SVMI began in 1996 with funding from the Noyce Foundation, engaging district leaders, math coaches and teachers in 23 public school districts in Silicon Valley in year-round professional development. Its efforts included designing a formative performance assessment system, creating a large bank of math curricular resources and shared technical support, and supporting lesson study efforts across the SVMI network. The network grew to over 60 school districts by 2009. Despite moving from external support to a fee basis at that point, the strong relationships among the network partners resulted in the SVMI network growing at a fast rate. SVMI now has more than 160 member districts across California, Illinois, Georgia, and New York and is totally self-sustaining.