Monday, June 23, 2025
Announcing Flourish
John Danner
Co-Founder
Really excited to announce that Adam Nadeau and I are getting ready to open our first Flourish Schools school in Nashville, Tennessee where Adam lives.
A little background :)
When I left Rocketship Public Schools, I was totally burnt out on politics. Charter schools are a constant battle because they are beholden to districts for authorization. I certainly never imagined starting another school network when I left.
Two things changed.
First, AI happened. In 2022, when ChatGPT changed the world, I stopped actively investing from my venture fund and began starting companies again. It was as big a change as the development of the Internet and I wanted to be on the side of "AI for good" . I've built two software companies since then. Project Read AI that I started with Vivek Ramakrishnan is an amazing AI co-teacher for Science of Reading, now used in 30,000 classrooms. Sage AI Tutor by Spark Space that I started with David Vinca is to writing what Project Read is to reading, helping kids learn to write with AI coaching and feedback.
I'm really happy with how well both companies have done. If used with the right dosage, they will drive student learning in a way that the previous generation of edtech tools could only dream of. At the same time, the way that AI is being used in schools is still incremental. What's needed is a rethink from the ground up of what it means to be in school, for students, for teachers, for parents. That's what Flourish is about.
The second thing that changed since Rocketship is the creation of Education Savings Accounts. As a Dem, I long believed that charters were the most fair way to help the school system innovate. But I was wrong. Education Savings Accounts allow private schools to take government payments for the students who attend their schools. We think there is a huge opportunity to open private schools which serve kids like we served at Rocketship, who had no opportunity to go to private school before.
So what are we thinking about doing at Flourish? See the next post :)
