2024 has been a transformative year for MA and in reflecting back, two things have stood out to me as being particularly moving. First, the unwavering dedication and unequaled talent of our team. Most of them joined us when we were not much more than a program in a small school district in a corner of California. They willingly and enthusiastically climbed on board and adopted Jason’s vision. We have had the privilege of watching them grow into their own, both personally and professionally, into the powerhouses they are today that produce to exceptional standards. There is nothing more rewarding than that. Second, words cannot express how unexpected and grateful we feel for the community of support that has sprung up around MA. In our wildest dreams, we couldn’t have wished for such an astonishing thing to happen. You (and if you are wondering if I am talking to directly to you, I am) have become what I consider friends, even though we have never met and are half a planet away. It is overwhelmingly humbling to be able to participate in personal journeys of recovery through, of all the unlikely things, the fundamentals of math, overcoming odds, history and circumstances, that I have received many stories via email. It is an honor that I have no words to express. My most sincere wishes to you in 2025: health, peace, happiness and yes, automaticity.

I'm delighted to announce that Math Academy's 8th-grade math course is now live and open for registration. mathacademy.com/courses/8th-…

Scientific and standard calculators are now available in the @_MathAcademy_ user interface!

Well here we go. Launching @_MathAcademy_ at Windsor Middle School in CA. Stoked for the 31 7th/8th grade students & families who opted in. Huge thanks to @Curriki for making this possible. Documenting the journey. Launch sequence initiated!

9,999 XPs in 12 months. An honest review of @_MathAcademy_ . A 12yr old's journey from Pre-Algebra to Integrated Math II Honors (and more). We first came across Math Academy from one of @jliemandt's many podcasts when he talked about the tools that Alpha School uses. Living in Thailand, Alpha School is obviously out of reach for us, but we were very curious about some of the ai-driven platforms within the Alpha stack. Aside from the many internal tools, there were some external ones that caught our attention. @Austin_Way had a fantastic summary of 'The Alpha App Stack' (link in next post). Very quickly, we found our way to @justinskycak's X feed and his Magnus Opus, 'The Math Academy Way'. Rabbit hole, here we come. We signed up for MA, did the diagnostic, Sandy (MA co-founder) reached out to make sure we were satisfied and reassure that she was there if we had any questions. (good touch!) 12 months and 9,999XPs later, he's still "locked in" and loves it. In the beginning, I sat down with him through most of his sessions. We aimed for 20 minute stretches (or until he was done). Never pushed in and tried to coach him through any questions. Intention was to have fun yet find the right discipline/motivation. Our primary goal in the beginning was simply: can we provide him the right tools and environment to work his way towards mastery of a subject (and is he even interested?). It was tempting to step in and help, especially during the quiz, but we resisted. As @justinskycak often mentions, stepping in will fool the system and the actual knowledge gaps will continue to compound which make it harder down the road. Once we started getting more serious, we came up with a 'Math Academy Bank'. We wanted a small incentive scheme to encourage discipline. After brainstorming with Sandy and @NielsHoven a bit (thank you!), we came up with a structure (details in following post) and it seems to work, especially in the beginning. Now I have an Accounts Payable and he has yet to claim his reward! External motivation -> Internal? Perhaps. Overall, ai-driven mastery learning feels like a game. It also feels like a brain workout. It also feels like you have access to world-class tutoring at any time of the day for however long you want. It also feels like a tutor with unlimited patience that doesn't judge you but instead coaches you using best practices (active recall, spaced repetition, etc). The Knowledge Graph and the leaderboard also feel like a game. You're always 'leveling up'. Getting things wrong and having the quiz don't seem intimidating. MA has found a way to reframe getting things wrong as simply, 'lacking the right prerequisites'. A nice frame that applies to many things beyond just MA. Sometimes, though, MA wasn't able to provide further clarification and I didn't know the answer. So we set up one dedicated Grok conversation with guardrails (post below) to address two things: 1) 'Ongoing Math Q&A' and 2) Real life applications. This was our best in-house makeshift alternative to Rocky from Recess as a third-party add-on @ben_m_somers @Eliana_Goldin. @justinskycak says it's an 'Alien-level skill hack' when pairing math/coding/ai alongside domain specific interest. Let's see where this journey takes him, but so far, we absolutely love MA and are thankful to the entire team. My son has tasted what it's like to have a secret self-study and grind it like a video game. Perhaps this taste of agency in Math (and not limited to the level of his traditional classroom setting) may spark something else. Time will tell! Summary: We LOVE Math Academy. ps we didn't realize MA would make a child do a 'quick review' at 4am after watching a World Cup match, just to "lock in some XPs". I guess MA does that to you.

MA is not just for gifted kids, we have made an impact on a huge range of students (both age and mastery levels). I'm so pleased to share this email: "I am truly grateful to have discovered your system in March. Since then, my two kids have diligently worked on their courses, spending 15–35 minutes each day. My son, who is 14 and has intellectual challenges (autism), also finished grade 8 at his specialized school. He started in March with 35% knowledge of "grade 4." Initially, using the platform was difficult for him. He often skipped instructions, guessed answers for challenging concepts, and rushed through lessons to finish quickly. As a result, the system responded by assigning him negative XP. This pattern continued for about 3–4 weeks; he would complete easy lessons for positive XP, then rush and guess through harder ones, earning negative XP. At first, he wasn't concerned about these setbacks, but he eventually became motivated to make real progress. Now, he aims for a daily goal of 15 XP and averages about 12 XP per day. He has reached a 95% knowledge level for his course and is very proud of his achievements."

friends and family keep asking why a mathematics graduate (me) would start over from 4th grade math all the way through ap calc... and pay $49/month to do it. here's the short version. it's been 80 days since i joined @mathacademy. i signed up after watching @yacinelearning and @justinskycak talk about their knowledge graph and how the platform works. that conversation made me incredibly curious. a kid in 2026 can work through an unbelievable amount of material. the lessons are structured in a way that's incredibly easy to absorb, and i'm convinced that if i had access to something like this growing up, i would've built a much stronger mathematical foundation and an even greater desire to keep learning. i signed up for two reasons: - address gaps in my understanding, even at the most fundamental level - experience firsthand what learning math in the digital age can look like 80 days in, i'm even more convinced than when i started. i'm extremely bullish on this product and this style of learning.

Incredible! A 3rd grader and a 6th grader both achieving 5's on the AP Calc BC exam! Congrats on the hard work!!

From the 50th to the 87th percentile in just months. Self-confidence in math is game-changing. Incredible to see this kind of rapid, measurable progress!

From Families to Schools New @_MathAcademy_ podcast episode with @exojason, posted here and everywhere else (see comment) Link in comments, here's what we covered: 2:44 - Onboarding lots of schools recently 6:39 - Different types of customers 9:13 - Why conversations with customers matter 15:05 - Streamlining inevitable school sign-ups 17:10 - Identifying high-leverage tasks 18:35 - Manual school account creation 19:30 - Manual processes make sense in the beginning 22:05 - Learn the workflow before automating 23:28 - The hidden costs of new software features 25:25 - Keeping product scope minimal 27:40 - Anatomy of a typical school onboarding session 37:26 - Intentionally growing without a sales team 40:11 - Schools promote students without requiring mastery 42:20 - Why every school onboarding call is different 43:48 - Building automated school onboarding 51:05 - Validate success at a small scale before scaling up 55:30 - Sustainable growth over rapid expansion 58:41 - Looking ahead: proctored exams

I have been meaning to post about @_MathAcademy_ myself. My son is on track to get through a year of math in ~6 weeks. He pesters me for my laptop so he can complete sections and get points (there's a scoreboard and he's very competitive so he wants to win.) I will write more when I get time.

Update: In less than two months he completed (to mastery) 6th grade math and prealgebra. As a math teacher myself, I can attest that the depth of his math progress is seriously progressing. This would have taken 3 years at his school.

Even a little makes an impact!

A kid I tutor went from the 29th percentile in math to the 65th in one semester, from the bottom third of his grade to above average. And he was never bad at math. -->🧵

Shoutout to Zach Nash, my former student and a current @_MathAcademy_ high schooler who just got a math research paper accepted for publication! Funny enough, at the beginning of the 8th grade school year, Zach told me that he would not be doing any more math than was required to pass the class. But by the end of the year, he had absolutely crushed the AP Calculus BC exam, and in the following two years as a Math Academy high school student he learned enough university-level math to be within striking distance of mathematical research. During the summer after 10th grade he worked hard with his teacher Dylan Rupel, a PhD research mathematician, to obtain a research result which has recently been accepted for publication. He will graduate high school this spring and plans to study math at Yale starting in the fall.

Ever since my 7th-grade son started @_MathAcademy_ this past January, I’ve been shouting its praises from the rooftops. Within weeks, his confidence grew and his attitude toward math completely changed. Now we have the data to confirm what I was already seeing at home. After just 5 months in MA, his growth has been remarkable. He went from regressing in traditional public school during 6th grade (44th %ile), to making positive gains at the virtual charter school where I teach (66th %ile), to absolutely knocking it out of the park with MA (99th %ile!). Thank you, Math Academy, for building a program that can change a student’s trajectory. And thank you, @jliemandt and @mackenzieprice for not gatekeeping the secret sauce behind your students’ math success so ALL parents can watch their children succeed!

We love to be a part of student success! 37 point bump! Here's an email I just got: "Hey Sandy, I wanted to send you and Jason a quick note just to say thank you. [My daughter] has done fantastic since starting math Academy. We've spent over $12,000 over the last two years on private tutoring and we even tried tutoring offered by the county school system with very little to nothing to show for it. She only started math Academy in March and we did that after her winter Maps assessment showed a decline from the Fall assessment in percentile (she went from 54th percentile to 50th) . For her end of year maps assessment that she just took, she clocked in at 87th percentile.  I fully attribute this to Math Academy and what you all have built.  It’s been a game changer not only for her understanding but also for her confidence!"

Thrilled to hear these results!

We are proud to announce that our WASC accreditation has been renewed for an additional six years- through 2032! Thank you to the team at WASC for your thoughtful evaluation of MA! acswasc.org/