10 Ed Tech Organizations Granted Nearly $20 Million

• By Kevin Hudson
• 03/14/13

Over the past year, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation has awarded nearly $20 million to nonprofit organizations advancing "blended learning" technologies, according to a foundation release. Combined with earlier investments, the foundation has granted nearly $23 Million in funds to education technology nonprofits to date.

These grants have been intended to support the development and use of technologies enabling public school teachers and parents to adapt instruction to meet the personal needs of each student. This approach has resulted in dramatic academic gains, according to the release.

Organizations receiving Broad Foundation grants over the past year include:

• The Michigan Education Excellence Foundation received $10 million and funds the Education Achievement Authority of Michigan, a new system comprising 15 schools serving more than 10,000 students from the state's persistently lowest 5 percent achieving schools.
• Khan Academy, a nonprofit organization that provides online learners with access to free educational materials that enable them to master concepts at their own pace, received $4 Million.
• New Classrooms Innovation Partners, a nonprofit organization that operates a blended learning model called "Teach to One," currently in its first year of operation, was awarded $1.35 million. New Classrooms was launched by the team that created School of One, a New York City-based middle school math initiative. The model uses a combination of live, online, and collaborative learning to enable students to learn in ways that are personalized in real-time to their academic levels and learning modes.
• Foundation for Excellence in Education received $1 million and is a nonprofit, nonpartisan foundation that supports policy and advocacy efforts to initiate reforms that improve the quality of education in classrooms nationally. Through initiatives such as Digital Learning Now! and resources that include the "10 Elements of High Quality Digital Learning," ExcelinEd shares research, data, and perspectives that assist in the creation of policy and regulatory environments to support quality online and blended learning models.
• Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools, a non-profit public charter school management organization that operates middle and high schools in areas of Los Angeles in historically underachieving low-income communities, was awarded $1 million.
• Silicon Schools Fund, which received $1 million, is a venture philanthropy fund that provides seed funding for new blended learning schools using innovative education models and technology to personalize learning.
• iNACOL, the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, is a nonprofit membership association that advocates for quality online and blended learning. iNACOL was granted $630,000.
• 4.0 Schools, a nonprofit that works to identify, develop, and support innovative and entrepreneurial leaders who are committed to developing transformative solutions to the education crisis, including the development of education technology and tools, received $500,000.
• Innosight Institute, which was granted $356,000, is a non-profit think tank dedicated to advancing solutions to societal problems using Harvard Business School Professor Clayton M. Christensen's theories on innovation.
• Intrinsic Schools, awarded $155,000, is a Chicago-based public charter school management organization using a blended learning model that will open its first school serving low-income students in the fall of 2013. The school will start with seventh grade and add a grade each year until it serves students through high school.

Earlier investments of nearly $3 million in personalized learning include grants to:

• Rocketship Education, a national network of blended learning schools seeking to eliminate the achievement gap in low-income neighborhoods;
• New York City's School of One blending learning model upon which New Classrooms is based; and
• CFY, a national nonprofit organization that runs the online learning platform PowerMyLearning.com, which provides free online access to pre-screened digital learning activities produced by third parties, as well as consumer ratings.

The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation was founded by entrepreneur Eli Broad and his wife Edythe, both graduates of Detroit Public Schools. The foundation's stated mission is to ensure that every student in an urban public school has the opportunity to succeed.