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Arizona Allocates $1.5M of American Rescue Plan Funding Dollars to A.I.-Powered Reading Tutor, Amira

Grant enables Arizona teachers to use trusted, research-backed technology at no cost to expand learning opportunities and support students in need in 2022 and beyond


San Francisco, CA, USA – WEBWIRE

“We’re thankful to the State of Arizona for the opportunity to work with their teachers and support students as they strive to reach their reading and educational goals,” said Mark Angel, CEO and Co-Founder of Amira Learning. “Our mission is to make every child a masterful reader, and this new relationship will help us make good on this promise.”

Amira Learning, the first-of-its-kind voice A.I.-powered reading tutor for children, announces today that it has secured $1.5 million in funding from the State of Arizona as a part of the state’s efforts to better learning opportunities in the aftermath of the pandemic. 

In August 2021, the State of Arizona allocated $64.9M in federal funding for education improvement as the state recovers from the pandemic’s adverse effects on elementary education. Through this grant, teachers and students now have free access to Amira, the A.I. tutor proven to be as effective as (and sometimes more than) a human reading tutor. The $1.5 million in American Rescue Plan funding allocated to Amira unlocks the opportunity for students to receive individualized reading intervention based on their unique areas of struggle without requiring 1:1 time with their teacher.

Amira is a breakthrough innovation, solving a crisis hiding in plain sight: six in ten children are not proficient in reading. Similarly, only 40% of students read at grade level in Arizona, according to Stand, an Arizona public education advocacy group. Even before the pandemic, two-thirds of fourth-graders weren’t proficient readers, and more than 80% of Black and Hispanic students are struggling readers.

Children who fail to become fluent readers by third grade are 4X more likely to drop out of school and earn 40% less over their lifetime. This literacy gap is a root cause of wealth disparity, unemployment, and racial and gender inequality. A goal of this massive funding allocation to education development at all levels is to elevate Arizona from its current ranking of third lowest public school systems in the United States.

Major universities, researchers, companies, and non-profits such as the Barbara Bush Foundation, Carnegie Mellon University, Stellenbosch University, Johns Hopkins, The University of Texas Health Science Center, Google, and Amazon Alexa have helped shape Amira’s intelligent tutoring technology. As a result, Amira is now the first widely adopted A.I. application in the K-5 space, with usage spanning all 50 states and eight countries. 

“We’re thankful to the State of Arizona for the opportunity to work with their teachers and support students as they strive to reach their reading and educational goals,” said Mark Angel, CEO and Co-Founder of Amira Learning. “Our mission is to make every child a masterful reader, and this new relationship will help us make good on this promise.”

Trusted by 375+ districts in 8 markets, including the U.S., Canada, Brazil, India, and Singapore, Amira is the world’s first A.I.-powered reading coach, proven to double the pace of reading growth for kids. Amira listens to children read aloud, identifies errors, and provides real-time feedback using proven tutoring techniques. Research conducted by Carnegie Mellon University, among other universities, has shown Amira to meet the gold standard for ESSA “Strong” evidence. Additionally, Amira offers its software in Spanish and introduced the first Spanish language screener reporting benchmarks and reading outcomes with the same level of validity as the English version.

Arizona educators interested in what Amira can do for their students can visit https://www.amiralearning.com/arizona to sign up, see a demo, and learn more.

About Amira Learning
Amira Learning has developed the world’s first intelligent reading assistant that encourages children to read aloud, assesses their skills, and tutors them to accelerate reading mastery. Founded by a team of former engineers and executives from Pearson, IBM, ACT, and Renaissance, and built from a foundation of 20 years of research from Carnegie Mellon University, the company’s mission is to help close the 43 million person literacy gap in America by creating personalized and engaging reading experiences for children.

Headquartered in San Francisco, Amira has raised more than $20M from investors, including Owl Ventures, Vertical Venture Partners, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Authentic Ventures, Outcomes Collective, Google Assistant Fund, Amazon Alexa Fund, ReThink Education, and GSV AcceleraTE, and is currently being used by more than 1,800 schools, reaching almost 400,000 students across the country. To learn more about Amira, visit amiralearning.com.

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 Amira Learning
 Arizona
 Artificial Intelligence
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 Edtech


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