Utah Teachers Receiving Funding From Philanthropists Nationwide

Mar 19, 2008 by Eric Ray

(KCPW News) A new program that gives private citizens the opportunity to provide funding for public school classroom projects is taking off in Utah.

"Today we got books. They are books that use figurative language. Figurative language is a difficult type of language for english language learners to understand," says Julianne Paul, a fifth grade teacher at Salt Lake City's Lincoln Elementary. "In the past we got headphones with a microphone so students can read and listen to themselves after they've read. The other thing we got is a camera that projects onto our screen so that I can show them things while I'm teaching."

Paul is one of three teachers at the school who have had projects funded after posting their classroom needs on www.donorschoose.org. After teachers post their proposals on the website, people who want to help can provide funding for the project. Charles Best, Founder and CEO of www.donorschoose.org, says Utah's teachers lead the nation in posting proposals to the website.

"People in 41 states have supported a Utah's teacher project," says Best. "With this kind of teacher participation, Utah projects represent a pretty good portion of all the projects up on the website."

In just three months, private donors have given more than $100,000 to 220 Utah classrooms, meaning more than 7,000 Utah students have benefited from the program. Best expects that number to climb into the tens of thousands over the next year.

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