Blue Engine – Blue Engine partners with schools to create classrooms where every child receives individual support to reach their potential, yielding dramatic gains in academic achievement for students affected by educational inequity.

Teach together.

Reach every learner.

About Us

Blue Engine amplifies existing teaching talent. We work with partners to optimize the power of team teaching so that teachers can create individualized learning experiences that meet the needs of every student. In Blue Engine classrooms, teachers and students alike succeed and thrive.

Our Mission

We optimize how teams of educators work together to create engaging, individualized learning experiences for students marginalized by racism and bias.

Our Vision

We urgently work toward a public education system that is redesigned to maximize the potential inherent in every classroom, teacher, and student, so that every learner thrives no matter their race, income level, or learning style.

Our New Look

Our new look represents our foundational commitment to an inclusive and equitable education system. Blue Engine was founded on a vision of making classrooms across the United States more engaging and personalized, where all students could build empowering relationships with educators and receive more rigorous instruction tailored to their individual needs.

As we aim to strengthen the people and resources that already exist in those classrooms, we remain steadfast in our commitment to maximizing the potential inherent in every classroom, teacher, and student. Our new visual identity underscores our belief in an inclusive, equitable education system where every learner — no matter their race, income level, or learning style — feels seen, heard, and valued so that they can thrive.

Our Logo: The capital B includes an equal sign within it, which represents our belief in the infinite potential of all humans and the idea of equal opportunity for everyone. These are values that are core to our mission and that we bring to our work with partners every day.

Our Tagline: “Teach together. Reach every learner.” This phrase represents our model of optimizing multi-adult classrooms to engage all learners and our belief that every learner — especially those who have been historically marginalized by the education system — should thrive in the classroom regardless of race, income level, or learning ability.

We are currently updating our permanent website to reflect our new visual identity.

Check back for updates!

How We Partner

We partner with teachers, schools, districts, and education organizations to improve teacher collaboration in service of meeting all students’ needs. We design each partnership intentionally and thoughtfully, elevating the great things that are already happening in communities and working to meet the specific needs of each partner. We provide support in 4 key ways:

Conditions & Structures for Effective Team Teaching: we help partners articulate a clear vision for how team teaching should be optimized in their context to individualize instruction for students. We support partners to ensure district and school-level conditions and structures are in place to support the work.
Resources: we develop and / or adapt existing resources needed to execute upon the vision. Additionally, we provide access to our online Playbook and Learning Modules for supporting teachers and instructional leaders.
Capacity Building: we build capacity in instructional leaders to coach and develop teachers to effectively team teach
Teacher Development: we provide job-embedded professional learning for teachers including coaching and communities of practice.

Interested in exploring a partnership with us?

Our Impact

In Blue Engine classrooms, students experience learning environments that enable them to thrive. Teachers report shifts in mindsets, more effective collaboration, and improved practices for creating instruction that meets the needs of all learners. Below, we’ve highlighted the impact of our work with students and teachers.

Academic Gains

Algebra students in Blue Engine-designed classrooms gain the equivalent of six additional months of learning in a single school year when compared to non-Blue Engine classrooms. This translates to more than half a year of additional learning — 15 months of learning in a 9-month period.

These gains resulted in an 11 percentage point increase in Pass Rates on the New York State Algebra Regents Exam and a 7 percentage point increase in College Readiness Rates.

Positive Student Experience

Students experience Blue Engine classrooms as places that enable them to thrive. They report that they understand their educational goals and that their teachers see them as individuals and deliver instruction tailored to meet their needs and push them to reach their full potential.

Research shows that when classrooms are designed for the 1 in 5 students who learn and think differently, they become more effective for all students. We help teaching teams utilize quantitative and qualitative data ensuring the full capacities of both teachers are leveraged to provide instruction that is designed and delivered with meticulous attention to the learning needs of each student.

After working with Blue Engine, teachers report mindset shifts and improvements in their ability to collaborate, reflect on data, and meet the needs of all learners.

Relationships set the foundation for strong collaboration and both classroom teachers feeling confident to contribute their unique expertise. 100% of our special education partner teachers said relationships with their co-teacher improved as a result of their work with Blue Engine. This is critical because when teachers are able to collaborate effectively and create learning environments designed for the 1 in 5 students who learn and think differently, they become effective for all students.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What problem is Blue Engine trying to solve?

Classrooms are filled with human potential — both in students and in teachers. Each student has unique strengths, needs, backgrounds, and interests. But all too often, students’ strengths are left untested, their needs are left unmet, and their backgrounds and interests are left unacknowledged. To address this challenge, many school districts have added staff to their classrooms, creating teaching teams. Currently, over 10 million students in the US are learning in classrooms with two educators. However, most teachers have been trained to work in a more traditional, solo-taught classroom, and therefore they have not been prepared to optimize the potential of this new dynamic. Most teachers don’t have the resources, training, and support to collaborate and maximize their professional expertise to accelerate learning for all students.

What is team teaching?

Team teaching is the approach of having multiple teachers work together in the service of a shared outcome for students. Teaching teams often include a general educator with a special education expert (co-teaching); interventionist(s); or a teaching assistant, apprentice teacher, or AmeriCorps service member(s).

How are you working with schools and school systems during the COVID-19 pandemic?

When instruction went virtual last March, Blue Engine adapted our model to work in a remote environment. Our approach to co-teaching has not changed; the classroom is just executed differently. Blue Engine also shifted its support to provide additional coaching for co-teaching teams to help teachers understand how the practices in our model translate to a virtual context.

Do you work with schools and school systems outside of NYC?

Yes. In addition to our work in New York City, Blue Engine is working with the Louisiana Department of Education to provide state-level guidance and resources to over 49,000 co-teachers; and is partnering with Understood, an organization that supports the 1 in 5 students who think and learn differently, on a national teaching fellowship. Given the significant learning loss caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Blue Engine is growing its partnerships with districts, state education departments, and collaborating organizations. If you are interested in exploring a partnership with us, please reach out! You can contact us at partnerships@blueengine.org.

What role does equity play in your work?

The values of diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism are fundamental to Blue Engine. We believe in the infinite potential of all humans and an education system that should provide equitable opportunity for all to seize that potential. In 2016, we revised our core values, articulating an explicit commitment to an anti-racist approach that disrupts the root causes of inequity. We believe that authentic anti-racism work must be focused on systems-level change and carried out by transformed individuals. We continue to support teaching teams to build conscious mindsets and authentic relationships with students, creating learning experiences that are both meaningful and relevant. We also work with partners to interrogate and redesign programming and policies that will dismantle systemic barriers so that each and every student has an equitable opportunity to succeed. In the spirit of a nation that must be bridging divisions, talking honestly, and healing together, we launched a Blue Engine conversation series called Conversations Beyond the Performative in 2020. The conversation series shares a set of deeply personal, honest conversations about experiences with race, privilege, and power. By elevating different individual journeys, we aim to show what the journey towards equity and justice looks and feels like for various members of the Blue Engine community. We invite you to join us in dialogue about the ways in which racist ideas permeate our institutions, lives, and classrooms. Reach out with thoughts, questions or feedback.

What role is Blue Engine playing in the national effort to help the nation’s K-12 students catch up given the significant lost learning in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic?

We believe it is important to optimize the human capital we already have in the system to provide individualized learning acceleration during regular classroom instruction. Given the dramatic learning loss that students — particularly those from low-income and historically oppressed communities — will face in the coming years, teachers are faced with enormous challenges right now. Blue Engine is committed to partnering with more teachers than ever to ensure they are prepared to meet the needs of all learners. Additionally, we know there is a lot of effort around tutoring, which is another important way to individualize instruction. We are providing support and resources to various initiatives, including the National Student Support Accelerator founded by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University.

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Thank you for your interest in supporting our work to help teaching teams create engaging, meaningful, and equitable learning environments for all students. With so much uncertainty surrounding students’ educational trajectories by the COVID-19 pandemic, this work matters now more than ever. With your support, we can equip teachers across the nation with the tools and training to meet every student’s needs.