BY LINDA BAKER

Kevin Stone, CEO of EdCaliber, a software startup. // Photo by Alexandra Shyshkina

In 2009, Kevin Stone decided to invest his experience as a former school board member and founder of a call center solutions startup in a new online education company. “I wanted to make a big impact,” says Stone, 41, CEO of EdCaliber, a Portland-based startup that provides software tools to help teachers and administrators manage resources and track student learning. As state academic standards become more rigorous, school districts are turning to online solutions to help differentiate student instruction more effectively, says Stone. EdCaliber’s multifaceted platform allows teachers to track an individual student’s progress against a specific standard, then quickly re-teach students who didn’t meet the benchmark the first time. The software also allows teachers to access and share resources connected to specific education outcomes. “It helps teachers and principals be more efficient; it helps them focus on the important things,” says Stone. It also gets results. Bardin Elementary, a Salinas, Calif., school that at one point did not meet federal education targets under the No Child Left Behind Act, is one of several struggling schools that demonstrated rapid improvement after adopting EdCaliber. “We have really passionate customers,” said Stone, adding that the company is beefing up its curriculum offerings. “They are saying: you have the key technologies to take us to the next level.”