New Leaders

Founded in 2000 by a team of social entrepreneurs, New Leaders is a national nonprofit that develops transformational school leaders and designs effective leadership policies and practices for school systems across the country.

Research shows – and our experience confirms – that strong school leaders have a powerful multiplier effect, dramatically improving the quality of teaching and raising student achievement in a school.

We have trained over 4,000 leaders who reach 500,000 students annually in high-need communities in more than 30 regions nationwide. Students in New Leader schools consistently achieve at higher levels than their peers, have higher high school graduation rates and are making progress in closing the achievement gap. New Leader Principals are hired into the principalship at substantially higher rates than graduates of other principal preparation programs and are more likely to be retained on the job than other principals.

We have broadened our work over the past decade to reach more students with greater impact. Beyond training new principals, we are now developing transformative leaders throughout schools and school systems—from teacher leaders and assistant principals to veteran principals and district managers. We are also working with school systems to build the kinds of policies and practices that allow strong leaders to succeed in driving academic excellence for students.