Modern Classrooms Project lands $12M grant to build free math curriculum
What's the deal? Modern Classrooms ProjectDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a US non-profit focused on improving math instruction, has secured a $12 million grant led by the Skeebo Foundation. The money will fund a complete, free Tier 1 math curriculum grounded in cognitive science.
Why now? US math scores have slipped for over a decade, peaking in 2013 before a steady decline. The 2024 National Report Card showed 72% of eighth-graders fell short of proficiency, with a wide gap between the strongest and weakest students.
What's the endgame? The non-profit plans a middle-school version for summer 2027 and a high-school version for summer 2028. Core materials for students and teachers will be free, printable, editable, and standards-aligned.
The curriculum draws on decades of research into how children learn math. Each lesson follows a research-backed sequence: whole-class practice, explicit teaching of a new skill, guided and focused practice, a quick check, then spaced review of earlier skills.
What they're saying: "Many people in the learning science community have long been anxious because their research hasn't been applied to math classrooms at scale," said chief executive officer and co-founder Kareem Farah, a former high-school math teacher. He argues only a free, cognitive-science-based curriculum can test whether that research is the missing piece in raising scores (translated from Chinese).
The program offers two modes. A paper-based version runs as a traditional, teacher-led class. A second mode lets students learn parts online at their own pace, freeing teachers to spend more time on one-to-one and small-group support using data to target gaps.
Modern Classrooms Project says it will support schools and districts across both modes and study each approach's effect on teaching and student outcomes. In the coming weeks, it will name a research advisory board of cognitive scientists, mathematicians, and education researchers. It is also recruiting teachers, schools, and research partners to test early versions.
The non-profit was founded by two high-school math teachers and is now used by tens of thousands of educators worldwide.
The signal: At $12 million, this grant sits in the top 4% of education grant rounds on record. It reflects growing appetite to channel large philanthropic sums into open, research-based classroom materials rather than paid edtech products.
Read more: sohu.com
Image credit: Modern Classrooms Project
