The RJR Nabisco Foundation announced last week that it will award a total of $9 million to 14 schools selected as winners in the final round of its “Next Century Schools’’ grant competition.
The foundation launched the $30-million initiative, believed to be the largest corporate program of cash grants to individual public schools, three years ago to foster experimentation with “revolutionary’’ changes in school structure and curricula.
The schools named last week, which were selected from some 1,100 applicants, will receive between $321,000 and $750,000 over a three-year period.
Fewer schools applied for the grants this year than last, when 1,600 schools submitted applications, foundation officials said. In 1990, the first year of the competition, about 1,000 schools applied.
A 16-member advisory board of education, business, and government leaders selected the winners. Among the board’s members are Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas; Keith B. Geiger, the president of the National Education Association; Albert Shanker, the president of the American Federation of Teachers; and Theodore Sizer, the chairman of the Coalition of Essential Schools.
Longer School Days, Years
- Winners in this year’s competition include:
The Beeber Middle School in Philadelphia, which will receive $724,059 to replace its curriculum with a series of team-taught, 12-week thematic courses. Students will attend school for 39 to 41 weeks annually, and the school day will be extended by two hours.
Using Technology
The other 1992 winners are:
