Scale & Sustain
The Math Agency| Academic Coaching
Outcome Area: K – 6
Strategy Origin:
Mike Preiner (CEO, The Math Agency) grew up in a low-income family in a rural area, and was part of the first generation in my family to go to college. He got his Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Stanford, and went on to co-found and sell two software and analytics companies. After selling the second company, he took some time off to figure out where I could have the biggest positive social impact. This led him to education.
Based on his own experiences (and academic research), it became clear that the best way to help kids from disadvantaged backgrounds was to give them a great education. It was also clear that we have to intervene early: by the end of elementary school the majority of low-income students aren’t meeting basic standards in math, and they fall even further behind in middle and high school.
Academic research shows that the best known way to accelerate student learning is with high-intensity tutoring and effective summer learning programs. However, neither of those were offered in a structured, successful way in the Greater Seattle area. In 2020 Mike decided to see if he could replicate the academic results with a data-driven, scalable tutoring program in his local area. It was immediately clear from the data that the program had a huge impact on students. The Math Agency has been working on extending and improving the program ever since.
What is the Strategy?
The Math Agency provides academic coaching to struggling elementary school students. The academic coaches (many are volunteers from the community) work with small groups of students (2-4 students per group). Coaching typically happens in 60 minute sessions, 3 days per week. The focus is on helping students become strong and independent learners and leverage personalized learning tools to make sure students are working efficiently on their “just right” level. Coaches focus on finding the right motivation for each of their students using a mix of games, competitions, and prizes.
The Math Agency also leverages family engagement to build support for student learning at home. They found that home practice can be a key way to accelerate learning.
What does this Strategy aim to improve?
The Math Agency’s mission is to close educational gaps in public schools. Their strategy consists of the following:
- Increasing academic growth rates: the first step is to accelerate learning. They measure this via growth metrics on district-level standardized tests. Over the last four years students in their program have doubled their academic growth rates, going from an average of 0.7 grades/year to over 1.4 grades/year of learning during the school year.
- Offering summer programming is a key component to closing gaps: without it, students lose an average of 0.25 grades of learning over the summer. Whereas, students that participate in their summer programs gain an average of 0.25-0.4 grades of learning.
- Increasing academic skill levels: over time, increased growth rates leads to higher skill levels. They measure this via proficiency scores on state assessments. The Math Agency has been able to support one of their partner schools in doubling the amount of students meeting state standards in math.
Audience for Adoption
The Math Agency partners directly with local public schools to implement their program.
