Overview
- The Primary School, a tuition-free private school cofounded by Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, shut its doors in June after the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative decided to stop funding it at the end of the 2025–2026 school year.
- CZI pledged $50 million over five years to help families and local groups manage the transition and seeded education savings accounts that include $10,000 for elementary students, $2,500 for preschoolers, and $1,000 for early-childhood children.
- Over roughly a decade the initiative provided more than $125 million to the school, which struggled with frequent principal turnover, unclear curriculum and policy choices, and requirements such as nondisclosure agreements for staff.
- The closure displaced about 540 students and prompted local districts to prepare extra capacity, with the Ravenswood City Elementary School District planning site renovations and portable classrooms to take incoming pupils.
- The school’s end highlights a broader pattern of high-profile, billionaire-backed education experiments that have proven hard to sustain and underscores CZI’s strategic pivot away from broad social programs toward concentrated scientific philanthropy.