Read to Lead

Problem: 

Middle school is a critical window of opportunity, but educators need tools to address three interrelated barriers: student disengagement, lack of 21st century skills, and broken career pathways.

 Solution: 

Read to Lead is Classroom Inc.’s unique suite of digital learning games and curriculum set in the professional world. We help disadvantaged youth improve their literacy, develop the skills critical to success in a digital society, and provide windows into leadership roles across a variety of careers. 

 Positive Change: 

We envision a world where all young people are prepared to pursue the career of their choice and realize their fullest potential in an increasingly uncertain world. Read to Lead empowers middle school students who were most at risk of falling behind to develop the literacy, social/emotional, and leadership skills that they must have to transform their futures and succeed in high school, college, and the workforce.

The problem: Seven million middle school students are on a trajectory to be left out of the future workforce. 

Frey and Osourne (2013) assert that 47% of total employment in the United States is at high risk of automation by 2030. The key differentiators for success are adaptability to an ever changing market and possessing skills of human perception, creativity, and social intelligence - otherwise known as “human skills.”

Yet in schools serving high poverty communities, educators lack resources that help students develop those critical skills that equip them to compete for careers with high growth potential. 

Middle school is the window of opportunity when students start envisioning themselves in college and career. This is also when struggling students begin to disconnect. 80% of eighth graders in high poverty schools do not read at grade level, placing them at higher risk of dropping out, never earning a high school diploma, and a college or trade school degree that could protect them from insecure, poorly-paid employment.

 How big is the problem? It is huge. Of the 12 million public middle school students in the United States, 7 million lack the literacy and leadership skills they need for the 21st century workforce.

In 2019-2020, we served more than 40,000 middle school youth from high need communities across all 50 states—an increase of 10,000 students from the prior year. 

Our model combines partnership programs in specific communities, including New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Birmingham, Houston, and Milwaukee, with a digital platform that gives every educator and student nationwide access to our unique program. 

This model provides us with deep insight into the communities that we serve through our collaborative relationships with our partners on the ground, as well as an opportunity to deliver impact at scale through our digital platform. This past year, our product roadmap was informed directly by the feedback from educators and students at our partner sites, analysis of usage data from our growing network of educators, and a survey of 200 ‘mass market’ educators who are among our most committed users.

All of our partnership programs serve high need communities, and 86% of our digital users attend Title I schools. 38% of the students we serve are African American, 37% are Hispanic/Latinx, 11% are of one or more races, 9% Caucasian, 4% are Asian or Pacific Islanders, and 1% are Native Americans. 

Our solution is Read to Lead—digital learning games and curriculum set in the professional world. 

HOW IT WORKS

Students have the opportunity to be the boss across 3 different industries and gain exposure to more than 30 potential careers:

-In Community in Crisis, students are the Director of a community center

-In Vital Signs, they are the Medical Director of a family health clinic

-In After the Storm, students are Editor-in-Chief of a digital magazine

The program is designed with robust curriculum informed by educational research and our experience working with educators and students in the field. For example, a typical Read to Lead class period might include: 

 -A 10 minute ‘prepare’ lesson where the educator leads a discussion with context relevant to the challenges they will face in that day’s episode

-20 minutes of students engaged in the virtual gameplay on their computers, individually or in groups, as they read and write through their day at work. 

-10 minutes of student discussion reflecting on the choices they made in the game, and how they can apply the 21st century skills they demonstrated in their lives and in their future careers.

 PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

We provide support for educators through tutorial videos, lesson plans, an online professional learning community, on-demand technical support, and, at our partner sites, 1:1 coaching and professional development. 

Our national Million World Read Challenge is in its second year. In 2018-19, we inspired more than 1,300 students to read one million words with their class in Read to Lead, and we are on pace to double the number of ‘millionaires’ this year.

TECHNOLOGY

Read to Lead’s technology creates an immersive role-playing game experience connecting literacy and 21st century skills. Our products are built on HTML5, and our learning games and resources are accessible 24/7. 

In addition to our own platform (https://rtl.classroominc.org), our products are featured on BrainPOP  (https://educators.brainpop.com/video/introducing-read-to-lead-games/) and PBS Learning Media (https://ny.pbslearningmedia.org/collection/read-to-lead/). 

The modular architecture and pervasive APIs of our platform allows us to rapidly incorporate new features and products, such as translation and text-to-speech functionality for English Language Learners, and AngularJS means we can provide a robust native app experience.

Student game usage and performance data is accessible in real-time to educators, who use it to track class progress and inform their instructional approaches.

Read to Lead is the only program that helps students simultaneously develop the literacy, life, and career skills needed to succeed in school and the workforce. We put students in charge in an immersive virtual workplace, helping them become critical readers and clear communicators. 

The experience of being the boss widens their knowledge base and builds a mindset to understand and tackle big problems, to consider diverse perspectives, and to collaborate effectively. These are the invaluable human skills that are transferable to any career.

For example, in one episode, students assume the role of a medical director and have to  decide whether an uninsured patient suffering from chronic back pain should have the costly tests required to confirm a diagnosis. They collect and analyze information, consider multiple points of view from staff, the situation of the patient, and then apply critical thinking and problem solving skills to make an informed decision. 

Read to Lead is – 

Culturally Relevant: Diverse characters and stories meet a market demand for more culturally relevant content. 

Immersive: Students experience over 30 careers at a critical age when occupational identity is beginning to form. (Connected Learning Alliance, 2019)

Student-Centered: Engaging workplace scenarios build social and emotional learning skills in an environment where it is safe to fail, and try again.

Read to Lead was recognized as a 2018 “Top Pick for Learning" by Common Sense Education, the Silver Medal at the 2018 International Serious Play Awards, and “2018 Cool Tools Finalist” recognition from EdTech Digest.

Program Inputs/Activities: Read to Lead curriculum, educator data dashboard, virtual and 1:1 educator professional development, classroom materials and resources - freely available 24/7 to educators and students with an internet connection and computer access.

Outputs/Practices: Implementation in grades 5-9 in high need communities across varied program settings including school day, afterschool, summer. Educators facilitate youth interaction with the game, projects, and other curricular components. Ongoing data-driven progress monitoring using game data and norm-referenced surveys of SEL gains.

Outcomes

Short Term: Students will increase their time spent reading, and show greater confidence in their ability to be good decision makers.

Medium Term: Students will read more words and for longer periods than prior to their participation in Read to Lead, and will show evidence of improved problem-solving and decision-making, leadership and collaboration.

Long Term: Students will demonstrate better preparedness for the future of work through stronger connection to school, increased reading proficiency, continued growth of critical thinking, communication and collaboration skills, and increased exposure to high-potential careers.

Evidence: While struggling readers may be reluctant to read, research shows that 5-6 minutes of extra reading per day can mean the difference between meeting or not meeting the grade-level college- and career-readiness benchmarks (Renaissance Learning, 2016).  Globally, 56% of employers consider communication skills, written and verbal, as their most valued human strengths, followed by collaboration and problem solving. (Manpower Group 2018 Talent Shortage Survey)

Current number of students served:   40,000

Students we’ll be serving in 2020-2021: 100,000 

Students we’ll be serving in 2025:  1,000,000 

Classroom, Inc. has created and proven a model for improving student learning outcomes  in literacy and 21st century career skills. There is a demonstrated need and demand among middle school educators and students, and our current product has impacted 40,000 students nationwide. 

Short term goals: Create new more modular episodes, performance tracking systems, and a recommendation engine that leverages the data collected by our platform to drive increased student engagement.

Long term goals: The mentor network and training offered through MIT Solve will enable us to engage with experts who will inform and advance our product strategy to achieve scale and impact on literacy and career readiness. In addition, we will secure new champions to advise on our product and increase investment in and awareness of Read to Lead.

By 2025, 1,000,000 young people will be using Read to Lead to take charge of their learning and their future as leaders. 

Our road map to scale includes the creation of innovative Read to Lead games and resources that will depend upon the engagement of experts -- such as the MIT Solve network -- to help us develop and test the products that will fuel this dramatic growth. These next generation Read to Lead learning games will build on a proven model of offering educators and students data-driven insights that will help them build flexible career skills and foundational literacy skills, while exploring new career opportunities in fields like green technology, medical research, and cyber security.

Technical

To embark on the next steps to dramatically increase our impact, we completed a rigorous product discovery process that included: an analysis of current user data collected on our Read to Lead platform, feedback on user needs collected through interviews and surveys with more than 200 educators, a market analysis conducted in partnership with Games & Learning, and user testing a prototype of a new Read to Lead experience with students and educators in the field.  Two of our key learnings from the product discovery process were: 

(1) Educators find Read to Lead to be particularly beneficial because the immersive game environment uniquely integrates reading and writing with critical thinking and career exploration. The experience offers a rewarding pathway to engage even struggling students in reading, writing, and critical thinking.

(2) Educators would value shorter, more flexible learning experiences that can support both individualized reading intervention and group activities that promote core academic skills. The more modular version would specifically be more conducive to creating more opportunities for offline discussion and activities. 

Financial

Classroom, Inc. has a stable base of philanthropic support, but in order to accelerate the pace at which we can invest in product innovation and scaling our impact, we will need to build awareness among and attract support from a broader network of supporters and investors. 

In addition, to ensure our long term sustainability, we will need to diversify our sources of revenue to supplement our philanthropic funding model.   

Technical 

To address the market demand for shorter form content, we created and successfully tested three prototype episodes of Read to Lead. The more modular prototypes differ from the original by enabling students to read through complex text, reach key decision points, and complete a formative reading assessment: all in half the time. Over the coming months, we will apply this model to all of our existing content (40 episodes in total) to give educators access to this more flexible option of Read to Lead.

Our other priorities in product development include continuous improvement of the user experience and the addition of new Read to Lead game worlds in additional industries and careers. To accomplish this, we’ll need to invest in building a robust content management system, allowing content creators and editors to build, test, and publish new game experiences efficiently and without the need for engineering/code development. 

Financial

In order to secure revenue to invest in the product development, marketing, and research activities that will enable us to deliver impact at scale, we launched a fundraising campaign and are developing a revenue diversification strategy. In the near term, the Innovation Fund is a $1.5M campaign over two years that will allow us to raise new philanthropic support for these initiatives. We seek to diversify our revenue for longer term sustainability by securing earned revenue from enterprise sales to school districts and national out-of-school time organizations, as well as new philanthropic capital from corporate partners.

Since launching our new learning platform in 2017, we have expanded our impact from 5,000 to 40,000 youth and educators served annually in high poverty communities throughout the United States.

We have robust partnerships with schools and community-based organizations in these regional markets: Birmingham, Alabama; Los Angeles County, California; Bridgeport, Connecticut; Newark, New Jersey; New York City, and Houston, Texas. With our Read to Lead platform, we continue to increase our reach to communities across all 50 states.

Read to Lead continues to make a significant impact on the literacy, life, and career skills of the youth we serve: in the 2018-2019 program year students read an an average of 34,000 words of grade-level text within the Read to Lead program, and spent an average of 4 hours and 36 minutes reading through their day at work. 

-90% of students reported improved confidence in their critical thinking skills.

-More than 90% of educators cited improvements in students’ reading confidence, literacy, and engagement

-More than 85% of educators observed  better decision making, problem solving, critical thinking,  and initiative. 

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Classroom, Inc. employs 14 full-time staff members, 9 part-time staff (instructional coaches and interns), and 2 contractors/consultants.

The solution team will consist of our Executive Director, the Vice President of Product Strategy, the Director of Marketing and Communications, and the Managing Director of Development. All are full-time employees of Classroom, Inc.

Classroom, Inc. is led by Executive Director Christina M. Oliver, who was appointed by the Board of Directors to succeed Lisa Holton on July 1, 2019. Christina was previously Classroom, Inc.’s Vice President and Chief Program Officer. Her prior leadership includes positions at ReadWorks, a national literacy-focused nonprofit; the Urban Assembly, a nonprofit manager of public schools; and as a middle school teacher in NYC public schools. She holds an M.P.A. in Education Policy and Public Management from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Kevin Bedeau heads Classroom, Inc.’s digital strategy and product development as the Vice President of Product Strategy. He has led product initiatives at Kaplan Test Prep, Macmillan Higher Ed, and Amplify, among others, Kevin has extensive experience delivering mobile, web, and blended learning solutions, and developed a deep perspective of the education technology landscape and marketplace.

Rachel Samuel is the Director of Marketing and Communications. She leads the organization’s efforts to build a growing community of Read to Lead educators across the country, so that our solution changes the lives of as many students as possible. Prior to this role she worked at TIME for Kids and Amazon.

Nick Haynes is the Managing Director of Development, where he heads the organization’s fundraising efforts, building partnerships with diverse supporters. He has held development roles at PowerMyLearning, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and St. John’s University.

We partner with best-in-class educational organizations to deliver and disseminate our unique Read to Lead program. 

At partnership sites in communities such as New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Bridgeport, Birmingham, Palm Beach County, Milwaukee, and Houston, we partner directly with schools and community based organizations to support their use of Read to Lead, build their capacity in innovative blended learning approaches, and learn about their needs and challenges.

In addition, through partnerships with leaders in out-of-school time learning, such as the Los Angeles County Office of Education’s Expanded Learning team, the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development, and the Partnership for AfterSchool Education, we have trained educators and program directors on topics such as project-based learning, amplifying youth leadership, and data-driven instructions.

Through partnerships with BrainPOP and PBS Learning Media, which both feature Read to Lead games to their national audiences of educators and students, we have increased awareness and use of our program. 

In addition, as detailed in the Business Model and Funding section, we partner with individual, corporate, and foundation supporters to deliver our programs free of charge to the students and educators most in need of our support.

Summary:

Classroom, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit edtech organization serving educators and students throughout the United States. Our mission is to help young people in high poverty communities develop literacy and leadership skills. Our goal is to dramatically scale the proven impact of our Read to Lead program.

Products and services provided:

Read to Lead is our proprietary suite of digital games, curricula, and other classroom resources. We provide these at no charge on our online platforms, and offer no-cost partnership programs that include in-person staff development to educators. 

Key customers: 

Our key customers are teachers and program administrators who find value in our unique tools for engaging struggling, hard-to-reach middle school students, as well as professional development that improves their instructional practice and advance in their own career.

Beneficiaries:

Read to Lead is designed to strengthen literacy, workforce skills, and social/emotional development among participating students (grades 5-9) in low-income communities. Quantitative and qualitative data support the effectiveness of our approach.

Key resources:

Human talent (staff and consultants), partner schools and organizations, educators (particularly “super users” / ambassadors), our IT infrastructure (the Read to Lead games, platforms, and automated data collection), and a dedicated volunteer Board of Directors. Our revenue is currently derived from philanthropic donations from individual donors, foundations, and corporations.

Classroom, Inc.’s support is currently derived from private philanthropy, which will continue to be a major source of our revenue. We have a demonstrated track record of raising funds from individual donors and major foundations (The Gates Foundation provided seed funding for Read to Lead; the New York Life Foundation awarded us a $2 million, 3-year grant to support national expansion). 

Our path to long-term sustainability is revenue diversification through the development of earned income streams and by expanding corporate partnerships and funding.

Earned revenue: We are developing plans for enterprise sales of Read to Lead to school districts and national nonprofit organizations. Our earned revenue strategy was informed by a market analysis that we commissioned from Games and Learning, and from our participation in February 2020 in the StartEd Hyper Accelerator, where we met with 18 edtech CEOs and investors during the one-week program. We would value the opportunity to continue that process in partnership with members of the MIT Solve network.

Corporate partnerships: Our unique value to corporate partners is that we are making an impact in their communities today, and broadening the pool of future-ready employees tomorrow. Read to Lead helps young people see themselves as leaders and develop the human skills that will be necessary as workforce automation accelerates. We seek partnerships with corporations to co-design new career worlds, to leverage the unique talents of their employees, and to increase awareness of Read to Lead among educators and students nationwide. 

Our goal is to dramatically expand our existing program and impact through product innovation, strategic marketing, and revenue diversification. Through MIT Solve’s Digital Workforce Challenge, we are eager to connect with innovators, mentors, and organizations who can help us take the next steps to scale. 

Through the award, we would hope to:

-- Develop new performance measurement tools that drive increased student engagement, enable educators to use data more effectively, and increase our impact on career readiness. 

-- Collaborate with experts in the field of career readiness and product development as we create prototypes of performance tracking & data visualization systems that offer educators and students real-time insight into their development of 21st century workplace skills.

-- Raise awareness of Read to Lead through the Live Pitch event, tapping into the power of the Solve network to help develop new relationships with potential partners, investors, and members of the media.

-- Form partnerships and secure funding to create new Read to Lead games and resources in fields like green technology, medical research, and cyber security.

Now is a critical moment for Classroom, Inc., and your support would make a transformative impact on our ability to prepare the next generation of leaders for success.  

To provide meaningful opportunities for edtech experts to share their wisdom with Classroom, Inc., we created a Digital Advisory Council. Separate from our Board of Directors, this 8-10 member Council supports the product development, marketing, and growth strategy required to expand our impact. We would welcome members of the ServiceNow team who would be interested in serving on the Digital Advisory Council.

Classroom, Inc. is seeking to partner with organizations and people who can help us scale to reach more educators and students, create innovative new products, invest financial resources in our solution, and more deeply understand how our program drives student learning outcomes. 

With those goals in mind, our ideal partners include:

-- Corporations who are interested in expanding what’s possible for young people, and who can provide insights into domain-specific product development (i.e., sharing what it’s like to work in a technology company), a platform for increasing awareness of Read to Lead, and financial resources. 

-- Distribution partners, similar to our current partners BrainPOP and PBS Learning Media, who can help us get Read to Lead in front of more educators and students.

-- Schools and community based organizations serving middle school youth in high need communities. 

-- Investors: Individuals and foundations who can support our work financially and through their expertise. 

-- Research partners who can inform how we measure our impact on workforce skill development in a rapidly changing world.

-- Media partners who can help raise our profile and provide opportunities to share our unique perspective.