Platinum Equity Portco McGraw Hill Accelerated its Digital Transformation

EAST YORK, Pa. — Some things just came naturally to Jackson Lau.

Take math. For years, he cruised through the subject with ease, but then came fourth grade, and with it, geometry. Suddenly, math wasn’t so simple anymore.

His mother, Amy, watched as her son wrestled with tricky concepts like measuring angles and calculating the area of a shape. She worried that his confidence as a learner might waver.

But it didn’t.

A couple years ago, Wrightsville Elementary was one of two schools in the Eastern York (Pa.) School District to implement a suite of McGraw Hill digital tools that personalize learning for students. Thanks to a combination of data analytics, AI and human expertise, Jackson and his classmates aren’t just getting by, they’re excelling, according to school officials.

“When we came back from the pandemic, it was hard getting students engaged and learning,” said Keith Shoemaker, the district’s Director of Teaching and Learning. “(These tools) have proven to bring students back to the love of learning.”

“Students want to control their own learning,” Shoemaker added. “They don’t want a teacher up in the front talking the whole time and telling them where they’re going to go. They want to build their own learning path.”

The expected rise in digital learning was a major reason Platinum Equity acquired McGraw Hill in August 2021. Digital billings have grown steadily since acquisition and comprised 64% of total company billings during fiscal year 2024.

“Platinum was interested in McGraw Hill and their commitment to lead the transformation from paper to digital that was taking place across the education landscape,” Platinum Equity Co-President Jacob Kotzubei explained when the acquisition was announced.

Platinum Equity helps guide the next phase of growth

Many can recall opening a McGraw Hill textbook. But in recent years, McGraw Hill has evolved from a traditional textbook publisher to a leading provider of educational content through digital platforms.

It was a prescient move.

“What they had envisioned over a period of three to four years, we were able to come in and say, ‘Let’s do in 18 months.’ They embraced that and worked collaboratively with us to get it done.”
Jacob Kotzubei, Co-President, Platinum Equity

When the pandemic forced schools around the world to pivot to remote learning, McGraw Hill was positioned to create and deliver content and products to schools immediately via its digital platforms.

“We were able to position ourselves for growth by providing best-in-class educational materials, delivered in a way that students and teachers could work with during the pandemic,” McGraw Hill CEO Simon Allen said.

The dedication to digital has helped transform McGraw Hill’s operations into a digital-first business. Among the many improvements are optimized product delivery, new personalized learning tools and an overhauled delivery model that allows digital content to be updated quickly and in real time for its customers.

Kotzubei said: “What they had envisioned over a period of three to four years, we were able to come in and say, ‘Let’s do in 18 months.’ They embraced that and worked collaboratively with us to get it done.”

More recently, McGraw Hill has focused on leveraging generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools to enhance learning. The goal is to use the technology to deliver personalized learning experiences for students while also helping educators provide more effective support.

Strategic acquisitions have been key as well. Recently, McGraw Hill announced the acquisition of Essaypop, an interactive, cloud-based writing solution built by teachers to demystify writing in a way that is user-friendly and intuitive for both educators and students.

Engaging with all learners

Personalized learning has been the go-to approach in the Eastern York School District for the past five years. Essentially, it refers to meeting students where they are academically and helping them learn in a way that best fits their needs. By doing so, teachers are able to reach students of all skill levels.

However, in order to implement personalized learning, teachers must adapt their instruction for each of their students. If that sounds time- and labor-intensive, that’s because it is.

McGraw Hill Plus for PreK-12 eases those pain points by automating the process. It collects student performance data from a variety of sources — Reveal Math and ALEKS (both McGraw Hill products) and nationally normed assessments like NWEA — and aligns it to state standards and skills.

The data feeds the color-coded, interactive Standards and Skills Graph that shows how each learner — and the class as a whole — is progressing. Based on that information, teachers can adjust their lesson plans accordingly. Data is also leveraged to provide personalized assignments for each student as well as activities and resources for small groups.

Two schools in the district, Wrightsville Elementary and Kreutz Creek Elementary, piloted the platform for most of the 2023-24 school year in third, fourth and fifth grade math classes. The impact was obvious, said Wrightsville Elementary School Principal Andrew Pry.

Most notably was the sense of ownership the kids had over their learning and the confidence they felt when they mastered a new skill or standard. That helped students grow at their own pace and also stay motivated.

“When we can make learning transparent to students, where they recognize what they need and what they don’t have yet, the students can start to make instructional choices for themselves,” Pry said. “They can say, ‘That’s something I need to work on.’ Motivating kids to want to do something is half the battle, and this helps to innately motivate them.”

Teachers are also benefitting from the platform, as it helps lighten their already-heavy workloads. Using data analytics, Hannah Zeiset, a learning support teacher at Wrightsville, more easily creates differentiated small groupings, which are an essential part of personalized learning. She also spends less time finding resources to satisfy the different needs of students.

“Within McGraw Hill Plus, there are a lot of resources that meet students at their level,” she said. “It allows the teacher to create almost mini lessons within one skill of learning. I might be leading a small group that’s working on more basic math facts, while another group on the higher end of learning that topic might be more independent or online.”

“So it provides a lot of differentiated resources, allowing us to provide learners with a lot of different ways to learn,” she adds. “It’s not all just one size fits all.”

This level of personalization doesn’t just help students who need extra support, like Jackson. It also serves advanced learners like Creighton Moline. A few months into third grade, the then 9-year-old had already finished fourth grade math.

Creighton’s parents, Jamie and Craig, had a hunch that their son would surely become bored in class. Jamie remembers thinking, “We’re in trouble.”

Their concerns were unfounded. In fact, personalized learning helped keep Creighton engaged and challenged. By spring, he had progressed to 6th and 7th grade math.

“The fact that we can see he’s already so far into the middle school curriculum — it makes me glad there’s a system that helps him do that,” Craig said. “It also makes me glad the school and the district can see that and find a way to help him continue to progress.”