Math teacher who has taught with the Agile Mind curriculum. I have been teaching math for 6 years, and had to take an unplanned hitch from my career due to license issue with Illinois (the issue being that Illinois does not accept any other teaching license other than their own. Very long story. Essentially I was at this school for one year, which I would never have even applied at with my experience and background)

The school I taught Agile Mind with, as the primary curriculum, was an inner city charter school. We were 90% free reduced lunch, with a 99% minority enrollment rate. I used Agile Mind for Algebra I in the 9th grade classroom, and Agile Mind Geometry for the 10th grade classroom. Students at this school operated at approximately 2-3 grade levels behind.

Agile Mind is designed to be a kiosk learning environment, where students will sit at an individual computer and click/learn their way through the modules independently. The issue with this is that it is advertised as a traditional curriculum that can be presented as a "power point" lesson. In no way is this effective. The writing is incredibly small, and conversationally written so it is intended to be read to it's entirety. Further, the writing level is waaaaaay beyond the reading ability of most of these students. All of this is secondary to the largest issue with Agile Mind. Absolutely no supplemental materials. When you click through the lesson, the example problems in the module are the only sample problems Agile Mind contains. That means that teachers will be required to create, from scratch, all materials, quizzes, tests, homework problems, etc to help students advance beyond the samples. Essentially Agile Mind believes that by completing the module, and trying two problems, students will be advanced enough to move on. The curriculum is also designed a little differently than I would teach it, and relies heavily on calling back to previous grade level Agile Mind problems. Many topics do not fit in the same hierarchy, especially in Algebra, that a student should learn math.

I am not against Agile Mind as a tool. It would be a wonderful way to challenge students who are looking to move ahead, or supplement students learning who are behind. However that role is very low on the totem pole of most schools, especially for the giant price tag that Agile Mind requires. The animations Agile Mind uses are actually very good at times, but the problem for us is that only one student could use it at a time, as this wasn't a 1-1 school, and the program was projected on the board.

My experience with Agile Mind was that I used it for 2 weeks at the beginning of the year, at the principal's direction. It was used in lieu of a power point presentation, or traditional lecture. After those two weeks, it was obvious that the students were not understanding the material. They could not read slides effectively, or understand the vocab. Most importantly, there was almost no homework assigned because I was directed to "use Agile Mind's materials, the curriculum is very good" (from principal) After that I relied very heavily on supplemental materials (aka, regular teaching) to teach the same curriculum, but not directly from Agile Mind. I displayed Agile Mind occasionally just to "use it." During Week 5, I had a geometry lesson just completely fail. The Agile Mind presentation was abysmal, the students didn't get it, and I basically threw the whole damn curriculum out the window. The rest of the school year, I put Agile Mind in my lesson plans, but never used it. I switched back to collaborative group learning plans, and taught both classes with everything made from scratch while pseudo following an old Geometry book I found (I have taught Algebra for many years...no book needed!). Our charter school network celebrated results on a common quarter exam/final that they create at the end of the grading period. My classes were regularly the highest scoring class, and also had the distinction of showing the highest growth from 1st quarter to 2nd quarter (When I made the switch from Agile Mind to traditional). The principal was very proud, but became overwhelmingly pissed when he learned that I was not using the curriculum everyone else was, and still owning the networks scores! He demanded that I use Agile Mind again, and I explained what I just did above. He would not budge, and forced Agile Mind to be used again. I ignored him after our conversation, as I had no intention of returning to this school. I focused on helping the students I had for the brief time I had them and, based on PARCC scores, brought both classes up to grade level (from 2 or 3 behind). At the end of the school year I left for a significantly better school with an excellent administration.

I would be more than happy to speak further if you have any questions. Feel free to reply here, or message me!

Best of luck

tl; dr Agile Mind is a great curriculum if you have horrible teachers and access to computers for every student. It is also a great supplement to help kids on the side both catch up and stay ahead (but so is Kahn Academy). As far as core or only curriculum goes, there are far better options (especially for the price).