TALENT DEVELOPMENT
Think Together | September 13, 2022
Think Together, one of California's largest nonprofits serving K-12 schools today announced it has completed the merger with Orenda Education, a top school improvement and professional development consultancy. Upon the close, the combined organization will serve more than 200,000 students across the state with more than $150 million in annual revenue. Moreover, the organization will be better positioned to rapidly scale their impact.
"We're thrilled to bring our two organizations together in our combined efforts to improve student success and close the achievement gap,This merger is the natural evolution of Orenda's existing relationship with Think Together and solidifies our joint commitment to ensuring that the more than 2 million California students that are performing far below grade level have the support they need during the school day and beyond to succeed academically."
Think Together Founder and CEO Randy Barth
Over the past seven years, Think Together and Orenda have had an affiliate agreement in place while the full acquisition builds the long-term financial and operational capacities for Orenda to continue to scale. Orenda's work focuses on transformingeducation systems, either across a school district or by cohorts of schools, providing professional development to all levels of district staff, around a specific data-driven but people-centric school improvement model. Think Together partners with over 60 school districts and charter management organizations to provide more than 900 direct-to-student academic and enrichment programs at more than 450 school sites across California, serving more than 100,000 youth. Orenda Education works behind-the-scenes with school district leaders and educators to identify inequities in schools and then transform their systems to ensure all students have access to a premium education. "Think Together has always been an incredible partner, infusing the infrastructure needed to provide an efficient model for changing the odds for kids," said Orenda Education Founder and CEO Dr. Robin Avelar La Salle. "Our two models have always complemented each other but now, we can efficiently scale our vision for all students to receive the premium education they deserve." The acquisition comes as both organizations experience tremendous growth due in large part to new and renewed state investments in education to accelerate learning recovery efforts and provide educators with needed support amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. "Now more than ever, teachers, school leaders and administrators need to think outside the box to address the issues impacting students including socio-economic biases, social emotional learning, and more," added Barth. "Providing these much-needed supports to educators means districts and schools can provide the skills they need to teach, lead and counsel during and following a period of great disruption during the pandemic. Recently the U.S. Department of Education reported a dramatic decline in scores from the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) known as the nation's scorecard. Two decades of growth for American students in reading and math were wiped away by just two years of pandemic-disrupted learning, according to national test scores released last week. And, the declines were much larger for students at lower performance levels, widening already-huge learning disparities between the country's high- and low-achievers. Orenda's approach to school improvement has proven to accelerate student outcomes, such as mastery of grade-level standards (measured by math and English language SBAC scores), improved A-G class completion rates, and improved graduation rates. They also provide administrative coaching, teaching strategies, and leadership clinics. To expand these services, Orenda was recently awarded a $4 million Education Innovation and Research grant by the U.S. Department of Education to digitize and distribute their school improvement approach through an online platform that is effective and highly scalable to schools and districts in any geography, and to those who require less in-person support. Think Together adds Orenda to their growing list of services that support student education in and around the school day. Think Together's flagship afterschool programs support students in underserved communities with homework help, enrichment, social-emotional learning and physical well-being, all to enable students to strive for college or a fulfilling career. To provide high-quality programs, Think Together partners with philanthropic organizations like the Joseph Drown Foundation. "Breaking down the barriers to opportunity, equity and access in education by keeping students and their success as the centered focus is one of the most meaningful investments for our future generations" said Alyssa Santino, Program Director of the Joseph Drown Foundation. "Ensuring the educators, leaders and structures around students are supported and inspired and effectively trained with research-based, proven and engaging strategies is imperative for thriving students and communities. We are pleased to partner with Think Together and Orenda Education as they excel in this space and continue to transform the trajectory of students and the schools they attend." Barth sees the combination of direct services to students through expanded and early learning, coupled with equity-based professional development, as an effective combination to supporting student achievement alongside their school district and charter partners. Dr. Paul Gothold, Superintendent of County Office of Education in San Diego agrees. His former district, Lynwood Unified School District, realized astonishing improvements when partnering with both Think Together and Orenda, including increasing graduation rates from 56% to 90.8%, and A-G college eligible rates from 18% to 53%. Orenda provides the technical expertise for true district turn-around. The systems approach and professional development modules to build staff capacity ensures all leaders have the tools and resources to provide a premium education for all students, said Gothold. "With Think Together's financial and operational support, Orenda is well positioned to continue providing much-needed education innovation to schools throughout the state and beyond.
About Think Together
For over 25 years Think Together has partnered with schools and communities to pursue educational equity and excellence for all kids. As a nonprofit organization, Think Together innovates, implements, and scales academic solutions that change the odds for hundreds of thousands of California students. Think Together's program areas include early learning, afterschool, school support services and leadership development for teachers and school administrators.
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EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
The Risk Management Association | October 21, 2022
The Risk Management Association (RMA), whose members represent 90% of North American bank assets, officially launched RMA Ignite, its new online learning and development platform, today, at a time when skilled talent and resourcing risks top the industry's concerns. RMA Ignite features more than 70 self-directed online learning modules totaling more than 130 hours of content, plus a growing library of microlearning modules, most on the crucial topic of credit risk. Ignite users also can find and register for dozens of instructor-led courses, and design a curated curriculum to strengthen their skills and build their careers.
"Growing and maintaining a skilled workforce is the top challenge for banks of all sizes, but particularly for mid-size and community banks,RMA Ignite helps financial institutions address this challenge by providing on-demand education on the important topic of credit risk, a priority of all banks through every economic cycle."
RMA President and CEO Nancy Foster.
In an RMA survey of more than 300 bankers, 69% of those representing banks with $1 billion to $49 billion in assets and 63% of those with assets of $1 billion or less said credit training was their greatest need. People risk is one of the biggest risks at any organization, but particularly at banks, where we are highly regulated and are focusing on our clients' financial futures," said Michela Vernon, Chief Learning Officer for Truist and the chair of the RMA member council on Learning and Development. "RMA designed this new online platform to more easily develop and retain teams at banks like ours and to make continuing risk education available on a wider scale. RMA Ignite is available for individuals through unlimited-use one-year subscriptions. RMA plans to offer a bank-wide subscription in coming months to facilitate broad industry training. Attendees at RMA's Annual Risk Management Conference, taking place from October 23-25 in Washington, D.C., will be invited to demo the platform at its unveiling.
About Risk Management Association (RMA)
Founded in 1914, the Risk Management Association is a not-for-profit, member-driven professional association whose sole purpose is to advance the use of sound risk management principles in the financial services industry. RMA promotes an enterprise approach to risk management that focuses on credit risk, market risk, and operational risk. Headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, RMA has 1,600 institutional members that include banks of all sizes as well as nonbank financial institutions. They are represented in the Association by 35,000 individuals located throughout North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia/Pacific.
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CONTINUING EDUCATION
Anthology | October 13, 2022
Anthology, a leading provider of education solutions that support the entire student lifecycle, announced today that North-West University (NWU) has selected Anthology Student to optimize the student administrative lifecycle and deliver a more seamless experience for students and staff. NWU also will implement Anthology's Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution to enhance recruitment processes and enable more strategic engagements with prospective students, current students and alumni. Acting as a cornerstone in the institution's technology ecosystem, Anthology solutions will give momentum to NWU's digital business strategy and long-term goals for enrollment, retention and the overall growth of the institution. The pandemic brought new dimensions to our thinking around how we enable learner success and create more intentional experiences for students using technology," said Professor Marlene Verhoef, Registrar at North-West University. With Anthology, we are not just replacing our existing system in pursuit of this objective. We are truly transforming the way we serve students and creating a digital environment that supports our future vision for NWU. Anthology Student and Anthology CRM will integrate critical data into a unified solution and deliver insights to support astute decision-making among NWU administrators, which will permit the identification of new and improved ways of connecting with students to drive outcomes. The cloud-based system will also automate manual processes to increase the efficiency of university staff and reduce the lift for internal information technology teams. For learners, Anthology Student will create a holistic digital-first experience spanning everything from degree planning to accessing career services, helping NWU meet the needs of today's students while also attracting new enrolments in the institution. We chose to partner with Anthology not just because of the product roadmap, but because they have a history in the market and a deep understanding of what students are looking for," said Professor Verhoef. The merger with Blackboard only reaffirmed our decision because it shows that Anthology is focused on delivering a holistic set of solutions to meet all of our needs and a way to future proof our investments.
"We are committed to partnering with NWU and supporting the South African education community to deliver technology that opens up new possibilities for education.NWU is experiencing staggering increases in enrolment and establishing core systems that can grow with the institution. These developments are crucial to effectively scale services for students while also equipping administrators and faculty with the technology they need to work more efficiently."
Oleg Figlin, Vice President of Europe, Middle East, and Africa at Anthology
NWU is a public university with multiple campuses across two South African provinces serving nearly 53,000 active students. Read more about how Anthology solutions are creating dynamic, data-driven experiences for institutions like NWU.
About Anthology
Anthology offers the largest EdTech ecosystem on a global scale for education, supporting more than 150 million users in 80 countries. With a mission to provide dynamic, data-informed experiences to the global education community through Anthology Intelligent Experiences™, we help learners, leaders and educators achieve their goals by offering over 60 SaaS products and services designed to advance learning.
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