EdTech Thoughts Weekend Reading 6/4
Week of 5/30 - 6/2
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!
Funding / M&A
K12
Swing Education raises $38M / US, K12 Staffing / Apax Partners, Reach Capital
Maximal Learning raises $5.7M / US, Student Services / Trilogy Ventures, Pioneer Square Labs, Honeystone Ventures, GSV Ventures, Owl Ventures
Antimatter raises $2M / US, K12 Curriculum / Version One
CleverBean raises $200K / Australia, K12 Teacher Training / Skalata Ventures
Higher Ed
Learneo acquires Barnes & Nobles Digital Student Solutions for ~$20M / US, Higher Ed Student Services
Workforce
Sana raises $28M / Sweden, Enterprise LMS / NEA (just one week after spending $15M on Kira Learning!)
Data Masters raises $700K / Italy, Technical Training Provider / Zanichelli Ventures
Scaler acquires Pepcoding / India, Bootcamp provider
Educate360 acquires Velopi / US, Professional Development Provider
Axcel Learning acquires Dion Training / US, Professional Development Provider
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
Shannon Penrose and Sue Wiley join American College of Education in leadership roles
Jason Botel joins Age of Learning as VP of National Partnerships
Asks
Liam, Aditya, and the Edulab team would love for you to join them in El Paso Texas on June 16 for the LatinX EdTech Summit.
Alberto & the Transcend Network would love early-stage founders looking for PMF or fundraising support to join their latest Transcend Fellowship cohort.
If you have an Ask for a future EdTech Thoughts post, please fill out this form.
Links
Early Childhood
Rising bi-partisan support for more government support on childcare. Passing a law before 2024 still unlikely. / via Politico
The most expensive and most affordable cities for childcare in the US. / via Business Insider
K12
Blackrock cuts Byju’s valuation by ~2/3. / via Techcrunch
School voucher plan on the brink in Texas. / via Dallas Morning News
Why K12 schools must invest in teaching quantum computing. I feel like we should get consensus on algebra before we make the quantum leap? / via Edtechmagazine
Science of Reading gains ground in Illinois and California. / via K12 Dive
Do math drills help students learn? / via Hechinger Report
Virginia to invest $365M in school construction. / via K12 Dive
Related, Nevada’s school districts running out of options to finance school upgrades / via Las Vegas Sun
Supporting the mental health of K12 staff / via 74Million
Every US state now has at least a pilot of competency-based programs in K12 classrooms. First, Carnegie < > ETS, then Pearson < > CAE, now this. Competency-based education might be having it’s “gradually, then suddenly” moment. / via EdWeek
Related, CAE is on a hot streak. After partnering with Pearson, the assessment non-profit’s critical thinking test will be administered across Finnish universities. / via GlobeNewswire
Higher Ed
Xi wants to expand number of international students attending Chinese universities. / via Bloomberg
Connecticut law stops universities from withholding transcripts. / via Higher Ed Dive
The new predators in higher education. This article was important, shining new light on a less-understand part of the industry…when Kevin Carey wrote it in 2018. / via Business Insider
ETS cuts GRE test time to 2 hours. Joining the TOEFL in ETS’ rapid modernization strategy under (relatively) new CEO Amit Sevak / via Inside Higher Ed
Related, ACT to be piloted online starting in December / via Higher Ed Dive
Demand for Computer Science tests capacity of US universities to deliver. It remains far more lucrative to work in industry than to teach comp sci. / via Times Higher Education
Workforce
How AI will change the labor market. / shoutout and
High School grads forgo college in hot labor market. / via Wall Street Journal
Policy
The top issues state lawmakers battled over this year. / via The Hill
Why are Trump and Desantis talking about accreditation? There are many problems with accreditation as it stands today. The answers to these problems should be technocratic, not political. / via Chronicle of Higher Education
(Desantis) related, Florida ends automatic payments to union workers. “That is gonna lead to more take-home pay for teachers.” / via Associated Press
Income-driven repayment often an unknown option among borrowers who would benefit the most from utilizing it. / via New America
EdTech
EdTech groups insist AI is friend not foe despite warnings. / via Financial Times
EdTech VC funding down more than 50% YoY. Consistent with overall VC funding. / via Business Insider
Class prepares to move beyond the, uh, class. / via Martechcube
Breaking into EdTech. / shoutout Jack McDermott
If you have a link you’d like to see in a future Weekend Reading post, please email matt@etch.club
Tweet of the Week
The original Tweet can be found here, Twitter no longer embeds well into Substack.
Chosen mostly for humor, but also worth contemplating how much thought goes into both creating and understanding an AI-extrapolated image like this. Critical thinking rises in importance as AI takes on more technical burden.
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!
