New Teacher Center

In March 2022, the New Teacher Center was among 465 recipients of a total of $3.8 billion given that month from billionaire Mackenzie Scott to organizations that promote “equity” and “underrepresented” communities. ³

Background

The New Teacher Center was funded in 1988 by local teachers in Santa Cruz, California as the Santa Cruz New Teacher Center. The initial goal of the program was to create training programs and resources to improve retention among new teachers in light of the 50 percent five-year attrition rate among new teachers. ⁴

The group facilitated mentorships for 3,000 teachers in California and lobbied the California legislature to create and fund a statewide Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment Program, which provided funding to the organization’s work in the Bay Area. In 1998, the Santa Cruz New Teacher Center rebranded as the New Teacher Center with a grant from the Walter S. Johnson Foundation and the Noyce Foundation and expanded its focus beyond the Bay Area. ⁴

In 1999, the organization hosted its first symposium. Since then, it has hosted more than 15,000 teachers. In 2001, the Goldman Sachs Foundation provided funding for the New Teacher Center to replicate its programs across the nation, opening up pilot programs in Maryland, New York City, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. Since, the organization has partnered with hundreds of public-school districts to provide teacher trainings, mentorship programs and resources. ⁴

Shift in Mission and Activity

In 2019, the New Teacher Center stated that under the direction of then-CEO Desmond Blackburn, the organization had written a new mission statement and was shifting its priorities to “disrupt the predictability of educational inequities for systemically underserved.” The group also reformed its executive team to “comprise entirely people of color.” ⁴

Since its shift in mission, the organization has continued to shift further leftward in adopting left-of-center diversity, equity, and inclusion and critical race theory-inspired ideology. In 2021, it formed an “equity committee” to further promote such issues within the organization’s work. ^{4 2}

Funding

In 2021, New Teacher Center received a five-year grant totaling $7.8 million from the U.S. Department of Education to promote “social and emotional learning” programs in public schools. The project will impact 1,300 teachers and 64,000 K-8 students. ⁵

The group receives funding from many large left-leaning grantmaking institutions in the United States, including the Ballmer Group, Jim Joseph Foundation, the Packard Foundation’s Early Learning Fund at the East Bay Community Foundation, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Cisco Foundation, Crown Family Philanthropies, Helios Education Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, Annenberg Foundation, and Skoll Foundation. ¹

In March 2022, the New Teacher Center was among 465 recipients of a total of $3.8 billion given that month from billionaire Mackenzie Scott as part of Scott’s continued funding of many left-leaning organizations across the United States. ⁶