You have been sent this message courtesy of the Washington Post - http://www.washingtonpost.com As many of you are using Marcopolo in your districts and schools, this article published in the Washington Post on August 29 might be of interest.
Camilla Gagliolo To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13733-2002Aug29.html Teacher Aid In Jeopardy After Fall Of WorldCom By Ellen McCarthy A popular Web-based teacher training tool, one of WorldCom Inc.'s biggest philanthropic efforts, is in danger of shutting down unless $5 million can be found to pay for operations through next year, say the foundation officials who run the program. The MarcoPolo project has provided free training to more than 180,000 teachers in the past five years, including nearly 9,000 in Maryland, Virginia and the District. But WorldCom's bankruptcy in July stoppered the project's income just as the philanthropic foundation that runs the program was ready to pay $4.1 million to adapt the curriculum to states' educational standards. In an attempt to prompt a rescue, the Ashburn-based MarcoPolo Educational Foundation appealed for support from public and private parties this month, filed to create a public charity for the initiative and removed WorldCom's name from its Web site. "I don't think people could be aware of how quickly this program could go away. [The funding] is absolutely critical and needed immediately," said Caleb Schutz, MarcoPolo foundation president, who is also vice president of the WorldCom Foundation. MarcoPolo provides instructional materials and training to elementary and secondary school teachers and administrators, who then train other teachers in the program. The foundation, through a WorldCom donation, also paid for its partners to develop interactive Web sites tailored to the needs of students in kindergarten through 12th grade. The program gives teachers lesson plans built around national education standards and narrows the field of Internet sites that will pop up when they search for specific subjects. Its partners include the National Geographic Society, the Kennedy Center and the National Endowment for the Humanities. "With MarcoPolo's search engine, everything has been vetted by experts, so the time-saving potential is enormous," said Leslie Kent, principal of Frost Middle School in Fairfax, where teachers have been training to use the program for the past few months. "I've seen lots of online curriculum and the advantage here is the collaboration between the consortium [of content providers]. And there is zero cost." In Maryland, Virginia and the District, 8,877 teachers and other educators had been trained to use MarcoPolo as of last week. The foundation had planned to train 2.4 million teachers nationally by 2005. For the past year, John Stroud, a technology specialist for Fairfax County Public Schools, has spent a quarter of his time preparing to launch an extensive online learning initiative. "We in Fairfax County have invested a significant amount of time and energy in preparation to use MarcoPolo. We've equipped our classrooms with state-of-the-art technology, what we're giving them now are the resources to use that technology -- it gives them content," Stroud said of his efforts on the project. The MCI WorldCom Foundation began developing MarcoPolo in 1997 and officially launched the network two years later. The program initially targeted seven southern states, but it is now being used in all 50 states and the District. MarcoPolo's popularity increased rapidly because it is backed by big-name educational organizations and costs the schools little more than the wages lost for training time. "We have developed curriculum across all the subject areas -- math, science, arts -- and we make all of that available for free. If it were done commercially, it would have cost about $1.5 billion per year," Schutz said. WorldCom has provided $50 million to the MarcoPolo project since 1997. Schutz said he expected the program's ongoing costs to be $20 million annually. Without any income, it is uncertain how much longer the foundation can pay the salaries of its 40 employees. Its appeal for donations has so far resulted only in a $96,000 contribution from Washington Mutual Inc., a Seattle banking firm, Schutz said. "WorldCom has been proud of its role in establishing and funding the MarcoPolo program, and while the company certainly supports the educational goals of the program, under our current circumstances the company is prohibited from providing additional financial support," said Julie Moore, a WorldCom spokeswoman. MarcoPolo also pays consultants to train teachers, many of whom have donated their time this summer to fulfill training commitments. And the organization's partners have pledged to maintain their existing content if the program dies. "This whole consortium was built on addressing the needs of the classroom -- bringing teachers up to speed in the classroom so that they could excite students about learning. That whole teacher preparedness part of it is so critical," said Mark Holmes, vice president of programming and content development for the National Geographic Society. "That outreach is so great and is not something that we would be able to replace, certainly not any time soon. The value of that is just phenomenal." WorldCom had been planning to gradually spin off MarcoPolo as a public charity by 2005. By that time, Schutz said, the organization would have been able to secure other donors for the $20 million needed annually to maintain the program. Given the economic climate, coming up with commitments for that kind of money in the next couple of months may not be feasible. "The MarcoPolo foundation isn't broken in any way -- what's broken is the funding," Schutz said. --- [This E-mail Scanned For Viruses By Declude Virus Scanner] --- [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus] --------------------------------------------------------- Archived messages from this list can be found at: http://www.mail-archive.com/tech-cord@aea5.k12.ia.us/ ---------------------------------------------------------
