EdTech Thoughts Weekend Reading - 5/29
EdTech Thoughts Weekend Reading - 5/29
Week of 5/22 - 5/26
Hello!
Weekend Reading is coming to you on Monday because it is the Memorial Day long weekend here in the US. The Weekly Update will be in your inboxes tomorrow.
As a reminder, EdTech Thoughts Weekend Reading is a roundup of what happened in the EdTech industry over the course of the week. It includes funding and M&A activities, people moves, and important news articles across early childhood, K12, Higher Ed, and Workforce.
Weekend Reading is the free sister publication to the EdTech Thoughts Weekly Update, which provides an analysis of why these events happened to paying subscribers. I’d love to have you subscribed to both!
Funding / M&A
K12
Kira Learning raises $15M / US, K12 Curriculum / NEA, AI Fund
Ulipsu raises $3.2M / India, K12 Curriculum / Angel investors
Kunda Kids raises $700K / Nigeria, K12 Edutainment / Zrosk, Voltron Capital, Argentil Capital, Kaleo Ventures
EQuest raises $120M in debt and equity / Vietnam, K12 School Provider / KKR
Higher Ed
Acadeum raises $11.92M / US, Higher Ed Infrastructure / Green Street Impact, ECMC, Pearson
Vias Campus raises $3.3M / US, Higher Ed Infrastructure / Arthur Ventures
uFaber raises $3M / India, Test Prep / Mastermind JPIN, Gray Matters
Cadmus raises $600K / Australia, Plagiarism Detection / Breakthrough Victoria
Workforce
Opus raises $6.8M / US, Employer LMS / Gutter Capital, Nextview Ventures, Bling Capital
Liceo de Farmacia raises $600K / Spain, Vocational Training Provider / Brighteye Ventures
CareerPaths raises $248K / UK, Mentorships / QVentures
Multiverse acquires Eduflow / UK, Apprenticeship Training
JobGet acquires Heroes Jobs / US, Recruiting Software
360Training acquires ACLS Training / US, Workforce Training
Looking for a full list of EdTech Funding + M&A from the past two years? Founding Members receive access to the EdTech Funding and M&A database
People Moves
Asks
Gemma is looking for friends to join her for the Techstars Economic Mobility Thought Leader Panel tomorrow (5/30) at 3pm
If you have an Ask for a future EdTech Thoughts post, please fill out this form.
Links
Early Childhood
More states moving to expand access to outdoor preschools. Lots of issues to work through to make this viable at scale, but outdoor preschool sounds incredible / via The Hechinger Report
Vermont authorizes $125M in new childcare funding / via Vox
Related, the Bay Area creates two new funds to support early childhood education / via New America
K12
Philly to pilot year-round and extended-day schools / via Higher Ed Dive
Detroit’s K12 schools still struggling after $1.3B in COVID relief funding / via the 74Million
How are school districts supporting students who thrived/are thriving online? / via the Hechinger Report
California Community Colleges chancellor wants to enroll every 9th grader in a college course / via Edsource
Related, Dual Credit is great when it works, but has its own issues to work out to be adopted widely / shoutout and
Pearson and CAE partner on competency-based assessments. Possibly feeling pressure from the recent Carnegie < > ETS partnership on CBE? / via globenewswire
The surprising obstacle to overhauling how children learn to read / via the New York Times
Related, but sort of the opposite - LAUSD expanding use of Cognitively Guided Instruction math pedagogy without clear evidence of effectiveness / via the 74Million
Higher Ed
Bain joins EY in sharing concerns for Higher Ed’s financial future / via Bain.com
Related, State Funding for Higher Ed rises above pre-pandemic levels / via the Chronicle of Higher Education
The most entertaining job in international education? Head of International for Wrexham University / via Inside Higher Ed
College investment clubs embrace wild ride / via Wall Street Journal
“The modern male is struggling [in school].” Sounds click bait-y, actually has evidence to back it up. / via EdSurge
Is University of Idaho’s acquisition of University of Phoenix a good idea? / via Higher Ed Dive
Community Colleges as a place to optimize introductory courses. / via Inside Higher Ed
Workforce
Career Karma’s annual State of the Bootcamp Market report. A must-read for anyone interested in the bootcamp space. / via CareerKarma
New data highlights the gap between college grads and everyone else / via Axios
The class of 2023 is less interested in big-name employers / via HR Brew
EdTech
The AI revolution is already changing education / via the Financial Times
Education Department issues recommendations on AI / via Inside Higher Ed
If you have a link you’d like to see in a future Weekend Reading post, please email matt@etch.club
EdTech Thoughts Weekend Reading is the free sister publication of the EdTech Thoughts Weekly Update. It provides links to the week’s EdTech Funding, M&A, People moves, and a curated list of Links to relevant industry news. If you enjoyed this edition, I hope you will subscribe and/or forward to your friends!
Tweet of the Week
The original Tweet can be found here, Twitter no longer embeds well into Substack.
As one of the commenters points out, this advice shouldn’t be strictly held. But it is a reminder that our personal experiences are just one component of building a great product.
