CFY Growth Plan Summary
The overarching goal of CFY is encompassed in its mission statement – to help students in lowincome communities, together with their teachers and families, harness the power of digital
learning to improve educational outcomes. CFY’s growth plan is designed to move us closer to a
world in which every child in the United States, regardless of economic status, is able to take
advantage of digital learning.
The three key strategic priorities for CFY's growth plan are as follows:
1. Continue to build and enhance our free, high-impact platform for blended learning:
PowerMyLearning.com
2. Deepen the model of our Digital Learning Program, in particular using
PowerMyLearning to prove out impactful models of blended learning
3. Disseminate our learning broadly so that effective blended learning models can be
implemented in thousands of schools nationwide
PRIORITY 1. Continue to build and enhance our free, high-impact platform for blended
learning: PowerMyLearning.com
CFY has received funding to enhance the PowerMyLearning platform from the largest education
funders in the nation: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Broad Foundation and the
W.K. Kellogg Foundation. This funding is enabling CFY to make important advancements in the
content, features, and functionality of the platform. We are currently seeking the support of
visionary partners who can help us build on this investment to make PowerMyLearning (PML)
even more impactful for students, parents and educators nationwide.
Unlike other platforms that offer only their own content, PML provides access to the most
compelling publicly-available digital learning activities produced by third party software
developers. CFY curates activities from across the web, including video tutorials, academic
games, interactive simulations, and more, which have been determined to have the greatest
educational value and “engagement” factor. We then organize these activities by grade, subject,
and the Common Core State Standards to make them easily accessible. We also offer a robust
feature set for children, teachers and parents to make the activities most usable. There are
currently thousands of high-quality third-party activities on PML and this number increases each
day.
CFY has seen significant growth in use of PML since its launch in 2010, and it is now in use in
all 50 states and in all 210 metro regions of the U.S. CFY’s goals for the platform include the
following:
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Continue to curate the best digital learning activities from across the web, and
significantly increase the number of digital learning activities available on the platform
across all major subject areas.
Add features and functionality that make PML an ever more valuable tool for teachers to
implement blended instructional models.
Boost demand for, and usage of, PML by incorporating viral marketing and engagement
features that attract users to the site, and encourage them to keep returning and stay
longer.
Keep PML free and open to users (students, teachers, and parents) through philanthropic
support and potential value-added services for which we could secure fees from school
districts, education software providers, or other entities within the education technology
sector.
PRIORITY 2. Deepen the model of the Digital Learning Program, in particular using
PowerMyLearning to prove out impactful models of blended learning
CFY launched the Digital Learning Program more than ten years ago, and we have continually
improved the program based on our experience serving more than 50,000 students in more than
100 schools nationwide.
Initially, CFY’s program focused on children's learning at home – partnering with schools in
high-poverty areas to provide all their students and their families with training and a free home
computer. The core to CFY’s model at this time was three activities: (1) our innovative Family
Learning Workshops in which families and children learn together about a wide range of digital
learning activities; (2) home technology support for families, consisting of a home computer that
is the family’s to keep, 24x7 bilingual help desk support, and information about affordable
broadband options; (3) basic professional development to help teachers leverage their students’
home technology access to extend learning beyond the classroom. Research demonstrated that the
program at this time had significant positive impact on student achievement, student engagement,
and parental confidence.
Now, CFY has expanded the focus of its program to include helping school leaders and educators
more effectively incorporate digital learning in their instructional practices and strengthen the
extension of student learning beyond the classroom. To respond to this expanded focus, we have
changed our model to now include enhanced services in the school building such as in-school
teacher coaching, stronger school leadership support, and enhanced family engagement activities.
This evolution in our program model has as its underpinning the launch of CFY’s
PowerMyLearning platform, which functions as the “connective tissue” between students’
classroom learning and learning at home (see above).
CFY first tested the new evolution of its Digital Learning Program in New York City in the 20112012 school year with funding from the Robin Hood Foundation. We learned about the incredible
power this new model had on teaching and learning, as can be seen in this New York Times
article or by viewing a short video that was broadcast on Public Television as part of American
Graduate Day.
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CFY will now be building off our success in the 2011-2012 school year by expanding this work
to three additional cities in the 2012-2013 school year. CFY has secured funding from the
Carnegie Corporation of New York and others to expand this work over the next two academic
years.
CFY will now be utilizing cross-geographic working groups and specific observation and data
analysis to fine-tune the blended learning model of the enhanced Digital Learning Program for
the 2013-2014 academic year. This analysis will include a research plan designed to measure the
impact of teacher professional development/coaching on differentiated instruction, student selfdirected learning, and student achievement in the classroom. In addition, we are partnering with
MDRC, a leading education research firm, to design and execute a gold-standard study to
examine the impact of our new model.
We welcome the investment of additional funders to support the evolution and study of the next
generation of the Digital Learning Program.
PRIORITY 3. Disseminate our learning broadly so that effective blended learning models can
be implemented in thousands of schools nationwide
Digital learning creates incredible opportunities for extending learning in ways that were difficult
to envision just a few years ago. Learning can now happen anywhere, anytime and the quantity
and quality of digital learning resources continues to grow. In addition, today’s K-12 students
have grown up digital, and expect to see digital learning incorporated into their academic system.
All of these factors give educators, parents, and government leaders a unique opportunity to take
advantage of this transformation to support low-income families in the United States. CFY is
committed to disseminating the knowledge we are gaining through our “on-the-ground” Digital
Learning Program and our “in-the-cloud” PowerMyLearning platform and to providing costeffective support to schools and school districts so that blended learning models can be
implemented in classrooms nationwide.
CFY is the ideal organization to champion this work, and is rapidly becoming the recognized
leader in creating blended learning opportunities in K-12 schools. Our work has been profiled in
Education Week, the New York Times, USA today, and as part of a national Public Television
effort called “American Graduate” dedicated to improving graduation rates in our nation’s
schools.
CFY is exploring a range of dissemination options including online training, white papers, and
networking opportunities. As an example, we recently launched the PowerMyLearning Network
which is a coalition of partners who believe in the potential of digital learning, including school
districts, libraries, afterschool programs, and other education organizations.
CFY is also exploring a range of support options including asynchronous instructional videos
online, synchronous webinars, and train-the-trainer workshops. Our goal is to be able to quickly
identify which of these options (or mix of options) would provide a school or school district with
the greatest return on investment so we can most quickly spread the use of blended learning
models by teachers nationwide.
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CONCLUSION
CFY is well-positioned to be a catalyst in the digital learning and blended learning arenas. We
will continue to develop our PowerMyLearning platform as the go-to resource for students,
teachers and parents, and enhance our Digital Learning Program to prove out blended learning
models that enhance learning in the classroom and extend learning beyond the classroom and into
the home. We stand ready to bring the knowledge we are gaining through these innovative
initiatives to K-12 educators, parents, and students so that soon every child in the United States
will have the opportunity to benefit from all that digital learning has to offer.
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