Statements
Mission
The Nashville Public Education Foundation identifies challenges and advances evidence-based solutions so all children can thrive in Nashville's public schools. To accomplish our mission, we focus on two goals: 1) increasing awareness of critical public education topics by sharing clear and accessible and convening stakeholders and 2) increasing research-based strategies in our schools by delivering programs and collaborating with partners.
Background
The Nashville Public Education Foundation was founded in 2002 and has been rallying the community behind our public schools since, working to ensure every student thrives in our schools every day. The foundation was originally named the Nashville Alliance for Public Education and existed mainly as a funding conduit for the district, raising and disseminating private funds to make strategic investments and improvements for public schools. Early work of NPEF included raising necessary funding for the creation of MNPS' Martin Professional Development Center. NPEF began hosting the annual Public Schools Hall of Fame in 2005. This event serves both as a yearly fundraiser for NPEF and as a celebration to recognize community leaders, educators, and local organizations making important contributions to schools and our city's youth.
In 2015, NPEF hosted Project RESET, an initiative to gather community feedback on education and help the city set new data-driven priorities for the future of our public schools. In 2017, NPEF created and released the Blueprint for Early Childhood Success, an early literacy report providing a critical, data-backed framework for understanding key challenges facing our students' literacy achievement. In 2018, the work initiated by the Blueprint for Early Childhood Success was transitioned to United Way of Greater Nashville, who began serving as the backbone organization of the initiative. NPEF launched a revised strategic plan in 2019 centered around the vision of what it would be like if every child in Nashville were thriving in our schools every day. This strategic plan marked a pivotal milestone in the gradual shift of the organization to focus on not only programmatic and monetary investments to address needs in our public schools, but to also prioritize advocating for necessary policy change to affect students' educational experiences at a greater systemic level. Our 2023 update to the strategic plan further honed our focus on using data and research to raise awareness and invest in strategies that are making a difference for our students.
Impact
This past year, NPEF launched several new programs, provided insight and analysis to Metro Nashville Public Schools, convened hundreds of stakeholders to learn and solve problems together, and continued to raise awareness of the critical issues facing our students every day.
Developing Strong Advocates for Public Education
In partnership with the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, NPEF co-facilitated Leadership Public Education, a six-month leadership development experience to inform participants about important public education issues and build strong advocates for public schools.
Spotlighting Teachers' Motivations and Impact on Students
NPEF shined a light on public school teachers, exploring their motivations and sparking community conversations on ensuring teaching is a sustainable career. We released our second documentary, "Why I Teach," showing a day-in-the-life of three MNPS teachers and aiming to dispel myths about teaching while highlighting the incredible talent and dedication in our classrooms.
Increasing Digital Literacy and Access for Families and Educators
Tech Goes Home provides technology training and free laptops to MNPS families to help decrease the digital divide and support parent engagement. This year, our Tech Goes Home program served over 200 participants in 25 schools, providing training in 4 languages. We also launched Tech Goes Home: Teacher Edition, helping educators leverage technology in their classrooms.
Harnessing Educator Innovation
Teacherpreneur harnesses educator innovation by helping teachers build out ideas for making a transformational impact on students, families, and schools. Participants pitch their ideas to a panel of judges for a chance at $25,000 in cash prizes and seed funding to implement their idea.
Our goals for this year include:
Goal 1: Increase Awareness of Critical and Timely Topics in Public Education
Sharing Accessible and Clear Information - NPEF will continue to publish policy infographics to unpack education policy implications on MNPS, including its two series on career and technical education and standards, assessments, and accountability.
Identifying Thriving Schools - With support from Metro Government, NPEF will develop resources that help families and stakeholders understand how to evaluate a school's progress beyond test scores. This work will build off of NPEF's Thriving Schools Framework, which outlines the six school conditions that need to be in place for students to thrive, such as effective school leadership, engaging instruction, and an inclusive culture, The project will explain how families and stakeholders can identify these conditions in their own schools and provide tools and resources to the community to help demystify the school selection process.
Engaging Local Leaders for Public Education - NPEF will co-lead the 6th cohort of Leadership Public Education with the Nashville Chamber of Commerce, where cohort members where build their knowledge and networks to become strong public schools advocates.
Goal 2: Increase Research-Based Strategies in Our Schools
Deepening Impact with Teacherpreneur - NPEF will launch the fourth cohort of Teacherpreneur, a professional learning experience designed to support teacher solutions to inequities in their classrooms and schools.
Scaling Tech Goes Home Across the District - For the next two years, we are scaling our program that provides technology training along with a free laptop for MNPS families.
Recognizing Teacher Excellence - Since 2014, we have partnered with MNPS and Nashville's Agenda to award exceptional teaching talent in our district. Teachers are honored in the categories of equity, leadership, and instruction as Blue Ribbon Teachers.
Supporting Teacher Recruitment - In collaboration with MNPS, NPEF will refresh and add new content to the Teach Nashville website it developed a few years ago to support the district's teacher recruitment efforts.
Needs
Every child deserves to thrive in school, but thriving schools do not occur by happenstance. They must be intentionally cultivated and sustained by the full commitment of our city and community. We envision a Nashville where every student is thriving in every school every day. And we all have a role to play in getting there.
Your support allows us to:
1. increase awareness about the challenges facing Nashville's public school students
2. bring the community together around research-based solutions for challenges facing our students
3. implement programs that meet needs and make significant impacts on the lives of our teachers, students, and families
4. serve as a resource and partner to the district to tackle some of the most challenging issues facing public education
CEO Statement
In a single expression, a thriving child conveys joy, curiosity, and connectedness. Potential and opportunity and vibrancy brighten the face of a thriving child. You see hope. But too many children are not yet thriving in our schools. We are on a mission to change that.
We believe that teachers and school leaders are best positioned to create change in their schools. But we know that some barriers that are baked into our system make it hard for change to occur.
That's why we focus on systems change to better meet the needs of our students. We tackle the big issues to remove barriers. Every child deserves to thrive in school. You can help make that happen.
We believe solutions exist for even the toughest challenges. They come from incredible teachers working alongside our students every day. They arise out of the culture principals create that allow teachers to excel. And the come from students themselves, who are the greatest inspiration of all. Meaningful change starts with those on the front lines in our schools.
Service Categories |
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| Primary Category: | Education - Elementary & Secondary Schools |
| Secondary Category: | Education - Alliances & Advocacy |
| Tertiary Category: | - |
Areas Served
Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee
| TN - Davidson |
