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 »

Two items in Time magazine’s otherwise bland summary of the issues around NCLB reauthorization deserve a closer look. What is meant by “perverse” and what consequences were "unintended"?   more »

Your last free issue of essential reading for serious industry watchers. (With Special Offer for New Clients.)   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 »

If you have something to say about a posting, the best way is to make a comment on the relevant page. If you are likely to be the subject of an edbizbuzz posting and your ego is not very robust, you may want to avoid reading the blog.    more »

The private sector is no more entitled to waste federal tax dollars than the public schools. When it comes to poor student performance, the defense that that parents feel good about their children’s teachers is no more relevant for SES providers under NCLB than it is for schools or districts. Applying the rule of student performance equally to schools and providers is about “accountability” to the taxpayer, “equal protection under the law” between schools and providers, and, in the end, the credibility of the entire school improvement industry. Is the taxpayer getting real value here?   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 »

Notice to Mariners: A guide to essential logs, charts, and navigators on these dangerous waters. Our weekly podcast.   more »

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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 »

125 New RFPs!   more »

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

Measured morally, without doubt, yes. Measured in terms of industry interests, it's not so clear.   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 »

When the "product" is people, the imposition of uniformity and top-down directives is no way to achieve high quality outcomes consistently. Seattle's Santorno and DC's Reinoso disagree. Is anyone familiar with the fate of East Germany's Kombinats?   more »

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Must SES and Ed Tech providers follow charter schools, EMOs and CSR providers? Our weekly podcast.   more »

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Our better, faster, cheaper way to find relevant RFPs.   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 »

The report reveals details on the earnings of Reading First advisors, their engagement with publishers, and their decision to distance themselves from new industry Voyager in favor of the old industry publishers. It's worth pointing out that Voyager paid consulting fees while the publishers are still paying royalties. The authors/advisors' incentive to "work the system" clearly ran toward the publishers. This may explain why, from the materials investigators have uncovered so far, Voyager does not seem to have benefitted in any overt way in from its relationship with the group.    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 »

Our monthly review of government and private sector research and evaluation organizations' announcements.   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 »

To paraphrase President Kennedy’s characterization of Washington, venture philanthropy – sometimes called “the new philanthropy,” combines the humility of venture capital with the hands on capacity of the “old” philanthropy. After ten years in the field, does it matter to the school improvement industry?   more »

Essential reading for professionals in the school improvement industry. Free trial download here.   more »

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

Our weekly report of grant and contract RFPs.   more »

If the best prospect for tutoring having an impact on student performance is when it is closely tied to the classroom, many providers would also rather work for the district as a contractor than compete with it under SES. Herein lies the basis of an entirely new strategy for SES in NCLB II.   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 »

Monthly report of industry announcements. Hotlinked to their source.   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 »

The article by Michelle R. Davis offers a great opportunity for seeing how others read the tea leaves on NCLB reauthorization. The point (not) made with overwhelming clarity is that the school improvement industry plays no material role in its own legislative future.   more »

Your editor is sympathetic to the idea that school districts might prefer to bargain over wages, salaries and working conditions with the representative of a teachers' union rather than set the rules by fiat or negotiate with every individual teacher. But the extension of bargaining to all variety of management decisions, for example, assigning teachers to schools based on their own choices according to seniority, rather than where managers believe they can do the most good, takes too much authority away from the citizens who elect school boards preceisely to make such high-level policy decisions. The proposal is bad public policy.   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 »

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You are entitled to your own opinions about policy, but not your own facts.    more »