About the founder
I built CL Learning Labs for teachers like me.
For 26 years, I taught students to question, to think deeply, and explain what they believed. Then AI changed the game.
A note from Mark Cline Lucey
If you are a teacher, you know exactly what I mean.
You read a student’s paper, and it is polished. The sentences are smooth. The structure is there. But you find yourself wondering: What did this student actually think? Which ideas are theirs? Where did they get stuck? What would they be able to explain in a conversation tomorrow? Did they actually write this?
I taught high school for 26 years, first at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn and then at Vermont Commons School in South Burlington. I taught history, economics, philosophy, current events, and filmmaking. I built and ran our Model United Nations Program. I also helped create programs where students could work on longer projects, make films, study the world beyond the classroom, and take responsibility for something real.
I believed then, and I believe now, that students learn by doing the thinking. They need to interpret, choose, question, test an idea, receive useful feedback, revise, and try again. A correct answer can be part of learning, but it is not the same thing as learning.
Artificial intelligence made that belief more urgent.
I watched the old homework and research-paper model become harder to trust. I saw why students would reach for instant help, and I understood why teachers felt caught between two bad choices: try to ban tools that are already part of the world, or accept work that may not show what the student knows.
I wanted a third path.
The beginning was very ordinary. During a school break, I coded a practice tool to help my son with his AP Statistics class. I was not trying to launch a company that day. I was trying to solve a real problem for someone I cared about.
But the more I worked on it, the more I saw the incredible potential in software like this. Students need tools that help them practice without taking over. Teachers need a clearer view of the work students are doing, not just the final product. AI can be useful here, but only if its role is visible, bounded, and in service of human learning.
That became the starting point for CL Learning Labs and Coach Engine.
I do not want to build software that thinks for students or replaces teachers. I want to build tools that support real thinking and learning in students, and that make it easier for teachers to see where support, challenge, or a better question might help.
I am building this from the teacher’s side of the desk. I know what it is like to plan a lesson, read a stack of papers, try to understand what a student is really saying, and make a decision about what to do next. I also know that no software can replace the relationship between a teacher and a student.
I look forward to working with you!
Mark Cline Lucey