PHILADELPHIA — The University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education has teamed up with the Milken Family Foundation to launch the Milken-Penn GSE Prize for Business Plans in Education, the first competition specifically aimed at stimulating entrepreneurship and addressing challenges in education, developing innovative solutions that boost student achievement and strengthening school effectiveness.

The Milken-Penn GSE Prize will solicit submissions from around the world designed to tackle the biggest issues at all levels of education, pre-kindergarten through post-graduate and will offer a first-place award of $25,000 and a second-place prize of $15,000.

“More money is spent on education than on health care in the U.S. but with little results,” Doug Lynch, vice dean of Penn’s Graduate School of Education, said. “Innovation and entrepreneurship can address problems in education. We’re excited to see what great ideas will come from this competition.”

“The Milken-Penn GSE Prize for Business Plans in Education is designed to challenge the status quo and transform the education space,” said Gregory Milken, a member of Penn GSE’s board of overseers and the Milken Family Foundation board of trustees. “This competition will create opportunities for entrepreneurs, educators and, ultimately, students.”

Supporting Penn GSE and the Milken Family Foundation in this business-plan competition are Penn’s Wharton School and Fels Institute of Government.

Based in Santa Monica, Calif., the Foundation has been an innovator in education reform since 1982.

Additional information is available at www.gse.upenn.edu/entrepreneurcomp.