On Top of the News
Netflix Chief Announces $100 Million Fund for Education
Washington Post | 1/13/16

Behind the Headline
Disrupting the Education Monopoly
Education Next | Winter 2015

Reid Hastings, the founder of Netflix, announced Tuesday that he is creating a $100 million foundation for education.

“Currently, too many children do not have access to amazing schools. Our aim is to partner with communities to significantly increase the number of students who have access to rich and holistic educational experiences,” he writes on the foundation’s website.

As Emma Brown notes in the Washington Post

He has a long history in the field:  He supported a successful effort to loosen California’s charter law in 1998 and then went on to serve for four years on the state board of education.

The groups he has supported reads like a Who’s Who of the brand of education reform that favors online learning and charter schools over traditional schools: According to the publication Education Next, his money helped start the NewSchools Venture Fund, a major funder of charter schools and ed tech start-ups, and Aspire Public schools, a charter school network.

He’s also supported Rocketship Education, which combines online and face-to-face learning, and the Khan Academy, which creates online teaching videos used in schools nationwide. He has also served on the board of the California Charter Schools Association, the KIPP Foundation and ed tech company DreamBox Learning, according to Education Next.

For more on Reid Hastings, read “Disrupting the Education Monopoly,” an interview with Hastings by Joanne Jacobs, in the Winter 2015 issue of Education Next.

– Education Next