Corporations Pledge $100 Million After White House Meeting

Jason Koebler
U.S. News and World Report
7/22/2011

President Obama met with a group of business executives at the White House earlier this week to discuss ways to ensure a competitive workforce in the future. After the meeting, the executives committed more than $100 million from their companies to support educational programs.

Two major initiatives make up the bulk of new money pledged. America's Promise Alliance, a coalition of more than 400 corporations led by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, committed to raise $50 million to reduce the nation's dropout rate by improving some of the lowest-performing K-12 schools. Bank of America pledged to donate $50 million over the next three years to organizations working to close the achievement gap between ethnicities.

Fred Humphries, senior vice president at Microsoft, was at the meeting; the software giant announced it was going to invest $15 million into developing immersive learning programs, such as game-based instruction.

"America's business leaders understand that when it comes to education, we need to up our game. That's why were working together to put an outstanding education within reach for every child," President Obama said in a statement. Obama has put a focus on science, technology, engineering, and math education. In his State of the Union address in January, the president said he wanted America to train 100,000 additional STEM teachers over the next 10 years.

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