Larry Singer Named Chief Executive Officer of the K-12 OER Collaborative

    CUPERTINO, CA, August 28, 2015 /24-7PressRelease/ -- The K-12 OER Collaborative, an organization dedicated to increasing the quality and effectiveness of K-12 instructional materials while substantially reducing their cost to school districts nationwide, today announced that Larry Singer has been named its CEO. The Collaborative is part of The Learning Accelerator's incubation portfolio, and is a key component of its mission to transform K-12 education nationwide.

"Larry Singer has tremendous experience and expertise about the sector that will dramatically elevate the impact of the K-12 OER Collaborative," said Scott Ellis, CEO of The Learning Accelerator. "His knowledge about district purchasing processes for instructional materials will help us achieve the widespread adoption of open education resources that is critical for us to reach our goals in transforming learning for students across the country. There is tremendous potential for OER to become integrated in the daily work of districts, and we are very excited to have Larry joining the team to help make that happen."

Larry Singer is an experienced leader in the publishing and information technology industries. Singer has more than 30 years sales experience in the U.S. public sector and K-12 schools. Singer previously served as the Managing Director for K-12 North America Sales at Pearson Education. Prior to joining Pearson, he held roles as a Vice President at HP, a member of the Executive Management Group at Sun Microsystems, and the state of Georgia's first Chief Information Officer.

The Learning Accelerator additionally announced that effective immediately, the K-12 OER Collaborative will operate as a substantially independent entity, while receiving a range of continuing support from The Learning Accelerator.

"The K-12 OER Collaborative is transforming teaching and learning by offering superior digital curricula that can improve on the traditional, outdated textbook model," said Larry Singer, CEO of the K-12 OER Collaborative. "As the organization's new leader, I'm looking forward to driving the commercial success of OER as a competitive option in the education market through a public procurement process. The Collaborative has received tremendous support from The Learning Accelerator and our partnership is helping to catalyze the widespread adoption of personalized learning on a national scale."

The K-12 OER Collaborative is made up of a group of 12 states and numerous nonprofits, with the goal of creating free resources designed to enable all students to master foundational skills and knowledge to achieve college and career readiness. States in the collaborative include Arizona, California, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Utah, Wisconsin and Washington. The Collaborative recently completed a review of prototype units in mathematics and English Language Arts and will be releasing the results of that review and certain units later this fall.

Earlier this year, the Collaborative also hired Karl Nelson as its Chief Operating Officer. Before joining the Collaborative, Nelson served as the Director of the Washington State Digital Learning Department, earning recognition as one of the nation's premier digital learning experts and becoming a leading advocate for open education resources.

About the K-12 OER Collaborative
The K-12 OER Collaborative is an initiative led by a group of 12 states with the goal of creating comprehensive, high-quality, open educational resources (OER) supporting K-12 mathematics and English language arts that are aligned with state learning standards. For more information please visit www.k12oercollaborative.org.

About the Learning Accelerator
The Learning Accelerator is the catalyst transforming American K-12 education through blended learning on a national scale. Learn more at www.learningaccelerator.org.

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