Amplify (company)

Amplify (formerly Wireless Generation) is a curriculum and assessment company founded in 2000. It provides assessment and analytics for data-driven instruction and digital curriculum based on the Common Core State Standards.

History

Wireless Generation was founded in 2000 by Larry Berger and Greg Gunn. The company sold its products and services to districts and states that used government funding for early reading and other programs. It also developed and maintained the New York City online warehouse of student data ARIS, and wrote the algorithm for the School of One, the New York City Department of Education's math help system. Berger served as the CEO of Wireless Generation until it was sold to News Corporation in 2010.

News Corp purchased a 90% stake in Wireless Generation for $360 million in 2010. At the time of the sale, the users of Wireless Generation software included three million students and 200,000 educators. Following the acquisition, News Corp invested $540 million into Amplify in order to expand its digital and tablet-based curriculum.

Joel Klein, former chancellor for the New York City Department of Education and an executive vice-president with News Corp served as the Wireless Generation's new CEO. As CEO, Klein stated that the company's goal was to encourage the integration of computer technology into the common educational environment.

In 2012, News Corp changed the name of its subsidiary to Amplify. That year, Amplify partnered with Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium to develop reporting tools for teacher assessment. In 2013, they partnered again to create a digital library of formative test items and assessment tools.

In 2013, Amplify released the Amplify Tablet, a customized Asus Android tablet with a suite of subscription-based software for K-12 teaching. The company released a new version of the Amplify Tablet designed by Intel in 2014. In 2015, the company ceased marketing the tablet to new customers.Sean Cavanagh
"News Corp. Announces Plans to Wind Down Amplifyís Tablet Business,""MarketBrief"
August 13, 2015.

Amplify partnered with the Core Knowledge Foundation to publish and distribute materials across the US for its Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) program and its Spanish counterpart Caminos. The CKLA program teaches language comprehension and literacy to students in preschool through Grade 5. It includes material related to literature, American history, and the sciences.

In October 2015, News Corp sold Amplify to a management team supported by a group of private investors, including Emerson Collective. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Larry Berger became CEO.

In 2018, ''Fast Company'' reported that Amplify's revenue was $125 million and served almost 4 million students. Also that year, the company released two digital supplemental programs, Amplify Close Reading and Amplify Fractions.

In May 2022, Amplify acquired the Desmos curriculum and the website teacher.desmos.com. Desmos Studio was spun off as a separate public benefit corporation focused on building free-to-use math tools, such as an online graphing calculator.

As of 2022, the company's mCLASS learning assessment and dyslexia screening was administered to a total of around 1.6 million students in some 35 states.

See also

*Education in the United States
* Mathematics education in the United States

References

External links

*

News Corp. Education Tablet: For The Love Of Learning?
David Folkenflik, March 8, 2013

{{Authority control

2012 establishments in New York City
Educational technology companies of the United States
2000 establishments in New York City
Companies based in Brooklyn