Visionary Orange County Family Foundations Make A Social Investment In Math Curriculum

    SANTA ANA, CA, February 19, 2009 /24-7PressRelease/ -- The Samueli Foundation of Corona del Mar, California, The Horowitz Group of Laguna Niguel, the Ueberroth Family Foundation and the Croul Family Foundation (both of Newport Beach, California) contributed a total of $1,000,000 in 2008 to the non-profit MIND Research Institute. Their gifts support an aggressive, innovative five year math program development plan that will have far-reaching impact on our schools. "The Samueli family recognizes the value that MIND Research brings to the field to fulfill the critical need for effective math education programs to reach students and, in particular, to prepare them for middle and higher level math courses," said Gerald Solomon, Executive Director of the Samueli Foundation. "We need a comprehensive way to help solve the math crisis in California and the U.S. and the MIND Research Institute has the knowledge and commitment to do this."

According to MIND Chairman Ted Smith, "These contributions from truly visionary philanthropists in our community -- the Samuelis, Horowitzes, Ueberroths and Crouls - represent seed money that will fund the development of interactive instructional math software for kindergarten through Algebra I. Significant change in U.S. math education is needed to keep students engaged, to increase teaching effectiveness and to improve student achievement. MIND's math education process does all of these things."

The program development campaign will focus on extending MIND's ST Math instructional software for Algebra I, Grade 6, 7 and 8, and to later develop integrated math textbooks. All courses will be aligned to California math standards, as well as aligned for national use and to specific state standards, as needed.

MIND's math education process uses a visualization approach to teach mathematical concepts and problem-solving skills that is currently being used in 450 schools with over 100,000 participating students. The development of curricula for additional grades will build upon MIND's state of the art instructional software and web infrastructure to provide proven, powerful, innovative tools to teachers and resolve America's middle school algebra crisis.

About MIND Research Institute

The MIND Research Institute is a neuroscience and education research based, non-profit corporation. MIND applies its distinctive visual approach to illustrating concepts and building problem-solving skills as the basis for innovative, research-proven math education programs for elementary and secondary schools. The programs include the ST Math patent-pending instructional software for K-5 students, ST Math : Algebra Readiness for intervention at the secondary level, and Algebra Readiness: A Blueprint for the Foundation of Algebra a comprehensive program featuring a tightly integrated textbook and courseware. MIND's visual approach taps into each student's innate ability to do spatial-temporal (ST) reasoning and problem-solving, and is effective at engaging students at all levels of language or academic proficiency. There are currently 450 schools in California, Texas and 17 other states, and more than 100,000 students and 4,500 teachers participating in the program. For more information, visit http://www.mindresearch.net.

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