Officials of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge announced Thursday that they are accepting proposals from schools that want to make radical changes in the way teachers teach and students learn.

"This is about the children of Chicago. This is about making the lives of the children of Chicago better," said Annenberg Challenge board member Patricia Albjerg Graham, who is also president of the Spencer Foundation, a Chicago-based organization offering grants for educational research.

The windfall comes courtesy of a $49 million, five-year grant from the St. Davids, Pa.-based Annenberg Foundation, which is awarding a total of about $500 million to public schools around the country to literally re-invent themselves. The remaining $98 million for Chicago schools will come by way of matching grants from public and private sources, which the Annenberg Foundation requires.