edBurst Update
A Newsletter for Education Leaders
Mary Axelson, Editor
This Update is revised regularly.
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May Feature: M&A ACTIVITY FROM CHERRY TREE
Capella Education Acquires Hackbright Academy |
 Introducing Todd Hand, Managing Partner, BSG Team Ventures Todd Hand is now Managing Partner at BSG Team Ventures, formerly the Boston Search Group, the industry's preeminent boutique retained executive search firm focused on the Education sector. His vertical practice areas include the full spectrum of education markets -- K-12, postsecondary, corporate, and consumer -- and products and services that include distance learning, SES and EMO, administrative and curricular technology solutions, assessment, teacher professional development, for-profit college and K-12 operations, postsecondary educational technology, and corporate training. Previously Todd managed TalentBench, the firm's division that focuses on executive search for critical, urgent roles below the C- level. Todd held operating roles as COO and VP of Sales and Marketing at two cleantech companies. He also raised venture capital financing for an executive search firm, where he recruited leaders to drive the success of emerging growth technology companies. Prior, he built management teams at Idealab, a creator and operator of technology companies. He moved there from the Yankee Group, the global technology market research firm, where he headed up talent acquisition. In his spare time he serves on the board of directors of the Coronado Ventures Forum, an organization focused on educating and connecting entrepreneurs with private equity financing, and has been a guest writer for NetworkWorld. Todd is a graduate of Penn State and attended the Babson MBA program before leaving early to start his own company. He is also a two-time Ironman finisher, something his partner Ralph is not nor ever will be. |
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Amid Internet Addiction Fears, 'Balanced' Tech Diet for Teens Recommended Although researchers have yet to reach a consensus on whether 'Internet addiction' is real, parents are increasingly-and justifiably-concerned about their children's technology and media usage, according to a new report released today by Common Sense Media...more>> Watch 4 ed-tech trailblazers discuss disruptive change for the future "These are not infomercials," is perhaps the best way to describe the reinvented interview lineup recently part of ASU GSV 2016's Innovation Summit held in San Diego April 18-20, according to Casey Green, host of the interactive interviews and founding director of Campus Computing...more>> Education Industry Mergers, Acquisitions Jumped Significantly in 2015 The number and value of mergers and acquisitions in the education industry rose sharply over the most recent year, fueled by deals in professional training and by consolidation in some areas of K-12, a new analysis has found...more>> Niche issues 2016 rankings of America's 'smartest' public high schools Niche, a company that researches and compiles information on schools, recently released its 2016 ranking of the best public high schools in America...more>> The Dystopian Future of Schools ...It is becoming increasingly clear that the original concept of developing greater student agency?-?a complex task?-?is being lost in attempts by well-intentioned schools to provide this opportunity in a manageable manner which is, in turn, being capitalized upon by the "education reform" industry...more>> WSJ: The Union War on Charter-School Philanthropists The wealthy are giving millions to fix education, but their gifts draw fire from a predictable source...more>> NYT: The Minecraft Generation How a clunky Swedish computer game is teaching millions of children to master the digital world...more>> Venture Beat: Mark Zuckerberg taps U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education to helm education initiative Mark Zuckerberg is moving full steam ahead on his initiative to improve the education system in the U.S...more>> Atlantic: In Wealthier School Districts, Students Are Farther Apart Black and Latino students in economically prosperous cities are grade levels behind their white peers...more>> Public School Enrollment to Rise Every Year Through 2024, Fed Data Predict Reports of the death of public schools may have been premature, if new federal enrollment statistics are anything to go by...more>> Wired: Pearson's Quest to Cover the Planet in Company-Run Schools ...Pearson would like to become education's first major conglomerate, serving as the largest private provider of standardized tests, software, materials, and now the schools themselves...more>> NPR: School Money: The Cost of Opportunity A series of articles and infographics including "Is There A Better Way To Pay For America's Schools?," "Can More Money Fix America's Schools?" and "Why America's Schools Have A Money Problem"...more>> EdNET Insight: STEM for Early Learners In a now familiar Obama administration pattern, a White House Early STEM Symposium brought together leaders from the public and private sectors who have committed to promoting active STEM learning for the country's youngest children...more>> Brookings: Don't believe the headlines: Educational standards are not collapsing If you believe this week's headlines, math and reading scores are on the slide...more>> Brookings: Family support or school readiness? Contrasting models of public spending on children's early care and learning In the United States, public policy and expenditure intended to improve the prospects of children from low-income families have focused on better preparing children for school through Head Start and universal pre-K...more>> U.S. News: Charter Schools Stack Up Well Charters succeed because they prepare students for life, not just for college...more>> US News: New Education Law Opens Door to Education Data The new federal education law allows states and school districts to press the reset button on an array of education policies, and some advocates are urging policymakers and education officials to take advantage of the opportunity to effectively use student data to improve learning and teaching...more>> Entrepreneurial School Improvement In 2006, Harvard Education Press published my book Educational Entrepreneurship. At the time, the whole notion of educational entrepreneurship was still pretty much a foreign concept -outside of the (much smaller) Teach For America network and certain precincts around San Francisco...more>> TechCrunch: Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg and others urge Congress to fund K-12 computer science education Some of the biggest names in tech and corporate America, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, have teamed up with governors and educators to ask Congress to provide $250 million in federal funding to school districts in order to give every single K-12 student in the nation an opportunity to learn how to code...more>> How Do States Use Data Collected on Millions of Students? State longitudinal student-data systems have evolved, but collecting data alone is not enough to help teachers and researchers use the information to make meaningful improvements for students, according to the latest in a series of annual reports by the Data Quality Campaign...more>> As ESSA Shifts Influence to States, the Map Favors GOP Power Players You may have read over and over that the Every Student Succeeds Act shifts more power over education policy to states. But what you may be less familiar with is the overall political landscape in the states...more>> Bloomberg: The Democrats Give Up on Education Reform Neither Bernie Sanders nor Hillary Clinton is defending one of President Barack Obama's most important legacies: education reform...more>> EdSurge: Why Project-Based Learning Hasn't Gone Mainstream (And What We Can Do About It) Project-Based Learning (PBL) is one of the hottest buzzwords in education, and it's easy to see why. PBL combines standards-based curriculum with empowering students to solve real world challenges...more>> Amazon wins $30M contract to sell e-books to NYC schools Amazon.com has won a $30 million contract to sell digital textbooks to New York City's public schools over the next three years, in a deal that could extend an additional three years and be worth a total $65 million...more>> Washington Post: At schools with sub-par Internet, kids face a poor connection with modern life Toward the end of a potholed country road, in the computer lab of a one-story school, the Internet one morning choked out a final quiz question about melting icebergs and then sputtered to a halt...more>> 4 radically different school models upending education Four school leaders recently spoke about their innovative school models and visions for student success in an increasingly digital world during a panel hosted by Clayton Christensen Institute cofounder Michael Horn at this year's ASU GSV Summit in San Diego. The new models overwhelmingly favor some combination of project-based learning coupled with self-directed goal-setting and skill building for students' life after school...more>> EdSurge: What Are 'Teacherpreneurs?' An Interview With a Math Teacher Monetizing His Classroom Materials "I can't find good materials for my classroom." It's a common refrain among teachers that often propels them to create their own materials...more>> Virtual, Blended Schools Growing Despite Struggles, Analysis Finds Virtual and blended schools continue to grow at a rapid pace despite persistently "dismal" academic outcomes and little knowledge about their internal workings, according to a new analysis from the National Education Policy Center...more>> Atlantic: How Effective Are 'Career Academies'? The schools-within-schools blend traditional and technical courses to try to smooth the transition from high school to working life-but they may inadvertently propagate inequality...more>> Straight From High School to a Career Candidates from both parties have been talking a lot about the loss of American jobs, declining wages and the skyrocketing cost of college...more>> Education Chief Wants More Well-Rounded Learning Education Secretary John B. King Jr. wants to see a return to a more well-rounded education for schoolchildren, one that spotlights the importance of science, social studies, world languages and the arts...more>> Navigate the Ed-Tech Marketplace to Get Your Product Into Schools New marketplaces have popped up allowing K-12 district administrators and teachers to purchase content, creating new entry points for ed-tech startups to sell their tools...more>> Growing number of military families opt for home school For active-duty military families juggling frequent moves and long deployments that may take a parent away for more than a year at a time, home schooling appears to be growing in popularity as a means of providing stability in their children's education...more>> The Internet of Things smart school is coming Close to half (46 percent) of K-12 and higher-ed IT leaders in a recent survey said they believe an Internet of Things smart school - a school using Internet of Things devices to transform learning environments - will have a major impact in the next one to two years...more>> World Bank Group to Invest $2.5 Billion in Education Projects Benefiting Adolescent Girls World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim today announced that the World Bank Group would invest $2.5 billion over 5 years in education projects that directly benefit adolescent girls, whose empowerment is central to the Bank Group's development efforts...more>> Schools are finally teaching what kids need to be successful in life Research shows that teaching kids things like perseverance and self-control can improve their health, academic achievement, and happiness in life. But teaching character, or social and emotional learning, has proven dicey...more>> AEI: Does pre-K work? The research on ten early childhood programs-and what it tells us Widely cited early childhood programs vary greatly in both design and results. The research on these programs shows neither that "pre-K works" nor that it doesn't; rather, it shows that some early childhood programs yield particular outcomes, sometimes, for some children...more>> Washington Post: Teacher: What third-graders are being asked to do on 2016 Common Core test Students across New York have been taking the 2016 state-mandated standardized Common Core tests - first in English Language Arts and later this week in math - and from the beginning of the administration of the exams, trouble has been reported...more>> New Education Majority: Attitudes and Aspirations of Parents and Families of Color K-12 public education has reached a critical juncture for our nation. For the first time in American history, the majority of students in the public school system are students of color. These students are the "new education majority...more>> Six New Transparency Requirements in the Every Student Succeeds Act If you haven't read through all 1,000-plus pages of the brand new Every Student Succeeds Act, you may have missed a key theme: The new law includes a host of new transparency requirements that will give the feds, states, districts, educators, advocates and (yes) education reporters a much clearer picture of how different populations of kids are doing and what kind of access they have to resources, including money...more>> How Can You Show That Your Education Products Are Research-Based? PreK-12 decision-makers require evidence that the instructional products they purchase have a positive impact on student learning. Large education companies often sponsor efficacy research to demonstrate that a product has a direct impact on student achievement....more>> Christensen Institute: Utah and Florida signed bills to support competency-based learning pilots, but now the real work begins This month, governors in Utah and Florida signed bills supporting the creation of competency-based education pilot programs in districts and schools. Utah's bill, SB 143, creates the Competency-Based Education Grants Program, which allows local education agencies to apply for grants to pilot competency-based education programs...more>> Ed Trust: Meandering Toward Graduation: Transcript Outcomes of High School Graduates ...The report finds that 47 percent, or almost half, of American high school graduates complete neither a college- nor career-ready course of study...more>> EdWeek: Technology in Education: An Overview Technology is everywhere in education: Public schools in the United States now provide at least one computer for every five students. They spend more than $3 billion per year on digital content...more>> Brookings: Information, not money, is the key to improving education Improving education outcomes has perplexed reformers for decades. The typical solution has been to throw more money at the problem...more>> A new challenge as more schools go online: Can educators expand digital learning to every classroom and home? ...For the first time in several years, school leaders surveyed by CoSN no longer ranked preparing for computer-based tests as one of the top three technology concerns facing school systems, according to poll results released Monday by CoSN...more>> Huff Post: The Policy That Could All But Eliminate Achievement Gaps Between Rich And Poor Students Low-income children enter kindergarten 13 months behind their more affluent peers in reading. Black and Hispanic children are nearly seven months and 12 months behind white students in reading, respectively...more>> EdNet Insight: Are Schools Preparing Students To Be College- and Career-Ready? A New Report from The Education Trust Says Not so Much Forty-seven percent. This figure represents the share of American high school graduates who complete neither a college- nor career-ready course of study, according to a new report released today by The Education Trust...more>> So, When During the School Day Should Teachers Create Curriculum? Why do individuals go into teaching? Why would a reasonable person want to interact with hormone-racked 13-year olds? For that matter, why would a 50-plus-year-old adult want to go down to the floor and up 20 times a morning to "teach" 5-year-olds? Because ... (hang onto your seats) ... they want to develop curriculum!...more>> Kids don't have to be lonely at recess anymore thanks to this little boy and his 'buddy bench' It's been three years now since 10-year-old Christian Bucks thought his family was moving to Germany for his dad's job and his mom showed him brochures about his potential new schools...more>> School conditions matter for student achievement, new research confirms A first-of-its-kind study released Thursday found that significant gains in key measures of a school's climate, like safety and academic expectations, can be linked to the equivalent of an extra month and a half of math instruction and, in some cases, a 25 percent reduction in teacher turnover...more>> Forbes: The Surprising Impact That Common Core Is Already Making On Schools To keep up with the demands of the new Common Core curriculum standards, teachers have made major changes to their lesson plans and the instructional materials they use. Principals aren't getting much push-back from parents about the switch to Common Core...more>> The Every Student Succeeds Act: An ESSA Overview The new Every Student Succeeds Act, signed into law Dec. 10, 2015, rolls back much of the federal government's big footprint in education policy, on everything from testing and teacher quality to low-performing schools. And it gives new leeway to states in calling the shots...more>> Inc: Why Edtech is Flunking Out Education technology, or EdTech, is one of the fastest growing, and needed technology sectors to make our schools more competitive, give our teachers the resources to succeed, and students the ability to grow...more>> Is micro-credentialing the future of K-12 PD? According to Education Week, micro-credentialing is becoming more popular in K-12, helping to reinvigorate teacher professional development efforts...more>> NYT: Rejected by Colleges, SAT and ACT Gain High School Acceptance The SAT and the ACT, bugaboos of generations of college applicants, were supposed to shrink in significance as more colleges and universities moved away from requiring standardized test scores for admission...more>> Despite lack of scientific evidence, Ban Wi-Fi movement persists The debate might not matter for school admins, as districts can still be sued regardless...more>> Poll examines engagement, readiness of US students A new Gallup poll of American students, "Engaged Today - Ready For Tomorrow," measures the engagement, hope, entrepreneurial aspiration and career and financial literacy of students in grades 5-12...more>> Snapchat enabling K-12 teachers to reach students in new ways Some educators are trying out snapchat in an attempt to better engage students and meet them where they are. The social media platform allows users to send each other messages or images that disappear 10 seconds after being opened...more>> WS: Here's Why Tests Matter The SAT is especially important. With grade inflation, report cards are basically meaningless...more>> Schools Nationwide Still Grapple With Lead in Water Anxious parents may wonder how a major school system like Newark's could overlook lead in the drinking water of 30 schools and 17,000 students. The answer: It was easy...more>> Projections: 4 years to widespread wearable tech in K-12 According to research from the New Media Consortium, wearable tech devices may become commonplace in K-12 classrooms within four years...more>> Charter High Schools' Effects on Long-Term Attainment and Earnings Confirming previous research (Booker et al., 2011) that charter school students are more likely to graduate high school and enroll in higher education, this study looks at charter school students' college persistence and earnings...more>> iNACOL: The EdLeader Reading List for the Shift to Competency Education Competency education is taking root in districts and schools across the United States and around the world. Teachers and leaders are cultivating and sustaining this grassroots effort to redesign education around student success...more>> CAOs and CTOs Ramp Up on Collaboration If there was ever a time when school districts' chief academic officers and chief technology officers could work in their own silos, isolated from each other, those days appear to be over...more>> Why should kindergarteners code? The push for young learners to engage in computer science may finally be gaining steam...more>> Brookings: How Well Are American Students Learning? The 2016 edition of the Brown Center Report (BCR) is number five in the third volume and the 15th issue overall. The series began in 2000, making this the fifth consecutive presidential election year in which an issue has been published. As is customary, this year's BCR contains three studies...more>> |
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Atlantic: The Most Career-Minded Generation Compared to 30 years ago, young people today are much more likely to say they're going to college to secure a good job and steady pay...more>> 2 Hot Themes from a Fast-Growing Innovation Summit If 2012 was the Year of the MOOC for the education-investor crowd, 2016 could end up as the Year of the Mentor. That is, of course, unless 2016 turns out to be the Year of Connecting Students to Careers...more>> 2016 ASY GSV Summit Dr. Michael Crow, President, Arizona State University video...more>> EdSurge: ASU, GSV and Tim Draper Join Forces for Higher-Ed Accelerator Six years ago, Arizona State University was working with fewer than a dozen technology companies. Today, that number is well north of 100 technology partners, says ASU president Michael Crow. And by tomorrow, that count may well increase...more>> Atlantic: On the Fast Track to Adulthood With Limited Options The urgency to become an "adult" combined with a limited menu of higher-education options can seriously derail young people from poor neighborhoods who are looking for opportunities to succeed...more>> Op-ed: If OER is the answer, what is the question? With state legislation and foundation funding encouraging their use, Open Education Resources, or OER, are a big buzz in higher education, mostly in the context of the improving affordability...more>> Lessons About Online Learning Yoram and Edith Neumann, who have been involved with online education for decades, share some lessons about what factors most help students learn...more>> Ed Trust: Meandering Toward Graduation: Transcript Outcomes of High School Graduates ...The report finds that 47 percent, or almost half, of American high school graduates complete neither a college- nor career-ready course of study...more>> The Mark Cuban Effect: How a Vocal Billionaire Is Betting on Higher Ed's Disruption Mark Cuban is known for mouthing off...His natural milieu isn't a wonky Twitter debate about education policy...more>> ECS: Distance Education Students and Their Access to State Financial Aid Programs Even as overall postsecondary enrollments have recently decreased, enrollment in distance education programs has increased. However, it may be difficult for distance education students to access state financial aid due to specific delivery model requirements or institutional eligibility requirements...more>> Many Future Jobs Will Not Require a Bachelor's Degree-Where Does that Leave Higher Education? The four-year degree is no longer a necessity for individuals entering today's workforce. Institutions need to do more to ensure their offerings are in demand both by students and employers...more>> WSJ: Why So Many Chinese Students Come to the U.S. They're eager to escape flawed education systems back home, where low standards are leaving many ill-prepared for a global economy...more>> When Everyone Goes to College: a Lesson From South Korea When Daehoon Jho hears American officials, from President Obama on down, say that the education system in the United States ought to be more like South Korea's, it's a bit of a head scratcher...more>> Some College, No Degree: A National View of Students With Some College Enrollment, But No Completion Scroll for April 28, 2016: National Student Clearinghouse Research Center: Signature Report 7 Data Extras This Data Extra presents the updated state-level breakdown of potential completers presented in our seventh Signature Report...more>> Higher Ed Slow to Shift to Digital Experiences Public universities could really use some help in sorting out how to use their digital content, technologies and practices to do a better job of interacting with their "customers" - students and families...more>> Real Clear Education: When College Is a Waste of Time and Money ...Roughly half of students who enroll in college fail to complete, and the resulting waste drains public resources and can seriously harm students' lives...more>> Report: Last affordable options for college students are fast disappearing The converging trends of falling state investment, rising tuition and stagnant incomes have finally pushed higher education out of the grasp of low- and middle-income Americans, even at community colleges, a new report contends...more>> Washington Post: Professors hate online education. To save colleges, they have to learn to love it. Like many professors, Henry C. Lucas was skeptical of online education. Lucas, now the chair of the decision, operations and information technologies department at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, now believes it's essential...more>> Chinese private education provider buys UConn campus China's Weiming Education Group will pay $12.6 million for a 58-acre University of Connecticut campus in West Hartford, and it plans to turn the space into an international school...more>> What happens when all academic support services are in one place? Wright State University opened its new Student Success Center last June, bringing classroom space together with tutoring, academic advising and study spaces to combine key academic services under one roof...more>> HBR: More Universities Need to Teach Sales For decades, Sales and Academia remained worlds apart and the business world did fine. But Sales is changing, Academia is out of touch, and this is bad for business and the academy...more>> What Community Colleges Are Doing to Counteract Declining Enrollments Despite all of the national focus on community colleges, enrollment in two-year institutions has been steadily declining, dropping 16 percent from 2010 to 2015, according to EAB, a research and technology group...more>> Monitoring the Gatekeepers Obama administration continues to turn up pressure on accreditors, promising in new letter to measure the agencies against their peers and urging more focus on student achievement and troubled colleges...more>> WSJ: Job Outlook Brightens for New College Graduates Good news for the class of 2016: companies are planning to step up their hiring of new grads. Employers expect to hire 5.2% more freshly minted grads this year than in 2015...more>> How the Banks Stole Higher Education Most progressive-minded people share an inherent belief that education should be free, a universal human right rather than the privilege of a wealthy few. For the left, it's an article of faith...more>> Education Dept. Warns of More Scrutiny for Accreditors The U.S. Department of Education is, once again, weighing in on accreditation, expanding some flexibility in the accreditation process but also warning of more scrutiny for accrediting agencies...more>> ThinkProgress: Despite Legal Setback, Accreditor of Predatory For-Profit Colleges Remains Under Microscope On Thursday, a federal judge ruled that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau overstepped its authority when it investigated an accreditor for for-profit colleges and said the U.S. Department of Education was its only regulator, The Wall Street Journal reported...more>> The Wealth Gap in Who Earns College Degrees Is Growing, Study Says The nation's colleges continue to graduate far fewer students who grew up in poor households...more>> Why Higher Education Needs to Be More Future-Focused As the threat of MOOCs and for-profit education fades, so too does the sense of urgency that drives innovation. Yet anyone who thinks that a decade from now higher education will look much as it does today is sadly mistaken...more>> Supply is up in online ed but demand is down - now what? Colleges and universities must adapt to a new business model when it comes to marketing...more>> US News: Administration Grades Itself "Incomplete" on Higher Ed The president's No. 1 on higher education gave the Obama administration an "incomplete" on the subject of college access, completion and equity...more>> NYT: Gap Year May Have Benefits Long After College Not every child who gets into college is ready to go. For some, taking a "gap year" - deferring admission for a year after high school graduation - may prove invaluable, helping a child thrive in college and after graduation as well...more>> Designing Next-Generation Universities Predicting the future is a fool's errand. But that shouldn't keep us from trying to imagine what lies ahead. After all, it is often an inspiring vision of the future that drives change...more>> MarketWatch: The richest 25% of American families account for more than half of all college graduates Graduating college is much harder if you're poor, a new report indicates. In 2014, just 10% of dependent family members who said they received a bachelor's degree by the time they were 24 years old came from families in the lowest income quartile, according to a study released Tuesday...more>> The Spending War on Student Recruitment At a time when everyone should be committed to lowering the cost of college, it could trigger a windfall for education marketers and become the most expensive component of a higher education, writes John Katzman...more>> Educause: Personalized Learning at WGU Online, competency-based WGU has developed a model that allows the university to deliver personalized learning to its ever-increasing student body - currently over 70,000 students...more>> President of Embattled Accreditor of For-Profit Colleges Resigns The president of the embattled accreditor of many for-profit colleges, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, has resigned after seven years at the helm...more>> TechCrunch: The new push toward competency-based education Recent reports suggest that over 500 colleges and universities are preparing to launch new competency based education (CBE) programs, up from an estimated 52 last year...more>> University Ventures: Luncheon Meats Based on the response to the last UV Letter, there appears to be some enthusiasm for more stories from law school. Here's my favorite, also starring my brother Aaron...more>> For-Profit Colleges Seek Reprieve on 'Gainful Employment' Rule The main association of for-profit colleges in Washington on Thursday asked Education Secretary John B. King Jr. to delay implementation of the Obama administration's "gainful employment" rule that is aimed at cracking down on for-profit colleges...more>> Rolling Stone: How Wall Street Profits from Student Debt As the presidential primaries rumble on, the candidates - especially Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton - have debated college affordability and Wall Street greed. Unfortunately, no one is confronting the links between the two...more>> Brookings: What does cutting rates on student loans do? Are lower interest rates the best route to a fairer, more effective student loan program? From the rhetoric heard in Congress and on the campaign trail, the answer appears to be "yes." But both empirical evidence and economic theory show that lowering interest rates is a blunt, ineffective, and expensive tool for increasing schooling and reducing loan defaults...more>> The Hill: The future of college is not about it being free Free college may make for a terrific sound bite on the campaign trail, but it rings hollow. Framing the future of college as a debate about whether it should be free is a lost opportunity to discuss what's really wrong with higher education in America - and a missed chance to help young Americans regain lost competitiveness in the workforce...more>> Infographic: 2016 Higher Education Online Learning Landscape Let's face it, online learning is becoming mainstream. And why not? This learning modality provides ease of access, affordability and inclusion for an evolving, growing higher education population...more>> Only 1 in 5 Students Obtain All Learning Materials A new study on student piracy makes a convincing case for open educational resources in higher education...more>> People in developing countries use MOOCs differently A new study by researchers at the University of Washington has found significant differences in the types of people who take massive open online courses in developing countries, as compared to users in the United States - and they have different outcomes...more>> What's the best way to fix higher ed funding? New America has already called for a new higher education funding plan that would offer students access without the need to take on debt, and now it has positioned that proposal into a growing field of solutions highlighted by other think tanks, nonprofits, universities, and government agencies...more>> HBR: Hybrid Jobs Call for Hybrid Education It's that time of year when college students are interviewing for the jobs they hope to hold after graduation. But in addition to such familiar jobs such as engineer, consultant, or financial analyst, we're increasingly seeing new job titles emerge: forensic technologist, digital storyteller, and marketing automation manager...more>> Colleges try to solve a $1.5B problem It's a $1.5 billion annual problem: One in four college freshmen needs at least one remedial course in English, reading, or math...more>> Common Application Saturates the College Admissions Market, Critics Say As the news rippled across the web last week that a Long Island student had won admission to all eight Ivy League universities, thousands of people reacted with messages of praise...more>> Building Clear Paths More community colleges are considering building clear pathways to help students reach a career or further their education goals without wasting time or money...more>> Mark Milliron Arms Students With Data There's nothing in Mark David Milliron's background that might have suggested that he would earn a Ph.D., let alone co-found one of the nation's fastest-growing education-technology companies, Civitas Learning...more>> Survey: What Gen Z Thinks About Ed Tech in College Generation Z has spoken, and they want solid mobile-learning plans in the colleges of tomorrow. A survey of the collegiate educational-technology expectations of 1.300 middle and high school students from 49 states was captured by Barnes and Noble. The survey, Getting to Know Gen Z, includes feedback on the students' expectations for higher education....more>> EdTech: Survey: Data and Analytics in Higher Ed Can Be a One-Two Punch According to a recent survey, many colleges lack critical analytics skills to effectively leverage data...more>> Educause: The Future of Learning Environments in Higher Education It's been nearly a year since EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) published its research report on Next-Generation Digital Learning environments (NGDLE). Since then, the teaching and learning community has embraced many of its ideas, using its framework as a way of organizing thinking and planning for what comes next...more>> Lumina Foundation: New Report Shows National Postsecondary Attainment Rate Rises to More Than 45 Percent First-time data on certificates add to understanding of attainment; Urgent action needed to increase postsecondary success-even with steady progress on degrees, more needed for 2025 goal...more>> NYT: Brighter Job Market, for Some New college graduates looking for their first full-time job have reason to be optimistic. After a string of dismal to lackluster years, the job outlook brightened considerably for the class of 2015...more>> Free College, Political Support: Survey of Community College Leaders This time last year, the national conversation around the free community college movement seemed to be picking up steam...more>> Career and Technical Education a key part of revitalized ed outlook 95% of American CEOs believe their companies suffer from a skills shortage...more>> MIT Just Released an Online Learning Report Worth Reading Outside a given institution, an academic report rarely casts a wake. It is a formal document, often exceedingly parochial, such that those outside the institution-and many within it-rarely read beyond the executive summary. MIT's just-published "Online Education: A Catalyst for Higher Education Reforms" is a noteworthy exception...more>> 7 online learning trends for 2016 A look at new tools and opportunities to take online learning in mainstream higher ed to the next level...more>> NYT: Why Upperclassmen Lose Financial Aid A few weeks before Ashley Hurst was supposed to commit to college, an email arrived that she thought would change her life...more>> Inside the Elaborate Web Presence of the Government's Fake University The Department of Homeland Security arrested 21 people Tuesday on charges that they had recruited thousands of students through the promise of fraudulently obtained visas...more>> Taking High School Courses In College Costs Students And Families Nearly $1.5 Billion When Andrea Diaz was applying to colleges, she got good news and bad news. The good news was that American University, a private four-year university in Washington, D.C., wanted her...more>> Evidence of Remediation Success Two studies show successful pass rates from Tennessee's first full semester of putting all developmental students in college-level courses...more>> Making college less risky to boost social mobility "Higher education, more than ever, is the ticket to the middle class." So said President Obama last year. But is it? We know individual investments in higher education pay large dividends...more>> Lawmakers Ask Arizona President to Resign Over Appointment to DeVry Board Twenty lawmakers in the Arizona Legislature have asked the University of Arizona's president, Ann Weaver Hart, to resign over her decision not to step down from DeVry University's Board of Directors...more>> Business Insider: This essay got a high-school senior into 5 Ivy League schools and Stanford High-school senior Brittany Stinson learned Thursday she was accepted into five Ivy League schools - Yale, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth, and Cornell...more>> Inc: 16 Coolest College Startups of 2016 Introducing Inc.'s annual list of America's top student-run businesses...more>> |
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Getting Smart: 5 Interesting and Innovative EdTech Startup Ideas ...Last December, edtech accelerator Edge held a two-day conference at New York University focused solely on edtech now and in the future. Part of the conference involved presentations by 10 edtech startups that Edge had mentored and fostered for nine months, providing capital investment and other support...more>> CB Insights Infographic: Reinventing School: 106 Ed Tech Startups Across Learning Management, Language Teaching, And More The ed tech industry is becoming increasingly global, with the US share of ed tech deals falling to 60% in 2015, down from 80% in 2011, as the UK, India, and China took more ed tech financings. This diversity is also seen in the range of companies working in ed tech...more>> McKinsey: The need to lead in data and analytics more In a new survey, executives say senior-leader involvement and the right organizational structure are critical factors in how successful a company's analytics efforts are, even more important than its technical capabilities or tools...more>> China Online Education Industry Report, 2015-2018 Press Release: The industry continues to grow rapidly. At present, China online education industry is still in its infancy, with the market size continuously expanding. Chinese online education market size grew at a CAGR of 18.96% in 2008-2014, and jumped by about 19.41% year on year to RMB119.17 billion in 2015...more>> Employers placing lower value on grades, extracurriculars The fifth annual study of global employability found that, in 2015, employers cared less about grades and extracurriculars and focused more on skills like innovation, leadership, and networking...more>> Ed-tech hardware spending increases by 7 percent Futuresource Consulting has published its annual strategic technology in education report, delivering a comprehensive view of the global education landscape...more>> The Americans who'd benefit the most from online education have no idea it exists Here's a catch-22. Americans are obsessed with lifelong learning and self-improvement, and online education makes it cheap and easy. Yet the people most familiar with digital learning are those who need it the least...more>> Pearson, General Assembly Partner on Online Courses for Job Skills Pearson has partnered with General Assembly (GA) to offer online, skills-focused courses in the areas of digital marketing, web development, user experience design and data analytics...more>> CB Insights: Ed Tech Goes Global: India Sees Deals Explode While China Takes One-Fifth Of Funding Deal activity to education technology startups around the world has slowed significantly from peak levels seen in 2015. But digging deeper into investment trends globally reveals a complex landscape, as ed tech deals continue to accelerate in India and the US, while lagging this year in China and the UK...more>> CLO: The Consumerization of Learning Learning and development tools are shifting out of CLOs' hands and into employees' hands. Strategy and technology use must follow the trend. The learning landscape is not what it used to be. Access to information in today's connected world is no longer a challenge. If people need to learn something, whether it's for work or personal reasons, they most likely Google it, watch a YouTube video, or read a Wikipedia article...more>> NYT: A Private Equity Alum's Guide to Better Payday Lenders Yale. Morgan Stanley. Private equity. James Zhang has collected plenty of prestigious stamps on his résumé in the nine years since he graduated from high school and pursued a career in high finance...more>> Scientific American: Who Really Gains from Brain Training? Despite skepticism, research shows how cognitive exercises benefit cancer survivors, children with attention deficits, people with schizophrenia and others...more>> Economist: How to measure prosperity Which would you prefer to be: a medieval monarch or a modern office-worker? The king has armies of servants. He wears the finest silks and eats the richest foods. But he is also a martyr to toothache. He is prone to fatal infections...more>> Online Badges Help Refugees Prove Their Academic Achievements As Europe's refugee crisis intensifies, a university in Berlin has created a pilot program to support migrants who have a college education and help integrate them into the German work force...more>> CLO: Learning at Home Comes With a Price We live in a delightful age of digital knowledge and learning assets that are deliverable to us anytime and anywhere. Yet, there is a legal "learning firewall" lurking Ask 10 of your learners when they would like to take a digital course or an e-learning program. Many will say they would prefer to access it after or before traditional working hours...more>> Virtual and Augmented Reality Poised for Explosive Growth Virtual and augmented reality are often touted as the next big thing in education. How big? Not nearly as big as textbooks, but heading toward the billion-dollar mark inside of 10 years. The numbers for education aren't as staggering as for some other industries. According to investment bankers Goldman Sachs, VR and AR technologies will generate $700 annually from the education sector by 2025...more>> Getting Smart: EdTech 10: Dollars, Deals and Developments This week's EdTech 10 is overflowing with news of dollars, deals and developments in edtech. Check out this week's list for the latest on powerful new partnerships and large-scale investments in tools and initiatives with high potential for impact...more>> CB Insights: The Most Active VCs In Ed Tech And Their Investments In One Infographic We ranked the top VC and CVC investors in ed tech and visualized their portfolio companies. Top investors include NewSchools Venture Fund, 500 Startups, and Learn Capital...more>> Can AI fix education? We asked Bill Gates Share on Facebook (1,578) Tweet Share (300) Pin (6) The rise of smartphones has transformed the way students communicate and entertain themselves. But the classrooms they spend so much of their time in remain stubbornly resistant to transformation...more>> NYT: Facebook Aims to Drive Down Tech Prices to Expand Its Reach Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's co-founder and chief executive, is clear about his vision for his company: He wants to triple the size of his social network, which now has 1.6 billion members. But to reach that new audience, he has to find a way to change telecommunications networks to make connecting to the Internet more affordable...more>> Washington Post: AT&T is reaching out to low-income Americans with $10 Internet service AT&T says it is now offering discounted Internet service to low-income Americans who receive food stamps, following in the footsteps of some of its biggest rivals...more>> McKinsey: Winning hearts and minds in the 21st century The psychological contract that traditionally bound employees to their employers has been fraying...more>> CLO: 3 Ways to Redefine Talent Development Are you ready for the strategic and process-oriented changes necessary to push talent development forward in this era of fast-moving technology innovation?...more>> Atlantic: The Average 29-Year-Old Forget media archetypes of older Millennials as college-educated singles living in cities. The typical 29-year-old is living with a partner in the suburbs-without a bachelor's degree...more>> CB Insights: Corporates Slow Their Ed Tech Bets, But Are Still Involved In Nearly One-Fifth Of Deals At the current run-rate, overall funding to private ed tech companies globally will be down 57% this year, following 2015's record highs. Corporate investment in ed tech followed a similar pattern, with corporations and their venture arms - including Intel Capital, Pearson, and Google Ventures - involved in a record 65 ed tech deals...more>> CB Insights: Ed Tech Chill: Ed Tech Startups See Funding Slump And Deals Flatline Funding to ed tech companies plunged dramatically in Q1'16 compared to the previous quarter, and put 2016 on track for the lowest annual funding total to the category since 2013. The flurry of $100M+ mega-deals that shaped ed tech trends in 2015 have been conspicuously absent so far this year...more>> The Economist: Beautiful minds, wasted ...Autism is a condition that defies simple generalizations. Except one: the potential of far too many autistic people is being squandered. Although around half of those with autism are of average intelligence or above, they do far worse than they should at school and at work...more>> US News: The Next Steps for Career Prep Are we ready to expand career and technical education offerings as the next frontier in education policy? "College and career ready" has been an aspirational label in education for years, though many in the know recognize the label is generally used as a stand-in for the Common Core State Standards - and the focus there is decidedly tipped towards college readiness and away from career preparation...more>> Amazon Business Ramping Up for 2016 Until recently, Amazon has focused on three pillars, things they feel they've gotten good at: Amazon Prime, AWS and marketplaces. It's their goal to add Amazon Business as that fourth key pillar...At present, the top five top 5 customer types on Amazon Business include: industrial manufacturing, technology, education, business services and healthcare services....more>> TechCrunch: Looking to revolutionize business and personal education, EdCast raises $16 million EdCast, the online and mobile platform for distributing educational content from a network of industry experts, has raised $16 million in its latest round of funding...more>> ACG Global: Private Equity Activity Maintains Holding Pattern as Investors Await Economic After the successes private equity experienced in 2014, market unevenness and a sluggish deal landscape led to a plateau in 2015. As 2016 continues, fund managers are exercising more caution in deploying their dry powder as they wait for direction on the economy and consider industry shake-out of weaker players...more>> CLO: How to Bridge the Soft Skills Gap Today's newest young people in the workplace have so much to offer - new technical skills, new ideas, new perspective and new energy. Yet too many are held back, and driving the grown-ups crazy, because of their weakness in old-fashioned soft skills...more>> 13 High-Momentum Companies To Watch At The ASU GSV Ed Tech Summit 2016 With over 2,500 attendees expected at this year's ASU GSV Summit in San Diego from April 18-20, we ran the company exhibitor list through the CB Insights database - thanks to our Bulk Search tool - to help you target the right companies and people...more>> NYT: The Must-Attend Event for Education Technology Investors ... The annual ASU+GSV Summit conference here, an effort put on by Arizona State University and GSV Capital, an investment firm, started six years ago as a modest event in the desert where investors came to hear company presentations from about 50 education start-ups...more>> HBS: How to Hire a Millennial This is not your parents' workplace anymore, Joseph Fuller reminds us. Crucial for attracting millennial workers are flexible work arrangements, meaningful mentorship programs, and sense of mission...more>> John Flavin Interview: Incubating Innovation and Imagination The University of Chicago has a long history of innovation. Without a doubt, the most powerful and influential innovation that ever came out of the school had nothing and everything to do with a borough in New York: research for the Manhattan Project...more>> EdSurge: When Edtech Networks Combine: SIIA's Education Division Absorbs Education Industry Association Industry associations operate by a simple rule: ensure a stable, vibrant market for their members to succeed. But some groups adapt to change better than others...more>> Understanding the Origins of Ed-Tech Snake Oil Personalized learning! Adaptive learning! Brain science! Learning science! Big data! New and improved! The marketing for "personalized" educational products can feel a little like a late-night infomercial...more>> WSJ: Succession Tests Venture-Capital Firms Doerr's exit from managerial role at Kleiner Perkins reflects struggle to balance experience, need for new blood...more>> The Blockchain for Education: An Introduction Is blockchain poised to be "the next big thing" in education? This has become a question I hear with increasing frequency about a technology that, up until quite recently, was primarily associated with the cryptocurrency Bitcoin...more>> What Learning Will Look Like in 2035 We're living through a revolution in how human beings learn and develop. We're two decades into the 'anyone can learn anything' era and it's translating into big changes in formal education worldwide. Unbelievable progress will be made in the next two decades...more>> How Sal Khan Hopes to Remake Education Salman Khan is not afraid to make mistakes in his popular teaching videos. In fact, he considers them a feature...more>> Envisioning Education Policy Under a President Donald Trump Education advocates and policy analysts are contemplating the possibility of a Donald Trump presidential administration-and, in many cases, having trouble bringing the picture into focus...more>> Todd Hand: CTO vs. VP Software Engineering-Who's Who? Do you ever wonder what the difference is between a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and a VP of Engineering? Many people aren't clear about the difference in roles, even some CEOs...more>> EXTRA! THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE! The EdSurde Annual April Special It's that time again. Welcome to the fourth annual EdSurde Report! We just keep on gettin' ya again and again and again... it's really a shame that we can't do this every newsletter...more>> Why Are Americans Angry? Maybe Education's Doing the Opposite of What We Think In recent polls, nearly half of Americans say they're angry: and the popularity of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, despite wildly different styles and points of view, stems from this emotion...more>> Tech Slowdown Threatens the American Dream Despite the allure of apps and social media, today's digital technologies are doing little to generate the kind of prosperity that previous generations enjoyed, a prominent economist argues. But that doesn't mean we should give up on innovation...more>> Remedial writing instruction costs US businesses $3.1B A new report from College Board and the National Commission on Writing shows that $3.1 billion is being spent annually on remedial writing training by businesses in the U.S...more>> Dropouts Need Not Apply: Silicon Valley Asks Mostly for Developers With Degrees There's a long-lived myth that Silicon Valley and the technology industry are meritocracies where all that matters is the caliber of your code...more>> Report: 'Transition courses' don't help college readiness A new report from the Community College Research Center shows schools and districts are using "transition courses" to help students become college-ready but such courses do not bolster student preparedness...more>> Technology means assessments can focus on more than just multiple-choice. Can testing keep up? When we imagine the future of assessment it's easy to envision all sorts of impressive ways to help gauge what students know and what they can do. Gaming and simulations, especially, create all kinds of possibilities...more>> McKinsey: Leading in the Digital Age The automation of work and the digital disruption of business models place a premium on leaders who can create a vision of change and frame it positively...more>> HBR: Learning to Learn Organizations today are in constant flux. Industries are consolidating, new business models are emerging, new technologies are being developed, and consumer behaviors are evolving...more>> What's Trending in Executive Education? Rutgers Business School's Joe Schaffer has a few ideas about the future of executive education...more>> McKinsey: A supply-and-demand guide to digital disruption. In July 2015, during the championship round of the World Surf League's J-Bay Open, in South Africa, a great white shark attacked Australian surfing star Mick Fanning...more>> Beyond email: could startup Slack change the way you work? Two million people are already using Slack to chat, send emojis and encourage creativity at work. Nasa and Harvard are on board - will your company be next...more>> Tap the Full Potential of Big Data in Learning The learning industry is facing an avalanche of data and analytics. It will have to learn quickly how to use the data to drive organizational learning efforts forward...more>> The Atlantic: How Can the U.S. Make Life Less Draining for Workers? Eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, and eight hours for what we will. That's how the 40-hour week is supposed to work, right?...more>> Most adults claim to be lifelong learners, but training isn't primarily online Nearly three-quarters of adults consider themselves lifelong learners but they don't, in such large numbers, report online learning to be the source of their continuing education...more>> Brookings: New technologies haven't made us more productive, plus 3 more new findings in economics In early March, Brookings hosted dozens of economists to discuss new papers submitted to the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (BPEA), the academic journal published by Brookings Economic Studies that has been informing public policy since 1970...more>> NPR: For Adults, Lifelong Learning Happens The Old Fashioned Way On any given weekend, the Washington, D.C., public library system offers nearly a dozen classes. You can try Matt McEntee's class, where he'll teach you how to fix anything from a clock to a broken heart...more>> Cloud-Based Online Education Systems Will Drive the Online Education Market in India until 2020, Says Technavio According to the latest research report released by Technavio, the online education market in India is expected to reach close to over USD 12 billion in revenue by 2019...more>> Brookings: Inequality undermines the value of education for the poor High school dropout rates are higher in cities and states with greater income inequality. This does not just reflect the different demographics across places...more>> NPR: What Artificial Intelligence Could Mean For Education ...What could AI technologies do for human education? Second: How should human education respond to the challenges posed by AI?...more>> 8 pieces of ed tech news to note from SXSWedu 2016 If you couldn't be in Austin or see everything on display, here's what caught our attention...more>> Fast Company: New Job-Matching Tool Uses Personality Traits Rather Than Skills Talify tests college students for personality, leadership, empathy, and more to help hiring managers make better recruiting decisions...more>> Investors Cool On Wearable Computing Startups, As Deals Crash By 20% In 2015 The wearables market was once hot and Fitbit's IPO in June 2015 generated enthusiasm for the space, but the recent funding trends tell another story. For much of 2015, funding to wearables startups was on track to fall to a five-year low...more>> Fast Company: How The Master's Degree Became The New Bachelor's In The Hiring World Nearly a third (32%) of employers are bumping up education requirements for new hires. According to a new survey from CareerBuilder, 27% are recruiting those who hold master's degrees for positions that used to only require four-year degrees...more>> NPR: Six Things We Learned at South By Southwest EDU The NPR Ed team is back from Austin, where we connected with hundreds of educators and people excited about education at the annual South By Southwest Edu Conference...more>> Testing Companies Try to Balance Secrecy and Openness At first there were just gripes. Moments after taking the revamped SAT last Saturday, high-school students throughout the nation shared their reactions online. "New SAT is HORRIBLE," @TSpillaneUSA tweeted. "Umm ... So that sucked," @_shai7 wrote. These were exhausted teenagers, blowing off steam...more>> |
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