Transcend Inc.
Project Title
As a final general support grant
Date
Mar. 06, 2025
Duration
12 months
Description
Since 2015, Transcend has worked with over 500 communities in thirty states to build a new vision for learning by engaging students, educators, and families in designing solutions to their most pressing problems of practice. Over a dozen of the most promising school modelswere developed or scaled through Transcend’s model and much of their work is available through their open-source Innovative Models Exchange, which features over seventy codified school models and reaches over 14keducators. Program evaluation data show that Transcend’s approach results in more positive student experiences, better educator and leader satisfaction and outcomes, and improved academic, attendance, and disciplinary outcomes.Prior Corporation support enabled Transcend to support numerous school partners, across various initiatives, impacting over 240k students through their Comp3 Design, Rural Schools Design Cohort, and Whole Child Model. Continued support will enable Transcend to reach more than sixty additional school communities, directly impacting over 30k students nationwide.
Project Title
As a one-time grant for Profiles in Collective Leadership Initiative
Date
Mar. 07, 2024
Duration
15 months
Description
Transcend is a national nonprofit that aims to ensure that all young people learn in ways that enable economic and social mobility. To achieve this vision, they work across the education sector, providing research-based community-driven design support to create student-centered learning environments that nurture both academic and socio-emotional development. As a partner with the Corporation for the “Profiles in Collective Leadership” initiative, Transcend helped shape the conceptual framework and selection criteria for potential awardees. With continued support from the Corporation, Transcend will commence the next phase of the Profiles in Collective Leadership (Profiles) initiative, by launching a Community of Practice (CoP) focused on deepening awardees’ capacity for impactful, student-centered change and conducting and disseminating research on the ways in which awardees effect change utilizing collective leadership approaches.
Project Title
For general support
Date
Mar. 09, 2023
Duration
24 months
Description
The demands of the twenty-first century necessitate a fundamental redesign of the traditional school model, which does not meet the diverse needs and interests of today’s learners. Founded in 2015 with Corporation support, Transcend provides school communities across the country with iterative, research-based, and community-driven design support to create student-centered learning environments that nurture both academic and socio-emotional development. Transcend also builds capacity for ongoing piloting and learning, and shares tools and resources to support R&D efforts across the field. With Corporation support, Transcend has partnered with more than 300 communities to design or adopt new models for over 467,000 students and disseminated tools and learning to promote widespread transformation in the field. With renewed support, Transcend will continue to partner directly with communities to transform learning experiences, democratize design supports, and catalyze systemic change to ensure the broader climate around schools promotes equitable innovation.
Project Title
For projects toward Leadership in Equitable Systems
Date
Jun. 08, 2023
Duration
24 months
Description
Founded in 2015 with Corporation funding, Transcend’s mission is to support communities to create and spread equitable learning environments with a vision that all children can thrive in and affect change in the world. This grant will focus on two distinct but complementary leadership development and recognition programs to support system-level leaders. Namely, 1) The Learner-Centered Leadership Lab will scale a pilot program to support district superintendents to lead equitable, learner-centered, and continuous-improvement organizations. 2) Profiles in Collective Leadership, which aims to lift up and learn from individuals and organizations who have successfully collaborated across sectors to build stronger, more equitable education systems.
Project Title
For continued support of the Canopy project and sustaining collective knowledge about innovative learning environments
Date
Sep. 14, 2023
Duration
24 months
Description
Yearsof education innovation have resulted in exemplary school models, but many of those schools do not become known beyond the communities they serve and thereis no mechanism for systematically elevating best practices and lessons learned. The Canopy project, launched with support from the Corporation, Overdeck Family Foundation, and the Barr Foundation in 2018, addresses this gap by publishing an open-source database of innovative schools and producing research on those schools’ practices. The project is co-led by the Center on Reinventing Public Education and Transcend, organizations with complementary expertise in research and practice. Over the last five years, the Canopy project has surfaced 725 unique schools from 153 nominating organizations, 310 of which are featured on the Canopy website, and published reports to inform the field during a time when there is significant demand for reimagined learning experiences. Continued support will enable the Canopy project to maintain and refine the core data collection process, leverage findings into accessible products for education decision-makers, and document evidence of impact of innovative schools.
Project Title
For project support for the Learner Centered Leadership Lab’s strategic planning
Date
Jun. 09, 2022
Duration
12 months
Description
Despite its tremendous challenges, the pandemic has opened a brief window of opportunity where demand for a more responsive, resilient, and equitable education system has increased and readiness for new solutions is more widespread than ever before. And never has it been more clear that system leaders play a critical role in creating the enabling conditions for innovation. Deep redesign work can be significantly accelerated by a learner-centered, equity-focused system leader, or conversely it can be hindered by a disengaged or misaligned organization head. In response to the need to increase leaders’ capacity to lead school and system transformation, Transcend developed and piloted the Learner-Centered Leadership Lab (LCLL). LCLL promotes learner-centered system leadership development as a key lever in enabling transformational change across the education sector. This grant will allow Transcend to engage in a strategic planning process with the aim of clarifying and scaling the LCLL.
Project Title
For support of cross-sector leadership initiative
Date
Sep. 15, 2022
Duration
3 months
Description
A cross-sector systems-change orientation offers a lens to address the complex challenges of public education and examine the deeply entrenched social problems and inequities that lead to disparities in outcomes for students. Despite the promise of this type of approach, efforts are difficult to launch and sustain. Researchers have declared, however, that leadership is a key factor in their success. With support from the Corporation, Transcend Inc, a national nonprofit aimed at ensuring equitable outcomes for individuals and communities will (1) conduct a landscape analysis of organizations and initiatives that focus on leadership development in service of systems change efforts, (2) aid the Corporation in developing a theory of action for a pilot initiative that aims to elevate the leaders engaged in cross-sector systems-change and, (3) provide ongoing thought partnership in the development of the pilot initiative.
Project Title
For general support
Date
Mar. 04, 2021
Duration
24 months
Description
While education innovation has yielded a variety of new school models, mostschool operatorslack the time and capacity necessary to simultaneously operate schools and undertake the research and development (R&D) work necessary to innovate and iterate upon those models. Transcend exists to address this need. Founded in 2015 with Corporation support,Transcendmakes two distinct contributions to its partners and to the field. First, they provide school communities across the country with iterative, research-backed, and community-driven design support so that they can continuously make significant shifts in their school models. Second,Transcendbuilds partners’ capacity for ongoing piloting,learning, and evolution, and shares tools and resources to support R&D efforts across the field. With Corporation support to date,Transcendhas partnered with 188 schools,servingover 256,000students, andhelped to develop and spread eight school models.Withrenewedsupport,Transcendwill continueto support school- and system-level changes.
Project Title
For continued support of the Canopy project and sustaining collective knowledge about innovative learning environments during COVID-19 and beyond
Date
Dec. 02, 2021
Duration
24 months
Description
Years of education innovation have resulted in several exemplary school models, but many of those schools aren’t known beyond the communities they serve and there is no mechanism for systematically elevating the practices and lessons that can be gleanedfrom them. The Canopy project, launchedby the Christensen Institute in 2018,addresses this gap througha data-building process designed to diversify the nation’s picture of innovative schools and document those schools’ practices in consistentways. The project is now co-ledby the Center on Reinventing Public Educationand Transcend, organizations with complementary expertise inresearch and practice. With prior Corporation support, the Canopy projecthas surfaced 483 unique schoolsfrom121 nominators, matured its systems for generating and sharing data, and publisheddataanalysesto inform the field. Over the past eighteen months, the project has focused on practices ofparticular utilityduringthe pandemic. Renewed support would sustain this knowledge for innovation during the pandemic and beyond.
Project Title
For general support
Date
Jun. 13, 2019
Duration
24 months
Description
While several years of education innovation have yielded a variety of new school models, the capacity rarely exists to design new models, implement with quality, and undertake the important research and development (R&D) work necessary to continuously improve. Transcend exists to address these needs. Founded in 2015 with Corporation support, Transcend accelerates innovation in model design by serving as a design partner for schools and districts and as an R&D engine for the field. With current Corporation support, Transcend has helped to build, codify, and spread innovative models currently reaching over 5,000 students; developed and supported a talent network of over 300 education experts that supports Transcend’s partners and the field at large; and created and disseminated a robust set of knowledge products reaching over 700 unique organizations and nearly 300 schools beyond Transcend’s direct partners.
Project Title
For support of research and development activities, including identifying high capacity practitioners for future partnership and developing a learning agenda that responds to critical challenges identified by practitioners
Date
Jun. 01, 2017
Duration
24 months
Description
There is an emerging consensus that program designs that incorporate personalization, mastery, and positive youth development offer the kind of learning experiences that will prepare students for future success. However, most school operators don’t have the time or capacity to simultaneously operate schools and undertake the important research and development (R&D) work necessary to innovate or redesign their program models. Founded in 2015, Transcend accelerates the design of next generation programs and schools by serving as an R&D engine for the field and as a design partner for schools and districts. In taking on this role, Transcend is addressing an important gap in school design, not only helping individual operators design and implement their models but also creating pathways for continuous improvement and building capacity for the field at large. With Corporation support, Transcend will build capacity and identify opportunities to collectively develop, codify, and spread innovative models, and build actionable knowledge to inform the innovation process with evidence-based insights.
Project Title
For general support
Date
Jun. 09, 2016
Duration
12 months
Description
Today’s industrial model schools are not preparing all students for success in a global economy and participation in a robust democracy. To set students up for success in the 21st century, new school designs are needed that enable all students to develop the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to succeed in today’s ever-changing world. Among the many barriers to change is the education field’s lack of research and development (R&D) capacity to imagine, build, iterate upon, codify, and spread new school models. Transcend was created to partner with visionary school operators to fill this gap in the field and, in so doing, build a force of R&D talent for the field and an open-source knowledge base on effective new models to support their growth and adoption. This grant will support Transcend as they continue to build their organizational capacity, develop partnerships with visionary school operators, and codify their learnings to be shared with the field.