Dive Brief:
- Tech software company Harris School Solutions has purchased ClassMate, a company that specializes in career, technical, adult, alternative education, special education, and vocational rehabilitation programming.
- The acquisition will let Harris zero in on solutions for customers wanting secondary and post-secondary career and technical educations.
- Classmate, based in Pennsylvania, currently has customers in that state, as well as New York, Ohio, and Georgia. Its product is billed as an "administration and curriculum management solution" aimed at helping to break down student data and keep assessments and curriculum organized.
Dive Insight:
We are seeing a rise in districts wanting to bring vocational as well as career and technical education programs to their schools. In November, New Jersey’s latest School Performance Reports found that nearly 20% of the state's high school students were enrolled in at least one career and technical class during the 2013-14 school year. At the same time online learning solutions provider Edmentum announced that it was adding 70 career and technical education (CTE) courses to its platform for the 2015-16 school year. When the company made the announcement, it credited the decision to the growing importance of technical education, pointing to data from the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium (NASDCTEc), which found that 12.5 million students take part in CTE courses each year.
This trend is also highlighted on a state policy level: In June, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder approved an amendment that allows students to take welding or another career and technical education class in place of the traditional Algebra II requirement to graduate.