Newsela
Newsela is a literacy-focused edtech startup company founded by Matthew Gross. It offers leveled and standards-aligned informational content that is available in English and Spanish. Newsela serves 90% of schools, including over 37 million K-12 students and 2.5 million teachers. Newsela news content is free with a registered account and additional resources are available by subscription. The content is designed to engage students, facilitate differentiated instruction and align to state education standards. The company has been named one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies two years in a row and one of Deloitte's Fastest Growing  Tech Companies two years in a row. Background. History. While former teacher Matthew Gross was working on the Common Core standards rollout in New York, he was disappointed to discover outdated textbooks that were labeled "Common Core-Aligned". One of Gross's own children struggled with reading and after meeting with his son's assistant principal, Gross decided to start Newsela in 2013 because he felt like she had given up on his son and he wanted to make a larger impact in education. Partnerships. Newsela's ongoing partnership with The Virginia School Consortium for Learning (VaSCL) enables members to  access Newsela content, technology and professional learning at a discounted rate, as of December 2020. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Newsela is in a partnership with NWEA to automatically show teachers content at each student's reading level once they have completed the MAP Growth assessment test. BrainPop and Newsela formed a partnership on October 10, 2017. Users can access Newsela's resources directly from BrainPop topic pages. Newsela editor-in-chief Jennifer Coogan partnered with the American Press Institute to help combat Fake news websites in the United States in October 2016. Features. Newsela offers high-interest news  articles that can be customized to match a student's reading level. Newsela's over 14,000 texts come from more than 175 publishers, including the Associated Press and Encyclopedia Britannica and the company offers supplemental instructional materials, including assessments, lessons and professional development. English language arts (ELA), Social Studies, Science and Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) content are available in English and Spanish. Other versions. Due to concerns about mature content, Newsela has created Newsela Elementary. It is like the original website, but only contains articles geared toward elementary students. Newsela also created Newsela PRO, a paid upgrade for teachers  to use more features. Reception. Common Sense Media Education reviewer Patricia Monticello Kievlan rated Newsela five stars. External links. Webinar About BrainPop and Newsela Partnership