Amplify partners with Core Knowledge; acquires rights to new language arts program

(Brooklyn, NY, April 17, 2013) Amplify Learning is pleased to announce it has signed an exclusive license agreement with the Core Knowledge Foundation for 20-year rights to its widely respected Core Knowledge Language Arts® program for grades for K–3.

Known for its scientifically based content and approach, Core Knowledge’s influential work anticipated the Common Core State Standards, so its practices and philosophy are true to the rigorous spirit of the standards and exemplify the manner in which they ought to be implemented.

Through this partnership with Core Knowledge, Amplify Learning will develop and market to schools nationwide a unique, effective reading and language arts program for grades K–3 that will expand to include grades 4 and 5. Amplify Learning is one of three divisions within Amplify, a company committed to re-imagining the way teachers teach and students learn.

The Core Knowledge approach teaches students about the world with engaging fiction and nonfiction content from the sciences, history, and the arts. As students acquire skills in reading and writing, they also develop the broad vocabulary and background knowledge that will allow them to read with comprehension and think critically. From Aztecs to fables to the solar system, from basic sound and spelling patterns to essays based on close reading, Core Knowledge Language Arts® has everything students need to get on the path to college and career readiness—and everything teachers need to meet the Common Core standards.

The rigorous and engaging Core Knowledge Language Arts® program will initially be offered as a print product, to be supplemented with digital enhancements as early as by the next school year. Through its ongoing digital strategy to build dynamic, interactive and academically rigorous curriculum, Amplify Learning will evolve the Core Knowledge Language Arts® program to a full digital format over time.

Amplify Learning is building a fully integrated, adaptive, digital curriculum that will enable educators to meet the rigorous goals set by the Common Core standards and strive to narrow the achievement gap. Its products are designed for tomorrow’s promise and today’s realities. The company is creating exciting new approaches to teaching and learning that are: as immersive as the best films; as compelling as the best video games; as social as the best networking applications; as personal as the best tutors; and as analytically sophisticated as the best search engines.

Together, Amplify and the Core Knowledge Foundation are looking forward to ensuring that students across the country meet the Common Core standards and graduate from high school college and career ready.

Using its long-term rights to the Core Knowledge Language Arts® program, Amplify will continue its work as a leading education innovator and bring additional fresh, technologically advanced products to the marketplace that are founded upon this highly regarded and academically robust material.

Said Josh Reibel, Chief Executive of Amplify Learning and Amplify Insight, “With its deep academic experience, Core Knowledge has spent years addressing the same set of educational issues that today drive the Common Core. We’re excited to now have the exclusive opportunity to market these resources more widely and to use them over time to offer even more transformative educational products that are all Common Core aligned.”

Added Reibel, “What’s more, the Core Knowledge Sequence, and its esteemed, knowledge-building language arts program, are an especially good fit with our groundbreaking development of an all new digital curriculum that is academically rigorous and engaging for kids.”

The path to college, or a rewarding career, begins in early childhood. Core Knowledge puts all students on that path. Combining well-established findings from cognitive science with classroom-based feedback from hundreds of teachers, Core Knowledge has created a successful academic model for preschool through eighth grade. Researchers established decades ago that reading comprehension and critical thinking are only possible with relevant prior knowledge. Over the past 25 years, the organization has identified the essential, foundational knowledge, vocabulary and skills children need to learn and organized them for efficient and effective teaching in a grade-by-grade, age-appropriate sequence.

Said Linda Bevilacqua, president of the Core Knowledge Foundation. “As we surveyed the landscape of education innovators to work with us on expanding Core Knowledge and incorporating our philosophy into new digital tools, we determined that Amplify had extraordinary capacity to enhance and deepen the Core Knowledge learning experience. Unlike its competitors, Amplify understands that in order to improve teaching and learning, technology must be a means to an end, not an end in itself—a means to enhancing effective educational practice, as they have demonstrated with their successful assessment and intervention tools for teachers, such as mClass.” Bevilacqua said, “Amplify’s approach will give teachers and students an even more efficient and effective platform for building essential knowledge. Their digital expertise with the Foundation’s expertise in curriculum development will provide the basis for extraordinary collaboration.”

About Amplify
Amplify is working to transform the way teachers teach and students learn. We are changing the realities of today’s classroom experience by leading the way in data-driven instruction, breaking new ground in mobile learning and paving the way for the next generation of digital curriculum and assessment. We’ve helped over 200,000 educators and three million students in all 50 states begin their digital transition through mobile assessment solutions, adaptive curricula, and tools that harness the power of data for classroom teachers. Headquartered in New York City with more than 1,000 employees across the country, Amplify is led by a team of digital education experts and has provided industry-leading instructional tools, data analytics and assessment solutions to the K–12 market for more than a decade as Wireless Generation, now a part of Amplify. Learn more at www.Amplify.com.

About Core Knowledge

Educational excellence and equity demand a strong foundation of knowledge for all children—and a coherent plan for teaching what every child needs to know. The Core Knowledge Foundation publishes and distributes a wide variety of education books and materials for educators and parents. At the heart of all of our products is the Core Knowledge Sequence, a detailed outline of recommended curricular content to be taught in language arts, history and geography, mathematics, science, music, and the visual arts from preschool through grade eight. We also support a nationwide network of Core Knowledge schools with instructional materials and professional development workshops. Learn more at www.coreknowledge.org.

Amplify CKLA Background knowledge Curriculum Early literacy ELA Elementary school

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