John Katzman

John Katzman (born October 10, 1959) is an American EdTech pioneer. He has established a number of companies which assist students with their studies and career choices, including Princeton Review, 2U, and Noodle Partners. The last two companies are online program managers (OPMs). Katzman has also authored books on the subject.

Early life

Katzman was born in New York City in 1959, and grew up there with brother Richard, and sister, Julie. Katzman went to Birch Wathen, a small independent school, from kindergarten through high school. He attended Princeton University, where he majored in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) and then switched to the school of Architecture. He started tutoring in sophomore year to pay his expenses, and continued through college. Katzman graduated from Princeton University with an A.B. in architecture in 1981 after completing a senior thesis titled "The Dead Tree Gives No Shelter."

Career

The Princeton Review (1981-2007)

Katzman was the co-founder of The Princeton Review, which initially taught SAT preparation to high-school students in New York City. He started the company in 1981 shortly after leaving college, then partnered with Adam Robinson to develop it, and served as the company’s CEO until 2007. He authored and coauthored a number of books for the company, including ''Cracking the SAT'', a New York Times bestseller, and created products and services in several media.

2U (2008-2012)

In 2008, Katzman founded 2U, an educational technology company that partners with leading nonprofit colleges and universities, such as the University of Southern California, Georgetown University, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to offer online degree programs. He served as the company’s CEO until January 2012. Katzman shifted to Executive Chairman in January 2012, and left in August to help build Noodle. Like The Princeton Review, 2U became a Russell 2000 company.

Noodle (2010–present)

In 2010, Katzman created The Noodle Companies, a studio with multiple subsidiary, Noodle-branded education companies.

Noodle.com provides a search tool for parents and students to find information on educational resources.

Noodle Partners helps universities bring degree programs online, and now works with over twenty US universities including University of Virginia, Tulane University, New York University, and Boston College. In 2017, Noodle reinvented the OPM model so that universities retained greater academic and financial ownership over their programs.

Noodle Pros connects students and parents with high-performing tutors.

In 2021 at the ASU GSV conference, CEO John Katzman announced that Noodle would be getting into the lifelong learning space and workforce learning space, suggesting its MOOC competitors 2U and edX had done little for the consumers who used their courses.

The Noodle Companies and its subsidiaries have raised over $60 million from venture firms and individuals, including Katzman himself.

Other interests

Katzman has been involved in the founding of several other education companies, including Tutor.com, Student Advantage, and Eat New York, an early software-based restaurant guide. He is an angel investor in two dozen education technology ventures, and has served on the boards or advisory boards of several others including the National Association of Independent Schools, th
National Alliance of Public Charter Schools
The Institute for Citizens & Scholars, Carnegie Learning, and Renaissance Learning.

Issue advocacy

Despite being the founder of a business based on the preparation of students for a wide range of standardized tests, Katzman is an outspoken critic of the modern preoccupation with standardized testing. He has argued that many tests are no better indicator of achievement in the relevant fields than grades and scores on other tests (such as the Advanced Placement exams). He has also been outspoken in his opposition to the Common Core and tests based on it. He demands better outcomes from for-profit education providers. He often speaks on topics related to online education and the measurement of academic achievement.

Katzman and his wife pledged $1.5 million to help fund the Katzman/Ernst Chair in Educational Entrepreneurship, Technology and Innovation, an endowed chair in the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education to train and certify teachers for urban schools.

Awards

Katzman was a recipient of the 2018 ASU GSV Lifetime Achievement Award, which "honors individuals whose lives have had a profound impact in changing the world for good".

Controversy

Cybersquatting

At Princeton Review, Katzman was one of the first cybersquatters on the Internet. In 1994, he registered Kaplan.com, and then taunted that competitor by encouraging visitors to tell their stories about the company on that page. The case went to arbitration, where he offered to sell the domain for a case of beer; Kaplan declined, and was awarded the domain, leading Katzman to state that "The folks at Kaplan have no imagination, no sense of humor and no beer."

Online and for-profit education

As a founder of both 2U and its major competitor, Noodle Partners, Katzman is often mentioned in articles and discussions surrounding the Online Program Management (OPM) industry. At 2U, Katzman popularized the revenue-share model in which OPMs take a percentage of a university’s tuition revenue in exchange for program management. This business model is debated among higher education constituents and policymakers but remains popular today. A 2019 article by Kevin Carey published in the Huffington Post names Katzman as the impetus for the development of the entire OPM industry and some of the issues that have since arisen, including revenue-share and runaway digital marketing costs. Katzman, Carey says, is now fighting to change the tuition-splitting practices that he created. In 2020, however, Noodle Partners teamed up with Strategic Education to use WorkForceEdge, a platform to connect employees with educational programs. Strategic Education is the parent company of Strayer University and Capella University.

Paycheck Protection Program

Despite the fact that his other companies have raised tens of millions of dollars in capital, Katzman's company Noodle Pros applied for and received a forgivable loan from the Paycheck Protection Program, which was designed for small businesses, with a value between $350,000 and $1 million.

Bibliography

Books

* ''Cracking the SAT'' with Adam Robinson. Villard Books, (1986). .
* ''The Best 284 Colleges'', with Tom Meltzer and Zach Knower (1992). Current .
* ''Class Action'', with Steven Hodas (1995).

Essays

* Katzman, John. "A Civil Education Marketplace" (May 10, 2016).
The State of Entrepreneurship in K–12 Education

* Lutz, Andy, Katzman, John, and Olsen, Erik (March 1, 2004),
Would Shakespeare Get Into Swarthmore?
, The Atlantic.

Personal

Katzman lives in New York and is married to Alicia Ernst. They have two children, Daniel and Lyra.

References

External links

PBS Nightly Business ReportNoodle Education, Inc.Noodle Pros Tutor Biography

{{DEFAULTSORT:Katzman, John
Princeton University School of Architecture alumni
Living people
1959 births
American technology company founders
Birch Wathen Lenox School alumni