Redwood City, CA — Learning Commons announced it is partnering with Magpie Literacy, Achievement Network (ANet), and New Meridian to expand math and literacy datasets that connect academic standards, curriculum, and learning science research to help teachers better support each student’s learning journey.
These partnerships will help further the development of Knowledge Graph, which integrates trusted instructional content, academic standards, and research directly into AI-powered tools — improving precision, relevance, and instructional alignment.
“Since we announced the early release of Knowledge Graph last fall, it is becoming an essential data layer for the edtech field,” said Sandra Liu Huang, president of Learning Commons. “We are proud to partner with Magpie, ANet, and New Meridian to continue the development of open, public infrastructure to strengthen the next generation of AI‑powered instructional tools for the benefit of teachers and learners.”
The grants announced today will expand and validate Knowledge Graph’s math learning components, as well as support the development of a map of literacy skills grounded in the science of reading.
Over the past two decades, 44 states and Washington, D.C., have passed laws to strengthen literacy instruction. Yet translating policy into classroom practice requires research-based tools and ongoing support for teachers. To improve the tools available to educators, Magpie Literacy will expand its foundational map of literacy skills and make it open-source, allowing educators, researchers, and developers to build reading tools with a common, research-aligned framework for organizing literacy knowledge.
“I am certain that we can eradicate illiteracy in America in our lifetimes. Two key steps toward this goal include aligning research to practice and supporting individual learner needs at all grade levels,” said Rebecca Kockler, founder and CEO of Magpie Literacy. “Making our foundational map of literacy skills widely available will enable more tools grounded in learning science to support more students.”
The two other projects will further refine Knowledge Graph’s math learning components developed by ANet. Learning components are skills and concepts that map to academic standards but are more discrete and precise than academic standards alone. ANet will revise and expand the math learning components dataset, and pilot the updated components with school districts through Compass, ANet’s assessment platform, ensuring the work is grounded in real classroom practice and teacher decision-making.
“Curriculum, assessment, and instruction are too often designed and implemented as separate systems, which makes it hard for teachers to use assessment results to guide instruction,” said Michelle Odemwingie, CEO of ANet. “By strengthening the math learning components in Knowledge Graph, we’re helping create a shared foundation that allows AI-powered tools to better support instructional planning and next steps for learning.”
Finally, New Meridian will deepen and quantitatively validate the math learning components developed by ANet. This research will determine the difficulty level of each learning component and uncover optimal learning trajectories through those components to guide curriculum design and instruction.
“Assessments are essential for measuring student achievement, but they should also drive meaningful learning experiences in the classroom,” said Arthur VanderVeen, CEO of New Meridian. “We are excited to partner with Learning Commons to develop resources that improve the alignment between assessments and instruction to ensure AI-powered tools can be trusted by teachers.”
All of the resources created through these investments will be openly available, reflecting our commitment to building public infrastructure for AI in education. These grants build on the early release of Knowledge Graph and Evaluators and our work to translate learning science into the tools, data, and frameworks the field needs to build responsibly.
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Launched in 2025, Learning Commons builds on the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s decade of work advancing learning science and translating research into classroom practice. Through shared, open technological infrastructure built for the public good, Learning Commons aims to better connect the way students learn with the tools they use.