Dive Summary:
- An increasing number of teachers are leaving the classroom and forming education technology startups—many of them based in Massachusetts.
- Massachusetts is home to over 150 ed-tech startups, including BrightLoop Learning, LearnLaunchX and Lexia Learning—recently acquired by Rosetta Stone—and publishing giants like Pearson, McGraw-Hill and Houghton Mifflin have all expressed interest in investing in such businesses or setting up shop in Boston.
- The former educators involved in these companies often face barriers that include the same education bureaucracies that led them to leave teaching in the first place—districts are often slow to innovate and short on funds.
From the article:
... “In the classroom, I would see opportunity all over the place, but there wasn’t enough room, space, or time to see a problem and solve it quickly,” said Levitt, who taught first grade at Bridge Boston Charter School in Dorchester. “I think about our start-up in much the same way I wanted to think about my classroom.” ...
