The Helmsley Charitable Trust grants $11 million for Common Core materials

Category: yes Kathleen Porter-Magee / December 19, 2012

Earlier this year, the GE Foundation awarded an $18 million, four-year grant to Student Achievement Partners—the group co-founded by the chief CCSS architects David Coleman, Sue Pimentel, and Jason Zimba—to support (among other things) the development of Common Core–aligned curriculum and instructional resources. In addition to being developed under the careful guidance of the lead authors of the standards themselves (and all signs seem to suggest that these materials will be top-notch), SAP-developed resources will be open source and provided at no cost to teachers around the country.

This week, Student Achievement Partners announced a new partnership with the NEA and AFT, which will be funded with a three-year, $11 million grant from The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, “to jointly design tools and digital applications to support teachers in their practice.”

Here’s what Sue Pimentel told Education Week:

…The New York City–based nonprofit would be "the engine room" for the new project, but teachers would be the fuel behind it. It will cover both ELA and math.

SAP will meet regularly with teachers to find out what they need most in the classroom, and come back to them with early versions that can then be reviewed and revised, Pimentel said. Teachers from the two unions will also play a key role by piloting the tools in their classrooms next year, she said. The tools will be available on SAP's website, Achieve The Core, and NEA and AFT websites, she said.

Given the dearth of quality, CCSS-aligned materials available to teachers who are already working to align their practice to the new standards, this additional investment is welcome and will hopefully help spur the development of the classroom-level resources teachers need.

Curriculum & Instruction / Teachers