Before it was a homeschool program, it ran schools.
The ICONIX visual learning model has been in classrooms since 1995 — public charter schools, thousands of students, measured by the state. Here is what happened, in numbers anyone can check.
Highest reading + math proficiency of every school model studied
2013 Michigan Dept. of Education study, conducted by Michigan State University — 6,000+ students across 8 schools using the ICONIX visual learning model.
Percentile jump in state rankings — “almost unheard-of”
North Central Academy, as reported by The Livingston Post: “improved by a whopping 64 points in the rankings.”
Disciplinary referrals, in three years
Livingston Developmental Academy, 1996–2000. When kids can finally do the work, behavior problems evaporate.
The Michigan study
In 2013, the Michigan Department of Education commissioned Michigan State University to compare student proficiency in reading and math across every educational model in Michigan. The schools running the ICONIX visual learning model educated over 6,000 students across eight schools — and produced, by a wide margin, the highest percentage of student proficiency in both reading and math of all Michigan models across the four-year study.
"…improved by a whopping 64 points in the rankings, going from the 13th percentile to the 77th percentile. That sort of improvement is almost unheard-of."— The Livingston Post, on North Central Academy
Last to first, in three years
The turnaround stories behind the numbers — and the pattern that repeats in every one of them.
Livingston Developmental Academy
Opened with high concentrations of children already declared learning disabled. Scores stayed poor for two years — then performance abruptly changed as the staff became proficient in the model. By years three and four, the school held the top test scores in its region.
Bay City Academy
The Madison Arts campus climbed from the zero percentile to the 39th; the Farragut campus reached the 83rd — outperforming every other elementary school in Bay City.
Behavior followed
Disciplinary referrals at Livingston fell from 795 in 1996–97, to 241 the following year, to 10 by 1999–2000. When kids can finally do the work, behavior problems evaporate.
"The scores didn't move when the children changed. They moved when the adults got proficient."
How to read these numbers
These results come from schools — classrooms of twenty-plus kids, many arriving already labeled. Your homeschool has something those schools never did: a teacher-to-student ratio of one family. The pattern in every turnaround was the same — the results arrived when the adults got proficient in the method. That's exactly what the pods, the workshops, and the specialists exist to do for you. And there is no remedial module hiding in here that produced these numbers: the model installs visual thinking for every child in the room, and every reader gains.
The people behind the model
This model did not arrive as a product. It was built in classrooms from 1995, run in public charter schools, measured by the state, and only then rewritten for kitchen tables. Read the whole story →
Run the experiment on your own kitchen floor.
One free account, an evening meeting the pods and the families. You'll know.
Start building a better learnerWant to talk it through first? Text 231-360-0751 — a real person will answer.