Karl Rectanus

Karl Rectanus

SVP, K-12 Strategy

Karl is an educator, entrepreneur, and active advisor to policy, innovation, education, and business leaders. He co-founded and led LearnPlatform (one of Fast Company’s 2023 Most Innovative Companies), whose ground-breaking work in measuring edtech impact created a market category and industry standard for evidence. Karl now leads the K-12 strategy for Instructure, which LearnPlatform joined in 2022. Karl is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a James M. Johnston Scholar. He has been named a North Carolina Teaching Fellow, BMW Herbert Quandt Transatlantic Fellow, and Education Policy Fellow. Karl and his family make their home in Raleigh, North Carolina.

More From Karl Rectanus

Jul 07, 2022
Seizing the Opportunity: Focusing on Evidence in K-12 Education
Reflections Post-ISTELive 2022 Our team was thrilled to be back in person for ISTELive 22, which was packed with educators, administrators and solution providers from around the world. It was exciting to dive into topics that span the world of K-12 edtech, from digital creation and tutoring support to the importance of SEL and measuring solution impact.  There is an appetite and opportunity as we emerge from the pandemic to focus on evidence and innovation – let’s seize it.  K Read More...
Mar 09, 2022
The Importance of Building a Capacity for Evidence as a Solutions Provider
It’s no secret that the use of edtech in schools is constantly evolving and impacting the way students learn and educators teach. With digital learning tools continuing to be a major factor in K-12 education, effectively demonstrating what's working for students and teachers is critical.  In this webinar, our team discussed this topic from the perspective of two solution providers – they shared thoughts on modernizing learning by building evidence into their everyday operations, and Read More...
Sep 10, 2021
What New Report Tells Districts about EdTech Use in First Full Year with COVID
Here are the facts: U.S. school districts accessed an average of 1,449 edtech products each month during the 2020-2021 school year (September 1, 2020 through May 31, 2021) according to the 2021 EdTech Top 40 report released today. The report analyzed more than 44 billion data points, analyzing engagement with 8,600+ different education technology tools by more than 2 million students, 250,000 educators across 2,800 organizations. 3 Takeaways for District & State Leaders Our 4th annual Read More...
Jun 09, 2021
Required Infrastructure for Safe, Equitable and Cost-Effective Learning This Fall
The emergency transition to remote learning of all schools this spring in response to the COVID-19 pandemic exposed significant challenges and inequities across districts and states.  While some districts and states bounced back quicker than others, the fundamental barriers, educator capacity and resulting digital learning equity gaps that emerged have most educators, administrators, policy-makers and parents asking, “What do we have to do to make sure the fall doesn’t feel like this Read More...
May 25, 2020
The Exponential Growth of the Digital Divide
Quantifying the impact of access and engagement on growing digital learning equity gaps during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially on lower wealth, higher minority K-12 school districts  The impact of educators, environment, access, wealth and background have long been important factors in equity, learning and outcomes. In the recent emergency transition to remote learning across the United States in response to COVID-19, the digital divide and its impacts are critical to understand. Read More...
May 31, 2020
To Close the Digital Divide, Districts Measure Engagement and Effectiveness, Not Just Access
With the massive transition to remote instruction since March 15, our analyses have shown an expanding digital divide between students accessing online learning technologies and students not accessing any remote learning technology.   The Education Trust, Digital Promise, AEI, Chiefs for Change and many other respected organizations have outlined broad and significant challenges for Schools in COVID19 Response, including a needed focus on increasing access to devices and Read More...

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