The Baltimore-based investment firm's k-12 specialists have an unusual perspective on Senator Kennedy’s report on the connections between consultants like Edward Kame' ennui and the major publishing firms – one that doesn’t serve the investment community’s need for information and analysis all that well.   more »

Your editor can't remember too many times he has agreed with one of the Fordham Foundation's most important gadflies. Still, he owes Mike Petrilli one for telling Education Next's editors that they might consider asking yours truly to comment on an article about education technology providers. (This post includes what Ed Next edited down for inclusion and the original "long" version.")   more »

Judging from AEI’s insider confab, you’d never know there was an industry. This time, blame the wonks for their blind spot, but the industry bears responsibility too.   more »

Every corporate blog is part of the firm’s marketing operations. That doesn’t mean they aren't worth reading. Content analysis of posts and press releases often yields useful information on a provider’s values, priorities, fears and strategy.   more »

Understanding the “program” in program evaluation. School improvement providers who want to get a handle on program evaluation should read Education Week’s Debra Viadero’s May 16 article. To your editor it illustrates two important points on “what” exactly is being evaluated, and how “the what” affects evaluation outcomes.   more »

The firm's adrift. Will listening help all that much?   more »

The “pointy-tip of the spear” in public education is the classroom teacher. The implications for the school improvement industry?   more »

On top of so many other acquisitions relevant to k-12 the purchase of eCollege demonstrates that Pearson can buy major players in every segment of the new education industry. What’s next? What are the strategic issues?   more »

You can't understand the market for school improvement services without appreciating the a struggle between k-12's old and new industries.   more »

The evidence in his emails is unambiguous: While Kame' ennui was working for the Department as a key consultant on Reading First regulation and implementation - a matter that required not only the reality of impartiality but the appearance of impartiality – he was also engaged in high-level lobbying on behalf of Pearson’s corporate position on Reading First. It's a hell of a story. Plus a footnote.    more »

Quoting right-of-center Finn's defense of Reading First's peer review process in the "Political Risks" subsection of your business plan will do more to discourage investment than a thousand anti-privatization quotes from NEA's Reg Weaver.   more »

LAUSD’s study of SES providers’ performance begins to give us a sense of the likely contribution of tutoring to student achievement. Under the best conditions it is likely to be very small. The question then is value – results at a price. How should we price improvements in student performance? We still pay for inputs, but are starting to condition a provider’s right to remain eligible for the SES program on outcomes. Maybe we should pay for performance. So consider... how much should we pay for an average gain of three scale score points on the California Standards Test for English Lanuage Arts?   more »

Tutor.com has raised $13.5 million to expand its marketing activities for Tutor.com Direct. $9.5 million comes in the form of equity from a gruop led by Intel Capital, $4 million in secured debt. By the standards of the emerging school improvement industry, its a lot of money. Compared against the national market where Tutor.com operates it's not. The real question is how much founder and CEO George Cigale intends to grow the company, how fast and how.   more »

The big get bigger. So what? There are implications.   more »

The state's announcement and our earlier take on the effects of the move for the Big Easy and the City of Brotherly Love   more »

The reaction of Education Industry Association Executive Director Steve Pines more or less tracks what your editor suggested to expect from most SES providers. Read the response. Then let's deconstruct it. Then read TN SES study co-author Steve Ross' reaction.    more »

THIS IS NOT "JUST ANOTHER STUDY." It is a devastating evaluation of SES providers' value-added to student performance in Tennessee. It is not a death blow, but it is a body blow. The industry simply can't stand to repeat the finding "yielded no statistically reliable effects for any of the SES providers" next year. Whether SES providers' managers, boards and investors will take heed of the warning and act is an entirely different matter. Don't bet on it.   more »

Your editor started a k-12 information services firm because he was more confident in the school improvement industry than in any individual segment or firm. This month’s issue of Class Notes by Amy W. Junker and Neil Macker of stockbrokerage Robert W. Baird & Co., suggests investors would be much better off parking their money in an index fund based on the S&P 500. What they don't tell you is why.   more »

It's a summary of the available research on the market that's worth reading. As an "academic weapon" employed by the left in the "SES wars," the study is a failure. Still, that's just politics. From an investor's or buyer's perspective, the report suggests that when it comes to evaluation, most SES providers' management teams have been asleep at the wheel.    more »

If Nicholas Negaoponte is really on the verge of selling his under $200 laptop to 19 states, it may not change school, but it will certainly change how we think about education.   more »

The idea that teachers are more like infantry soldiers or assembly line workers than health care professionals or athletics coaches - suggests that sudents are more like a faceless enemy or cars than unique people. The idea that the nation's largest and most diverse set of teachers and students is amenable to one best way is a form of arrogance bordering on idiocy.   more »

Where school partnerships are not working, a provider's only moral choice is to exit. But the high costs of finding partners demands close attention to the initial selection process. KIPP's decision is a sign of the whole school design provider's maturity.   more »

Let's start with EdNet's upcoming Impact Award, and then SIIA's Codies....   more »

What does it say? What does it really mean? An exercise in "content analysis."   more »

But the high school arena is fragmented by 50 states, and a host of other structural factors. Nothing like the test prep or online higher ed markets where one standardized offering can serve a national market. A nice business, yes. Highly scaleable, doubtful.   more »

Consultants working for the Department of Education and with states on the implementation of the program collectively benefited to the tune of $1 million by steering district purchases their way. The Justice Department is investigating criminal charges. Now maybe editors in the mainstream media will focus some journalistc resources on a story that speaks volumes about the sham passing for regulation of the school improvement industry.   more »

The better to deflect attention from the real problems: 1) people in positions of authority who either abused their public trust or were not competent to exercise it according to any reasonable standard of care; 2) the Department's utter incapacity to behave differently as the federal role in public education becomes one of fueling a school improvement industry, and 3) the Administration's lack of any strategy to turn the Department around so it can handle an emerging market implicit in No Child Left Behind.   more »

Any school improvement provider with a corporate culture committed to ongoing research as part of product development should be giving this trade group a careful look.   more »

Your editor deconstructs a press release. It happens to be this release, but it could have been any.   more »

A company that will lose its contract has a greater institutional incentive to make sure its employees do right by these wards of the state than any agency that monoplizes the function.   more »

The first question for the industry is whether this means the end of Edison in Philadelphia... and maybe time to sell off the company for parts and re-brand what's left. If you were a superintendent, would you propose the firm to your board?   more »

If you've got it (scientifically based research), flaunt it. But note as well that the standard of beauty is rising in this market. What's glamorous this year will soon seen quaint. Firms need to look beyond compliance with an evaluation requirement to the role of evaluation in program quality and ongoing development.   more »

Your editor did not plan on becoming a playing field for this contest, but Brian Gill - who led RAND's study of contract schools in Philadephia, has provided the thnk tank's response to Paul Peterson's critique.   more »

There is a potentially serious flaw in RAND's approach. School improvement program providers need to stop and think about whether the direction evaluation is taking is setting them up for mediocrity - or even asking the right question.   more »

The "evaluation wars" expand to school contracting.   more »

If the parent pays for the service, the typical story on the provider is generally positive. If the taxpayer foots the bill, the reporter generally casts the provider in a negative light.   more »

Today's announcement by RAND of a $6 million grant from the Department of Education for a "gold standard" review of Cargegie Learning's Cognitive Tutor is welcome, but industry leaders should not see it as a chance to buy time or kick the political can of evaluation down the road. The study is welcome, but it should also be mildly worrisome.   more »