Equitable Outcomes

Despite two decades of improved outcomes for New York City’s students of color and students from low-income families, the persistent and unacceptable reality is that Black, Latino, and low-income students still do not have equitable opportunities to succeed in New York City’s public schools or to transition successfully to college, careers, and choice-filled lives.

Too often, inadvertent oversights and missed opportunities get in the way of student success: a string of absences gets overlooked, students failing courses go unsupported, staff and students and families have different expectations and plans. While these things happen in every school, they occur most frequently in schools with high concentrations of student need and weak systems for supporting students--reinforcing inequity, not addressing it.

The reasons are complex, but not all of the solutions need to be. The Portal by New Visions, and the protocols for using it to make and monitor reliable, high-stakes decisions that we call Strategic Data Check-ins, empower students and educators with the information and support they need to succeed. In the Portal, every student has a plan. Educators and support staff have the information they need to make plans in one place, and get nudges to take action when progress is slipping. District leadership can see with unprecedented transparency the progress that each school and student is making, and can target support to where it’s most needed.

Put simply, caring about equity means paying close attention to how schools actually work. The Portal is just one way we do that, and advance our fundamental belief that building sustainable and reliable systems for supporting students is an urgent priority in New York City’s public schools.