Founded in 2010 by a former teacher, Blueprint operates in 100 schools in Colorado, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington, D.C, largely in urban areas. Its flagship Math Fellows Program provides intensive in-school tutoring in a small-group setting to students from second through twelfth grades.

Blueprint Math Fellows are college graduates who serve as part of the AmeriCorps program, a government program that connects Americans with paid service opportunities. The summer before starting their positions, Fellows undergo rigorous training on the math curriculum and strategies for teaching, managing classrooms, and building relationships with students.

In addition to their regular math class, students meet in a small-group (4:1) setting during the school day with a Math Fellows tutor. Each session begins with a 5-minute warmup and review, then mental math drills. The main portion of the session focuses on problem-solving student questions and reinforcing the content in their math class. Sessions end with a brief, ungraded assessment to check for student mastery of the daily lesson.

Fellows track their students’ progress through weekly indicators that measure mindset and content mastery, metrics that predict whether students are on track to graduate from middle or high school. Fellows also coordinate with teachers to ensure that students who are behind receive extra instruction and attention to get them on track.

Each school also has a Math Fellows Coordinator who oversees the program, supervises Math Fellows, and provides instructional coaching. Coordinators work with school leadership and teachers to monitor student progress, align lessons with classroom content, and implement strategies that research has shown to drive student achievement in highly effective schools.

In addition to its school-based tutoring, Blueprint builds the capacity of school districts by consulting on optimal school schedules, including exploring extending the school day and year, and helping recruit and select effective teachers and leadership.

Since Blueprint’s founding, the organization’s math tutoring program has reached more than 33,000 students nationwide, and more than 1,250 individuals have been trained as Math Fellows.

An assessment of the Blueprint model by the research firm Mathematica found that on average, participants’ end-of-year scores on a math skills assessment administered throughout the school year were significantly higher than their nonparticipant peers.[3]

According to Blueprint’s assessments, students gain two months of proficiency for every month in the program, and outperform peers in comparable programs on math skills assessments. For example, students from Saint Louis public schools participating in Blueprint’s programs achieved a 48.9% higher average score on a math assessment after one academic year of the program than students receiving tutoring from another tutoring company.

Blueprint administers three student perception surveys to assess math confidence and student engagement. After a year of the program, 9 out of 10 students surveyed nationally reported feeling more confident in math and that the work they did would help them succeed in their math class the following year.

Blueprint Schools Network receives 96% of its funding from philanthropic sources and the remainder from government grants, primarily through partnerships with AmeriCorps and Teach for America. Additional philanthropic support will help Blueprint reach more students from low-income
communities by recruiting additional Math Fellows and expanding to more sites. Learn more: https://blueprintschools.org/

Other organizations working to close the achievement gap in K-12 schools include Leading Men Fellowship, which trains young men to teach an evidence-based early childhood literacy curriculum, and Springboard Collaborative,  which works with parents and teachers to improve children’s literacy.

For more CHIP guidance on improving educational outcomes, see CHIP’s Early School Success, Pathways to Student Success, and High Impact Opportunities to Improve Teaching Quality guides.