What Curriculum Works does

Curriculum Works (legal entity Curriculum Crafter, LLC) is a Grand Rapids, Michigan-based SaaS company that operates a cloud-based curriculum management platform for K-12 education. The platform combines standards alignment (national, state, and district-level via the Academic Benchmarks integration covering all 50 U.S. states), curriculum mapping and pacing (300+ pre-built maps), a vetted content library of 5,000+ lesson plans and 700,000+ instructional units built over 20+ years by hundreds of professional educators, NWEA MAP Growth assessment integration for RIT-band individualized instruction, and collaboration tools for district-wide sharing and parent engagement. The product traces its content lineage to the early 1990s when Kent County Intermediate School District led development of Michigan's Grade Level Content Expectation Standards with 600+ teachers; the cloud platform was acquired by current CEO Donn Smith in 2014 and rebuilt through Version 2 (2014) and Version 3 (2019).

The company monetizes through enterprise subscription licensing on a quote-based, annual billing cadence, targeting K-12 school districts in the United States and government education systems internationally. Distribution is split between direct enterprise field sales (with "Request a Demo" CTAs driving one-on-one sales engagement with superintendents and administrators) for the U.S. market and channel/reseller partnerships internationally — primarily Panworld Education (UAE, Egypt, broader MENA and South Asia) and LIMS Egypt. Primary customer segments are professional K-12 educators and school/district administrators; secondary segments include special education teachers (via MAASE-developed features) and students/parents as end beneficiaries. The company's most consequential commercial event to date is the January 2022 contract with Egypt's Ministry of Education to deploy the platform across 50,000 public schools, 1.2 million teachers, and 22 million students, executed through the Panworld/LIMS Egypt channel partnership. Curriculum Works is privately held with no disclosed institutional venture or private equity investment; financial support for international expansion has come from Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) MI-STEP grants, which are economic-development incentives rather than equity capital.

Name

Curriculum Works

Legal name

Curriculum Crafter, LLC

Website

https://curriculumworks.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2014

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Curriculum Works (operated by Curriculum Crafter, LLC) is a Grand Rapids, Michigan-based SaaS company that provides a cloud-based K-12 curriculum management platform combining a vetted content library, standards alignment across all 50 U.S. states, curriculum mapping, NWEA MAP Growth integration, and collaboration tools, sold via enterprise subscription to school districts and education ministries.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

K-12 Curriculum Management Software

NAICS

Educational Support Services (611710), Educational Services (61)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Educational Services (8200)

akta.pro primary industry

Curriculum, Lesson Planning & Instructional Content Platforms (EDAJAMAD)

akta.pro secondary industries

Standards Alignment & Curriculum Mapping (State/National) (EDAJAFAD), Instructional Content Strategy, Needs Analysis & Curriculum Mapping (EDAGAKAN), Teacher Editions, Lesson Plans & Classroom Resources (EDAGAAAI)

Keywords

• Curriculum management software
• K-12 lesson planning
• Standards alignment tools
• Educational resource planning
• Curriculum mapping platform

Headquarters

HQ city

Grand Rapids

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Platform Subscription: Cloud-based SaaS platform subscription for K-12 schools and districts; likely tiered by district size or seat count

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Curriculum Works is a cloud-based Educational Resource Planning Platform that enables K-12 teachers, administrators, and districts to create, align, and map classroom curriculum in one place. The platform includes a vetted content library of thousands of educator-developed lesson plans aligned to national, state, and district standards, automated standards alignment tools, curriculum mapping and pacing guides, district-wide collaboration features, and integration with NWEA MAP Growth assessments for individualized instruction.

Product overview

Curriculum Works is a single unified cloud-based Educational Resource Planning Platform for K-12 education that combines curriculum creation, standards alignment, and curriculum mapping in one place. The platform consists of the core Curriculum Works Platform, which integrates a Vetted Content Library of 5,000+ educator-developed lesson plans, Standards Alignment Tools supporting all 50 U.S. states, Curriculum Mapping with 300+ pre-built pacing guides, Collaboration Tools for teacher sharing and parent engagement, NWEA MAP Growth Integration for assessment-based instruction, and Special Education Features developed with MAASE for compliance tracking.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Curriculum Works Platform A cloud-based Educational Resource Planning Platform that allows K-12 teachers, administrators, and districts to create, align, and map classroom curriculum all in one place. Bundles vetted content, standards alignment, curriculum mapping, collaboration, and NWEA MAP Growth integration for U.S. and international school systems.
• Vetted Content Library A library of 5,000+ educator-developed, vetted K-12 lesson plans and 700,000+ units of instruction aligned to state, district, and national standards. Includes resources aligned to NWEA MAP RIT bands, Universal Design for Learning components, and Project Based Learning scenarios, designed to reduce teacher lesson-prep time.
• Standards Alignment Tools Tools that allow educators to quickly access and assign state-adopted standards, district-specific standards, and national standards including Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards. Supports all 50 U.S. states through Academic Benchmarks integration, with automatic updates when standards change.
• Curriculum Mapping Tools for sequencing and scheduling standards-aligned curriculum over the school year. Includes 500+ pre-built K-12 curriculum maps and pacing guides for Math, ELA, Social Studies, and Science, with unit maps, lesson plan maps, student-specific maps, pacing guides, and scope and sequence views.
• Collaboration Tools Built-in tools that let users share lessons, plans, and schedules among teachers, administrators, and stakeholders. Includes collaborative work groups, district-wide content sharing, teacher continuity features, and parent engagement through shared calendars.
• NWEA MAP Growth Integration Integration with NWEA's Measures of Academic Progress (MAP Growth) assessments that syncs MAP data to standards-aligned curriculum. Resources are aligned to MAP Learning Statements by RIT ranges, enabling individualized instruction based on assessment results.
• Special Education Features Features that enable special education teachers to record, track, and report special education service time for compliance. Includes K-12 Essential Elements Standards for Math and ELA with Range of Complexity for short- and long-term planning, supporting IEP compliance and differentiated instruction.

Named customers2 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration2 records

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Six partnerships are on record, tiered core, flagship and minor.

• NWEA (Northwest Evaluation Association)coreTechnology or Integration · 24 August 2019Strategic partnership to integrate MAP Growth assessment data with standards-aligned instructional content. Curriculum Works is NWEA's newest Instructional Content Provider, giving teachers immediate access to K-12 teaching resources specifically aligned to MAP Learning Statements by RIT ranges.
• Panworld EducationflagshipChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorInternational educational reseller representing Curriculum Works in Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia markets. Panworld's associates include McGraw Hill, Encyclopedia Britannica, Penguin Group, Pearson, and Oxford University Press. Led to Egypt Ministry of Education contract.
• LIMS EgyptcoreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorLead implementation partner for Egypt's nationwide K-12 education modernization project. Introduced Curriculum Works to Egypt's Ministry of Education, resulting in January 2022 contract for 50,000 schools.
• Michigan Association of Administrators of Special Education (MAASE)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnership providing insights, ideas, and feedback to build special education features. Led to development of service time tracking, compliance documentation, and K-12 Essential Elements Standards for Math and ELA.
• Center for Educational Improvement (CEI)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerStrategic partnership with CEI for educational improvement initiatives. Executive Director Christine Mason provided testimonial and identified unique features including 2,000+ teacher-developed lesson plans and early childhood content.
• Academic BenchmarkscoreTechnology or IntegrationPartnership enabling incorporation of various State standards into the platform, allowing use in all 50 U.S. states. Standards updates are automatically reflected when changes occur.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Regional players

• Classera: Classera is a leading MENA-focused LMS and school management platform — relevant because it competes with Curriculum Works' Egyptian deployment and similar international rollouts across the Gulf and North Africa.

Broad incumbents

• Instructure (Canvas): Canvas by Instructure is the leading K-12 LMS with growing curriculum and lesson-planning functionality, positioning it as a broad incumbent alternative to a standalone curriculum management platform.
• Imagine Learning (Open Up Resources): Imagine Learning, which acquired Open Up Resources, provides standards-aligned K-12 curriculum and instructional solutions — competing for the same district curriculum dollars but from a much larger, broader edtech portfolio.
• PowerSchool: PowerSchool is the dominant K-12 SIS and unified classroom platform (including Schoology/Unified Classroom). It increasingly bundles curriculum and lesson planning features, competing with Curriculum Works at the district procurement level.

Direct peers

• Newsela: Newsela provides standards-aligned K-12 instructional content and lesson tools used by teachers and districts — a comparable content-plus-platform play even though its core is text-based content rather than full curriculum mapping.
• Nearpod: Nearpod delivers K-12 lesson content, formative assessments, and interactive instruction tools to teachers — competing with Curriculum Works' lesson creation and vetted content library from the classroom-delivery angle.
• Atlas by Rubicon (Learning A-Z): Atlas is a curriculum mapping and pacing platform for K-12 districts — directly comparable to Curriculum Works' mapping and standards-alignment functionality and sold to the same district-administrator buyer.
• Eduplanet21: Eduplanet21 offers a K-12 curriculum, instruction, and assessment platform with standards alignment and professional learning tools — overlapping heavily with Curriculum Works' create-align-map workflow.
• Kiddom: Kiddom is a K-12 curriculum management and standards-based grading platform for teachers and districts, addressing the same lesson planning, standards alignment, and pacing use cases as Curriculum Works.

Emerging players

• CommonLit: CommonLit offers free, standards-aligned ELA curriculum and lesson content to K-12 teachers. It overlaps with Curriculum Works' vetted content library but is narrower (ELA only) and offered on a freemium model.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Facebookfacebook.com/Curriculum-Works-100064419956473
• Xx.com/CurriculumWorks

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Curriculum Works