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A Focus on Impact

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Our portfolio companies spend every day removing obstacles and working to overcome challenges students and workers have to get a good education and a good job.

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Mar 14, 2025

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News & Updates

News Roundup - 3/14

The latest edtech, workforce tech, and venture capital news. Our weekly roundup of education technology, workforce technology, and...

Mar 13, 2025

3

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K2 Integrity

How Consilient Is Innovating Financial Crime Prevention With AI featuring K2 Integrity's Juan Zarate

According to noted national security expert Juan Zarate , financial institutions have been in dire need of updated management...

Mar 13, 2025

3

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Mantra Health

Mantra Health and Single Stop Announce Partnership to Support Student Mental Health and Basic Needs

Mantra Health announces partnership with Single Stop, the leading technology platform dedicated to connecting individuals and families...

Mar 11, 2025

2

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Censia

Censia’s Workday Integration is now live, offering a solution revolutionize Skills-Based Workforce Transformation

Censia, a Workday Ventures partner, today announced that it has achieved Workday Certified Integration status, and the Censia Employee...

Mar 8, 2025

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Climb Credit

Climb Credit: Fueling Career Training With Accessible Financing

Imagine you have a clear goal: to get a promotion at work, or to even get a whole new job you love. The only thing standing between you...

Mar 7, 2025

4

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News & Updates

News Roundup - 3/7

Our weekly roundup of education technology, workforce technology, and venture capital news. In 2025, more than ever, technology is...

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Don’t Call Them Truant Officers Anymore

Schools turn absenteeism problem over to private companies and ‘professional student advocates’

That school absenteeism remains sky-high after the pandemic has been well documented. But a story by ProPublica and the New Yorker adds a new wrinkle to the narrative: More schools across the US are turning to private companies to try to get kids back in the classroom. And their focus is not on punishment but on encouragement. One person profiled is Shepria Johnson, who works for a company called Concentric Educational Solutions and spends her day knocking on the doors of homes in the Detroit area where absentee students live. When a parent asks if she’s a truant officer, she replies, “No, I’m a professional student advocate,” using the company term. “If you’re a truant officer, they’re defensive,” she says. “They automatically assume you’re here to get them in trouble.”


The story digs into the dynamics at play: Generally speaking, municipalities across the US have shifted away from hard-ball tactics against parents of truant students. While some still enforce the matter as a criminal offense, most are now “largely abdicating any role” in absenteeism, per the story. The pandemic has intensified the problem—absenteeism has roughly doubled since then—but the issue has “attracted surprisingly little attention from leaders, elected or otherwise, and education coverage in the national media has focused heavily on culture-war fights,” writes Alec MacGillis. Companies like Concentric are attempting to fill the void.


Johnson, for example, sees her role as figuring out the challenges of individual families—often one-parent households with low incomes—and trying to find ways to help.

Read full story here.



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