Education Reform

Moonshot Competition Seeks Ideas to Revolutionize Education

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 07/18/19

Two organizations, one liberal and the other conservative, have announced a joint project to seek new ideas that will "revolutionize schooling." The deadline for applications is August 1, 2019.

The "Moonshot for Kids" comes courtesy of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative American nonprofit education policy think tank, and the Center for American Progress (CAP), a public policy research and advocacy organization with a liberal outlook. The goal: to find "big R&D breakthroughs that might help America's 50 million K-12 students do dramatically better," as Fordham Institute President Michael Petrilli wrote in a March blog post.

Submissions need to address one of several specific "big goals":

• To halve the number of fourth graders reading "below basic" level;

• To make sure every student receives "high-quality" college and career advising by ninth grade;

• To reduce the average time a student spends in English-language-learner status by 30 percent;

• To double the number of eighth graders who can write "an effective persuasive essay";

• To double the amount of "high-quality feedback" the average middle schooler receives on academic work;

• To double the number of students from low-income families and students of color who graduate from high school with "remediation-free" scores on the SAT, ACT or similar exams; or

• To double the number of female students who major in STEM fields.

An online portal where applications are being accepted asks for basic contact information and a brief description (500 words or fewer) of the solution. By Sept. 10, 2019, the Fordham and CAP teams will choose 10 finalists, each of whom will receive $1,000 and be asked to expand on their ideas in greater detail. In the fall, the two organizations will host a competition where the ideas will be evaluated by a panel of judges to choose a winner of a $10,000 grand prize.

From there, Fordham and CAP hope the idea will draw public or private investment.

The guidelines are available on the Fordham website, along with the application.