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Organizations Working in Education: Partnerships, Part 1
The partnership between the Knowledge is Power Program Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the partnership between Teach for America and the Ballmer Group, the partnership between City Year and Bank of America, the partnership between the IMS Global Learning Consortium and the OESIS Network, and the partnership between the Education SuperHighway and the Internet and Television Association are five of the top non-profit partnerships in the K-12 education space in the United States. Details about these partnerships are provided below and in the attached spreadsheet
Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) Foundation and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: Networks for School Improvement Program
- The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has teamed up with KIPP and 29 other organizations to carry out its Networks for School Improvement (NSI) program, which aims to help high school students from minority communities and low-income families succeed in life.
- The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently awarded the KIPP Foundation a USD 15 million grant.
- This partnership is included in this list because of the reputation of both the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the KIPP Foundation. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a well-known foundation, and KIPP, with 242 public charter schools in its network, is the biggest national non-profit network of public charter schools in the United states.
- Most of the students in KIPP's network are African-American or Latinx. KIPP also has a proven track record of helping students achieve secondary and post-secondary education success.
- KIPP has partnered with several other organizations as well. KIPP and the Sheryl Sandberg and Dave Goldberg Foundation have teamed up to administer the Dave Goldberg Scholarship program, KIPP and Howard University have teamed up to create the Lomax KIPP Scholarships, and KIPP and iMentor have teamed up to administer the Amplify Scholarship Program.
Teach for America (TFA) and the Ballmer Group: Black Educators Promise Initiative
- TFA and the Ballmer Group, both non-profit organizations, have recently worked together to launch the Black Educators Promise Initiative, a five-year initiative designed to improve the recruitment and retention of Black educators and the performance of Black students in communities of color and at low-income schools.
- The new initiative, which launched with an inaugural group of more than 850 Black educators, is funded by the Ballmer Group. Both TFA and the Ballmer Group believe that the initiative will help reduce educational inequity in the country.
- This partnership is included in this list because of TFA's impact on Black teachers and Black students. TFA is the biggest supplier of Black educators to communities of color and low-income schools in the United States.
City Year and Bank of America
- City Year and Bank of America have a long-standing relationship that started way back in 1988 when the former was founded and the latter became the former's first corporate sponsor.
- City Year is a non-profit organization that works closely with public schools in high-need communities across the country and provides tutors, role models, and mentors to improve student outcomes.
- This partnership is included in this list because of the amount the bank has donated to City Year. In the decade leading to 2019, Bank of America had donated over USD 2 billion to City Year. Bank of America's support also goes beyond the United States operations of City Year.
IMS Global Learning Consortium and OESIS Network: Partnership for Interoperable Versatile Open Transcripts (PIVOT)
- IMS Global Learning Consortium, a non-profit organization that advocates for the use of technology to improve both educational participation and attainment, and OESIS Network, a leading K-12 innovation network, have partnered to launch PIVOT, the Partnership for Interoperable Versatile Open Transcripts.
- PIVOT offers support that will help K-12 schools and districts make an easier transition to holistic, competency-based education models, which, in turn, will help promote student equity and achievement.
- This partnership is included in this list because the impact of a modern and digital transcript on K-12 education is expected to be transformative.
- According to Rob Abel, the CEO of the IMS Global Learning Consortium, "a next-generation digital transcript is a powerful tool to empower learners to represent their verifiable skills and competencies and to define their pathways for future educational and employment opportunities."
Education SuperHighway (ESH) and the Internet & Television Association (NCTA): K-12 Bridge to Broadband
- ESH, a non-profit organization whose mission was to close the gap in classroom connectivity in the United States, has teamed up with NCTA, a broadband technology trade association, to launch K-12 Bridge to Broadband, an initiative to provide students, especially those belonging to low-income households, with home connectivity solutions for hybrid and remote learning.
- As part of the initiative, members of the NCTA will introduce programs that will help school districts pinpoint which students need assistance with procuring a broadband service.
- This partnership is included in this list because this initiative of ESH and the NCTA is timely and important, especially now that there is a COVID-19 pandemic. Several broadband providers, including Comcast, Charter, Vyve, Mediacom, Cox, GCI, Midco, and Sjoberg's, have promised to contribute to this initiative.
- Local school districts have informed ESH that they could not address the home connectivity problem properly because they have no idea which students have no broadband service at home.
Research Strategy
A list of the top non-profit partnerships in the K-12 education space in the United States is not readily available in the public domain. As a workaround, a press search for articles mentioning the keywords non-profit, partner, K-12 and education was conducted. The news releases of top organizations in the K-12 education space, other educational institutions, the education-focused government agencies, and the largest private sector companies in the United States and their education-related initiatives were also examined. The search was limited to articles published in the past 24 months to ensure recent or relevant results. Relevant articles were compiled in this document.
Identifying the top among these partnerships was tricky. There is no single quantitative metric by which these partnerships can be reliably and consistently ranked. For example, while some partnership announcements include a donation or investment amount, many don't. We could only rely on our subjective judgment and give more weight to companies, organizations, and programs we think are better-known or have a wider or greater impact. As requested, we made sure that programs or partnerships included in the Exclusions tab of the spreadsheet are not duplicated.