New agreement adds acclaimed school model, comprehensive curriculum resources, and coaching in literacy and ELA.

Cognia, a global nonprofit improvement organization that helps improve student outcomes through accreditation and certification, student assessment, professional learning, and school improvement services, announced today that EL Education intends to merge with Cognia. EL Education is a leading New York-based national K-12 nonprofit with a 30-year track record of raising student achievement through its acclaimed Science of Reading-based English Language Arts curriculum, coaching and school support, and an evidence-based Full Model. The merger is expected to take place by September 1, 2026, pending regulatory approval.

The combined organization will retain the Cognia name and help school districts nationwide leverage the critical attributes of improvement, spanning curriculum, instruction, coaching, assessment, and school-wide transformation, in one organization. This is a major step in Cognia’s ongoing evolution toward providing a single, comprehensive, and coherent improvement system for schools in a fragmented, siloed provider marketplace.

“This merger adds an important new capability that will fit within Cognia’s evolution into a full-service improvement organization that provides schools, districts, and states a valued and comprehensive improvement partner for their journey,” says Cognia president and CEO, Dr. Mark A. Elgart. “Cognia and EL Education share a set of common beliefs around continuous improvement and the impact of high-quality curriculum supported by embedded professional learning. The merger allows us to deepen and more specifically address the interests and needs of schools to improve.”

This merger broadens access to high-quality English Language Arts and literacy instructional materials aligned with interim and formative assessments, enabling teachers to adjust instruction in real time and implement large-scale instructional interventions and professional learning.

“Right now, impact and scale in school reform are being hindered in school districts by a lack of coherence among a broad group of providers,” says Scott Hartl, CEO of EL Education. “The merger enables us to provide the unique set of tools, including the high-quality information and instructional intervention that districts say they need.”

The merger will also strengthen support for EL Education’s partners. Together, EL Education and Cognia can offer schools and districts a coherent, comprehensive ecosystem of support for the school improvement journey. For partners, the combined organization will deepen Full Model work, join EL’s curriculum to aligned formative assessments, and invest in innovation. EL’s commitment to the Core Practices and the Three Dimensions of Student Achievement remains central to the organization’s work. Merging with Cognia ensures the sustainability of EL Education’s mission, work, and impact for the decades ahead. The EL Education Curriculum will continue to be available through distribution partners Open Up Resources and Kiddom.

Now, the combined organization will offer assessment and professional learning aligned with what will ultimately be a complete ecosystem—first in literacy and English Language Arts, and then in mathematics and science in the coming years. Schools and districts nationwide will also be able to improve teacher effectiveness and student educational outcomes by leveraging the critical and proven attributes of improvement in greater breadth and depth than ever before.

A force for coherence, scale, and innovation

EL Education’s literacy curriculum and Full Model will continue to carry the EL Education brand under the combined organization. Together, Cognia and EL Education have the capability and capacity to positively impact instructional quality and student learning. The combined offering will include the key components of a comprehensive, coherent improvement system: curriculum; high-quality instructional materials (HQIM); instructional support; non-summative, aligned assessments; surveys; observation tools; and data analytics to improve school performance and student achievement.

Cognia will make EL Education’s curriculum, resources, and improvement services available to its global school improvement network of 40,000 schools serving 17 million students in over 100 countries. In addition to institutions using its curriculum, EL Education provides improvement services through its Full Model to over 150 traditional public and charter schools across 48 states and the District of Columbia.

Aligned focus, complementary services

In order to implement the EL Model, including its products and professional learning services, the EL Education roles that are directly responsible for this work will transition to Cognia, with most of them joining its Curriculum and Assessment Division and its Improvement Sciences Division. EL Education CEO, Scott Hartl, will become Cognia’s Chief Strategy Officer. EL’s curriculum and coaching expertise will be additive to Cognia’s existing talent.

The EL Education curriculum will be available to all institutions in Cognia’s global network and will provide educators with resources and assessments that support student learning, but it is not a requirement for Cognia member schools, districts, or states. “The focus on expanding curriculum offerings aligned with our assessments is crucial to strengthening and targeting areas where schools want and need assistance,” Elgart says. “We are not telling schools what curriculum to use; EL Education is simply an option without expectations that allows schools to introduce curriculum of choice. Our vision is to strengthen how learners engage and teachers instruct using the best learning tools and assessments.”

An evolving organization

Originally part of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools K-12 division, the organization became AdvancED in 2006. Cognia was formed through a merger with Measured Progress in 2018 to provide summative assessments and, in 2024, through a merger with CenterPoint Education Solutions to provide curriculum-aligned assessments. In recent years, it has significantly expanded its support for school turnaround efforts in AL, OH, ND, SC, TN, and VT.

About EL Education
EL Education is a national nonprofit that partners with educators to transform K-12 schools and districts into hubs of equitable opportunity. Guided by a multi-dimensional vision of student achievement, we support all students in cultivating their unique genius and contributing to a better world. EL Education offers research-proven resources and practices, including the acclaimed EL Education K-8 Language Arts curriculum or practices, and aligned professional learning. EL Education was founded in 1991 and currently reaches 1.3 million students in diverse communities across the country in 48 states and the District of Columbia. Learn more at ELEducation.org.

About Cognia

Cognia is a forward-thinking nonprofit improvement organization committed to serving schools and other education providers. We offer accreditation and certification, assessment, improvement services, and professional learning within an evaluation and continuous improvement framework. Serving over 40,000 public and private institutions from early learning through high school in more than 100 countries and territories, Cognia brings a universally recognized perspective to advancing teaching and learning.