George Lucas Educational Foundation

The George Lucas Educational Foundation, GLEF (San Rafael, CA), publisher of Edutopia media, will offer two webinars and a Web video featuring the work of Stanford University professor, Linda Darling-Hammond. The first webinar will be for policy makers, academic researchers and administrators and will focus on the results of Dr. Darling-Hammond's international study of the best student assessments used by top-performing countries such as Australia, Singapore, Finland and Canada. The second, for teachers and parents, will provide a more general overview of the design of the assessments used by the top-scoring countries. The content will help educate these stakeholders as the U.S. Department of Education gears up for a competition that is providing funds for developing innovative approaches to new assessments that boost learning for students and teachers. (New, $25,000/4 months; 71% of project budget)

Lucas Education Research, a division of the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit operating foundation, focuses on the design and evaluation of innovative practices in K-12 schools, like project-based learning. The foundation will partner with Stanford University, SRI International, and the San Francisco Unified School District to conduct research about how teachers adopt and adapt a project-based science curriculum. The Lucas Education Foundation is providing $400,000 toward this project. The decision to provide a grant directly to Lucas Ed rather than to Stanford, SRI, or SF Unified SD was one of practicality (it was easier to do administratively), as well as one of relationship building with this colleague funder.