![]() The proof is in the pudding: Over the last year, NoRedInk has seen 12,000 schools sign up to use the free version of its platform, while students have answered 33 million questions through the site. Eventually, however, NoRedInk will likely have to charge schools for use, but luckily for the company, Scheur tells us that hundreds of schools have expressed their willingness to pay for premium tools. The new capital will allow Scheur to put off having to monetize his adaptive grammar learning platform, which means that the company is relieved of having to charge schools, or establish premium subscriptions, and instead simply let schools use it for free. ![]() Early-stage entrepreneurs often focus too much on fundraising and courting investors to the detriment of the product and taking on venture capital would seem to only increase the pressure to monetize and distort the company’s mission with hastily-concocted business models. Not just because of NoRedInk’s roster of investors - which include Google Ventures, Social+Capital, Learn Capital, Kapor Capital, NewSchools Ventures and Charles River Ventures - but because of what it will allow the startup to do. But last week, Scheur became the envy of many early-stage education companies, closing a $2 million round of series A financing from a handful of top venture capital firms. It’s led to the demise, or compromise, of many education companies. The pressures of balancing the demands of building a mission-driven product or service with developing that idea into a real company - that is to say, to make money - is something that every EdTech entrepreneur wrestles with. But, while his experience might make him uniquely qualified to both understands how students are struggling (and why) and, thus, to construct a solution, that’s just the beginning. Having spent eight years as an English teacher in Chicago - during which time he estimates that he graded more than 15,000 papers - Scheur is intimately familiar with students’ struggles to master writing and grammar concepts. ![]() Jeff Scheur launched NoRedInk last fall to address the flagging performance of American students in writing and grammar proficiency - an area that is getting less attention now amidst the growing interest in STEM education as a potential solution to the country’s economic woes. Last year, the College Board reported that SAT scores in reading and writing have hit record lows, while this year, the state of New York revealed its new, Common Core-based test results, which found that only 31 percent of its students in third through eighth grade met the standard in language arts. The declining quality of humanities education (and student performance) in the U.S.
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