October Newsletter
At CKI, our goal is to unlock the potential of every learner. To do that, we think we need to transform education to focus on the child – not the system. Let’s give them better than the current system built on averages and provide for them, instead, models that allow them to discover, develop, and deploy their individual talents.
VELA Fall 2021 Microgrant Application Now Live!
VELA Education Fund was launched in August 2020 as a national, nonprofit fund dedicated to accelerating innovation through hundreds of small-dollar investments in education entrepreneurs serving families outside of traditional classrooms.
VELA’s Fall 2021 microgrant application is now live! Everyday entrepreneurs are encouraged to apply for a microgrant of $2,500 or $10,000 to support innovative, nontraditional education programs. This includes parents, teachers, community members, and, yes, students.
Applications will be accepted through 11:59pm EST on Friday, November 5, 2021, or until 750 applications are submitted, whichever comes first. The application is available at velaedfund.org/apply.
VELA Education Fund Awards $665,000 in Grants to Expand Access to Nontraditional Educational Opportunities Around the Country
In addition to the new Fall microgrant application, in October VELA Education Fund announced six recipients from around the country who will receive $665,000 in bridge grants to support more widespread adoption of nontraditional educational programs.
Great Hearts America. Modeled after its robust classical liberal arts model of nonprofit charter schools, Great Hearts will utilize VELA’s investment to respond to families’ interest and launch four microschools this year in Arizona and Texas. Its microschools will offer flexible programs with small class sizes to meet the dramatic rise in families seeking alternative methods of educating their children.
Free Forest School, Minneapolis, MN
Free Forest School. With more than 200 local chapters in 49 states, Minneapolis-based Free Forest School’s nature-focused program provides traditional and nontraditional educators with training and resources to implement outdoor learning for children. With its VELA funding, the organization plans to expand its membership to at least 50,000 students while piloting solutions to reach families living in lower-income and underserved communities who face the most significant barriers to access.
Black Mothers Forum. A group of Black mothers who have come together to end the school-to-prison pipeline through the creation of safe and supportive learning environments for Black children. The group has launched seven microschools in Arizona and plans to use its bridge grant to expand to Louisiana and open microschools there as well.
Engage Learning. Provides in-person afterschool and summer STEM lab programming at a state-of-the-art K-12 makerspace and is expanding its offerings online. By supporting students in learning about the physics of flight, scratch coding, robotics, electronics, and advanced 3D printing, Engage Learning is helping students develop critical skills like creative problem-solving, critical-thinking, collaboration, and communication. VELA’s bridge grant will support their expansion to serve hundreds of students in nontraditional and rural communities throughout Oklahoma and nationwide through live, hands-on distance learning.
Weird Enough Productions. Creates engaging comic books that support social emotional learning, digital literacy, and diverse representation. Even though students of color are most at risk for pandemic-related learning loss, only 30% of children’s books feature characters of color; founder Tony Weaver Jr. is working to change that. With VELA’s bridge grant, Weird Enough will expand its reach to more than 1 million students, including in nontraditional settings.
Smart Girls HQ. Offers girls exposure to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) through everyday activities, hands-on project experiences, mentorship, and toys. VELA’s bridge grant will support founder Abi Olukeye’s efforts to scale RaisingSmartGirls.com to students in nontraditional environments. Forthcoming features include options for parents of girls interested in STEM to connect with each other and access tools to explore STEM career paths.
For more inspiring VELA “everyday entrepreneur” education stories follow VELA on twitter @VelaEdFund.
CKI Partners Outschool, Turnaround for Children, and Schoolhouse.world featured in video series from Stand Together and FreeThink
Stand Together Presents Dr. Pam Cantor and "Whole-Child Design"
Several CKI partners have been featured in a series of videos from Stand Together and FreeThink that focus on what a transformed, student-centered system of education in the U.S. can look like.
Learn how Outschool helps students like Isacc Edwards develop a lifelong passion for learning. Isaac dreams of becoming a sports photographer. Watch as he gets the opportunity of a lifetime from a football legend.
Learn how Turnaround for Children’s Dr. Pam Cantor applies epigenetics research and helps equip educators with science-backed tools and strategies to design educational environments in which young people can develop their full potential.
Learn more about Sal Khan’s vision for the future of education, the inspiration behind Khan Academy, and discover how Khan’s latest education project, Schoolhouse.world, works with hundreds of volunteers to offer live tutoring to more than 3,000 learners across more than 100 countries.
Subscribe to Stand Together to learn more about these changemakers and sign up to receive regular updates featuring innovators revolutionizing education: .
Home Builders Institute Launches New Student-Centered BuildStrong Academy
CKI partner The Home Builders Institute has opened the Buildstrong Academy of Orlando to train and place students who want to pursue careers in the building industry. As Builder reports the partnership is “funded by The Home Depot Foundation, along with other private, public, and nonprofit sector partners, the program will be free to trainees and will guide participants through a step-by-step process designed to take them from beginners, with little to no trade skills, to tradespeople who are sought after by employers. Instructors will use HBI’s industry-recognized curriculum, which is one of only three pre-apprenticeship programs recognized by the U.S. Department of Labor.”
BuildStrong Academy, a new project of The Home Builders Institute
This unconventional education opportunity recognizes the great demand for employees from employers in the construction industry and offers students a high-quality and no-cost entry point to the construction trade. Students receive the necessary support to work in the construction trade in a short period of time and graduate debt-free. The program offers a pre-apprenticeship certification, a carpentry certification, and a solid job placement putting students on the fast-track to reach their full potential and contribute to this in-demand industry.
Sal Khan, founder of the Khan Academy joined the Washington Post Live to discuss the future of education and how his latest project, schoolhouse.world, is creating broader access to tutoring services while fostering mastery and disrupting credentialing.
The October 12 Edsurge Podcast features CKI partner Todd Rose discussing the history of standardization and how the original intent of standardized systems that rank and sort students was to protect aristocratic class by identifying inherently “better” people, denying individual differences, and limiting educational opportunities for certain groups of students based on standardized metrics.
A recent deep dive into the impact and future of microschools, learning pods, and other learner-first programs by The 74’s Linda Jacobson features the Vela Education Fund and several of their grant recipients including the nature-focused microschool Green Gate, the homeschool co-op Cultural Roots, and Nevada’s Southern Nevada Urban Micro Academy. Capturing the spirit of why some parents have embraced these student-centered models, Green Gate parent Megan Monsour explains: “I also like the independence and autonomy Green Gate teaches. They have a lot of time outside and I think children need more recess and chances to have hands-on learning.”
In West Virginia, TEL Education has partnered with Salem University to offer dual credits to high school students. As Dr. Karen Ferguson, Provost and Vice President of Enrollment at Salem University explains “time and cost are two of the most common barriers to degree completion. So, when we can put this in a model where they’re taking the classes at a time that they would have been taking classes anyway, and put it at such a low price point, it really helps to reduce those barriers.”
In a fascinating long-form feature “A Crusade to End Grading in High School,” on the Mastery Transcript Consortium and its founder Scott Looney, the Washington Post Magazine acknowledges that “the mastery transcript is, in fact, the harbinger Looney wants it to be — the start of an evolution that expands what learning is, where it happens and how it’s measured... Today, 275 private high schools and 125 public schools are part of the nonprofit Mastery Transcript Consortium (MTC). They are in various stages of designing and launching the transcript — and working to make Looney’s radical vision a reality.”