“Laurene Powell Jobs is using the vast fortune left to her by her husband, late Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs, to tackle the one institution that has changed little in more than a century: education,” Leena Rao for Fortune.
“‘It’s not that our high school system was not designed well, but that it was designed in 1906 when the country was just out of the industrial era,’ Powell said on Monday at conference for female entrepreneurs in San Francisco hosted by tech incubator Y Combinator,” Steinberg writes. “Powell Jobs created a non-profit organization, the Emerson Collective, to invest in education and change how it operates. One of its spinoffs is XQ: the Super School project, a national competition that is open to artists, teachers, musicians, and technologists to reinvent how high school students learn.”
“Over the past few months, Powell Jobs and her team have received more than 10,000 applications. On Monday, she and the CEO of the project, former U.S. Education Department official, Russlynn Ali, said they would eventually narrow them down to 5 ideas. Powell has committed $50 million to implement the five plans,” Steinberg writes. “Powell Jobs, who was wearing an Apple Watch, said that the number of applications for the competition exceeded her and Ali’s expectations. Later this week, Powell Jobs and Ali will announce the ideas chosen for the next round of vetting.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote over a decade ago:
Teachers who don’t want to learn new things should be fired immediately. Sorry for the burst of truth, NEA… The NEA has been around since 1857; supposedly “working to provide great public schools.” However, U.S. public schools are generally woeful. Is it the National Education Association or the National Education Anchor? Perhaps it’s time America tried something else, something that’s actually effective and improves the nation’s public school system? — MacDailyNews Take, March 29, 2005
SEE ALSO:
Laurene Powell Jobs funds buyout of News Corp’s Amplify education company – November 23, 2015
Laurene Powell Jobs aligns against teachers unions; backs education reform, charter schools, vouchers – May 26, 2012
Laurene Powell Jobs helps change lives, too – October 7, 2011
A clearer picture of Steve Jobs’ thoughts on public education and teacher unions – February 21, 2007
Steve Jobs & Rush Limbaugh agree: U.S. public schools are ‘unionized in the worst possible way’ – February 20, 2007
Apple CEO blasts teacher unions, says US schools are ‘unionized in the worst possible way’ – February 16, 2007
