Better. Faster. Cheaper. Review a sample.   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 »

No joke. Tom Horne equates the Bush Administration's Department of Education and No Child Left Behind with Soviet Russia. The day the world turned upside down? Not exactly, just as good an example as one could ask for of public educations' established constituencies' desperate need to kill this bill in re-athorization - and the role of propaganda in its campaign. With Senator Clinton accusing Bush of using K-12 as a chance to abuse the taxpayer with runaway, Halliburton-style capitalism, and Republican Horne seeing echoes of Leninism - NCLB must be doing something right.   more »

Normally, a summary would be part of New Education Economy®, but there's already something of a backlog of important material, so here are quick observations and key excerpts.   more »

A glimpse into the politicization of "Scientifically-Based Reading Research" as practiced by the Bush Administration under Reading First. An email uncovered by Title I Monitor reporters Andrew Brownstein and Travis Hicks links major publishers to Reading First through Reid Lyon to Spellings via Beth Ann Bryan, reportedly the White House link to the Department of Education. The communication contains protests from a senior publishing official of New York City's impending decision to purchase "whole language and incidental phonics window-dressing", when that publisher was in the midst of becoming a "true believer" in Reading First. Now, as far as anyone watching Reading First knows, no major publisher actually developed programs demonstrated to improve student achievement by rigorous evaluations. So - what gives?   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 »

A "must read" that underlines the industry's grave challenge - overcoming its apparent irrelevance to presidential candidates' positions on k-12 reform.   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 »

Over at This Week in Education, former Hill education staffer and problog/journalist Andrew Russo has gotten hold of a fax sent by House Education Committee Chair George Miller...   more »

Most of themes in this essay, written with Paul Hill and Robin Lake, were not welcomed by the movement's leadership when it was first published by Education Week in 1996. Escape was their policy; reform was ours. Today, as the essay is included in The Last Word: the Best Commentary and Controversy in American Education, most of its ideas are "what the best people think" albeit, unattributed and honored in the breach.   more »

April 17: Our Industry's Interests in NCLB II: (V) Preserve Higher Standards and Accountability April 24: Reading First Hearing Offers Investors A Rare Political Opportunity   more »

Whether the school improvement industry will benefit or be lost in the controversy is a matter strategic positioning.   more »

Essential reading for the school improvement industry executive. Free download until June 1.   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 »

If the testimony given in Friday's House Education and Labor Committee hearing represents the Department of Education's capacity to manage the transition to the research-based market inherent in NCLB, no right-minded investor should be putting money into school improvement providers. And pro-NCLB members of Congress must understand that without investment, the innovation required to literally leave no child behind and hold the high ground of the global economy will not occur. Congress needs to fix the glitch.   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 »

The people of New Orleans deserve to be more than the background of well-intentioned but unrealistic announcements promising help.   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 »

Free download of monthly listing/hotlinks from Washington k-12 agencies and interest groups until June 1.   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 »

Forget this as a “education” story – why haven’t newspaper editors seen it as a political story and a real humdinger of a tale? Why are they not outraged at the abuse of our government for personal and ideological ends? Your editor just doesn’t get it, and would appreciate someone in journalism setting him straight.   more »

The SES providers' trade group was pleased with the House Education and Labor subcomittee hearing's testimony.   more »

Our weekly review of important reading for school improvement industry executives - and those who think strategically.   more »

Still, who would you rather have as principal of your kid's school - Chamberlain or Churchill?   more »

In the words of Voltaire, "the best is the enemy of the good."   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 »

Sorry, but "Data Driven Decision Making" is Coming to Capitol Hill.   more »

The basics of who we are, what we do and why we do it.   more »

No Retreat, No Surrender... Or Tired Out?   more »

In their discussion of a new Fordham/AIR report on public school principals, Finn and Petrilli convey the unsurprising and not exactly new finding that most are not all that thrilled about the prospect of real managerial autonomy. It is still worth reading.   more »

Our monthly listing of announcements from the research and development community. Every item hotlined to the press page. Free dowmload until June 1.   more »

The reason reporters don't understand education research is not so much because education reporters don't take the time to understand - although they don't. It is because education research has not been important to education reporting - in the sense that covering it well has not been important to the sale of newspapers or the field's trade reports.   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 »

The voucher debate noted in the article is an example of how today's debates in education research too often resemble a wild clash of tribal shamans wielding magic talismans around an ancient campfire instead of the rational presentation of evidence to a finder of fact, followed by cross-examination, in the calm of a 21st century courtroom. For this reason alone, the school improvement industry should neither hestitate to join the conversation nor feel itself unqualified to participate in discussion.   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 »

All good points, all worth thinking about.   more »

Our Industry’s Interests in NCLB II: (IV) A Closer Look at School Improvement   more »

Unless you work for the President, it is a very bad idea to make Congress issue a subpoena for your appearance.   more »

Our Weekly Report Providing Professional Reading for Industry Leaders. Until June 1 it can be downloaded for free.   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 »

Another pundit catches up with NCLB's real prospects. Its time to start making your own political assessments.   more »

A year ago, six months ago, even six weeks ago, the "experts" were telling the school improvement industry not to worry about reauthorization ....    more »

The joint press release. Each organizations' recommendations will be excerpted in the 4/9 New Education Economy®.   more »

Is the Administration moving down a slipperly slope or drawing a line in the sand?   more »

After the Reading First fiasco, expect the Inspector General to remain a part of the Department's halting movement towards a market mindset.   more »

With four years of experience in the business, we can safely say that on any given week, between 75 and 200 new RFPs are issued, and perhaps 600 more are still open. It's a much smaller number than most marketing professionals would like. More important it places a premium on information systems that find all the opportunities a firm knows it will follow, and identify all the opportunities a firm should follow.   more »

Reading First, the gift that keeps on giving (reporters' new stories)....   more »

It is the single most important investment in managing the school improvement industry's political risks.   more »

It is unlikely that the media will treat this report with much subtlety, but the study may tell us much more about the state of the evaluation art than the efficacy of technlogy-based software programs.   more »

School Improvement Industry is moving to monthly publication of its three announcement reports covering Politics, Providers and Research.   more »

If you've got it (research), flaunt it.   more »

There are three kinds of programs that embody Scientifically Based Research.... It's no surprise that while other firms are having a difficult time, Carnegie is adding sales staff.   more »

Is anyone other than a major publisher making (good) money? If you are, please let us know with a comment.   more »

Annual reports are not only a source of financial data, they offer insights to corporate self-image, perceptions of the business environment, strategy, and risk assessment. Its generally a good idea for even the smallest firms to understand the dominant players' view of the world.   more »

If you are a school improvement provider looking for investment, expect to wait. On the other hand, there's no reason not to invest in one of the big publishers.   more »

Perhaps there is a bit of air between Mrs. Clinton's Senate and campain staffs.   more »

Our Industry’s Interests in NCLB II: (III) Back Kennedy and Miller on a Bigger Budget   more »

Every child is important, but school systems are really designed for most students. If a child falls outside of some comfortable norm, mean or average, most school systems have a hard time meeting their needs. Good business practice argues for leaving the hard to serve customer to providers who can serve them well and efficiently. Many school systems have a hard time doing either with students who have any kind of special needs.   more »

From Your Editor: When the phrase “education industry” arises in conversations among educators, policy analysts, politicians, reporters and even the interested public, it usually said with a tone of skepticism and often in the pejorative. This is soon followed by “privatization,” the label for private firms operating public schools. From here, it is a short leap to “vouchers” and the idea of private firms running private schools with public money outside the accountability regime that applies to public schools. Employed in a few sentences, these phrases invariably create the impression of something unprecedented and amiss in public education. To whit - a monolithic movement of companies taking on the core teaching and learning functions of schools - and earning profits that might otherwise be going to “educate the kids.”   more »

The attached e-mail from Software and Information Industry Education Division VP Karen Billings is the first evidence of any k-12 trade group ("old industry" or "new industry") adressing federal evaluation of k-12 programs as more than a communications challenge. The substance of its premptive comments on the Department of Education's forthcoming study of the value added by technology to student achievement is less important than the decision to comment.   more »

Prof. Richard Allington of the University of Tennesse at Knoxville, a Reading Recovery defender and former President of the International Reading Association asks the most important question in his remarks to Education Week on the program's postive rating by the Department of Education's What Works Clearinghouse: “[A]re we going to take all the interventions off the Reading First Web sites that don’t meet the What Works criteria?... I don’t have a lot of confidence that anyone in Washington actually cares about the evidence.”... This is the point Cong. Miller needs to keep foremost in mind during the House education committee's upcoming hearings on Reading First.... And in the end, this question is the key issue for those betting on the school improvement industry as a good investment. The What Works' bar is pretty low, and if its results don't matter to the use of federal funds, the new firms can't compete against the established players or the unfettered discretion of department officials. Meaningful standards of performance are the only basis of their competive advantage. Remarkably, the research-driven providers have not organized themselves to bring their expertise to bear on this question.   more »

Every school improvement provider is not automatically viewed with scepticism by the press. The determining factor seems to be whether the firm is perceived to work within the system or against its constituencies.... It also helps when the firm is seen to have roots in education and research rather than business and finance. It also helps if the firm has made ongoing evaluation a priority.... If you are the CEO of a school improvement provider, or an investor, or a communications firm with these clients, the pattern deserves close study.   more »

Every district that goes all-digital takes an important step in separating substance from media (i.e., educational content from paper) and breaking up a market controlled by a handful of publishers.... Now all we need to do is figure out how to identify quality content in a market of unlimited providers.... Something the "new publishers" need to figure out.   more »

Some educators seem happy with the testing firm.   more »

One argument for not amending NCLB to restrict SES to the students holding a school or district from making AYP?   more »

A clear warning to education research organization CEOs and boards.... For all practical purposes, when public education was a monopoly, they had one customer - government. Providing program evaluations, technical assistance to schools and districts, advisory services to agencies, and developing curriculum and instructional programs never raised conflict of interest issues. Instead, a broad range of competencies offered an advantage in competing with other research organizations for government business.... But being on all sides of the table is antithetical to the smooth operation of a market. Indeed in Reading First it was the cause of major financial loss for one provider - who has every reason to seek monetary compensation from the source of the harm. In Reading First and RMC, we have the case study of an organization caught between public education's pre- and post-market eras.... It's a warning to the CEOs and boards of this and other research organizations that conflicts of interest are now important. The federal education labs in particular should be considering how much of the "knowledge utilization" space each wants to occupy. If there is not a lawsuit this time around, there will be soon enough if old patterns don't change.... It's probably time for comprehensive board-intiated conflicts reviews. Moreover, properly done, these reviews are bound to lead some research organizations to shed or trade some lines of business and staff, and new operating constraints may lead some researchers to seek new homes for their work.    more »

This Week: 160 new grant and contract RFPs for organizations selling products and services to public schools and youth-oriented programs. Download a copy of our comprehensive weekly report.   more »

Long before NCLB, urban school districts "outsourced" tutoring to Tile I students in "pull-out" programs. Sylvan Learning System's contract services division comes to mind. The services offered by SES providers today represent a "forced" outsourcing of teaching and learning activities most school district would prefer to keep in-house. A new twist on this outsourcing is American tutoring firms' decisions to outsource "live" online tutoring to Indian firms. Yes, some already "sell into" the US market directly, but the business arguments for partnering with an American firm are compelling.... The principal issues for US firms have nothing to do with cost - that's a "no-brainer." Your editor would argue that the challenge of providing value ("results at a price") in this market will drive every tutoring firm to a mix of "on-site/online" and "human/artificial intelligence" services.... The first issue is quality assurance - manageable but an ongoing operations challenge. The second is political - the consequence of outsourcing American professional jobs overseas is a point teachers unions have already made and an issue where they will find some sympathy in the electorate. But the most important is strategic - if American firms have the advantage now because they control the entre to the U.S. market, the better the services provided by the foreign firms (and every U.S. firm will want the highest quality foreign partner), the more likely the balance of power will shift in their direction. Their alternative to continuing the relationship will be going directly to the client base. For this reason, the smart U.S. firm probably wants the foreign firm to be an equity partner, and every smart firm probably wants some kind of relationship with a foreign partner. Management - and investors - should start seeing a foreign buyout as one plausible exit strategy of the several they ought to pursue. Remember that the highest payout will go investors in the SES provider with the best alternatives to any negotiated agreement its board might consider.   more »

This week's announcements from "Inside The Beltway."   more »

Hardly the best way to introduce the chairmen of the two education committees to the dynamics of the school improvement market. But school improvement providers are the victims here, not the perpetrators, and our trade associations could turn this into a positive. They should stay out of the "reading wars" and cast the story as one of arbitrary and caprious regulation by biased officals. Kennedy and Miller seem primed for that interpretation. EIA, NEKIA and others should be taking advantage of their predisposition.   more »

Whatever you think about Fordham, its people, or their policy views - you have to admit their April Fool's issue of the Education Gadfly is funny. The more inside baseball you know the funnier it is - so it can even be read as an annual test of expertise in the Washington politics of school reform. As someone who habitually forgets the significance of April first until he is halfway through the issue, your editor can testify that these guys are very clever.   more »

The turmoil continues....   more »

This is not the first time Kennedy, Miller and the other senior Democrats who lined up behind NCLB I have said as much. It will not be the last. It is the major strategic choice facing the administration. Provide the funds and it wins on the margins of all or most of the technical issues affecting the school improvement industry. Fight Kennedy and Miller on resources, and every one of these technical issues becomes a little battlefield. The opposition has no end of resources to fight every one of these small engagements, the school improvement industry cannot fight one on an equal footing. And with the war in Iraq moving from $2 billion a week to $4 billion, surely NCLB can be fully funded within a month without any meaningful impact on the federal deficit. This industry's most important interest lies with the law's accountability provisions - indeed on the budget front school improvement providers share an interest with the Democratic leadership. More money for NCLB is potentially a larger market for our firms, but without tough accountability provisions the industry will never see the money.... NCLB authorization for appropriations is the subject of next week's Letter From The Editor in New Education Economy®   more »

There is no escaping the need to demonstrate program efficacy, and that the bar constituting "proof" will be going up. Firms that have not made this a priority have no future in the market for school improvement services. Firms that are commited to demonstrating superior performance should be gathering as much insight into the subject as they can. The National Center for Education Statistics - part of the Department of Education's Institute for Education Sciences - is part of the interagency mix that will be setting the bar. It offers a variety of free/low cost resources for evalution, including training. Every firm should be sending people to these activities - for a variety of reasons, but at a minimum because this is an open door invitation to the world of k-12 evaluation - and your profitability is affected by the rules this community will set.... One last point. If you look through the one training opportunity given as an example here and you can't think of anyone in your firm you can send, or even a close advisor or consultant - you have a staff capacity problem you need to fix. If you are an investor reading this and ask your CEOs who they might conceivably send to this kind of a session and they don't have good answers - you have one or more management problems.   more »

Sometimes philanthropy is helpful to the point of buying our programs for schools. At other times, philanthropic intiatives compete with school improvement providers by offering districts "free" programs. At other times, they complicate the lives of firms with classroom initiatives that conflict with the specific kinds of support and cooperation providers need from their "partners" in the central office and classroom to achieve superior program results. In this case, how will the Kellogg Foundation]s $10 million grant to improve reading skills in Hawaii affect schools implementing America's Choice? Every, providers' local managers need to keep track of these "school reform" initiatives, so they don't come as a surprise degrading implementation and hence expected student outcomes.   more »

Here in the U.S., LightSpan - now part of PLATO, used the PlayStation system for a program sold into the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration Program market in the late 1990s. Not only did it leverage existing home gaming technology "simple enough for parents," but it deliberately engaged them in their children's education - building a level of parent support for a classroom-based literacy program this writer never saw before, and has not seen since. Can Sony repeat this?   more »

Could private contractors do better than the state in operating juvenile justice detention and education? If there was ever a time to make the proposal for a pilot project, this is it.   more »

The distinction between the providers district like and dislike has very little to do with tax status, and almost everything to do with whether the provider competes with them for students or works for them with students. The school improvement industry needs the competitors to motivate the districts to do things differently - including buying the new providers' programs. But most individual school improvement providers will be far more profitable working with districts as partners than against them as adversaries.   more »

This story is relevant less for its specifics than to illustrate a more general point.... Every human endeavor attracts sub-par performers. Some are incompetent, others cut corners when financial circumstances get tough, some are thieves. If the measure of merit for charter schools is media coverage, all of these losers are the stars. When the least capable providers get all the attention, everyone else suffers the consequences of tighter regulation, abandonment by political fence-sitters, and the loss of public trust.... In most fields the quality providers recognize their shared interest in separating themselves from the riff-raff. They form membership associations to protect their interests and advance their industry..... Charter schools have broadly-based state membership associations. Their national advocacy organizations are controlled by philanthropy, run by policy wonks, and have their own internal dynamics and agendas..... The charter schools' committed to quality need a national voice they control, with a code of conduct, peer review, and standards of operation - indeed a "brand" that distinguishes them from the pack. If 300 independent quality schools invested $1500 each in such an organization, they could make a start - with a spokesperson in Washington and a few young staffers to make their case and respond to stories like this.... The only other point worth mentioning about this story is that if a charter school deliberately misreprsents enrollment, the motivation may be larcenous, but it may also be one of those moral shortcuts taken to keep a school from insolvency. The act is a crime in both cases, but if per pupil payments to charter schools were equitable these stories might only be about the crooks. c   more »

The downloadable scorecard put together by Title I Online is worthy of review, although the experts surveyed do seem to be conflating what they want with their predictions. Astute readers will pay more attention to the overall pattern of converging and differing opinions.   more »

The Oregon Department of Education gives a bit more of its story on the dispute with Vantage, and hires nonprofit research organization AIR (American Institutes of Research) for next year's TESA administration.... The corporate website of Vantage Learning lists no press releases on the dispute. To paraphrase George Bush I, that decision "doesnt seem prudent."... Vantage counsel did speak to Education Week Reporter Andrew Trotter, but make note of the reporter's decision to cast the story as Vantage "leaving the state in the lurch" rather than, say, "being denied $4.7 million dollars in payments owed by the state." Both characterizations tend to prejudge what looks to be a legitmate business dispute - complicated by the end of a multi-year contract and Vantage's failure to win the new competition. But the underlying issue is now a matter for the courts. In the American legal system the facts and the law here are not decided but in dispute, and it is a bit unfair for Education Week to permit one of its reporters to pre-judge Vantage as straight reporting. The more legitimate place for this opinion is an Op/Ed page.   more »

Investing in k-12 with a superficial understanding of its political history and landscape will yield about the same results as invading Iraq without a deep appreciation of Islam's varied influences on the nation's ethnic make-up.... Your editor's March 28 presentation to the Education Industry Investment Conference.   more »