Pros
Great Minds has a lot of good, caring, and hardworking people that selflessly go above and beyond on a regular basis for the good of the organization and other team members. These are the people who keep things running as smooth as they are and are the organization's most valuable asset. I am no curriculum expert but as far as I can tell Great Minds does indeed provide high quality curricula. I have personally heard many testimonies directly from teachers and parents who have had tremendous success with their students using Eureka Math and Wit and Wisdom.
Cons
The more you learn about Great Minds the more obvious its dysfunctional aspects become. I ended up in a place where I was no longer proud to work there and the mission statement rang hollow. Great Minds is obligated to keep Eureka Math online for free, which is fantastic, but nothing else about Great Minds feels like a nonprofit organization (except for the non-competitive salaries for many positions) even though it still seems like it portrays itself as one. It's usually up to lower level employees to drive forward volunteer opportunities on top of all of their regular work duties. Far too many employees (many not even at a manager-level position) are overworked. Great Minds has struggled to provide its employees with a reasonable work-life balance for far too long with no signs it is trying to correct this issue. Many employees have left already due to being burnt out and this trend will continue unless the problem is seriously addressed. There is a lack of quality leadership at all levels of Great Minds. From the president and directors on down to lower level management, leadership has failed the organization and its employees. There is no practical aligned vision that unites all of the departments so what's left is departments who are unable to effectively collaborate in order to improve processes and find solutions to identified problems. And to make matters worse leadership is not held accountable in any meaningful way. If they make a major mistake it usually isn't owned up to and promises made by them often go unfulfilled. There is a clear disconnect between some upper level management/directors and lower level employees. Leadership needs to do a better job at seeing and understanding what is happening at the ground level. Some directors also need to at least make an attempt to build some sort of positive relationship with their team members. It's unacceptable for leadership to only operate behind the scenes because employees have little idea what is going on and have no reason to believe leadership cares about them. This perpetuates the problem of not being convinced that management actually has your best interests in mind regardless of what they tell you. Everyone understands business is business but when you have that one boss who goes out of their way to help you and always has your back, you know that is the right way to lead. Management has also demonstrated that it believes it is admissible to pay supervisors less than their direct reports. Great Minds needs to find a way to empower and train their employees more effectively at every level of the hierarchy. Leaders need to be better and up and coming leaders need to be guided in their career path. Too many people have been put into positions and situations that are too difficult to succeed at without the proper tools and guidance. One counterproductive way this issue manifests is how the quarterly professional goals are mishandled. Employees' goals are supposed to be unique to what the individual is interested in and wants to accomplish at Great Minds as long as it helps the organization as well, a mutually beneficial arrangement of sorts. What happened with myself and some others is that our quarterly goals were submitted to a director then rewritten by that individual with zero collaboration. I was left wondering whose goals I was working toward.
