Weld North Education (WNE), an education technology company that provides PreK-12 digital curriculum, has acquired LearnZillion, a Washington D.C.-based company that provides high-quality digital-first core curriculum, the company has announced recently.
While the detailed terms of the deal were not disclosed, the company said that the acquisition is WNE’s first foray within the digital core market traditionally served through textbooks.
Founded in 2010, Weld North Education moves learning forward by harnessing the power of digital technologies to help meet academic goals. It focuses on developing digital curriculum and tools that transform the way teachers teach and students learn. The company’s core business revolves around Edgenuity – a digital courseware provider focused on providing online curricula and intervention solutions, and Imagine Learning – a digital supplemental solutions provider focused on addressing language, literacy and math.
Weld North claims to serve seven million preK-12 students across 20,000 schools and after the acquisition of LearnZillion, the company said it will serve an additional 400,000 students annually.
Speaking on the acquisition, Jonathan Grayer, Chairman and CEO of Weld North Education, said,
“This is a major step forward for Weld North Education and underscores our unwavering commitment to transform education by building the best digital curriculum company in the world, serving students, teachers, parents and administrators. LearnZillion has cracked the code for delivering a digital-first core curriculum to schools across the country, reducing the reliance on textbooks. With the addition of LearnZillion to our portfolio of leading K-12 digital curriculum businesses, we are well on our way towards redefining how teachers teach and how students learn by unleashing the power of data-driven instruction through engaging, adaptive products.”
LearnZillion, on the other hand, provides high-quality core instructional materials, easy-to-follow lesson plans, student activities and embedded professional development. Its offerings include core curricula for math and English language arts, authored by Illustrative Mathematics and EL education. LearnZillion’s curriculum and software is designed to transform the classroom experience, offering teachers the power of engaging, customizable, classroom-ready tools to foster greater outcomes for students.
Commenting on the development, Eric Westendorf, Founder and CEO of LearnZillion, said in a statement,
“LearnZillion meets a critical need in the market by making high-quality curricula accessible and usable by teachers. That significantly boosts both teachers’ ability to bring the curriculum to life and to meet the needs of all their students. Now with resources of Weld North Education and Edgenuity, we will be able to fully leverage the advantage of technology for teachers in the classroom – content customization, embedded supports, and real-time data – to continue to improve student outcomes.”
Meanwhile, with the addition of LearnZillion to its portfolio, Weld North now has a digital set of offerings for students in core classes – not just supplemental education and interventions – all blended with analytics, assessment, and data to allow educators to customize instruction. LearnZillion will broaden the solutions provided by the core businesses within WNE. The company said that, as part of the acquisition, LearnZillion’s CEO Eric Westendorf and the team will remain with the business and become part of Edgenuity.
Needless to mention, this is the third deal that Weld North Education has done in less than a year. In February 2019, the company acquired Glynlyon, a digital education company that offers online K-12 courses, and in March 2019, Weld North again acquired assessment software provider Assessment Technology Inc.
