Visions has created more than 100 small high schools and helped develop a process that has enabled the New York City Department of Education (DOE) to create hundreds more.

Initially, New Visions’ focus was on boosting high school graduation rates. Since then, the end goal has evolved. First, there was a push for high school graduates to be accepted into college. But research shows that about 60 percent of minority students nationwide drop out after their first semester. Now, the focus is on graduating students prepared to succeed in college.

One of the biggest obstacles for New Visions is the belief many students hold that they can’t go to college, whether because of grades, the cost or personal obligations. By involving multiple stakeholders—staff, partners, parents and students—New Visions aims to implement a college-bound culture in the schools it supports.

More than a decade ago, the Citi Foundation began funding the Citi College Bound Program at New Visions to spread the message that college is possible for every New York City student. Citi has funded publications including an annual college scholarship guide, distributed citywide in partnership with the DOE, and The Citi College Planning Guide, published by The New York Post.

The Citi College Planning Guide includes sections such as "3 Essential Steps to Prepare for College: Get Help, Graduate, Stand Out" and "3 Steps to Selecting a College: Dream, Research, Narrow," messaging geared toward engaging students.

In 2004, New Visions formed a network of guidance counselors to more effectively prepare students for college. "What began as an informal network to address the needs of guidance counselors became an active network that meets on a monthly basis and shares best practices in college-bound education and professional development," said Omar Morris, program officer for college and career pathways. The program supplied a "missing link," meeting a process need that "the father of modern management" Peter Drucker describe as one of the Seven Sources for Innovative Opportunities. Now, in addition to the publications New Visions produces, it can support students through a trained network of guidance counselors who help set college readiness benchmarks.

One of the benchmarks is for all ninth graders to go on a college visit. "You can talk to a student all day about the benefits of college, but by taking a student to a college campus, the reality sets in," Omar said.

Another benchmark requires early academic planning. New Visions is planning a mass ninth-grade college visit day this spring in connection with its newest college readiness initiative, called the Good to Go campaign. G2G launched this year in all 76 schools that New Visions supports under a contract with the DOE. "The goal is to get as much information as possible to students and parents in a fun and engaging way about what it means to be college-ready," said Sara Neufeld, communications program officer.

Posters that read, in text message language, "RU G2G?" line school hallways. Students who take college readiness quizzes on Facebook and MySpace are entered into raffles for prize money and free movie tickets. A student advisory board with representatives from all five boroughs meets regularly to discuss initiatives. Students from two schools will soon be blogging about the journey to college on the G2G Web site, www.nycg2g.com, earning extra credit in their English classes.

The mass college visit day is one of a number of events being planned in connection with the campaign. Another major event will be a kickoff featuring performances by winners of a student talent competition demonstrating through video, song, dance, skit, artwork or essay what being G2G means to them, their school or their family.

For more information, contact:
Omar Morris
Program Officer, College and Career Pathways

Sara Neufeld
Program Officer, Communications

www.newvisions.org
www.nycg2g.com

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The human capacity to invent and create is universal. Ours is a living world of continuous creation and infinite variation. Scientists keep discovering more species; there may be more than 50 million of them on earth, each the embodiment of an innovation that worked.Yet when we look at our own species, we frequently say we're "resistant to change." Could this possibly be true? Are we the only species -- out of 50 million -- that digs in its heels and resists? Or perhaps all those other creatures simply went to better training programs on "Innovation for Competitive Advantage?"

Many years ago, Joel Barker popularized the notion of paradigms or worldviews, those beliefs and assumptions through which we see the world and explain its processes. He stated that when something is impossible to achieve with one view of the world, it can be surprisingly easy to accomplish with a new one. I have found this to be delightfully true. Now that I understand people and organizations as living systems, filled with the innovative dynamics characteristic of all life, many intractable problems have become solvable. Perhaps the most powerful example in my own work is how relatively easy it is to create successful organizational change if you start with the assumption that people, like all life, are creative and good at change. Once we stop treating organizations and people as machines and stop trying to reengineer them, once we move into the paradigm of living systems, organizational change is not a problem. Using this new worldview, it is possible to create organizations filled with people who are capable of adapting as needed, who are alert to changes in their environment, who are able to innovate strategically. It is possible to work with the innovative potential that exists in all of us, and to engage that potential to solve meaningful problems.

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