EdVisions Cooperative has ushered into public education a novel concept that empowers educators. The cooperative was formed in 1994 by a group of educators living in the Minnesota River Valley of southern Minnesota. The cooperative is based upon educational entrepreneurship rather than district master agreements. It essentially replaces union arrangements by creating a professional association of teacher/owners that contract with a school board to supply a learning program. It is based upon true site-based management and dynamic and flexible decision making. The cooperative provides continuing growth for educators in a professional association of like-minded educators.
The founders of the Minnesota New Country School of Henderson, MN also created in 1994 the first education workers cooperative to operate in the public sector. The original 13 members of EdVisions Cooperative were dedicated to developing new arrangements in public education. They believed that a new model of “educational entrepreneurship” was not only possible but necessary.
The Articles of Incorporation say that the cooperative is to: “provide employment and income to its members in a manner that would permit them, individually and in concert with one another, in a cooperative structure, to employ their skills, talents and resources for the development and implementation of quality instructional programs.”