Our Story

After teaching English for 15 years in Chicago, Eileen Murphy left the classroom in order to have a broader impact at the district’s central office. But while working with more than 100,000 students across CPS, she realized that the challenge of preparing students for life after school was not being addressed by existing solutions.

For students to succeed in today’s ever-changing world, they need to know how to consume information, think about it critically, and express their thoughts effectively. Eileen knew a higher-quality technology solution was needed.

In the early years, you could only find paper-based versions of ThinkCERCA in classrooms across Chicago while we were testing out our curriculum with teachers and students. But after being accepted into Impact Engine's first accelerator program for social impact startups in the fall of 2012, we built and launched the online version our product in April 2013.

Our focus has always remained on producing positive student outcomes. In fact, it’s our results that set us apart from other literacy solutions. In a recent evaluation of 26 ed-tech products, ThinkCERCA had the largest impact on student reading growth, which was four times higher than the next best company in the study. In addition, an Atlantic Research Partners study of 102 Chicago schools revealed that ThinkCERCA helps students achieve 1.5 to 2.5 of years of reading growth.