Education

The U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that $133 million from the 2012 Race to the Top fund will be available for continued investments in state-level, comprehensive early education reform. The Departments intend to fund down the Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 slate and invite the next five applicants, Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, Oregon and Wisconsin, to apply.

National education nonprofit CFY announced an initiative to help K-12 students, teachers and parents locate and access high-quality online digital learning activities to propel student achievement. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded $5 million to enhance the content and capabilities of CFY’s K-12 learning platform, PowerMyLearning.com; The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation is providing $1.2 million focused on evaluating the effectiveness of various digital learning activities; and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation has granted $1 million targeting K-3 students and their families.

Skype announced an initiative to provide U.S. teachers the technology resources they need to enable learning experiences that transcend the physical boundaries of the classroom. Through a new partnership with DonorsChoose.org, Skype will donate $250,000 to teachers requesting technology materials to enable Skype video calling in their classrooms. This partnership is the latest initiative from Skype to reach its goal of connecting one million classrooms across the globe through Skype in the classroom, a free online community that helps teachers use Skype to enrich educational experiences for students. 

After weeks of fevered fundraising, rallies and anxiety, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput announced Friday that thanks to millions of dollars in donations and pledges, all four archdiocesan high schools set to close in June — St. Hubert Catholic High School for Girls, Conwell-Egan, Monsignor Bonner-Archbishop Prendergast and West Catholic — would remain open.

The archbishop said "close to 20,000 financial donations have come in from everyday working lay people," and that an independent foundation would be established to raise $100 million in the next five years to help Catholic schools.

The latest annual college fundraising figures from the Voluntary Support of Education survey by Council for Aid to Education show donations to colleges and universities rose 8.2 percent in fiscal 2011, crossing back over the $30 billion mark for just the second time ever.

But the very richest universities accounted for nearly half the growth: Of the $30.3 billion collected by colleges and universities nationwide, $8.2 billion — or 27 percent — was raised by just the top 20 institutions. At those universities, fundraising was 15.3 percent higher than the year before.

The White House announced that nine states — California, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Washington — will receive grant awards from the $500 million Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge fund, a competitive grant program jointly administered by the U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services.

Google’s philanthropy arm has given Boston educational nonprofit Citizen Schools $3.25 million to help low-income middle school students across the country continue learning after the afternoon school bell rings.

Locally, the grant will help Citizen Schools’ afterschool program at the Edwards Middle School in Charlestown, Orchard Gardens K-8 School in Roxbury, Dever McCormack K-8 School in Dorchester and the Irving Middle School in Roslindale.

Target Corp., with help from "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" and its viewers, will select 50 schools in need to each receive a $100,000 grant. The $5 million donation from Target to local K-12 schools across the country is part of the company’s commitment to education, which includes plans to give $1 billion for education by the end of 2015.

Kohl's Department Stores announced a new partnership with TED, the nonprofit organization that provides a platform for innovative thinkers to present Ideas Worth Spreading. Kohl's is providing a $1.25 million sponsorship to launch education-based opportunities for youth.

Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland has announced $80 million in gifts as part of a recently launched $1 billion fundraising campaign, including a $50 million pledge from the Weatherhead Foundation in nearby Beachwood, Ohio.

The Weatherhead pledge — the largest single financial commitment to the university in its history — will be split evenly between the Weatherhead School of Management and the new Weatherhead Institute for Family Medicine and Community Health.