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Perspectives: As Technology Use Explodes in Classrooms, Philanthropy Must Help Ensure All Students Benefit

Technology has the potential to play a significant role in improving engagement with families, assessing student progress, and providing personalized learning solutions. But to have a real impact, edtech tools need to be evaluated and refined before they're made available at scale. John Overdeck, President of Overdeck Family Foundation, points to the need for philanthropic investment in new innovations and ongoing evidence-building to ensure these solutions improve learning for all students.

Our Predictions for 2023

Our leadership team sat down to reflect on what they’ve seen across the education and philanthropic landscape, in addition to what the Foundation has learned from peer funders and grantees this past year. In this post, each department leader shares predictions for what they expect to see in 2023.

Perspectives: Why Digital STEM Initiatives Are a Critical Investment Right Now

As was the case pre-Covid, many students continue to score below proficient in STEM subjects, with low-income, Black, and Hispanic students on average far behind where they would have been if not for Covid-related learning disruptions. Gemma Lenowitz calls for investment in affordable and scalable digital solutions that can help close this widening gap by engaging students in STEM learning beyond the classroom.

Perspectives: Funding Better Assessment Can Help Kids Recover from COVID-Era Learning Loss

The pandemic disrupted learning and widened preexisting achievement gaps for students nationwide. John Overdeck, President of Overdeck Family Foundation, explains how funding cutting-edge, curriculum-aligned formative assessments can help to address unfinished learning.

two educators read at the front of the classroom

Perspectives: It’s Time to Rethink the ‘One Teacher, One Classroom’ Model

Stephanie Banchero of The Joyce Foundation and Irene Chen write about why the traditional school staffing model must be reimagined. This challenging moment in education is an opportunity for district and school leaders to embrace innovative, differentiated staffing that creatively utilizes educators and plays to their strengths—positioning schools for long-term success.

Using Technology To Accelerate Student-Centered Learning: An Interview with Nonprofit Leaders

Melanie Dukes talks with leaders from the Center on Reinventing Public Education, CommonLit, Khan Academy, Quill, ST Math, and Transcend about the innovative ways technology is being used to accelerate student-centered learning, and the cutting-edge approaches each organization is using to respond to students’ learning needs and augment teachers’ expertise.

Supporting Early Childhood Development: An Interview with The Hunt Institute’s Javaid Siddiqi and Dan Wuori

We caught up with The Hunt Institute’s President & CEO, Javaid Siddiqi, and Senior Director of Early Learning, Dan Wuori, to ask how the organization supports state leaders as they navigate early childhood policy, what innovations they're seeing across state investments, and more.

Perspectives: Not Just Recovery, But Reinvention—3 Lessons from Schools Where COVID Innovations Offer New Solutions

The old, familiar ways of doing school left too many behind. The funders of the Canopy Project, which tracks how hundreds of schools across the country adapted and innovated in the last year, explore how the increase in student-centered teaching holds enormous potential to address longstanding inequities going forward.

Allison Shelley / The Verbatim Agency for EDUimages

Perspectives: Out-of-School STEM Programs Inspire, Empower, and Engage Children. Here's What K-12 Can Learn from Them.

Gemma Lenowitz and Britt Magneson of NIHF write about why out-of-school STEM programs are a prime way to build the next generation of resilient, creative, problem-solving, solution-finding, inspired, and innovative students—and teachers.

Tutoring Can Be Highly Effective—But Continued Research Is Needed To Ensure It Overcomes Covid-Related Learning Loss

Kim Cassel and Melanie Dukes write about the approach Arnold Ventures and Overdeck Family Foundation take to funding innovation, validation, and evidence for high-dosage tutoring programs.

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