The KnowledgeWorks Foundation is a nonprofit organization that promotes left-of-center public education policies involving the implementation of blockchain technologies into the public school system. The organization has advocated for the public education system to train students for a future dominated by automation, alleging that many of today’s jobs will no longer be available for future students. ^[1] The KnowledgeWorks Foundation has received grants from a number of high-profile organizations, including $7.4 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. ^[2]

Founded in 1998, the KnowledgeWorks Foundation originally focused on  “personalizing” learning through an effort to break up large public high schools into smaller schools to provide closer interaction between students and teachers. ^[3]

Background

Chad Wick founded the KnowledgeWorks Foundation in 1998. ^[4] Wick was a former executive at a number of financial institutions who later worked as chair of education transition for former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland (D). ^[5]

The Foundation’s personalized learning initiatives include the use of blockchain technology to adapt education to individual student learning styles. The KnowledgeWorks Foundation has alleged that public schools operate with a “harmful” hierarchical structure and questioned “traditional definitions” of student success. The Foundation has furthered argued that such definitions of success may result in discriminatory biases against students who do not perform well in traditional academic settings. ^[6]

Leadership

Charles Ambrose is the current president and chief executive officer of KnowledgeWorks. As of July 27, 2020, Lucie Lapovsky and Lizzette Gonzalez-Reynolds work as co-chairs of the Foundation’s board of directors. Lapovsky owns and operates Lapovsky Consulting, an educational and governance consulting firm. Gonzalez-Reynolds works within the Texas Education Agency (TEA). ^[7]

In 2007, Gonzalez-Reynolds received attention as TEA acting deputy commissioner for statewide policy and programs after she made the controversial call to fire Christine Comer, then-director of science in the TEA curriculum division. Gonzalez-Reynolds called for her firing after Comer forwarded an email announcing a lecture by Barbara Forester, a critic of creationism. ^[8]

The KnowledgeWorks Foundation board also includes Brenda Shu, an affiliate of the left-of-center Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. ^[9]

Activism

The KnowledgeWorks Foundation  promotes efforts to “personalize education” for students across the United States through promoting smaller classroom environments and nontraditional coursework. The Foundation also supports the creation of individually-paced curriculum for each student in the public school system on both a state and federal level. ^[10] The KnowledgeWorks Foundation has already partnered with a number of local learning communities across the United States to create these personalized educational plans. ^[11]

KnowledgeWorks completed its major project, “Map of Future Forces Affecting Education: 2006-2016,” in 2016. The map is the product of a decade-long collaboration with the left-of-center Institute for the Future (IFTF). ^[12] The project mapped the use of technology in educational spaces to argue for increasing the use of technology in classrooms. ^[13]

The KnowledgeWorks Foundation also subscribes to a left-of-center approach to racial theory, describing itself as “an organization of privilege.” KnowledgeWorks endorses the idea that the American education system is built on “systemic racism and white supremacy.” ^[14]