Press release: May 2026
Third Space Learning, in partnership with Littera, joins a national cohort to generate evidence on how AI can improve student outcomes and support teachers.
(May 13, 2026) Accelerate today announced the selection of Third Space Learning, in partnership with Littera, as one of 11 organizations participating in its second Call for Effective Technology (CET) grant program, a national effort to evaluate how artificial intelligence (AI) and other tech-enabled tools can be effectively integrated to address persistent challenges in K-12 education.
As schools navigate a rapidly expanding market of AI tools, the CET program is designed to generate rigorous, research-backed insights on what works in classrooms, and what doesn’t. Selected from a competitive pool of applicants, grantees will participate in a yearlong evaluation. The study will assess whether their approach improves student outcomes, how it works in practice, and the cost to implement.
“This cohort represents some of the most promising efforts to use AI in service of teaching and learning,” said Kevin Huffman, CEO of Accelerate. “We’re excited to work closely with these organizations to understand what actually improves student outcomes and what it takes to make those solutions work in practice.”
Third Space Learning, in partnership with Littera, will deliver a high-dosage tutoring program to 500+ students across two or more schools, combining Littera’s human tutors and Third Space Learning’s AI tutor, Skye, in a single shared program. Students will receive four 30-minute sessions per week across 12 weeks, alternating between live 1:3 virtual sessions with a Littera tutor and 1:1 spoken sessions with Skye. Both programs work from the same scope and sequence, so human and AI sessions reinforce each other. The pilot is fully grant-funded, with no cost to the district, and will be evaluated against a control group to measure impact.
“Upper grades math is a critical area of need and often very difficult for K12 districts to staff. That’s why we’re so excited for the opportunity to test a hybrid high-impact tutoring model for upper grades math, featuring Littera’s expert human tutors and Third Space Learning’s cutting edge AI tutor, Skye,” said Justin Serrano, Founder and CEO of Littera Education.
“We built Skye to give every student access to the kind of responsive, personalized math support that was previously out of reach for most schools,” said Tom Hooper, CEO of Third Space Learning. “Being part of this cohort is a real opportunity to generate rigorous evidence that AI tutoring can make a meaningful difference for students who need it most, and to show what’s possible when human and AI tutoring work together.”
Through participation in CET, Third Space Learning will contribute to a growing body of evidence on how AI can be used to support teaching and learning in real classrooms. Findings from the program will help educators, policymakers, and school systems better understand which tools deliver meaningful results for students and are feasible to implement at scale.
To learn more about the CET program and its grantees, please visit https://accelerate.us/cet-application/
If you are a school district based in North or South Carolina who has 500+ students who could benefit from high-dosage tutoring next school year and are interested in taking part in this valuable nation-leading research then please contact Littera or Rob Langman, Chief Commercial Officer at Third Space Learning at rob.langman@thirdspacelearning.com or call (929)-298-4593.