George Lucas Educational Foundation

The George Lucas Educational Foundation is a nonprofit publisher that documents and publicizes exemplary K-12 education practices and programs, especially through video.³⁴⁵ It does this primarily through the Edutopia website.

An organization named "The Media Tree" was founded on 4 August 1983 in Mill Valley, California by John Korty and others. It engaged in public relations for media content creators to the public of Marin County.⁶ On 4 September 1990, the organization was renamed to "The George Lucas Educational Foundation".⁷ The George Lucas Educational Foundation is widely reported to have been founded in 1991⁸⁹ by George Lucas and Steve Arnold.² Lucas originally planned for the foundation to develop technology for schools, but soon determined that schools were not interested or able to use this technology.³ The foundation was one of the first philanthropies to invest in digital learning technology.³

The foundation does not usually provide grants. In 2006, Lucas donated $175 million to his alma mater the University of Southern California through the foundation.¹⁰

In 2010, the foundation had a $6 million annual budget and eighteen full-time staff.⁹ In 2012, the Foundation significantly increased its assets when it received the majority of the proceeds from the $4.05 billion sale of Lucasfilm to The Walt Disney Company³¹⁰

About 1994, the Foundation began publishing a newsletter entitled Edutopia.¹¹² In September 2004, the foundation launched a free glossy magazine, also titled Edutopia¹²⁸²⁴ with educators as the target audience.²¹³ From its inception, the print magazine had 85,000 subscribers.¹²¹³⁸ By 2006, it has 100,000 subscribers.¹⁴¹⁵ The print magazine was discontinued in Spring 2010. but the website continued as an online magazine.²³

The Edutopia.org website was started in 2002.¹⁶ In 2009, the foundation launched an advertising campaign, leading the website to receive 300,000 readers per month in 2010, a 70% increase from 2009.⁹ Robert Pondiscio described Edutopia.org as an inspirational resource for teachers, exuding "unabashed idealism and cheerful optimism".⁹ The website features a video series titled "Schools That Work" of in-depth profiles of specific schools.⁹ Edutopia.org includes interactive features including comments, blogs, and internet forums.¹⁷

The Foundation has sometimes included in its mission spreading best practices.⁴ However, in practice, Edutopia is a nonprofit media company focused on satisfying and increasing its audience, not an educational reform advocacy organization strategizing to change educational systems.⁹⁵ The foundation has endorsed as its core principles: "comprehensive assessment, integrated studies, project-based learning, social and emotional learning, teacher development, and technology integration".¹⁷⁹¹⁸ Robert Pondiscio has been critical of Edutopia's tagline "what works in public education" given the lack of empirical support for these recommendations and uncertainty about how they were developed.⁹

Edutopia increases teachers engagement with educational best practices by packaging it in an appealing multisensory video format.¹⁹ Edutopia disseminates scientific/factual knowledge, technical knowledge, and practical wisdom, with a greater emphasis on practical wisdom, which includes judgments, values, and beliefs.²⁰ Many of the tips and strategies on Edutopia have not been systematically researched.¹⁹