The EdSheet Vol. 21

This newsletter covers the business side of the education industry - venture funding, M&A, other financial transactions. Whiteboard Advisors also publishes a daily newsletter - What We’re Reading - of curated, industry-focused news clips and a weekly newsletter - and  Whiteboard Notes - which covers policy, industry trends, and insights from W/A CEO Ben Wallerstein.

Hello! 

EdTech Week approaches! It is one of my favorite events of the year. This year I’ll be speaking on a couple of panels and putting my investor hat back on for the event’s Shark Tank competition. 

Send me a note if you’ll be in NYC the week of October 20th, I’d love to catch up in-person.

In the meantime, a few key topics from this newsletter:

• Anthology Bankruptcy: Education Technology provider Anthology, best known for its Blackboard Learning Management System, made headlines this week when the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Through the process, the company will eliminate $1.7 billion in debt and see its assets transferred to creditors or sold at auction. Phil Hill and I sat down to discuss the bankruptcy’s impact on the education ecosystem.

• Experiments in the K12 space: With school choice options spreading across the US, there are more stories coming out about the new models - both academic and operational - being tested by public and private school operators.

• Charlie Javice sentenced to 7 years: for defrauding J.P. Morgan of $175M when the bank acquired her student loan services startup.

With that, onto the news!

Funding / M&A

Whiteboard Advisors not only provides policy and market-related diligence and advisory services, we track every financial transaction that happens in education — and keep a record of all deals that are publicly announced.

The following transactions caught our eye over the past few weeks. If you have a deal to announce, or would like access to the full transactions database, please reach out.

Venture Funding

• EdSights raises $80M / US, Higher Ed Software Infrastructure / JMI Equity

• Juicebox raises $30M / US, Recruiting Software / Sequoia Capital, 

• Outsmart raises $25M / US, Stealth / DST Global Partners, Forerunner, Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed, Abstract, Reach Capital, Latitud

• MyEdSpace raises $15M / UK, Content Provider / Whitestar Capital, Educapital, Emerge, Active Partners, Coalition Capital

• Vedantu raises $11M / India, Test Prep / ABC World Asia, Accel India, Omidyar Network

• BeeSpeaker raises €2M / Poland, Language Learning / Movens Capital, SpeedUp Venture Capital Group

M&A

• University of Chicago sells CRSP Research Center to Morningstar Inc. for $375M / US, Research

• IXL Learning acquires Evan-Moor Education Publishers / US, Content Provider

• Ignite Reading acquires Esteam / US, Tutoring 

• Yellowdig acquires GetSet Learning / US, Higher Ed Software Infrastructure

• Wellthy acquires Patch Caregiving / US, Early Childhood Education Providers

Join me for EdTech Week in NYC the week of October 20

What’s on your Whiteboard? CEO Perspectives

Phil Hill and I sit down to discuss Anthology’s recent bankruptcy

Penn Foster Group CEO Kermit Cook sits down with me to discuss AI Moats and the future of online learning

News of Note

This section is intended to be more exploratory, a reflection of stories, ideas, and trends that I think are important for EdTech executives and investors to be aware of. 

ECE

• The early childhood sector feels tense right now. Childcare is, fundamentally, a labor-intensive service, which has pushed childcare costs above rent for many Americans. Expanding access to affordable early childcare feels like a rising tide issue for the 2028 election cycle. 

• Because? Lack of affordable, accessible childcare is creating a drag on the economy and driving women from the workforce.  

• And, this drag is felt in both big cities and rural towns. Rural parents ask for more federal childcare funding. 

• Meanwhile, employers like Toyota are trying to fill the child care void for workers, but the costs involved make scaling these programs tricky without some sort of government subsidy.

K12

• While the early childhood space feels tense, the US K12 system is in a distinctly experimental phase. New schools are popping up everywhere, some with stronger oversight than others. Accreditors are exploring how to work with them.

• This experimentation is not limited to the private sector though, states are experimenting with new models of teacher pay.

• And, school systems are remaking the old yellow bus into a high-tech machine while Silicon Valley seniors get a crash course in AI from high schoolers.

• However, the news isn’t all rosy. Arizona public schools facing existential crisis.

Higher Ed

• Blackboard LMS parent Anthology declares bankruptcy. See my above conversation with Phill Hill for thoughts!

• Lots of student loan news and analysis this week. The headliner was that the Trump administration is considering selling off portions of federal student loan portfolio.

  • No, you’re not crazy, we have done this before. Notably, even conservative analysts are skeptical of the proposal. AEI’s Preston Cooper said, ““I really don’t see a scenario here where taxpayers come out ahead. I think the most likely scenario is that taxpayers get less than the loans are actually worth.”  

• Also, ED digs in its heels over student loan caps, limiting the number of programs eligible for the $50K/year, $200K total “professional” loan cap to 10 specific degrees. (Non-professional graduate programs are capped at $20,500/year and $100K total.)

• Meanwhile, certificate schools inexplicably exempted from OBBBA accountability rules. 

  • Reminder that Cosmetology schools, who are usually the driving advocacy force behind certificate school policy, provide some of the worst returns on student investment of any post-secondary programs (which is what the accountability rules were designed to root out). 

• Not loans, but also worth noting from the administration: White House asks 9 universities to sign “Compact” to ensure access to grants and other federal benefits. 

  • The compact asks that universities agree to a set of stipulations in exchange for access to said funds, including that they, “freeze their tuition rate for five years, ban the use of sex and gender as factors in their admissions process, and cap their international student numbers.” Notably, it appears financier Mark Rowan played a significant role in their design. 

• Higher ed headline of the week goes to Thomas Aquinas College, which announced, “Without trying, Thomas Aquinas College ranks #1 on US News Social Mobility Index. “This honor is greatly appreciated — but also ironic,” says John Goyette, TAC’s vice president for advancement. “While many schools build their entire academic program around trying to help students improve their socioeconomic status, Thomas Aquinas College is not one of them.”

Workforce

• Brookings says the AI jobs apocalypse is not here - yet.

• Because? AI isn’t replacing radiologists. 

• Election season is around the corner, which means the welder who earns $100K+ per year will rear his (mostly mythical) head sometime soon. See here for an in-depth account of what one of those ~600 six-figure-per-year welding jobs actually looks like.

Other

• Education researchers cautiously optimistic after deep cuts at ED. “I am more hopeful than I was three months ago that there will be some reinvention, rather than a death, of federal education research.”

• CZI releases open source Knowledge Graph for learning. Kudos to the CZI team for taking on a massive technical problem for the EdTech ecosystem.

• Startup founder Charlie Javice sentenced to 7 years in jail for defrauding the acquirer of her financial aid services startup, J.P. Morgan, of $175M.

  • After sentencing, Javice then handed J.P. Morgan a $115M legal bill. (true story, not a joke.)

Looking for your next opportunity in education? Check out our W/A Jobs, which features 3,648 career opportunities from 304 organizations across the education industry. A few roles that we’re excited about from the past week:

• The XQ Institute is hiring an Oakland-based Head of Research, Evaluation, and Insights and Senior Education Policy & Data Analyst to support the organization’s research and advocacy efforts

• Clasp is hiring a Boston-based Customer Success Manager to support the organization’s employer partners

• Instructure is hiring a remote Senior Manager of Content Marketing to craft, execute, and measure the company’s thought leadership content

Whiteboard Advisors is the leading policy-related diligence partner for education investors, advising on most major private equity transactions in education over the past 15 years. Our specialty is translating complex policy dynamics into insights that inform decision-making. Reply to this email to learn more.