For leaders & funders
A drop-in replacement for a struggling system.
One free, evidence-grounded K–12 curriculum that develops the whole human — emotionally, physically, intellectually, and ecologically — and is built to reach the world at no cost.
The problem
Public education, across much of the world, is failing the whole human being.
- Fragmented. A child is split into disconnected subjects instead of developed as one person whose emotion, body, and intellect grow together.
- Abstract and disconnected. Concepts are taught without connection to real life, so knowledge is stored for a test and forgotten — not used.
- Inequitable. Outcomes track a child’s background, not their potential; the system often reproduces hierarchy rather than lifting the many.
- Narrow. History and culture are frequently taught from one nation’s default, leaving most of humanity out of its own story.
- Incomplete. Ethics, emotional life, the body, and the deep effects of modern technology are treated as afterthoughts — when they are taught at all.
The solution
Whole Earth Curriculum (WEC) is a free, open, comprehensive K–12 curriculum with one aim: to produce humans who are emotionally, physically, intellectually, and contextually aware — of themselves, their communities, and the living systems they depend on — and so to raise the baseline standard of living for all life on Earth.
It is organized under four dimensions — emotional & social, physical & somatic, intellectual & cognitive, and contextual & ecological awareness — spanning ten content areas into grade-level standards, units, and daily lessons. It is designed as a drop-in replacement and offered to the world at no cost.
Why it will work — the evidence base
WEC is built on evidence that is well established in the learning sciences, not on fashion.
| Commitment | Evidence it rests on | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Mastery learning + feedback over ranking | Mastery learning with corrective feedback adds roughly one standard deviation; cooperative learning roughly 0.8. (Bloom, 1984 — for context, one-to-one tutoring is the benchmark at ~2 SD.) | Bloom, 1984 |
| Relationships and feedback first | Teacher–student relationships and feedback rank among the largest influences on learning, across 800+ meta-analyses. | Hattie, 2008 |
| Teach at the learner’s level, not their age | Grouping learners by assessed level rather than age produced large, low-cost literacy and numeracy gains in randomized trials. | Pratham — TaRL |
| Multi-grade, self-paced, low-tech works | Escuela Nueva’s one-room, self-paced rural model reached roughly 20,000 schools across 19 countries, with rural schools outperforming urban ones. | Escuela Nueva |
| Explicit instruction for novices, inquiry for concepts | Novices learn foundational skills better with explicit instruction and worked examples; inquiry is powerful once concepts are in place. | Kirschner et al., 2006 |
| Science of learning baked into every lesson | Retrieval practice and spaced practice are the two highest-utility learning techniques in a consensus review. | Dunlosky et al., 2013 |
| Age-appropriate by design | Every lesson is held to a developmental rubric grounded in Piaget, Erikson, and Vygotsky. | Developmental rubric |
Four cross-cutting lenses — ethics, egalitarianism, global/anthropological perspective, and the effect of technology on humanity and the environment — are carried through every lesson, so values are not a unit but a habit.
How quality and alignment are guaranteed
- Clear, auditable alignment. Every lesson maps to clear, measurable learning goals that connect across grades and subjects. Automated checks keep the whole thing aligned.
- Independent specialist review. Every lesson is reviewed by specialists for accuracy, cultural fairness, accessibility, values, and developmental fit — and cannot ship until it passes.
- Built for everyone. Every lesson has low-tech and enriched material tiers, so it works in a bare classroom and a well-equipped one, and is written learner-first.
- Honest and open. Factual claims cite a vetted source registry; evidence is distinguished from values; content is free, forever.
Where it stands today
- 975 standards — a complete K–12 vertical spine across ten content areas and four dimensions.
- 13 complete grades (Kindergarten through Grade 12) — each a full ~180-day year, all units and lessons authored end-to-end.
- 1,676 lessons and 1,674 SVG assets — near 1:1, all accessible (alt text, grayscale-printable, diverse representation).
- 159 units across 13 grades, with a year-plan for every grade.
- A complete assessment framework, facilitation guide, developmental rubric, art/accessibility style guide, and evidence-grounded contexts guide.
- An open, repeatable authoring process with automated checks and specialist review — so the full K–12 curriculum can be refined and extended at consistent quality.
Live counts, verified against the open curriculum as of August 2026.
The ask
Funding would convert a working, evidence-grounded core into a resource that can actually reach the world.
- Polish and deepen K–12 — the full first pass is authored; funding moves it from first pass to publication quality across all 13 grades.
- Human expert review — a track for real educators, scientists, and cultural experts to validate and refine.
- Translation and localization — so every child learns in their own language and context.
- Delivery — web, offline, and print, free at the point of use.
License
Curriculum content is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to use, adapt, and share, forever. Tooling is released under MIT.