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CEOCFO Monthly Analyst |
Renaissance Learning, Inc., - helping educators improve schools through technology and research.
Technology Renaissance Learning, Inc. PO Box 8036 CEOCFOinterviews,com BIO OF CEOMichael H. Baum, Chief Executive Officer
Mike joined Renaissance Learning, Inc. in 1994 as Managing Director of Renaissance Learning’s professional development division in Madison, Wis. From 1995-1996 he served as President of Renaissance Learning, Inc. Prior to joining Renaissance Learning, Inc., Mike was Executive Vice President and General Manager of Francorp, Inc., an international management-consulting firm based in Chicago. Before his ten-year association with Francorp, Baum spent a number of years in direct mail merchandising management. Baum holds B.A. and Master of Arts in Teaching degrees from Yale University and has taught in the New Haven, Conn., public schools. He received an MBA from Northwestern University in 1993. About Formerly
known as Advantage Learning Systems, Renaissance Learning is a leading provider of school
improvement for Pre-K to 12 schools. Its software products, called learning information
systems, help educators improve academic performance by increasing the quality, quantity,
and timeliness of information in the classroom. Its
Renaissance™ teacher training programs have helped over 300,000 educators use this
information more effectively to accelerate learning.
Founded in 1986, Renaissance Learning
has key product offerings in reading, math, writing, and early literacy
assessment. Mr. Baum: Renaissance Learning started as many companies do, at a
kitchen table . Our founder Judi Paul, who
lived at the time in Port Edwards, Wisconsin, had four kids who were not reading as much
good literature as Judi felt they should. She’d
been trained as an elementary educator, so she devised a plan for having them select books
off lists of books appropriate for each child’s reading level. Then she had them take a short quiz after they
read each book to make sure that they had read and understood what they read. The kids
started reading so many books, that with the help of her husband Terry she put it on a
computer. Neighborhood kids started using
the program too, then a neighboring school picked it up. In
1986 they went into the mail order business selling the product, which they called
Accelerated Reader, to schools. From that beginning in the basement of their home, the
company has grown one school at a time and even one teacher at a time, to where we are now
in over 55,000 schools, with well over 500,000 educators using both our software and our
training approaches. We, believe we reach 10 to 15 million children every day. We are now
in not only reading, but also in math, getting into writing and other areas of language
arts, with other areas of the curriculum on the way. CEOCFOinterviews – What is your most recent and exciting news?
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