education

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Are You Aware of the Conspiracy to Improve Life on This Planet?

There’s a tuition-free online university aimed at poor students around the globe who would otherwise not have access to higher education.

[Shai] Reshef founded the school in 2009. After making millions from several for-profit, online education ventures in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East, he says he realized just how inaccessible higher education is for most people around the world.

“Listen, everyone should be educated,” Reshef says. “I care about the people who don’t have the right to an education right now, and they should have the right.”

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First-Class Healing

At an urban L.A. school, nature grows — and test scores too

Leo Politi Elementary School wanted only to make a dreary corner of campus more inviting to its 817 students. Workers ripped out 5,000 square feet of concrete and Bermuda grass three years ago and planted native flora.

What happened next was unforeseen. It was remarkable.

The plants attracted insects, which attracted birds, which attracted students, who, fascinated by the nature unfolding before them, learned so much that their test scores in science rose sixfold.

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Surprising and Secret Helpers Actually Exist

“Use of the word ‘miracle’ is not an overstatement”

What would it cost, the caller asked the founder of DonorsChoose.org, to fund every California teacher’s wish list posted on the Web site?

The founder, Charles Best, thought perhaps the female caller would hang up when he tossed out his best guess: “Something over $1 million,” he told her.

Twelve hours later, the woman, Hilda Yao, executive director of the Claire Giannini Fund, sent Best an e-mail.

It said, in short, OK.