MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a large-scale, web-based publication of the educational materials from all of MIT's courses.  It is the world's largest and most precedent setting-effort of this type.  The initiative stems from the MIT faculty's conviction that the open dissemination of knowledge and information can offer the powerful benefits of education to humanity around the world.  The program enables the open and global sharing of the MIT faculty's teaching materials with educators, enrolled students, and self-learners.   MIT OCW provides users access to the syllabi, lecture notes, course calendars, problem sets and solutions, exams, reading lists, and video lectures from 1,550 MIT courses representing 34 academic disciplines and all five of MIT's schools.

• 95% of users report that MIT OCW has or will help them to be more productive and effective
• MIT OCW has helped to spur an international movement in open courseware.  The international Open Courseware consortium now has over 100 academic institutional members from over a dozen nations who are now publishing their course materials online
• All MIT OCW material is licensed under the Creative Commons License that allows for noncommercial reproduction and derivative works with proper attribution

Boston After School & Beyond is a unique public-private venture created to expand, improve, and sustain a system of quality out-of-school programs for the Boston's youth. It brings together the resources, knowledge, and shared commitment of Boston government agencies and the City's largest philanthropic and corporate institutions as a collective force to improve children's out-of-school experiences. The organization was formed in 2004 as a successor to two programs: Boston's After-School for All Partnership and the Boston 2:00 to 6:00 After-School Initiative. Boston After School & Beyond identifies the unmet needs of out-of-school programs and addresses them through public-private partnerships, fundraising, and advocacy. Participation in after-school programs has been shown to increase academic achievement and decrease juvenile crime.  Current projects include:

• The Arts & Culture Initiative to increase the quality of arts programs and strengthen the network of arts and culture providers in Boston
• Boston Youth Sports Initiative to promote youth sports as a positive youth development and physical fitness approach.
• Partners for Student Success to lower barriers to learning among struggling students by creating connections between the lives children lead in and out of school
• Boston Out-of-School Time Navigator, a collaboration between The City of Boston, BOSTnet, and Boston After School & Beyond: a single, citywide database of out-of-school time programs in Boston
  

EdVestors levels the playing field for urban schools seeking private philanthropic investment.  EdVestors serves as a go-between for the donor community and those engaged in strengthening urban schools in Boston and Lowell, Massachusetts.  EdVestors simultaneously helps donors evaluate which programs to invest in and effective developing programs to reach potential supporters. Its Education Review Panel screens 100 urban education initiatives through a rigorous review process and selects finalists that present for consideration by likely and pre-committed donors, including both individual philanthropists and foundations.  EdVestors offers potential donors two opportunities. Its annual Urban Education Investment Showcase allows donors to make grants to any of the ten featured leading initiatives.  Through the EdVestors Collaborative Fund donations are pooled and given to a selected group of grantees. It also offers technical assistance to selected programs.

• The Fund for Nonprofit Partnerships, a foundation collaborative, merged with EdVestors in August 2003, becoming EdVestors Collaborative Fund
• Seed funding and office space were provided by The Boston Foundation
  

The KnowHow2GO campaign is a multiyear, multimedia effort that includes television, radio, and outdoor public service advertisements (PSAs) to encourage 8th through 10th graders to prepare for college using four simple steps.  The campaign was launched in January 2007 in order to turn every student's college dreams into action-oriented goals.  The campaign is a joint effort of the American Council on Education, Lumina Foundation for Education, and the Ad Council.   Despite their aspirations, low-income students and those who are the first in their families to pursue higher education lack the guidance they need to prepare for postsecondary education and are severely underrepresented on college campuses. KnowHow2Go has individualized information and resources for all US geographic areas; and many states have their own KnowHow2Go website.

In response to dynamic changes in the world economy, the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce released an action-oriented assessment of American education and the changes it requires to keep pace with the rest of the globe.  The report, entitled Tough Choices or Tough Times, is a bipartisan call for urgent modifications in the way the US educates its youth.  As China, India, and other emerging economies begin to supply the global workforce with large numbers of highly skilled workers willing to work at a fraction of US wages, the US no longer enjoys its competitive advantage in the high-skill marketplace.  In response to this new reality, the report offers clear recommendations about how the US can maintain its high standard of living by updating the education system to reflect the realities of new global economy.  Recommendations include:

• Beginning the path to college or advanced technical training at a younger age--around 16--as most other countries now do
• Recruiting a teaching force from the top third of the high school students who go on to college
• Building a high-quality early childhood education system for every 3 and 4 year old in the US
  

The International Education and Resource Network (iEARN) is the premier global online educational community.  Since 1988, iEARN has been pioneering professional development and on-line school linkages to enable students to engage in meaningful educational projects with peers in their countries and around the world.  Today, over one million school-age students and teachers from more than 20,000 schools in 115 countries collaborate daily on educational projects.  iEARN is truly a global organization with a charter that requires that at least 50% of its schools be outside the US.  Student empowerment is at the heart of the iEARN's model.  All projects are generated through student and teacher collaboration.  At any given moment, more than 150 collaborative projects are underway, addressing all major curricular areas and focused on every imaginable topic.  Current projects include:

• The Art Miles Mural Project -- in which students create murals promoting cultural awareness that will eventually be linked together in a 3-mile chain, making it the largest such art piece in the world.  It will be displayed at a gala "Exhibition of the Century" in Egypt in the year 2010.
• Ecology of a Coral Reef as well as Ecology of an Extreme Desert -- in which primary school-age children research the state of coral and desert  ecologies in their local and global communities.
• Cities Near the Sea -- in which students work together on cross-curricular themes related to the ‘city near the sea’ in which they live.