Major League Baseball today announced the national launch of Summer Slugger, a free baseball-themed educational course aimed at preventing students from losing critical math and literacy skills during the summer months. MLB worked with EVERFI, a digital learning innovator, to create the interactive course that targets 4th and 5th graders. Summer Slugger is a first-of-its-kind digital platform to address summer learning loss that is offered nationwide.

As part of the new relationship, EVERFI becomes an “Official Education Partner of Major League Baseball,” with 14 MLB Clubs joining the initial promotion of the initiative. Parents across the country can access the Summer Slugger program by visiting SummerSlugger.com.

MLB’s Chief Baseball Officer and Baseball Hall of Famer Joe Torre today visited students at DREAM Charter School in Harlem, N.Y. to officially launch the new, national program.

A Video Conversation with Tom Davidson, Cofounder and CEO, EverFi

Baseball Commissioner Robert D. Manfred, Jr. said: “We are pleased to announce this digital education platform with our new partners at EVERFI. Summer Slugger will help address a critical academic issue among young people around the country while also providing a fun, interactive baseball experience for children on their favorite tech devices. The summer months are synonymous with our game and this is a great opportunity to have a positive impact on students through this program.”

Summer Slugger is broken down into 36 total interactive games (10 minutes per game) which cover the following educational topics: units of measure, place value, arithmetic, geometry, spelling, phonemic awareness, vocabulary and comprehension.

Summer Slugger unlocks activities and offers rewards for progress and consistency along the way. Students engage with content that reinforces key foundational and procedural skills while enjoying the freedom and motivation of a digital baseball activity.

Studies show that students lose critical math and literacy skills each summer, thus widening the achievement gap and requiring substantial remediation at the start of each new school year. 75% of U.S. students do not currently participate in summer learning programs. Summer Slugger is an online course that was designed to help prevent this “summer slide” while also allowing the children to have a fun, interactive experience.

“Each fall, teachers spend an average of 6 weeks re-teaching their students old material that was lost during the summer months. This summer slide creates long-term consequences that only widens the achievement gap particularly for students from low-income communities,” said EVERFI CEO Tom Davidson. “EVERFI is proud to team up with Major League Baseball to fill in this critical learning gap through interactive, digital learning. We can’t wait to celebrate the difference Summer Slugger makes in communities all across this country from Harlem to Dallas.”

“DREAM is thrilled to host MLB and EVERFI as they provide digital education opportunities for our scholars to avoid summer learning loss. We have integrated baseball and education in our programs for the past 26 years and we’re excited to use Summer Slugger in order to achieve successful outcomes for youth,” said Richard Berlin, Executive Director, DREAM.

About EVERFi, Inc.

EVERFI is the leading education technology company that provides learners of all ages education for the real world, through innovative and scalable digital learning. Founded in 2008, EVERFI is fueled by its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) subscription model and has certified over 16 million learners in critical skill areas. Some of America’s leading CEOs and venture capital firms are EVERFI investors including Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, Twitter founder Evan Williams, TPG Growth, The Rise Fund, Advance Publications, and Rethink Education, and Rethink Impact. The EVERFI Education Network powers more than 4,200 partners in their education initiatives across all 50 states and Canada. Learn more at EVERFI.com

About DREAM

DREAM, formerly Harlem RBI, began in 1991 when a group of volunteers transformed an abandoned, garbage-strewn lot into two baseball diamonds for the youth of East Harlem. Today, DREAM serves more than 2,000 youth in kindergarten through college with year-round academic, sports, and enrichment programs in East Harlem, the South Bronx, and, beginning this summer, in Newark. DREAM’s comprehensive approach to youth development replaces the barriers inner-city youth typically face with concrete opportunities to build the skills and confidence needed to graduate high school, matriculate to college and break the cycle of poverty. Since 2005, 97% of DREAM seniors have graduated high school, 94% have been accepted into college and 99% of participants have avoided teen parenthood.