News about our grantees, the Foundation, and the field.
When the American Rescue Plan passed in March, America’s educators celebrated. Reopening schools and expanding opportunities and support for students who need it most suddenly seemed within reach. Anu Malipatil and Karen Hawley Miles explore the unique role philanthropy can play in ensuring these short-term dollars lead to sustainable, successful school designs and positive change.
In recent years, more and more proof points have emerged that well-designed, externally-provided professional learning can drive significant improvements in both teacher and student-level outcomes, and do so at a fraction of the cost of the average school system’s annual spend on professional development. We explore why scaling this type of professional learning for educators is critical, the impact it can have on student learning, and what still remains to be learned.
Setting students up for success is crucial every year, but particularly so following the trauma and disruption caused by the pandemic. Here’s what we predict will be critical in ensuring children can both recover and accelerate in the upcoming academic year.
We're proud to support the 2021-22 Learning Engineering Tools Competition, alongside Schmidt Futures, Citadel founder and CEO Ken Griffin, Walton Family Foundation, and Siegel Family Endowment. Co-funding this event is an important next step in ensuring that we continue to make progress in our goal of finding and funding early stage organizations, and supporting them to develop, innovate, and test new solutions and programs that improve key academic and socio-emotional outcomes for all children.
The just-released America After 3PM Special Report, “STEM Learning in Afterschool on the Rise, But Barriers and Inequities Exist,” funded by Overdeck Family Foundation, found that afterschool programs are offering more STEM learning opportunities, but inequities exist and millions of children are missing out. For every child in an afterschool program, three are waiting to get in.
In 2021, Overdeck Family Foundation made grants totaling $3.75 million to organizations that support family STEM. This post explores the importance of engaging families in their children's STEM learning and highlights three organizations that are leading the way.
The Early Impact portfolio at Overdeck Family Foundation funds programs that support school readiness both in and out of "school," ensuring that every child has the opportunity for a strong start. This year, with the many challenges and setbacks created by the pandemic, that work is more critical than ever. This post highlights some of our grantee organizations engaging in this important work.
A new report by the Center for Public Research and Leadership found that digitally-accessible high-quality instructional materials increased student learning and engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the additional challenges that students and families experienced due to remote learning. Read more here.
When schools shut down last March, parents suddenly became tutors and teachers. Schools, no longer able to send information home in backpacks, had to find new ways of communicating. These developments accelerated an appreciation of family engagement to a degree hard to imagine a year ago.
In Q2 2021, our foundation awarded 29 grants totaling over $12 million dollars. Of these, 9 grants were new, while 20 were renewals. This post highlights just some of the many organizations we’re proud to support.