Over the past few months, the U.S. Department of Education and the NEA Foundation have been tapping the brains of educators to identify their most pressing classroom problems. Our Challenge to Innovate (C2i) has created an opportunity for educators to share their thinking and at the same time create a new virtual community where educator’s views and experiences are being shared, discussed, rated, and rewarded.
The Challenge. Based on the ideas shared in the first round of the challenge—which came in from 40 states—the C2i community has selected the following four classroom-based problems as the most pressing:
- How can educators help students learn and use fractions, ratios, and proportions?
- How can classroom teachers/schools best facilitate positive parental involvement in their child’s learning?
- How might a teacher who has a student(s) reading significantly below grade level build a foundation of literacy skills for ultimate reading success?
- How can educators better incorporate student voices in decision making?
Now we are going back to educators—and anyone else with a great idea—to find the solutions.
Earn Cash for Solutions. The NEA Foundation will offer up to five cash awards of $2,500 each for individuals who submit solutions voted as most responsive to the pressing problems stated above. Here are the rules:
- Each proposed solution should cost no more than $500 per classroom to implement
- The solution must be able to be initiated within a three- to four-month period.
These solutions will be shared in a host of ways so that educators across the country can apply them in their classrooms. C2i is a fast and easy way to add your voice to the chorus of educators and members of the public working on some of America’s most important classroom-based problems.
We encourage you to visit the site. Then rate solutions that others have proposed. You may comment on ideas to help make them better, or propose your own solution to become eligible for a cash award. And, please, encourage your friends and colleagues who care about public education to participate.