Foundations Award $7.2 Million for Digital Learning Effort
Foundations Award $7.2 Million for Digital Learning Effort
CFY, a national education organization based in New York City, has announced grants totaling $7.2 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates, Eli and Edyth Broad, and W.K. Kellogg foundations for a new initiative designed to help K-12 students, teachers, and parents locate and access high-quality online digital learning activities and boost student achievement in subjects such as math, English, science, and social studies.
To that end, the Gates Foundation awarded $5 million to enhance the content and capabilities of CFY's K-12 learning platform, PowerMyLearning.com, while the Broad Foundation provided $1.2 million to support the evaluation of various digital learning activities and the Kellogg Foundation granted $1 million to target assistance to K-3 students and their families. With the grants, CFY aims to make PowerMyLearning.com the go-to source for digital learning for students, teachers, and parents nationwide; provide teachers and parents with more content, search tools, and features to help them personalize learning according to each student's needs; and help educators and parents understand which online activities are most useful in improving student achievement by developing a framework to measure student outcomes over time and make that information available to users.
Developed in 2010, PowerMyLearning.com draws on CFY's decade of experience in identifying and delivering educational software to parents, teachers, and students through the organization's technology access and training initiative, the Digital Learning Program. The program provides families with broadband-ready computers pre-loaded with educational software and also teaches students, parents, and teachers how to use digital learning to create learning opportunities in class, after school, and in the home.
"We are very excited about PowerMyLearning.com's potential to offer more equitable opportunities for digital learning in low-income communities and communities of color to improve student learning," said Arelis Diaz, program officer at the Kellogg Foundation. "In my prior role as a school district leader, I have seen the promise of CFY's platform, and I'm delighted that the foundation is making this investment."
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