ETCH Weekend Reading 5/5/24
New early childhood funding, Teenage caregivers, OpenStax's new R&D initiative, and a gloomy week in EdTech
Hello!
No notes this week, straight to the news!
Funding / M&A
Take2 raises $3M / US, Recruiting Software (Simulations) / Reach Capital, Sempervirens
Yuna raises $1.6M / Brazil, Content Provider / Canary, Positive Ventures
Birdwingo raises €1.2M / Slovakia, Financial Literacy / Bienville Capital
Bluworks raises $1M / Egypt, Talent Management / Khawarizmi Ventures, Camel Ventures, Acasia Ventures
Happiest Minds acquires Macmillan Learning India / India, Content Provider
Visma acquires Meebook and Samverka / Denmark & Sweden, School Software Provider
To be a verified funding in this newsletter, a company must raise $1M+ from named, searchable institutional investors and disclose the amount raised, be part of an acquisition where the combined entity has > 50 employees, or raise a VC/PE fund of $10M+
Other Transactions
Tustawi acquires Castnet Learning / Kenya (US), Content Provider
ETCH Funding Database
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People Moves
Robert Batten joins the Princeton Review as CEO / via PRNewswire
Brad Baumgartner joins MetaMetrics as CEO / via PRWeb
Nathan Shultz promoted to CEO of Chegg as Dan Rosensweig steps down / via Businesswire
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Links
Early Childhood
Last year ended with concern for the early childhood market as COVID stimulus funds ran out. This year, states appear to be taking the problem seriously. What convinces voters to raise taxes: child care & At least a dozen states are considering free childcare for early educators. / via Hechinger Report and EdSurge
K12
5.4M Americans under the age of 18 are caregivers now. The EdTech space has gotten a lot smarter about serving non-traditional college students over the past decade, with adjustments like asynchronous classes, success coaching, and credit for work experience. This article highlights that even traditionally aged students may need to take advantage of this infrastructure in the coming years as they balance work and caregiving of relatives with continuing their education. / via Wall Street Journal
Related, what is the right goal for student achievement? / via 74Million
And, State takeovers of school districts still happen. New research questions their value. / via EdWeek
National Math Stars raises $16.5M. I don’t really want to wade into the debate over whether and how advanced coursework is offered at the local level, but I am curious if providing gifted students a national-level option like this one might help reduce the current tensions over the topic. / via PRNewswire
Related, > 50% of high school math teachers either don’t have or don’t use their school’s recommended math materials. / via Hechinger Report
Higher Ed
3 questions for Evie Cummings on her new role at Johns Hopkins. As Phil Hill noted back in December, Evangeline Cummings is one of very few people to have built a successful DIY online program at a US university (University of Florida) in the past ~10 years. This interview does not give much away on Cummings’ plans for Hopkins, but I will note her choice to move up-market (more traditionally prestigious) and the emphasis she places on a multi-modal strategy. / via Inside Higher Ed
OpenStax receives $90M grant from NSF for learning R&D. This is an impressively large grant, rivaling Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative (OLI) for the largest dedicated pool of resources for learning science that I’ve seen. / via InnovationMap
EdTech
Tyton Partners’ ruminations on ASUGSV. “Parlance profusion” to describe the generally-forward-but-also-kind-of-chaotic progress in the work-based learning category is a term that will stick with me for a long time. “Make sure your CIO/CTO is more futurist than technologist” is another good axiom to chew on. / via Tyton Partners
2 weeks ago I highlighted an article called don’t be an education Eeyore. This week was very much an Eeyore week across EdTech. The early results on Q1’s earnings in EdTech were…not great. The stock market slammed Chegg’s new CEO (-25%) and Coursera’s 2 executive sacrifices (-24%). The Education Department made Richard Cordray the scapegoat for their FAFSA turmoil. People lined up to critique LAUSD’s chatbot, Ed, and it hasn’t even fully launched. / via OnEdTech, Inside Higher Ed, EdSurge
Yes, some of these are self-inflicted wounds. It is honestly sort of surprising that only one person (thus far) has had to take a fall for the FAFSA given the scale of the problems. And LAUSD might have been better off letting the hype for Ed grow organically - from students and parents - than doing a costumed photoshoot for the media at GSV.
My broader point, though, is I don’t think “The Market” - whether that is public equities, mainstream media, or newsletter writers like me - has any idea what it wants. We are in a period where it feels like a lot is changing, but no one has a great framework for what education is supposed to look like. New Chegg CEO Nathan Shultz (see People Moves) has been the heir apparent CEO for years. If there was a concrete reason to slam his appointment, shouldn’t The Market have spoken earlier and gotten someone else installed? Why are we not more excited that a large, diverse public school system is trying to be at the cutting edge of technology?
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