George Lucas Educational Foundation

George Lucas Educational Foundation

"Kids today. No previous generation has experienced anything like the current pace of transformational societal change. Yet, in light of extraordinary advancements in how we interact with each other and the world, our system of education has been frustratingly slow to adapt.

"The George Lucas Educational Foundation was created to address this issue. Our vision is of a new world of learning. A place where kids and parents, teachers and administrators, policy makers and the people they serve, all are empowered to change education for the better. A place where schools have access to the same invaluable technology as businesses and universities -- where innovation is the rule, not the exception. A place where children become lifelong learners and develop the technical, cultural, and interpersonal skills to succeed in the twenty-first century. A place of inspiration, aspiration, and an urgent belief that improving education improves the world we live in.

"We call this place Edutopia. And we provide not just the vision for this new world of learning but also the leading-edge interactive tools and resources to help make it a reality."


 * Milton Chen, PhD, Executive Director
 * Cindy Johanson, Chief Operating Officer

Directors
Accessed January 2009:


 * George Lucas, Chairman
 * Stephen D. Arnold, Vice Chairman/CFO
 * Milton Chen, PhD, Secretary
 * Micheline Chau
 * Kim Meredith
 * Kate Nyegaard
 * Marshall Turner

National Advisory Council
Accessed January 2009:


 * Craig Brandenburg, Media Production Instructor, YES Prep North Central, and Teach for America alumnus (Houston)
 * Nínive Clements Calegari, Cofounder of 826 Valencia and CEO of 826 National, a nonprofit tutoring, writing, and publishing organization (San Francisco)
 * Chris Dede, Professor of Learning Technologies, Harvard Graduate School of Education, and researcher exploring immersive and semi-immersive simulations for learning (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
 * Ted Hasselbring, Research Professor of Special Education, Vanderbilt University, and creator of the Read 180 reading software program (Nashville, Tennessee)
 * Jason Kamras, Director of Teacher Human Capital Strategy, District of Columbia Public Schools, and 2005 National Teacher of the Year (Washington, DC)
 * Larry Leverett, Executive Director, Panasonic Foundation, and former mentor superintendent of doctoral interns in Harvard University's Urban Superintendents program (Secaucus, New Jersey)
 * Doug Martin, Graphic Design and Illustration Teacher, Mingo Career and Technical Center; former Walt Disney Imagineer (Delbarton, West Virginia)
 * Pablo Munoz, Superintendent of Elizabeth Public Schools and graduate of the Broad Education Foundation's Superintendents Academy (Elizabeth, New Jersey)
 * Susan Patrick, President and CEO, North American Council for Online Learning, and former Director of the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education (Vienna, Virginia)
 * Kathleen Petersen, Principal at Santa Clara Elementary School, and National Association of Elementary School Principals 2007 National Distinguished Principal (Santa Clara, Utah)
 * Kati Reinke, English Teacher, Charlestown High School, and mentor teacher with the Boston Teacher Residency program (Charlestown, Massachusetts)
 * Will Richardson, Learner in Chief, Connective Learning, and Weblogg-ed blogger exploring the use of Web 2.0 technologies in K-12 (New Jersey)

Contact

 * Web: http://www.edutopia.org