220,000+
Students impacted annually
100+
District and charter partners
7,000+
Staff members
ONE
Bold vision for the future
Our Why
About Think Education
Think Education began over thirty years ago as a single afterschool program in a rented apartment building in one underserved community. From this program alone, the organization launched hundreds of kids on their path to college and realized that, under the right conditions, all students can succeed.
Today, we have expanded our reach and deepened our impact with new services which create the conditions for student success, to foster positive, lasting change to California’s public education system. With innovative ideas, scalable solutions and caring, dedicated leaders, we can envision a future where education unleashes opportunity, prosperity, and purpose for every single student.
Coaches and supports superintendents and education leaders to build excellent, equitable schools in which all students learn and thrive.
Coming Soon
Builds new school systems and practices to support all levels of district; continuous improvement advances transformational, school-wide student outcomes.
Explore Orenda
Offers best-in-class recruiting and hiring to meet district staffing needs, especially in response to California’s Expanded Learning Opportunities Program.
Explore Think TalentEd
Provides early learning and TK-12 expanded learning that boost academics, foster social-emotional growth, and support college and career readiness.
Explore Think Together
Randy Barth
CEO and Founder
Randy Barth founded Think Together in 1997 after a gang shooting in Costa Mesa, CA to help meet the needs of a specific neighborhood. He invested personal funds and bootstrapped the organization as volunteer Board Chair while tending to his day job as a stockbroker and later as a corporate CEO. After a successful 20-year business career, Randy began to apply his entrepreneurial skills to education as CEO of Think Together in 2004.
Since then has scaled the organization to $230 million in revenue and 6,000 employees serving more than 200,000 students in over 1,200 programs across CA. He diversified the organization into a variety of direct service programs for students and supports and solutions for teachers and administrators of public-school systems. In a little more than two decades, Randy built one of the largest education social enterprises in CA, which has tripled in size since the pandemic.
Randy, along with former LA Times reporter, Jennifer Delson, is the co-author of the book, Think Together, How YOU Can Play a Role in Improving Education in America. He has served on various boards and advisory boards and as a Senior Fellow at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs. Randy graduated from UCLA in 1981 with a BA in Economics and studied under Peter Drucker at Claremont Graduate University. Randy lives in Santa Ana, CA with his wife Mary and has two adult daughters, Katie and Emily, and five grandchildren.