CONTINUING EDUCATION
Businesswire | May 24, 2023
Amplify, a publisher of next-generation curriculum and assessment programs, announced today it has raised a Series C funding round led by Cox Enterprises, a family-owned, Atlanta-based company committed to connectivity, mobility, and sustainable innovation. Cox joins Amplify’s current investors, including Emerson Collective, Learn Capital, and A-Street Ventures.
The funding will support Amplify in continuing to expand the breadth and depth of its K-12 product portfolio, which distinctly combines high-quality, evidence-based instruction with digital-forward delivery to help teachers celebrate and extend their students’ thinking, knowledge, and skills. Already a market leader in literacy and science, Amplify is launching a suite of math programs that will reshape mathematics education by bringing together the leading open-source curriculum (IM K-12 Math™ authored by Illustrative Mathematics®) with the most-beloved teaching and learning platform in math education, Desmos Classroom. The goal is to help every student learn – and learn to love – mathematics.
“Amplify has experienced significant growth and is now proud to serve close to a third of U.S. K-8 students today with programs that uniquely blend the best K-12 content and pedagogy with digital tools that help teachers reach all students and drive measurable academic gains,” said Larry Berger, chief executive officer of Amplify. “This investment will help us grow while ensuring that we elevate K-12 instruction and have as much impact as we can.”
Amplify currently delivers its products and services to over half a million teachers in the United States. Its existing core programs have earned all-green scores on EdReports, a third-party curriculum evaluation site. Amplify’s digital supplemental program, Boost Reading, continues to help schools drive gains in early reading, as does its gold-standard early reading assessment, mCLASS®. By meeting the demand for evidence-based, digital-forward programs, Amplify’s bookings have grown at over a 50 percent compound annual growth rate over the last five years (2017-2022). Amplify also continues to see measurable gains in student achievement when districts and schools implement its programs with some measure of fidelity, e.g., recent studies on Amplify Science, Boost Reading, and Desmos Math 6-8.
“At Cox, we are committed to investing in companies that will reshape their industries over the next generation, bringing positive impact to communities across the country and around the world,” said Mark Lewis, vice president of strategy and investments at Cox Enterprises. “We are excited to help Amplify continue to scale its product offerings and footprint.”
About Amplify
A pioneer in K–12 education since 2000, Amplify is leading the way in next-generation curriculum and assessment. Our captivating core and supplemental programs in literacy, math, and science engage all students in rigorous learning and inspire them to think deeply, creatively, and for themselves. Our formative assessment products turn data into practical instructional support to help all students build a strong foundation in early reading and math. All of our programs provide teachers with powerful tools that help them understand and respond to the needs of every student. Today, Amplify reaches more than 10 million students in all 50 states.
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TALENT DEVELOPMENT
PRnewswire | April 11, 2023
Northpass, the leading platform for digital customer education, announced the launch of two essential resources, The Business Case for Digital Customer Education and the Digital Customer Education Impact Calculator, both created for customer success leaders looking to elevate their customer experience and optimize operational efficiency through digital learning.
The customer education industry is experiencing strong growth as macroeconomic pressures have forced B2B companies to rethink how they facilitate their customer success practice more cost-efficiently. The Business Case for Digital Customer Education is the first and only resource that provides insights on how teams can quantify the return on investment (ROI) and impact of digital customer education. It helps leaders understand the benefits of investing in digital customer education, such as reduced expenses and costs, improved productivity for customer success and training teams, and elevated customer experiences, as well as the costs of delaying adoption; namely missed revenue opportunities.
"The Business Case for Digital Education is long overdue," said Sumeru Chatterjee, founder of CustomerEducation.Org, a 4000+ member community of customer education professionals. "Our industry has needed a resource that lays out a clear rationale, ROI and roadmap for customer education, and why it's imperative to invest in it. The Business Case definitely delivers this insight."
The Digital Customer Education Impact Calculator is an interactive tool that can benefit every customer education and customer success leader, whether they are just starting out with digital education or still relying on traditional methods like live training, webinars, and emails. It allows them to evaluate the effectiveness of their current training program and explore the potential impact of incorporating digital strategies. The Calculator delivers specific findings, such as the number of hours a customer success manager could be using more efficiently and the potential cost savings that could be realized; data points to help facilitate decisions on how to allocate resources more effectively.
"Digital customer education is one of the most effective methods for maximizing the efficiency and productivity of forward-thinking customer success teams," said Northpass CEO, Steve Cornwell. "Our new resources help chief customer officers and customer education leaders quantify the direct impact it can have on their business and jumpstart their transition from outdated customer training to modern digital customer education."
Digital customer education has become a go-to option for many innovative companies like Northpass customer, Bonfire Interactive. According to Vy-Vy Nyguen, manager of client enablement at Bonfire, the company saved over 2,000 hours per year by moving its outdated customer education program to Northass and eliminating the need for one-to-one customer training.
About Northpass
Northpass is a market-leading digital customer education platform that empowers businesses to elevate their customer experience and optimize operational efficiency through digital learning. Iconic brands, including Walmart and Johnson & Johnson, in addition to hundreds of growth businesses, like Pipedrive and Freshworks, choose Northpass to power their digital customer academies. Our award-winning platform and expert services give companies a surefire path to transform outdated customer training methods into modern digital education programs that match how customers want to learn today and improve training efficiency, effectiveness, and reach.
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EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
Paper | March 15, 2023
On March 14, 2023, Paper, the education support system (ESS), announced the acquisition of Readlee to address the literacy crisis. It would use Readlee's innovative learning tool, artificial intelligence and speech recognition technology to improve learners' reading skills.
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress report, about one-third of 4th and 8th graders cannot read the basic achievement level, which is the test's lowest level. The National Center for Education Statistics data shows that about 34% of American high school students graduate with reading proficiency. Unfortunately, this proficiency decreases further to 18% for recent graduates. This data shows that the literary crisis has become a systemic issue, and there is a flaw in the current educational approach.
Master teachers collaborated with Harvard researchers to design Readlee for better learning outcomes, and it would become 'Paper Reading' after complete integration into Paper's ESS. This tool will listen to students' reading, give real-time feedback with individualized support, and measure their success. With AI and speech recognition, it approaches reading through learning science, showing that reading aloud improves vocabulary, memory, and confidence. It aims to support students throughout their academic journey and after graduation.
Co-Founder and CEO of Paper, Philip Cutler said, "This acquisition reflects our commitment to providing the academic support that empowers students throughout every stage of their learning journey. Improving literacy proficiency is an essential component of our mission, and we believe research-backed technology and repeated practice are the keys to addressing the mounting literacy crisis." He added, "We are excited to join our forces and aligned missions to have an even bigger impact on students. Our teams are already working together to change the future of education. Our mission is to help create a world where everyone has the ability to read, learn, and become a success."
(Source – Cision PR Newswire)
About Paper
Headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, Paper, an e-learning solutions provider, offers services for personalized learning, tutoring, essay review, academic and student support, homework help, teacher support, remote education, teacher assistants, and virtual tutoring. It develops confidence in every student with its educational support system. It serves over 3 million students from different school districts across the United States and Canada. It provides individualized support to every learner to solve their problems and discover different ways of learning. It helps teachers and administrators review student activity and track their progress with its data-driven insights and metrics. It instantly connects students with tutors for support in their tests and assignments.
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