'High tech, high touch' classrooms are the future, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt CEO says

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt CEO Jack Lynch joins Yahoo Finance Live to examine the challenges young students face from losing traditional classroom experiences in the post-pandemic, and how educators aim to focus on human connection while incorporating technology into the classroom.

Video transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

JARED BLIKRE: Welcome back. The pandemic's toll on education is mounting. And a recent report by McKinsey and Co. tallies the cumulative learning loss, finding that in math in particular, students will likely have lost five to nine months of math learning by the end of the school year. The learning gap for students of color expected to be even bigger. Jack Lynch, HMH CEO joins us now.

And Jack, could you tell us a little bit about your company and what you're doing specifically to address some of these learning shortfalls?

JACK LYNCH: Yeah, thanks, Jared, for having me. HMH is a learning technology company and really the largest education company in K-12. And as you pointed out, right now, we are experiencing significant learning loss, what we call interrupted learning. And also, as you pointed out, on average, that means most students in math are five months or more behind. And most students are four months behind in reading.

And what's more difficult is that those students who started the pandemic below grade level are even further behind than the average student. So as a result, school districts are turning to HMH for our research-based intervention solutions in increasing numbers. And that's been a big part of our growth story this year, especially our annual recurring revenue. That's grown 123% this year, in part because of intervention, the need for intervention and solutions to help address the effects of interrupted learning through the pandemic.

AKIKO FUJITA: Jack, we're several months into the new school year. Really, the first time that so many of these students return to in-person classes. What are you finding in terms of that gap you just pointed to and how teachers are having to adapt the way they teach their students, given the one-year absence that they had with virtual learning?

JACK LYNCH: Yeah, great question. I think if you think about the classroom prior to the pandemic, we had two students for every device in a classroom. Now we're nearly one to one in this school year.

We also had what I would call technology-hesitant teachers pre-pandemic. And during remote learning, they had to become very proficient in technology. And now they're technology fluent. But as we just discussed, the pandemic has left in its wake a number of challenges with students behind in reading and math, also kids feeling isolated and craving greater connection with not only their teacher but their peers.

So when we came into the school year, we now have kids who have access to a device. We now have teachers that are far more proficient in the use of technology than ever before. And we think we're entering a new era of what we call high-tech, high-touch education, so an era that's really powered by technology, yet really centered on human connection.

And we think technology can do a lot in saving teachers time and help helping them focus on where they can have the biggest impact in learning. And so for example, having assessments auto-graded, personalizing instruction for students, regardless of where they are on achievement spectrum, but also leveraging technology to amplify human connection, giving teachers greater insight to the social and emotional well-being of their students.

AKIKO FUJITA: Jack, you've mentioned this intervention that HMH has assisted with, given this divide that's opened up as a result of the pandemic. What specifically does that intervention look like? And from a business standpoint, what has that meant for your growth?

JACK LYNCH: Yeah. And I think we all know, having been in K-12 education or the parents of kids that are going through the system, that if you're in a classroom, every student is different in terms of their achievement level. And so one of the things that is really important in our intervention solutions is to assess where students are on that achievement spectrum and then what they're ready to learn next.

So you have to use adaptive sequencing to first assess where they are and then provide the lesson that is really tailored to their specific achievement level to help advance their learning. So it's technology that uses adaptive sequencing but also is blended.

So a big part of reading, for example, is becoming proficient through independent reading, just reading a book that is at your reading level to become more proficient. So it's a blend of those kind of analog and digital components in one integrated solution.

JARED BLIKRE: But Jack, if I look around and look at the different pieces and try to put them together there, we have the rise of the metaverse. We have the rise of these digital technologies that bring people together. We have the advancements that you've talked about. But I think it still seems to me, we're still pretty far from any kind of purely digital solution, not that that's even the goal.

I'm just wondering, how far are we in the technological phase of making kids comfortable being in at least a hybrid environment?

JACK LYNCH: Yeah, I think that's a great question, Jared, because I think that's kind of where we are. Access to a computing device is no longer a limiting factor to digital instruction. But nothing is going to replace project-based learning, where students are going to pair up together and work on a science project. Or nothing is going to replace whole class discussion, where all the students participate in a discussion about a particular poem or non-fiction article.

And so what we're seeing and what we're going to continue to see, I think, is really the benefit of the social gathering of the classroom but augmented by technology in a more significant way than it ever has been before.

Now that we're one-to-one in terms of students to devices or at least nearly one-to-one, you still have 25 to one, the ratio of students to a teacher. And so a teacher can leverage technology to meet the needs of each and every one of the students while still orchestrating a learning experience that benefits by the social gathering of the classroom.

AKIKO FUJITA: HMH CEO Jack Lynch, it's good to talk to you. Just fascinating to see how much the world of education has really changed over the last year and a half or so. It's good to have you on the show.