Last week the GE Foundation, the charity associated with General Electric, announced they intend to donate $18 million to support the implementation of the Common Core. Though some critics are expected to be up in arms over a private corporation getting involved in education reform, Time’s Andrew Rotherham believes the gift will put into sharp Read more about Can GE Bring Common Core to Life?[…]
At first blush, many listening to Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s speech at the Microsoft Partners in Learning Global Forum may have thought they had accidentally stumbled into an economic forum. Duncan’s speech was liberally sprinkled with many terms from the current economic rhetoric: “zero-sum game,” “international competition,” and “protectionism.” Words often used in debates over Read more about Duncan: Microsoft will take over TEACH; the dangers of “educational protectionism”[…]
Jack Schneider, postdoctoral fellow for innovation in the liberal arts at Carleton College, recently blogged for Education Week’s “Teaching Now” blog on the “mania” for educational technology. He touches on the apparent consensus that the solution to the nation’s education problem is new technologies: smartboards in every classroom, iPads for each student, and collaborative projects Read more about Education Technology: After the Investment[…]
Ten years and $5 billion into his philanthropic push for school reform, Bill Gates is doing some soul-searching. “It’s been about a decade of learning,” he says, and acknowledges that education isn’t only a civil rights issue but also “an equity issue and an economic issue…It’s so primary. In inner-city, low-income communities of color, there’s Read more about Gates Foundation Reconsiders Education Investments[…]
In 2007, Indiana adopted a new teaching fellowship program, established by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, to recruit professionals with STEM expertise. Fellows, whether mid-career or fresh out of college, were set to work in secondary schools serving disadvantaged populations. The program seeks to not only address the shortage of STEM teachers, but to Read more about Fellowship Program Aims to Change Teacher Prep[…]
In a typical year (without a stimulus bill), the federal Department of Education has about $20 million in discretionary funds. In 2009, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gave away over $373 million to education, the Walton Foundation gave approximately $134 million, and the Broad Foundation about $39 million. Education philanthropy has increased dramatically in Read more about The Changing Face of Education Philanthropy[…]
The Pearson Foundation has announced a partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create a complete, foundational system of digital instructional resources built around the Common Core State Standards. Over the next three years, the Pearson Foundation will develop 24 courses covering math for grades K-10 and reading/English language arts for grades K-12. The Read more about Digital Instructional Resources for the Common Core[…]
A new issue brief released by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices offers lessons drawn from its State Strategies to Improve Chronically Low-Performing Schools project, which sought to address underlying causes of failing schools: weak leadership; inadequate skill levels among teachers; and insufficient high-quality teaching materials. In 2009, the project gave Colorado, Maryland, Read more about State Strategies to Improve Chronically Low-Performing Schools[…]
Next Generation Learning Challenges, funded by the Gates Foundation, announced a new round of challenge grants that will provide up to $10 million to expand promising technology tools and applications that help more students master seventh- through ninth-grade math and literacy competencies, which are critical to college and career readiness. Next Generation Learning Challenges provides Read more about Wave 2 Funding – Next Generation Learning Challenges[…]