50,657,710
11,271,255
1 ~9 million learners were served by portfolio companies that exited our portfolio in 2023, resulting in a lower number of total learners served in 2024.
2 Not all portfolio companies are able to track the number of low-income learners, so this figure represents those that do have access to this information. We try to be cautious and scrupulous in our metrics. Accordingly, this number is a lower representation than actuals.
We are impact investors focused on the future of education and work.
We support mission-driven founders willing to tackle the HARD problems — challenging the status quo and transforming educational outcomes for all learners.
Our Values
Why We Do This Work
We want to help people reach their full human potential and to thrive as workers, citizens, and family members.
We want to provide new opportunities to the poor, to members of an increasingly vulnerable middle class, to the illiterate, to the imprisoned, to those who struggle with a cognitive difference like autism or ADHD, and to those who face discrimination and persecution.
Second, we want to transform learning for everyone, both rich and poor.
We believe that educational institutions, processes, and tools around the world are broken. Billions of people suffer and fail to achieve their potential because they are taught in the wrong way; our learning tools and institutions are hierarchical, rigid, and unidirectional. Abundant research demonstrates that what works is the opposite approach: people learn best through personalized, collaborative, self-paced exploration linked to their own interests and passions.
Third, we want to make our own firm, our portfolio companies, and the society they serve more humane, more just, more equitable, and more inclusive.
We practice empathy and believe that empathy is a crucial business skill for us and for the entrepreneurs we back. We believe that a strong social mission is a powerful business advantage that attracts talent and helps reduce risk.
Lifelong learning in the age of AI
At the risk of sounding cliché, the spread of artificial intelligence colored almost every conversation about education and workforce last year. Can mass personalization dramatically improve student outcomes? Can offloading administrative tasks reduce teacher burnout? Is there a such thing as ‘uniquely human skills’ when AI is better at drafting an empathetic email than we are? And, most importantly, how is the workforce going to be reshaped in the years to come? (Also, do these valuations even make sense?)
We are beginning to see answers to these questions take shape. From coding and content creation to decision-making and customer service, AI systems are rapidly changing how work gets done. These shifts are redefining job roles, restructuring industries, and challenging traditional career paths. Internships and entry-level roles from software developers to legal associates are already showing significant softening.
What does this mean for the workforce? It means that static skill sets are becoming obsolete at an unprecedented pace. The half-life of knowledge is shrinking. More than ever, individuals—and organizations—must embrace lifelong learning as a core operating principle. We believe that educational institutions must transform alongside these changes to create students who are equipped with the skills to continuously learn.
We also believe that learning happens everywhere—in the doctor’s office, while giving care, and certainly on the job. How can we both value and validate the skills that are developed through alternative means? The learning platforms, tools, institutions, and credentials required to enable lifelong learning are just beginning to be built.
As our portfolio adapts to this current moment of AI, we are proud to see companies like Ignite Reading use humans for what they are uniquely equipped to do—form caring relationships with children that provide the scaffolding for deep, individualized learning. Other companies, like Mainstay, have long embraced AI as a tool for engagement and guidance, but recognize that humans are needed for accountability and support. Companies like Major League Hacking recognize that coding, while not obsolete as a skillset, is rapidly changing, and they are equipping the next generation of programmers both to use AI tools effectively and to collaborate with teammates. Peerteach in our portfolio is turning middle school students into peer tutors to help them achieve mastery and Mentor Collective is improving higher ed completion through mentorship. While schools are struggling with record low attendance and engagement levels, we believe this dynamic of fostering connectivity and collaboration will combat the alienation endemic to many of our learning structures.
In this report, you will read stories about the transformative power of technology, underpinned by the humans that ensure that learning and career development outcomes are met.
Gratefully,
Matt, Dre, Amy, Bridget, and Monique
A Step Towards Equity
In 2020, the buildup of political and racial unrest boiled over when a police officer, who our country trusted to protect and serve, murdered George Floyd. Within venture capital, we reflected on the inequities in funding: of venture-backed startups in the U.S., 77% of founders are white, whereas only 1.8% are Latinx and 1% are Black.
The root cause of this imbalance is complex and this past year, our team has taken action on three fronts:
Rethink Education has earmarked $5mm from Rethink Education III to invest in seed stage companies launched by underrepresented people of color helping solve some of the toughest challenges from education to workforce development.
The team has coined this initiative RETHINK EQUITY, acknowledging that venture capital is hardly distributed on a level playing field.
While this initiative is new, Rethink Education’s track record of investing in diverse founders dates back to the firm’s inception in 2012. Currently, 12.5% of Rethink Education’s portfolio is founded and/or led by Black and Latinx CEOs.
We need more diversity among VC fund managers. Venture capital is one of the least diverse asset classes as far as investor representation. Just 1% of venture capitalists are Latinx and 3% are Black. In an industry where deals are facilitated by warm introductions, diverse founders are often outside of traditional early-stage capital networks, both angel and institutional.
Our team was thrilled to help Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), a leader in innovative instruction delivery, assign part of its endowment to investing in diverse fund managers as another frontier in addressing structural inequalities. In October 2020, SNHU’s board of directors led a Socially Responsible Investing Initiative and our team’s Matt Greenfield & Ebony Brown found and vetted the fund managers that presented to the board. SNHU ultimately invested $11mm across five African-American-led VC funds.
The Board of Directors has a powerful impact on how a company serves its end users. Yet, underrepresented ethnic & racial groups make up 40% of the U.S. population but just 12.5% of board directors.
At Rethink Education, we are taking action to ensure that the boards of our portfolio companies reflect the learners served. To that end, Rick Segal, Managing Partner, recently stepped down from his Board Director seat at APDS, to be replaced by Lawrence Bartley. APDS delivers education to incarcerated learners, many of whom are black and brown men, who are disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system. Bartley is Founder & Director of “News Inside” of the Marshall Project, an award-winning, nonpartisan news organization focused on criminal justice and has direct experience with the prison system, having been incarcerated at 17 years old and then serving 27 years. Rick's decision gives voting power to a leader who not only shares the racial identity of APDS’ learners but also deeply understands the correctional system.
Supporting Founders of Color
Rethink Education has earmarked $5mm from Rethink Education III to invest in underrepresented people of color helping solve some of the toughest challenges from education to workforce development. The team has coined this initiative Rethink Equity, acknowledging that venture capital is hardly distributed on a level playing field.
While this initiative is new, Rethink Education’s track record of investing in diverse founders dates back to the firm’s inception in 2012. Currently, 14% of Rethink Education’s portfolio is founded and/or led by Black and Latinx entrepreneurs.
Our 2022 Investment Theses
Communities of Trust and Care
Last year I wrote a blog post that discussed Rethink Education’s values, beliefs, and investment theses. Buried in the middle of that post was a sentence that I think distills our core beliefs in a helpful way. Here it is again, with slight modifications.
Matt Greenfield
2024 Impact Results
50,657,710
11,271,255
$257,355,821
40%
23%
1 ~9 million learners were served by portfolio companies that exited our portfolio in 2023, resulting in a lower number of total learners served in 2024.
2 Not all portfolio companies are able to track the number of low-income learners, so this figure represents those that do have access to this information. We try to be cautious and scrupulous in our metrics. Accordingly, this number is a lower representation than actuals.
3 Based on capital invested in portfolio companies as of 12/31/2024.
4 Represents unique portfolio companies including each of the unique, active companies in the StartEd 2017 accelerator in which the Seed Fund invested. Note: Rethink Education invested in some portfolio companies across multiple funds.
5 Includes the investment in the StartEd 2017 accelerator cohort’s 8 companies as one investment.
This material is for general informational purposes only and is not intended as legal, tax or investment advice, as an offer or solicitation of an offer to sell or buy, or as an endorsement, recommendation, or sponsorship of any company, security, advisory service, or product.
Portfolio Landscape
Impact Alignment
Our portfolio companies are in alignment with the following Sustainable Development Goals: “Quality Education,” “Decent Work and Economic Growth,” “Gender Equality,” “Good Health and Wellbeing,” “Reduced Inequalities,” and “Affordable and Clean Energy.”
Our portfolio companies are also aligned with the IRIS+ framework including the following themes: “Education,” “Employment,” “Diversity and Inclusion,” and “Health.”
Things We Are Proud Of
In 2024, our portfolio companies made major progress tackling critical challenges in education and workforce training.
In 2024, our portfolio companies made major progress tackling critical challenges in education and workforce training.
In 2024, Orijin made significant inroads in transforming both the lives of justice-involved individuals and the safety of facilities nationwide through education and workforce training. Select partner jurisdictions in Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Maryland experienced a 29% reduction in Category 1 offenses (e.g., aggravated physical assaults), a 50% reduction in 3-year recidivism rates, and improved TABE (Test of Adult Basic Education) scores of 3 points for every 5 hours of study, respectively. Orijin is helping jurisdictions across the nation save money by reducing the time individuals spend incarcerated.
In 2024, a Johns Hopkins School of Education study that included 1,872 students, 46 schools, and 13 districts within Massachusetts found that Ignite Reading helped improve literacy meaningfully across student groups. With a tutoring attendance rate of almost 90%, robust implementation of Ignite Reading increased the percentage of students meeting Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIEBLS) benchmark by almost 35%, from ~16% at the beginning of the year to ~50% by year end. Additionally, the percentage of students requiring intensive intervention decreased 36%, from ~64% at the beginning of the year to ~28% by year end. Impressively, students across subgroups - historically marginalized groups (e.g., Black and Hispanic students), English learners, and Special Education students - achieved similar or stronger literary gains when compared to their counterparts.
In 2024, Cinematic Health’s programs demonstrated a significant impact on employment outcomes and economic mobility. Among students who completed the ReadyCNA training, 61% secured full-time employment, and 92% expressed intent to remain in certified nursing assistant (CNA) roles for at least one year, signaling strong early retention and long-term workforce stability. Graduates also experienced a 15% increase in wages, highlighting the program’s role in driving economic advancement. In addition to measurable outcomes, the program earned high marks for satisfaction, receiving net promoter scores of 79 from students and 85 from employers.
In 2024, Meaningful Gigs saw creatives on their platform from low-income regions earning an average of 3.4x more than the median income in their local markets, with some earning as high as 5–6x. Furthermore, 74% of creatives were rehired or extended after their initial placement, a signal of both customer satisfaction and sustainable income opportunities for talent. These results show that equitable access to high-quality creative work can drive both economic mobility and business success.
In 2024, Mentor Collective facilitated the formation of 85,000+ mentor-mentee relationships and the exchange of 76,000+ intentional conversations via text messages, in-person meetings, phone calls, emails, video chats, and social media messages. These connections helped students manage challenges like working during school, switching majors, struggling with debt, and difficulty getting along with family and employees strengthen their engagement and sense of belonging, manage their professional growth, and build lasting relationships that support at every stage of their journey. For schools and corporations, running mentorship programs can be resource and time intensive. With Mentor Collective, staff hours were reduced significantly. In 2024, organizations saved 372,000 hours, which translated to a financial impact of $7.85mm+.
On average, students grew from 19.5% to 50.1% mastery on pre- and post-assessments immediately before and after their tutoring sessions - a 2.6x increase in overall mastery. One 5th grade teacher in Colorado noted that “In past years, around 60% of my students met their MAP growth goals. This year, 94.8% met their growth goals because of PeerTeach. One of my students, who is an English Learner, went up 29 points! I’ve been blown away by how much more engagement I’m seeing in math.”
In 2024, Orijin made significant inroads in transforming both the lives of justice-involved individuals and the safety of facilities nationwide through education and workforce training. Select partner jurisdictions in Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Maryland experienced a 29% reduction in Category 1 offenses (e.g., aggravated physical assaults), a 50% reduction in 3-year recidivism rates, and improved TABE (Test of Adult Basic Education) scores of 3 points for every 5 hours of study, respectively. Orijin is helping jurisdictions across the nation save money by reducing the time individuals spend incarcerated.
In 2024, a Johns Hopkins School of Education study that included 1,872 students, 46 schools, and 13 districts within Massachusetts found that Ignite Reading helped improve literacy meaningfully across student groups. With a tutoring attendance rate of almost 90%, robust implementation of Ignite Reading increased the percentage of students meeting Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIEBLS) benchmark by almost 35%, from ~16% at the beginning of the year to ~50% by year end. Additionally, the percentage of students requiring intensive intervention decreased 36%, from ~64% at the beginning of the year to ~28% by year end. Impressively, students across subgroups - historically marginalized groups (e.g., Black and Hispanic students), English learners, and Special Education students - achieved similar or stronger literary gains when compared to their counterparts.
In 2024, CHE’s programming delivered meaningful impact in improving employment outcomes and promoting economic advancement. 61% of students who completed CHE’s program attained full-time employment and 92% intend to remain in CNA roles for at least one year. Completion of Cinematic Health Education’s CNA training also resulted in wage growth of 15%. Furthermore, the programming proved to be not only effective but fulfilling, with Cinematic Health Education receiving excellent NPS scores of 77 and 75 from students and employers respectively.
In 2024, Meaningful Gigs saw creatives on their platform from low-income regions earning an average of 3.4x more than the median income in their local markets, with some earning as high as 5–6x. Furthermore, 74% of creatives were rehired or extended after their initial placement, a signal of both customer satisfaction and sustainable income opportunities for talent. These results show that equitable access to high-quality creative work can drive both economic mobility and business success.
Mentor Collective has formed over 500,000 mentorship relationships across 180 partnerships, facilitated the exchange of 2.5M+ intentional touchpoints via text messages, in-person meetings, phone calls, emails, video chats, and social media messages, and helped organizations allocate $7.85M in annual operational savings. Mentor Collective's service model combines expert human support, extensive partner education, and innovative digital solutions, creating a comprehensive ecosystem seamlessly integrating work-based learning, career services, and student success strategies. This strategic approach makes mentorship a durable engine for building confidence, fostering belonging, and providing access to opportunity. By bridging systemic gaps, mentorship empowers learners to reach their full potential—and, in doing so, drives the creation of a stronger, more resilient economy.
On average, students grew from 19.5% to 50.1% mastery on pre- and post-assessments immediately before and after their tutoring sessions. This represents a 2.6x increase in overall mastery. One 5th grade teacher in Colorado noted that “In past years, around 60% of my students met their MAP growth goals. This year, 94.8% met their growth goals because of PeerTeach. One of my students who is an English Learner went up 29 points! I’ve been blown away by how much more engagement I’m seeing in math.”
Case Studies & Interviews
Highlighting achievements in outcomes this year
1,500
students enrolled in a fully online, synchronous associate’s degree program.
86%
of students are Pell Grant recipients
73%
of students identify as female
70%
are 25+ years old
52%
identify as Black or Hispanic
47%
are first-generation students
The Problem
While the college degree has long been the gold-standard credential required to participate in the white collar workforce, its shine has faded. The once-unquestioned value of a college degree is now being reevaluated by many in the public. Debates about cost and return-on-investment – combined with a growing array of high-quality, non-degree postsecondary options – have yielded a new directive from prospective students and their families to institutions: “Prove your value, or we’ll go elsewhere.”
Looking at the top barriers to enrollment, cost is the leading worry – cited by 62% of prospective students. Many are also turned away by: a perceived lack of career alignment in degree programs (a barrier for a third of prospective students); fears about not being able to manage the time commitment or be away from family (29% and 24% respectively); and the inability to stop working to pursue a degree program (cited by 22% of prospective students). In short, today’s students need and demand affordability, career-connected learning, a great deal of programmatic flexibility, and proven outcomes. If higher education institutions cannot provide these accommodations, enrollment numbers will continue to dwindle.
The Impact
In 2024, more than 1,500 students were enrolled in Campus’s programs – the key program being a fully online, live-taught Associate of Arts in Business Administration. Some 47% were first-generation college students, 86% were Pell Grant recipients, and nearly 70% were aged 25 or older. Over half (52%) of students identified as Black or Hispanic, and 73.2% identified as female. One student, Hannah, shared her story.
Hannah started her higher education experience at a small, liberal arts institution but soon found that the experience wasn’t a good fit for her goals or learning style. She left and found employment decorating cakes at a grocery store, hoping to one day open her own bakery. That dream led her to explore the idea of attending business school.
Hanah heard about Campus and decided to enroll. The flexible, career-aligned program that was cost-free for Pell students appealed to her and Campus seemed to meet her needs in a way that her prior college experience hadn’t. Once enrolled, she quickly discovered a new passion for storytelling, content creation, and community building.
“Campus helped me realize what I wanted to do,” Hannah shared. “I started out thinking I’d run a bakery but ended up building my skills for a career in social media. I got to work on real projects and use real tools, and that experience gave me the confidence to pivot.”
Hannah had the opportunity to join the Campus student marketing team, which helped her gain experience co-managing referral campaigns, writing creative briefs, and developing social reporting systems. Subsequently, she was selected for an internship at Discord, supporting creator partnership and managing social and video content.
When asked to summarize her experience as a Campus student, Hannah shared, “Campus gave me real-world tools, strong communication experience, and the confidence to pursue a career I love. Now I’m supporting major creators and building brand strategy, and I’m just getting started.”
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68%
of enterprise clients say Lightcast has helped them predict labor market needs and trends
51%
say Lightcast has helped them diversify their talent pool
The Problem
By 2028, the World Economic Forum research estimates that 44% of jobs will have been disrupted. Job descriptions are already drastically changing as the requisite skills sought by employers evolve to keep up with advances in AI. The world of work, therefore, is at an inflection point. Traditional recruitment practices for ‘good’ jobs have long dictated that employers hire predominantly from degree-holding talent pools, prioritizing the credential and disregarding the skills and potential of non-degree-holding prospects. Yet, higher education has failed to produce, en masse, workers who are adequately skilled to thrive on the job. The result? A hiring landscape that remains under diverse; one that is scarcely representative of the skills and aptitude of the broader population. This mismatch between people and opportunity leaves vast pools of talent sitting untapped and perpetuates unemployment and underemployment at the community level – all while employers struggle to understand and manage the skills gaps and worker shortages that undermine their ability to do business. To transform, organizations must have a robust understanding of the requisite skills, trends, and factors impacting the hiring landscape. Data is and will continue to be the key that unlocks sustainable workforce transformation.
The Solution
Lightcast is a longstanding provider of labor market data, analytics, and guidance to thousands of employers, educational institutions, and communities, enabling organizations to use real-time data to make informed decisions about who they hire, how they train and skill their workforce, and more. Lightcast is active in more than 30 countries. Its database of more than one billion job postings and career profiles offers unparalleled insights into the labor market while allowing sectors to grasp the trends that are shaping the world of work as we know it.
The Impact
A survey of 1,400 Lightcast enterprise, community, and education clients showed that:
71% of enterprise respondents using Lightcast report an increase in applications from diverse or historically marginalized populations; of them, 72% attribute at least some of that increase to Lightcast.
71% of public sector clients report that their populations – people from historically marginalized and diverse populations – are becoming better equipped with marketable skills that lead to well-paying jobs; of them, 61% attribute the change to Lightcast.
77% of enterprise clients indicate an increase in the number of instances where data has helped them anticipate future needs or trends; of them, 89% attribute at least some of that increase to Lightcast.
57% of enterprise respondents credit Lightcast for richer internal conversations about how to maximize labor market data to meet company goals.
Lightcast’s report highlights the case study of J.B. Hunt – a leading trucking and transportation company that has used Lightcast to predict relevant industry trends and needs.
“The trucking industry has suffered from acute turnover, making it difficult for anyone to hire and imperative for every job offer to be as competitive as it can be…After integrating Lightcast solutions, J.B. Hunt was able to benchmark postings and make better offers. The company now enjoys 50% turnover – a far cry from the industry average of that exceeds 94%.”
Lightcast also shares in its report its desire to help tear the so-called ‘paper ceiling’ – the degree requirement barrier that prevents more than 70 million people from accessing high-paying jobs. Doing so is in equal measure about helping employers understand the value of prioritizing skills in their hiring processes, and about helping higher education providers adjust their courses with an eye toward the teaching of emerging and marketable skills.
They write that “clients appear to be employing a skills-based approach in how they understand the labor market,” explaining that one in three education respondents report seeing faculty change their courses to focus more on skills. Some 60% and 50% of enterprise respondents, respectively, share that they are upskilling and reskilling their workforces with a clearer view of career pathways.
“We had a choice,” explained John Guy, Co-Founder and COO at Simply – an organization that has partnered with Lightcast to better understand and manage the people trends impacting its sector. “Do we start scraping this [labor market data] by writing our own algorithm and coming up with it from scratch and it being rubbish? Or do we partner with Lightcast, who has what we believe to be the best labor market data publicly available and accessible to us? We chose the latter.”
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83%
Teachers who completed Aanaab courses deemed that 83% of their students were exhibiting stronger engagement and learning – a number they attributed to their newly invigorated approach to teaching.
The Problem
Teachers who receive insufficient training face low professional confidence, high attrition rates, and stunted ability to reach and engage students. Yet, schools around the world are struggling to hire and retain teachers with the requisite skills for their jobs. UNESCO’s Global Report on Teachers explains that “attrition rates among primary teachers almost doubled from 4.62% globally in 2015 to 9.06% in 2022 – with teachers often leaving the profession within their initial five years.” The Middle East faces its own unique teacher shortage challenges. The United Arab Emirates alone, for example, will need to produce some 30,000 qualified teachers by 2030 in order to meet its educational needs. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, despite growing demand, has seen a 40% post-pandemic drop in recruitment of teachers from overseas, requiring HR departments to rethink their hiring and training strategies.
Exacerbating global labor force and retention gaps in education is an increasing skills gap. Today’s teachers, who in the aggregate are overworked and stretched to their professional limits, are not only expected to have mastered pedagogical techniques and expertise in their subject, but also to possess and teach durable skills, and to hold a level of technological competency not expected of their predecessors. Beyond improving recruitment conditions and working conditions for teachers, UNESCO names “attractive career pathways with equitable access to professional development” as a crucial element in sustaining teachers’ motivation to work. Substantial, high-quality professional development for teachers is shown to generate as much as a 21% increase in student performance, and its impacts on the learning environment cannot be overstated. When teachers have access to training that is based on current pedagogical techniques that help them sharpen their own skills, they can be confident in their ability to fulfil their mission while ensuring their students are ready for what comes next in life.
The Solution
Aanaab offers a wide array of accredited professional development courses for teachers in eight countries, designed to empower them with skills and provide them with strategies to deepen their expertise, build effective learning environments, and develop teaching methods that make a difference.
To-date, Aanaab’s offerings include more than 150 short courses, eight qualifications, and more than 30 licenses. Their catalogue spans a variety of general education and specialized instructional topics and includes such courses as Teaching Mathematics with Art and Creativity, Lesson Design in Virtual Learning Environments, Health Awareness in School, Artificial Intelligence in Education, and Developing Students’ Innovation and Entrepreneurship Skills. Courses are around 15 hours long, on average, and are largely conducted in an asynchronous, self-study format. Their users have logged over one million hours of learning.
The Impact
To measure the efficacy and impact of their online courses, Aanaab launched a qualitative study of 30 educators, in collaboration with a group of kindergarten schools in Kuwait. Participating educators were asked – following completion of six Aanaab online courses – to record their reflections in a journal. Over 1,300 data entries were recorded and analyzed as part of the study, including pre- and post-course surveys, interviews, reflective entries, supervisor lesson observations, and grading.
In the aggregate, the findings showed that:
Over half of teachers (53%) who completed Aanaab courses reported higher confidence;
A similar number (54%) reported an increase in their professional knowledge;
Over half (53%) reported feeling more skilled in their profession;
Nearly all (98.4%) reported that the courses met their professional development needs;
Nearly all (95%) reported that their expectations were met during the course, when measured against the learning objectives.
“I have developed greatly as a teacher,” explained one respondent. “This course has taught me the impact of internal and external motivations on a child’s mental health, life, education, and creativity. It also highlighted the importance of communicating with parents so that motivation comes from both the teacher and the parents…”
Another educator shared that, “[After the Aanaab course] I understood childrens’ needs, emotional and social, and was able to enhance my communication with them. I reduced distractions, enhanced their focus, and overall it helped us to build positive relationships.”
The professional gains reported by participants were not short lived; up to three months after their courses, teachers reported that they were consistently applying new strategies and integrating new techniques like gamification, storytelling, brainstorming, sensory activities, and creative activities into their daily lessons. From this infusion of new pedagogical techniques, teachers shared that they perceived an increase in student engagement and confidence.
On average, teachers who completed Aanaab courses deemed that 83% of their students were exhibiting stronger engagement and learning – a number they attributed to their newly invigorated approach to teaching.
“These approaches,” the report shared, “have led to improved student engagement, confidence, and enthusiasm with notable progress in behaviours, skills-building, and participation. The courses have empowered teachers to transform their teaching practices, highlighting the value of creative, adaptable, and student-centered approaches.”
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84%
of EnGen users said they would stay with their employer because of the opportunity to use Engen to upskill
94%
felt more confident at work
79%
achieved a career goal like a promotion or a pay raise
The Problem
One in ten working-age adults in the U.S. is an English language learner. Millions in this demographic are struggling to achieve language proficiency while managing the demands of working life – and facing substantial obstacles in the process. Non-English speakers earn 40% less than those who are already proficient. Low English proficiency (LEP) can also stifle upward mobility, with some 91% of employers agreeing that fluency is imperative for those hoping to earn a promotion.
There can be other, less obvious complications of LEP. Workers may face deep frustrations in their professional lives, struggling to communicate with colleagues and managers, and having to work harder than their English-proficient colleagues to complete tasks. Linguistic racism – defined by USC Rossier as “mistreatment, devaluation, and acts of discrimination towards people based on their language use or perceptions about their ethnicities” – can also be a factor. This type of discrimination may yield interpersonal conflicts and poor mental health outcomes among victims. From the employer’s perspective, LEP can lead to seemingly insurmountable business challenges that may include poor customer service delivery, poor retention, and overall team cohesion problems that impact organizations’ ability to do business.
The Solution
EnGen is an AI-powered upskilling platform that offers enrollment services, live instruction, coaching, workshops, and workforce-aligned courses in over 170 subjects – all designed to help English language learners achieve the proficiency they need for work in high-demand fields like healthcare, skilled trades, and hospitality.
EnGen partners with employers, higher education institutions, local governments, and workforce organizations to address both recruitment and retention challenges while giving workers the tools they need to build confidence, communication, and productivity at work.
The Impact
EnGen collected survey results from 6,000 adult learners of English worldwide – native speakers of dozens of languages – who access EnGen’s English language upskilling initiatives through work, adult education centers, or workforce development programs. The goal? To better understand the ties between employee language upskilling initiatives, and positive employment markers like high retention, strong upward mobility, and high job satisfaction.
EnGen’s survey yielded four main findings:
Finding 1: Employers that invest in English language upskilling through EnGen are rewarded with stronger recruitment and retention.
EnGen’s survey found that 84% of workers would stay with their current employer because English upskilling is offered as an employee benefit. Many are motivated by the investment their employer has made in their growth, seeing it as a marker of a good employer and feeling a sense of loyalty that they may not otherwise have.
The survey also found that 86% of workers would refer another person to their company because of the language learning benefit and 79% of workers had reached a career goal – like a pay raise or a promotion – as a direct result of the English upskilling initiative.
One respondent shared, “I started as a picker six years ago. I got a promotion to seasonal supervisor last year, and this year I got a promotion to full-time supervisor. I love it.”
Finding 2: English upskilling drives customer experience and operational efficiency.
Upskilling initiatives breed substantial gains in employer efficiency and overall work outputs, with 94% of workers using EnGen saying they felt more confident at work and beyond. A similar number (93%) said they saved time at work, and 88% felt they had improved their English proficiency. Respondents shared that they felt better prepared to handle customer service queries and to communicate clearly with coworkers.
“Now, as an assistant manager, it is easier for me to give instructions to my employees and for them to clearly understand my message,” explained one respondent.
Finding 3: English upskilling mitigates critical skills gaps.
An investment in English proficiency with EnGen leads to more than just enhanced communication ability; it also offers employers unexpected gains in overall worker skills. For example, 90% of workers whose employer invested in English upskilling said their digital skills had improved as a result. A similar number (92%) felt their overall job skills had improved.
Finding 4: English upskilling breeds a culture of learning and growth, with a ripple effect that transcends the job.
75% of English learners said that EnGen’s digital-first approach to instruction had given them an advantage, compared to traditional, classroom-based approaches. Not having to sacrifice family or work time to learn English means workers are better positioned to reap the benefits of upskilling right away. This translates into stronger community engagement – which some 83% of respondents said they experienced because of their upskilling program. And, 80% felt they were better equipped to navigate daily life.
“Whether it’s attending community events, volunteering, or simply socializing,” explained one EnGen respondent, “I can communicate effectively and contribute to the shared experience that brings people together.”
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>4,000
justice-impacted peoples’ records cleared
73%
of people who use Rasa’s platform are 200% or more below the Federal Poverty Line.
The Problem
One in three Americans – 77 million people – are prevented from accessing housing, jobs, and educational opportunities because of criminal records. Exacerbating the crisis, there has been a substantial increase in reliance upon criminal background checks to determine a person’s ability to participate in everyday life. Nine out of ten employers, four in five landlords, and three in five colleges and universities now routinely use background checks to filter out candidates who hold criminal records.
A felony record creates the biggest barriers, but even a minor offense or misdemeanor can trigger a cascade of consequences that may impede a person’s opportunities to learn, grow, and assimilate into society. A criminal record can create both social and internalized stigma, leading to catastrophic impacts on overall wellbeing and life outcomes. Black, Indigenous, and Latinx people are disproportionately penalized for having criminal records, perpetuating long-standing cycles of inequity and discrimination.
All of these factors put upward social mobility virtually out of reach for tens of millions of justice-impacted Americans, reinforcing poverty and hopelessness for a vast demographic, with little societal differentiation for the individual circumstances or potential.
The Solution
Rasa helps justice-impacted people by making the process of criminal record clearance affordable and simple, based upon the premise that “no one deserves to be judged for their worst day.” Rasa’s team uses proprietary software to streamline the steps associated with record expungement, delivering record-clearing services at a fraction of the cost of hiring a lawyer. They collect valuable demographic data about their user-base in the process, with a goal of lessening the social discrimination that people with criminal records face.
Rasa also partners with an array of employers and organizations, working in tandem to customize plans that can help employers achieve their recruitment and retention goals by extending better on-ramps to good jobs. A full quarter of Rasa’s users, for example, have expressed interest in finding employment in the healthcare sector. Together with their employer partners, Rasa has built a career-oriented marketplace that can help justice-impacted people find good jobs, while allowing employers to fill urgent gaps in their recruitment and talent pools.
The Impact
Among the 21,500 people who have used Rasa’s eligibility tool, 67% earn less than $50,000 per year, 78% do not hold a college degree, over 90% have been denied job opportunities because of their record, and 60% have been denied housing.
More than 4,000 users have had their records cleared through Rasa. All are, in different ways, eager to realize the upward social mobility that a clean record can afford. Educational attainment, for example, is correlated with a 43% reduction in recidivism over three years, and incarcerated individuals who earn a bachelor’s degree return to prison at a rate of just 5.6%. While type of employment matters, having a job can have a similarly stabilizing effect on a justice-impacted person’s life.
A future worth fighting for: Destiny’s story
Rasa shares the stories of justice-impacted individuals like Destiny, who have faced seemingly insurmountable barriers in their quests to build better lives.
Destiny grew up around drug use and violence, believing both were normal. She endured an abusive relationship and struggled with substance use disorder, finding herself repeatedly in the emergency room for significant physical injuries – each time prescribed opiates to manage her pain. Realizing she wanted to move past her trauma, Destiny took steps to improve her life and those of her two children.
She moved in with her mother and enrolled in college. However, it became a case of ‘one step forward, two steps back.’ Soon after enrolling, Destiny was arrested for retail theft. She soon found herself living on the street. She knew she did not want to be a statistic, stuck in the revolving door of the criminal justice system, but had no idea where to turn for help.
Destiny had never been offered treatment or a path to sobriety until she was arrested in 2018. Thanks to increased funding for rehabilitation initiatives, the arresting officer explained that she could take advantage of a drug court rehabilitation program to help her achieve sobriety. She completed inpatient treatment and moved into a sober living facility. The program required her to find a job. After repeated rejections, she was hired for a job that paid $8 per hour for ten hours of work – almost as much money as she was spending on her bus commute.
Fortuitously, Destiny was asked to speak at a press event about the housing services she had been offered. Her son encouraged her to do it, noting that other people might benefit from hearing her story. Soon after the event, Destiny was hired as a front desk receptionist at former Mayor Ben McAdams’ office. Finally earning a living wage, she took steps to begin the record clearing process. Thanks to Rasa’s help, Destiny was able to do so without having to choose between paying rent and paying a cost-prohibitive fee for an attorney. She was able to afford Rasa’s representation, which allowed her to keep looking forward in life, and hire an attorney to help her complete the record clearances process.
Today, Destiny has a clean record and is the first person in her family to be a homeowner. She works as the Executive Director of Clean Slate Utah – an organization committed to educating people about record clearance laws in Utah. Her five year old daughter has a college savings account and is growing up in a different environment with opportunities that no one in her family was able to access. Her advice to others on a similar journey? “None of the opportunities I have today would have happened if I didn’t show up for myself.”
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Allovue supports educators and administrators in making data-informed budgeting and resource allocation decisions to enhance student outcomes.
Q&A with Jess Gartner, Founder of Allovue
Q. How did you become inspired to start Allovue?
A: I studied education policy for my undergraduate degree and then became a middle school language arts and social studies teacher. I was immediately confronted with resource challenges. I quickly found out that you have to bring your own supplies, and supplies are expensive! We were even evaluated on how well-stocked and decorated our classrooms were, which didn’t seem fair. I couldn’t help but think, ‘If a doctor showed up and was asked to bring their own ibuprofen and supplies, people would be horrified.’ Yet, this has somehow become normalized in education.
I would be at a dollar store at 10 P.M. buying a stack of 100 notebooks. I was lucky that I was willing to put things on credit cards, but I easily spent 10% of my salary on class supplies. At the same time that I was struggling to buy paper, another teacher friend had iPads for his entire class, while another friend’s school had no toilet paper. At the same time I was looking around and seeing that we had stuff at the school that we did not need, and I wondered, ‘How does a principal decide what to buy and when?’ Decisions about resources seemed to be made in a vacuum, and there was a lot of principal turnover, too.
This was in 2012, and we were talking ad nauseam about test score data and other student data and I remember asking, ‘These are all outcomes metrics. But what are the inputs? What’s the other side of the equation? What if the gaps we see on outcomes mirror gaps on inputs and resources?’ People looked at me like I was crazy, and I quickly learned that we couldn’t really answer those questions. So I started thinking a lot about resources in the context of education policy and budgets. I also became fascinated with the power of technology in education. I began to turn to tech for resources so I didn’t have to make everything from scratch. I found solutions for faster grading and so much more. I started going to hackathons and became enamored with this idea that I could turn something on, and within minutes I could have a new resource. Over a period of a few years all of these ideas and experiences melded together and I thought, “I should start a company to build products that address resource allocation and equity issues.” And that’s what I’ve done.
Q: What is Allovue?
A: Allovue is a budgetary planning solution that looks at education resource allocation and allows schools to align resources to strategy and priority. We offer a solution for managing and monitoring spending throughout the year, with a dashboard that lets users drill down to transactions, purchase orders, and even trend-analysis of spending rates. It lets schools compare this year’s spending to prior years, and gives financial solutions for every step in the [budgeting] process throughout the year. In short, we can go into any district and in a few weeks we have every single dollar of their system flowing into our dashboard. Our Budget Suite supports every step of the process: allocating resources to schools and programs, strategic budgeting and personnel planning, and executing on the budget throughout the year.
Q: What was the most steps you took in founding the company?
A: I spent a lot of time – nearly two years – listening. I interviewed anyone I could find who touched a budget. CFOs, grant managers, assistant superintendents, principals; I asked them to tell me their budgetary problems. Over time, a salient trend emerged. No one could figure out how a budget was organized. No one had access to the data that mattered. I came in with so many questions about return-on-investment and effectiveness, but everyone basically told me, ‘You are lightyears ahead! We would be happy if we could log into an account and see how much is in there!’ I quickly realized that we couldn't solve the interesting problems until we solved those boring problems. We had to think of it in terms of Bloom’s taxonomy and start with the small and complex aspects of budgets before we could synthesize the big problems. I’m really proud of the time I spent taking that step. Allovue never would have gotten this far if I hadn’t talked to so many people before starting out. I would have based the solution on assumptions, and it would have been wrong.
Q: How has the investment from Rethink – and subsequently the acquisition by PowerSchool – helped Allovue achieve its mission?
A: Rethink helped us remain faithful to our vision. Matt was one of the only people who understood what I was trying to do. He was such an early champion and immediately understood the need to solve the boring problem first. Rethink was there from the beginning and was such an advocate for our mission, through and through. In terms of the PowerSchool acquisition: I had to get very clear on the ‘why’ of the transaction and what my values were going into the process. During the acquisition process, we cast a wide net because I knew we needed to find the right partner. It wasn’t until the eleventh hour that I sat down with the CEO of PowerSchool and talked about innovation and investment. He said, ‘We need a strong leader who can innovate on the finance side. I’d love for that to be you. Come innovate here.”
It was an opportunity I couldn’t resist. PowerSchool is a massive education technology provider, serving over 60 million students worldwide. The resources at PowerSchool are mind-blowing. For example, there are hundreds of people on the sales team, and hundreds of ERP customers we’re talking to about Allovue. We’re starting to coalesce around exactly what we want to bring to market. On the tech side, there are significant AI developments happening that will only make the solution more powerful. All that to say, we’re now operating on a massive scale, and exponentially increasing Allovue’s reach in school districts.
The truth is that for a long time Allovue was my universe and my identity. I knew I was going to have to let go of that and it wouldn’t be mine anymore. That was hard. But, I decided to flip the script and say, “What if instead of letting go, I view this as expanding my universe? How much could we achieve with that expanded power?” This is only the beginning of that journey.
Q. What advice do you have for mission-driven entrepreneurs?
A: Get absolute clarity on your values. Make your values a compass and not a weathervane, because you need your values to be fixed assets for you and point you in the right direction. Everything is rooted in that.
Edapt is building statewide compliance systems to help school districts share best practices across each state.
Q&A with Christian Jackson, CEO of Edapt Schools
Q. How was Edapt founded?
A: Edapt came about because of a very obvious and pressing need that one of the top performing superintendents in the state of California communicated to me. My co-founders and I had been looking at efficiency and workflow solutions that we could bring into other verticals like real estate. When the superintendent got wind of this she said, “Hey, how can you help us in education, but more specifically, how can you help us in the back office of education?
”So while the inspiration for Edapt came from the immediate communication of a pain point, a lot of my work and inspiration have come from wanting to positively impact and give opportunities to historically redlined communities. Edapt does that by offering a reporting solution that gives insights into best practices for supporting students who are the most at-risk in each school district. With this as our core thesis and north star vision, Edapt is a perfect blend of solving an immediate need and being able to go in and say specific things to superintendents like, “Hey, we know you are struggling with helping your English language learners” or “We know you’re struggling to get socioeconomically disadvantaged students into class every day due to chronic absenteeism.” The question becomes, “How can we showcase to you what is actually working across the state and in doing so, put more time back on your plate?” That’s what inspires us.
Q: What does Edapt do?
A: Edapt is building statewide compliance systems to help school districts share best practices across each state. If you look at the last 20-30 years in education, we are seeing a record high percentage of administrators and teachers expressing that they are more stressed and overloaded. The complexities of back office reporting and compliance have also increased. And with that, you have more educators who, instead of being able to spend time with their students, are stuck meeting compliance burdens passed down from the state level. That’s what we’re solving for. By answering the questions, ‘What are you spending money on?’ ‘Why?’ and ‘What have you achieved?’, we are able to help educators see what’s working across the state. And it might not be your neighboring superintendent who has solutions that work – they may have a completely different demographic. We’re giving superintendents immediate, customized insights from across the state and eliminating their need to have to search for them.
Q: Tell us about your inaugural product, the LCAP Composer, and how it helps schools with compliance.
A: A Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) is a district improvement plan. It asks districts to essentially answer the three questions I shared above. From there, it can act as a north star to help districts understand what they’re doing to help students, and most specifically what they’re doing to help traditionally underserved students (foster youth, low-income youth, and students with disabilities) by tracking their improvements year-over-year. So these documents operate as strategic plans. In many cases, states require timely submission of these reports in order to obtain their funding. That funding can range from hundreds of thousands of dollars, to millions or billions – so it is a really big deal. Every dollar counts.
Edapt’s LCAP Composer is an AI-driven tool that simplifies the process of writing LCAP reports, making the process faster and more efficient. Andrew, our AI Reporting Composer, helps districts capture insights and turns them into submission-ready language for compliance forms and strategic planning, while surfacing real needs and priorities.
Q: How are you giving districts time back and what are they doing with it?
A: The superintendent I mentioned before told me, “The reason I would work with you isn’t just about saving my own time. This is also about freeing up time for my teammate who decides what we spend our funds on. If that person could spend 20-30% more of their time researching, talking to other districts about what actually works and thinking more deeply about implementation, then we’re going to see a massive delta because that person will be spending their time on more important work instead of typing up compliance forms. Just having more time on your plate doesn’t mean it will be spent well. But when you earn that time back and you know what your priorities are and have them defined in advance, you can be so powerful.”
Superintendents and district leaders ultimately want to be in the field with their teachers and students. When they are stuck doing paperwork, they can’t be there. So with the time we give them back, that’s the first thing they want to do.
Q. What’s the longer-term vision around how you are using AI and how will it change how districts are managed?
A: We are, in short order, going to be able to handle any of the documents that come out of the school district’s back office. We are in the final stages of having our system be generalized so that no matter the state or the instructions, they will be able to write the report and start benchmarking outcomes. But we are also getting ready to be able to have a system that tells a school district, “Hey, you have your report due in two months. Here’s what you need for it. Here’s what you already have.” And then we fill in the gaps together. So it gives triggers, notifications, and importantly, it gives directions. One superintendent told me, “What I love about working with you is that it gives us peace of mind about what our next steps are in the compliance process, in advance time.” That foresight and peace of mind is huge for district leaders.
At a time when budgets are uncertain, we’re helping districts by automating the process of writing and tracking compliance in such a way that they get dollars back….dollars that matter for each student.
Q. What has been your most meaningful achievement as Edapt CEO?
A: What fills the cup is those one-on-one conversations with superintendents where I hear that we have been invaluable. They often ask me what we need to help Edapt grow, because they believe that their network of other superintendents would benefit from what we have. Hearing what people are saying about our product tells me that we’re not just building something that’s cool, or a flashy, new edtech product. We’re building something that makes peoples’ lives a little less stressful while also ensuring that the most underserved students aren’t being left behind. When I hear that, I feel so much pride in the work we’re doing.
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