Digital Promise finally realized in White House launch

Lawrence Grossman, former PBS president, and Shae Hopkins, executive director of Kentucky Educational Television, are two board members of Digital Promise, the White House's educational initiative that was announced Friday (Sept. 16) in Washington, D.C. The project, backed by the Department of Education, Carnegie Corporation of New York and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, will work to identify breakthrough educational technologies, partner with researchers and entrepreneurs to determine what works best, and drive private-sector investment in innovation. The initiative also includes a League of Innovative Schools to help test projects, $15 million in new awards from the National Science Foundation to support research on next-generation learning environments, a national alliance of more 35 of America’s top education-policy researchers, and more. Digital Promise was "founded after more than a decade of effort," it says; its roots can be traced to Grossman and former FCC Chairman Newton Minow's 2001 proposal for an $18 billion Digital Opportunity Investment Trust for educational materials (Current, April 9, 2001).