CZI and the Gates Foundation Partner to Accelerate Breakthroughs in Education

Today, we’re proud to announce the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is joining forces with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to pursue breakthroughs in three areas: math, writing, and “executive function” — the last referring to a set of skills that correspond with things like memory, self-control, attention, and flexibility of thinking.

The goal is to gain a better understanding of breakthrough work happening in these fields so that we, and many others across the field, can figure out how best to direct energies and resources to accelerate progress for students. More details are available here.

As Jim Shelton, president for education at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and Bob Hughes, director of K-12 Education at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, shared in an op-ed:

The cost of that disconnect between research and practice is huge–for teachers and even more so for kids. As recent trends in national test scores show, despite increased effort by educators, the current rate of improvement is too slow to put meaningfully more students on paths to success after high school. The truth is that we need to dramatically accelerate learning, and to do that we need to understand it more deeply in order to design teaching environments and support systems that can deliver much better outcomes.

That’s why today, our two organizations, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, are announcing a joint effort to break down the wall between research and practice and create a better, more transparent path for new ideas to reach schools and teachers.

Our work at CZI is driven by a belief in the power of education to create opportunity and equity, prepare all young people for the future. We’re excited to learn from you about how we can get there faster. To submit your ideas, please visit this page.