EdTech Thoughts Weekend Reading - 6/18
Week of 6/12 - 6/16
Hello!
As a reminder, EdTech Thoughts Weekend Reading is a Sunday 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 Weekly Update, which comes out on Tuesdays and provides an analysis of why these events happened to paying subscribers. I’d love to have you subscribed to both!
Also, a programming note: this newsletter will be published next Sunday (6/25), but not the following Sunday (7/1) due to the July 4th holiday in the US. I am also not planning to post on 7/8, but may adjust course if something interesting happens (see: 2U’s acquisition of edX announced during July 4th week 2 years ago).
Funding / M&A
Early Childhood
Raising Superstars raises $2M / India, Content Provider / BLinC Invest
Marlin Equity Partners acquires LineLeader ChildcareCRM / US, School Infrastructure
Higher Ed
Upgrad invests $10M in a new medical school on Vanautu. I’m sorry, what? / India/Oceania, Degree provider / Upgrad
StudentBridge acquires Full Measure Education / US, Student Marketing
ExtraStudent raises $1.65M / France, Social Network / M6 Group and Angels
International University of Applied Sciences acquires London Institute of Banking and Finance and Canada’s University of Fredericton / Germany, degree providers
Workforce
Develhope raises $6.5M / Italy, Coding Bootcamp / CDP Venture Capital
Nxus raises $150K / Netherlands, Career Platform / Rabobank
Docebo acquires Edugo.ai / US, LMS
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
Aristide Collins Jr. joins Strada as Chief Administrative Officer and Chief of Staff / via Strada
Christine Timmins Barry joins CeriFi as CEO / via PRnewswire
Andy Hancock joins Futurelearn as CEO / via Times Higher Education
Chegg cuts 4% of workforce to re-focus on AI initiatives / via Bloomberg
Frontrow mulls sale or shutdown / via Moneycontrol
Asks
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Links
Early Childhood
Early childhood education: what do we know and what should we do? / via Brookings
What to know about the growing popularity of employer-sponsored childcare. / via EdSurge
K12
Vermont approves free school meals for all. / Via Associated Press and K12 Dive
What does the research say about holding students back a grade? / via Chalkbeat
New Jersey becomes first state to require climate change taught at all grade levels. / via New York Times
New type of public school specializes in teaching students with dyslexia. / via Education Week
Related, nation makes progress on early intervention for students with autism. / via K12 Dive
The Cleveland Plan is in peril. I was not aware of the Cleveland Plan before this article, but it is interesting! / via Hechinger Report
Related, Soon we won’t have enough kids to fill our schools. / thank you Amar for highlighting this NYT article
What teachers unions have been advocating for in statehouses this year. Teachers unions feel like they are becoming one of the flash points of the 2024 US election cycle.
Related, but not mentioned in the above. The median teacher pension is only 70% funded, down from 96% in 2001. / via Brookings
Higher Ed
Student loan payments to resume in October. / via Politico
Related, Anxiety Rocks Student Borrowers as Chance of $20,000 Relief Dims and Nearly 20% of student loan borrowers at risk of defaulting. / via Bloomberg
Related, Republicans Unveil Sweeping Higher Education Legislation. / via Inside Higher Ed
More states shifting to performance-based funding for community colleges. / via Inside Higher Ed
The Haves and Have-nots of Higher Education. / via Chronicle of Higher Education
Pennsylvania pilot schools go online. No word yet on whether MS Flight Simulator hours will be accepted for transfer credit. / via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Shocking, but not shocking. Wiley plans to sell OPM unit. / Shoutout Phil Hill and the On EdTech newsletter
No, NIL contributions are not tax-exempt. I both understand and cannot believe this is a thing that had to be explicitly detailed by the IRS. / via Sports Illustrated
Student spending on course materials falls to decade low. / via Inside Higher Ed
Bowdoin’s mandatory job-training bootcamp for second-years. This program has gone through many iterations (IYKYK) and is a thing I expect more colleges to follow. / via Inside Higher Ed
Workforce
Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su scrutinized by Congress. This article is an unintentionally excellent summary of both parties’ points of view on labor policy. / via Community College Daily
More color on Bitwise’s demise. Investors “misled” but we still don’t know what the primary driver of what went wrong is. / via The Information
LinkedIn bets on skills over degrees. / via Bloomberg
Coursera does healthcare? I haven’t seen too many third-party partnerships like this one with MedCerts. / via Businesswire
It's hot job summer for teens. / via Axios
Sort of related? how extreme heat is changing summer vacation. / via The Atlantic
International
How a British for-profit college made millions. / via New York Times
Going deeper down the international for-profit education rabbit hole, how franchising higher education became big business. / via Wonkhe
A deep dive into Africa’s upskilling platform, Talstack. / via Techcrunch
Singapore Management University is not trying to be like Harvard. Singapore’s elite universities are my dark-horse candidates for a strong rise in the international university rankings over the next 10-20 years. / via Times Higher Education
EdTech
Emeritus global workforce skills survey. / via Emeritus
Related, Coursera annual skills survey. / via Coursera
Related, Amazon develops Careers for the Future Index to show jobs with most potential for growth. / via Government Technology
What happened to the metaversities? / via EdSurge
Related, Tutoring, but VR. / via tech.eu
Unpacking Edmodo’s $6M FTC fine. / via Whiteboard Advisors
Programming Note: I like to shoutout independent creators and the folks who send me links. If you write something or read something *excellent*, send it to me!
Meme of the Week
In honor of #hotjobsummer for teens.
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!
