edBiz Update

A Newsletter for Education Business Leaders

Todd Hand
Managing Director and Education Principal
todd@bsgtv.com

Ralph Protsik
Co-Founder and Managing Director
ralph@bsgtv.com

Mary Axelson
Editor

www.bsgtv.com

Forward this newsletter
to a colleague




November Feature: M&A ACTIVITY FROM CHERRY TREE

Strayer Education to Merge with Capella Education
Apollo Global Management Acquires West Corporation
Hoonuit Acquires Whitewater Learning
Chegg Acquires Cogeon
Fuel Education Acquires Big Universe
Campus Labs Acquires Academic Management Systems
WeWork Acquires Flatiron School
VocabularySpellingCity Acquires WriteSteps
MindRocket Media Group Acquires American ED TV
Varsity Tutors Acquires First Tutors
QS Quacquarelli Symonds Limited Acquires Hobsons Solutions Division from Hobsons, Inc.
Brainly Raises $14 Million
Linux Academy Receives $6.8 Million Investment from Arthur Ventures
Moodle Raises $6 Million
BridgeU Raises $5.3 Million
Fluent City Raises $3 Million
Curiscope Raises $1 Million
Growth Street Partners Invests in CRM Web Solutions
Quad Partners Invests in Rubicon
Talented Receives Investment from Duke University


Recent BSG Search Activity:

Active and 2016-17 closed searches-
Walton Family Foundation, Senior Advisor
Herzing University, Chief Marketing Officer
KIPP Foundation, Chief of Programs and Impact Officer
The School of the New York Times, Director of Pre-College Division
Revolution Foods, VP Sales
MeTEOR Education, VP Sales
One CEO search currently underway under a non-disclosure agreement.

Edmentum, President and CEO (closed)
Rosetta Stone, CEO (closed)
AltSchool, Chief Academic Officer (closed)
American Public University System (APUS), President (closed)
Burning Glass, VP Business Development (closed)
OnCourse Learning, Chief Technology Officer; Chief Marketing Officer (both closed)
Turnitin/Insight Venture Partners, SVP Sales (closed)
eDynamic Learning, SVP Sales & Marketing (closed)
Quad Partners, Chief Financial Officer; Chief Marketing Officer (both closed)
LePort Schools, CEO (closed)
GEMS Education, Chief Financial Officer (closed)
Cambridge Education Group, General Manager (closed)
American Honors/Quad Learning, VP Business Development (closed)
Catapult Learning, VP Sales (closed)
Cambridge Information Group, Director of K-12 Education (closed)
Center for the Collaborative Classroom, Chief Technology Officer (closed)
Human Capital Institute, Chief Learning Officer; Chief Marketing Officer (both closed)
ILSC, Managing Director (closed)
DecisionDesk, CEO (closed)
Penn Foster, EVP Business Solutions; General Counsel (both closed)
Teachers for Tomorrow, Chief Revenue Officer (closed)
Tiber Health (a University Ventures portfolio company), Chief Product Officer (closed)




Sources
  • Academic Business Advisors, LLC
  • The Atlantic
  • Bostinno
  • Brookings Institution
  • Campus Technology
  • Center for American Progress
  • Center for Digital Education
  • Center on Education and the Workforce
  • Christian Science Monitor
  • The Chronicle of Higher Education
  • The Clayton Christensen Institute
  • CLO Media
  • CNBC
  • CNET smartplanet.com
  • Computer World
  • Diverse: Issues in Higher Education
  • eCampus News
  • eLearning
  • The Economist
  • The Economic Times
  • edSurge
  • Education Dive
  • Education News
  • Education Next
  • Education Sector
  • Education Week
  • Educause Review
  • Edudemic
  • Edutopia
  • eLearn Magazine
  • Entrepreneur
  • eSchool News
  • Fast Company
  • Forbes
  • Fortune
  • FoxNews.com
  • Geekwire
  • GettingSmart.com
  • Harvard Business Review
  • The Hechinger Report
  • The Heritage Foundation
  • Huffington Post
  • Inside Higher Ed
  • IT World
  • Journal of Applied Research on Children
  • KQEDMind/Shift
  • McKinsey Quarterly
  • MDR EdNet InSight
  • MIT Technology Review
  • Mother Jones
  • National Journal
  • NBCNews.com
  • NewsDay
  • NewsWeek
  • The New Republic
  • The New Yorker
  • The New York Times
  • The Week
  • NPR
  • OnStartups.com
  • Politico
  • Psych Central
  • Rolling Stone
  • San Francisco Chronicle
  • Scientific American
  • SkilledUp
  • Skoll World Forum
  • Slate
  • The Stifel Equity Research Group
  • Social Science Research Network
  • TechCrunch
  • Tech Radar
  • T.H.E. Journal
  • Thomas B. Fordham Institute
  • Time
  • University Business
  • University Ventures
  • University World News
  • US News & World Report
  • Wall Street Journal
  • Washington Post
  • Venture Beat

K-12
NYT: How Silicon Valley Plans to Conquer the Classroom
Tech firms are deploying sophisticated marketing techniques to try to sell their wares into America's schools...more>>
EdWeek Market Brief: More Districts Getting What They Pay For From Ed-Tech
An analysis that looks at whether districts are actually using the ed-tech they pay for finds that slightly more K-12 systems are getting the value they want from companies' offerings than they did two years ago...more>>
Politico: The Education of Betsy DeVos
President Donald Trump's most controversial, ideological Cabinet pick is discovering the limits of her power...more>>
THE Journal: Feds Fund Education Innovation for $95 million
The U.S. Department of Education has announced the 16 recipients of this year's grants for education innovation and research. Recipients include organizations that are undertaking promising work in teacher professional development, reading and writing, school leadership and other practices...more>>
Education Week: FCC Delays, Denials Foil Rural Schools' Broadband Plans
Hundreds of state and local efforts to connect rural and remote schools to fiber-optic networks have been delayed or rejected by federal officials during the past two years, jeopardizing the push to bring high-speed internet to the country's hardest-to-connect classrooms...more>>
Education Week: The Polarizing Pick to Be Betsy DeVos' Right-Hand Man
Mick Zais, President Donald Trump's nominee to fill the No. 2 spot at the U.S. Department of Education, has some big things in common with his would-be boss, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos...more>>
EdSurge: K-12 Policy Updates: Mandatory Fall Reading for Every Education Entrepreneur
Last week, the Department of Education (ED) published Secretary Betsy DeVos's "proposed priorities and definitions" in the Federal Register. The document, which is open for public comment until mid-November, lays out her vision for American education, and the requirements and priorities that ED will apply to all competitive funding going forward...more>>
Education Week: Will Trump Get His K-12 Budget Cuts? Washington Edu-Insiders Say No
President Donald Trump alarmed a lot of the education community when he proposed slashing the U.S. Department of Education's nearly $70 billion budget by $9 billion. So will those cuts become a reality?...more>>
Politico: How the Kochs are trying to shake up public schools, one state at a time
The push by Libre represents a new front in the fight by targeting Hispanic families...more>>
Hechinger: Charter schools aren't measuring up to their promises
Ambitious goals were not uncommon in New Orleans charter schools, but rarely achieved...more>>
WSJ: Study Finds Test-Score Growth at NYC Charter Schools Outpaces District Schools
Analysis from a Stanford center says that on average, charter students show growth equal to 23 extra days of learning in reading...more>>
WSJ: U.S. Putting $253 Million Into Charter School Expansion
The federal government is pumping $253 million into the expansion and creation of charter schools, with hopes of helping students in low-income communities...more>>
MDR: Student Data Privacy Debate Resurfaces
In case you missed it, the Department a of Education (ED) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are hosting a workshop on December 1 to examine what they call the "intersection" of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)...more>>
WSJ: Hackers Target Nation's Schools
Hackers looking to exploit sensitive information for profit are increasingly targeting the nation's schools, where they are finding a relatively weak system to protect a valuable asset: student data...more>>
Hechinger: Who is keeping student data safe in the era of digital learning?
Some districts go above and beyond compliance to foster trust among parents...more>>
THE Journal: Report: Scaling and Sustaining Competency-Based Education
It's no longer enough to simply begin the journey of competency-based education. Enough schools are trying to implement CBE that it's time to write the second chapter by building on what is already known to work...more>>
MDR: How Do Schools Spend Discretionary Funds?
Bob Stimolo, president of School Market Research Institute, Inc. (SMRI), gave us a preview of the October 2016 survey of 200 elementary through high school secretaries that was conducted jointly by School Market Research Institute (SMRI) and Market Data Retrieval (MDR)...more>>
Ed Week Market Brief: Intersection of Virtual Ed. and Homeschooling Expanding Opportunities for Companies
The rising popularity of virtual schools is causing a shift in the homeschooling curriculum market as students move between online education and homeschooling more seamlessly, creating opportunities for a wider array of education companies...more>>
EdSurge: Owl Ventures' New $185M Edtech Fund Has Global Backers-and Ambitions
Fueled by an explosion of broadband access, education software and, of course, the irresistible allure of financial returns, investors across the world want a slice of the U.S. edtech industry...more>>
MDR: DoE Grant Priorities, Screen Time
Secretary DeVos has proposed 11 priorities and related definitions for use in the Department of Education's discretionary grant programs.)...more>>
EdSurge: New Survey Reveals How Much Time Kids Really Spend on Mobile Devices
A whopping 98 percent of U.S. kids live in a house with some form of a mobile device-and those smartphones and tablets are gobbling up a greater portion of kids' screen time than ever...more>>
District Administration: K12 can run like a business
ERP software has power to automate financial functions and other routine tasks to save educators time...more>>
Washington Post: The work of 213,284 kids was analyzed. These are the writing and critical-thinking skills that stumped students.
It's often said that young people today don't know how to write, or, at least cannot write as well as their parents' generation did...more>>
Education Week: School-Rating Site GreatSchools Expands Its Measuring Stick
The online site GreatSchools.org has released a massive expansion of its school-ratings system, intended to provide more nuance about school quality by highlighting student test growth, achievement gaps, school climate, and course offerings....more>>
The Atlantic: Why Parents Make Flawed Choices About Their Kids' Schooling
A new study shows that families act on insufficient information when it comes to figuring out where to enroll their children...more>>
Edutopia: What Do Parents Want From Schools?
Key takeaways from four recent polls that asked parents and guardians for their thoughts on education...more>>
K-12 Prospects: Why the private school market is small but great opportunity for selling to schools
The private school market consists of one-tenth of the market of public schools served today. Over 50 million students are served each year in public schools, while 5.4 million students are served in private schools in the United States. Not only is the market small, but the actual school size is also small...more>>
eSchool News: Text, tweet, email, call-what do parents want in school communications?
The latest data from Speak Up Research Project gives insights on school-to-home communications...more>>
EdSurge: To Teach Digital Citizenship Effectively, Educators Say It's Time to Unblock Social Media
Since 2011 Banned Books Week has included a day to recognize banned websites...more>>
EdSurge: Amazon Commits $10 Million to Code.org
Code.org, the nonprofit advocate for bringing computer science to K-12 education, has several new benefactors starting with Amazon, which is donating $10 million to the organization...more>>
EdSurge: Do You Know the Edtech Adoption Rules in Your State? SETDA's New Guide May Help.
What's the difference between selling an education product to California versus Indiana-or any other state, for that matter?...more>>
Education Week: 10 Disruptions That Will Revolutionize Education
Artificial intelligence and technology will prove significant for education...more>>
Ed Dive: 'De-colonizing the curriculum' critical to improving outcomes for students of color
Experts say an investment in more culturally relevant materials will go a long way...more>>
EdWeek Market Brief: Education Companies on Inc. 5000 List Give Insider Looks at Fast Growth
30 Companies in the K-12 Market Are on This Year's List, and Some Have Seen Big Revenue Increases...more>>
Education Week: Hacked Twitter Accounts a New Headache for Schools
The trouble for Foothill High started at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon earlier this month...more>>
Ed Dive: Measuring social-emotional skills: Designs show current state of assessment
Most assessments focus on specific skills and aren't ready to be used on a large-scale basis...more>>
Hechinger: Three lessons from rigorous research on education technology
The researchers at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), an organization inside the economics department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, scoured academic journals, the internet and evaluation databases and found only 113 studies on using technology in schools that were scientifically rigorous...more>>
EdTech: New NMC Horizon Report Highlights Coding, STEAM as Rising Tech Trends of the Year
Experts from NMC and CoSN explore the trends and issues facing K-12 schools in the coming year...more>>
Nibletz:K-12 EdTech Spending Could Be On The Rise
Fresh off the heels of the annual EdNet Conference in Scottsdale Arizona, Agile Education Marketing wasted no time hunkering down and releasing an important infographic for product companies in the K-12 edtech space and edtech purchasing decision makers...more>>
EdSurge: The Makings (and Misgivings) of a Statewide Effort to Personalize Learning in Massachusetts
In Massachusetts, an emerging partnership between private funders and the state department of education aims to help teachers across the Commonwealth learn, share and spread best practices when it comes to leveraging new instructional models and technologies...more>>
EdWeek Market Brief : Where Ed Tech Misses the Mark for Schools Embracing Personalized Learning
A District That's Ahead of the Curve Offers Advice for Companies to Meet Teacher and Parent Needs...more>>
Ed Dive: RAND study provides early lessons on personalized learning model
With more schools adopting personalized learning approaches, a new study from the RAND Corporation provides lessons from a high school model and finds that teacher vacancies and access to instructional materials has made implementation challenging...more>>
Ed Dive: After controversial seven years, most states still use Common Core
Out of 46 states and districts that originally adopted Common Core standards, only eight have completely repealed the standards, though more have modified them, the Associated Press reports...more>>
EdWeek Market Brief: Take a Look Inside a Booming K-12 Market: the United Arab Emirates
The Country Has Hundreds of Private Schools With an Appetite for STEM Curricula, Data, and Technology...more>>
China Daily: Booming children's education market in China
In a Lego education center in Beijing's Dongcheng district, Congcong and other children watch videos of submarines. After their teacher explains some basic physics, they build their own submarines with Lego...more>>
U.S. News: Gates Foundation to Shift Education Focus
Marking a new chapter in education philanthropy, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will step back from its traditional education reform agenda to instead invest close to $1.7 billion over the next five years on new initiatives that include a focus on building networks of schools...more>>
Education Week: Preparing Students for Tomorrow's Jobs: 10 Experts Offer Advice to Educators
Automation and artificial intelligence are reshaping the economy. That much is clear.

But many of the country's top minds are sharply divided over just how disruptive technology's impact will be, and just what kind of job market today's students will eventually face...more>>
Entrepreneur: After 30 Years of Experimenting, an Education Franchise Is Finally at the Top of the Class
The owner of The Learning Experience explains how his plan for small, sustained growth slowly grew into a robust franchise operation with a national presence...more>>
EdSurge: Why Edtech Executives Are Keeping a Close Eye on Preschool Demographics
Edtech executives tell it. There are certain student populations, such as English language learners or ELLs, that haven't received the investment they deserve...more>>

Higher Ed
EdTech: EDUCAUSE 2017: Insights from Thought Leaders on the Conference Floor
Didn't make it to Philadelphia? This social media roundup covers all you may have missed...more>>
EdSurge: More Colleges Are Offering Microcredentials-And Developing Them The Way Businesses Make New Products
If 2012 was "The Year of the MOOC"-massive open online courses, usually offered for free-2017 could be "The Year of the Microcredential."...more>>
Third Way: GE by the Numbers: How Students Fared at Programs Covered Under the Gainful Employment Rule
Takeaways: According to data released earlier this year, more than 1.1 million students graduated from programs covered by the Department of Education's gainful employment (GE) rule...more>>
Ed Dive: University of Phoenix to shut down more campuses
The University of Phoenix plans to close approximately 20 of its brick and mortar campuses around the country, according to Phoenix New Times...more>>
Ed Dive: Another for-profit bought out by a traditional university
Lynn University has announced that it will acquire assets of Digital Media Arts College (DMAC), transitioning its College of International Communication into a College of Communication and Design with courses in design, web and game art, among other things, according to a press release...more>>
BuzzFeed: The Education Department Will Allow Two Large For-Profit Colleges To Become Nonprofits
The move is a sign of a shift in how the federal government will treat colleges that

want to shed the for-profit label...more>>
Getting Smart Podcast: Accessible, Affordable, Achievable HigherEd for Working Adults
Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) is one of the one of most important innovators in HigherEd (up there with Minerva, ASU and a few more)...more>>
EdSurge: Academic Leaders Make Case for Net Neutrality
The Federal Communications Commission is reconsidering how it regulates the flow of information online, and academic groups are making their case to protect so-called "net neutrality" rules...more>>
Chronicle: Republican Tax Proposal Gets Failing Grade From Higher-Ed Groups
Republicans in Congress released their proposed overhaul of the nation's tax laws on Thursday, including several measures that would place new tax burdens on colleges and students - and, critics said, could undermine charitable giving to higher education...more>>
Center for American Progress: New Data Highlight How Higher Education Is Failing Part-Time Students
For the first time, the federal government has published data on the outcomes of students who begin their college career studying part-time. The data are clear: American higher education needs to do a better job helping these students get through college...more>>
eCampus News: Predicting the next 20 years in higher ed reveals 5 major themes
In a future-forward interview series, leaders reflect on the last 20 years of U.S. higher ed and consider what the next 20 years might hold...more>>
Inside Higher Ed: A Big Publisher Embraces OER
Cengage will offer open educational resources, curated and adapted to include proprietary assessment tools, from $25 per student for general education courses...more>>
Forbes: FlatWorld: The Publishing Platform Rewriting The Rules Of Textbook Economics
...I spoke with FlatWorld Co-CEO Alastair Adam about the vision behind his company, disrupting the publishing industry, and his plans to make new textbooks and teachings accessible to students everywhere...more>>
Ed Dive: Students are opting out of purchasing textbooks because of cost - how OERs fit in
About 85% of new college or university students had not purchased college textbooks by the first day of class or decided not to buy the textbooks at all, according to a new survey of students conducted by Wakefield Research on behalf of VitalSource Technologies LLC...more>>
Campus Technology: Survey: Blended Learning on the Rise
Most faculty in our second annual Teaching with Technology Survey said they employ a mix of online and face-to-face instruction, and many are using the flipped model in their courses...more>>
Parchment: Online Learning 20 Years Later: Five Observations
To mark the 20th anniversary of the Educom NLII Instructional Management Systems (IMS) retreat in March 1997 at Sonoma State University, and the founding of Blackboard LLC in June 1997, Blackboard co-founder and Parchment CEO Matthew Pittinsky shares five observations about the state of eLearning 20 years later...more>>
Tyton: What does the WGU audit mean for adult learners?
As we head to Philadelphia for EDUCAUSE this week, we're struck by the symbol of the Liberty Bell as we contemplate the fractured state of higher education's service to the adult learner...more>>
EdSurge: Federal Audit Says WGU Lacks Faculty Interaction, Recommending It Return $700 Million in Financial Aid
Western Governors University has long touted its unusual model of online teaching, which breaks up the traditional faculty role into pieces handled by different people, and grants degrees after students prove they've mastered competencies...more>>
Inside Higher Ed: Faculty Buy-in Builds, Bit by Bit: Survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology
Professors are slowly gaining confidence in the effectiveness of online learning as more of them teach online, Inside Higher Ed's 2017 Survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology reveals...more>>
Chronicle of Higher Education: What's the Ideal Mix of Online and Face-to-Face Classes?
Is there a tipping point at which students who take a blend of online and in-person coursework are doing too much online?...more>>
Times Higher Ed: Where will online education be in five years?
Online learning design is now a refined art, says Geoff Webster, and universities must show they can produce high-quality courses at a reasonable cost...more>>
EdSurge: Faculty Say Online Programs 'Cannibalize' On-Campus Courses at George Washington University
Who oversees online programs at colleges? The question sparked an internal investigation at George Washington University, after a lawsuit last year raised questions about whether the academic quality of online programs was on par with their in-person versions...more>>
EdSurge: A Proposal to Put the 'M' Back in MOOCs
MOOCs have evolved over the past five years from a virtual version of a classroom course to an experience that feels more like a Netflix library of teaching videos...more>>
EdSurge: Udacity Official Declares MOOCs 'Dead' (Though the Company Still Offers Them)
It was Udacity vice president Clarissa Shen who this week said "they are dead," when talking about MOOCs in an interview with The Economic Times in India. "MOOCs are a failed product, at least for the goals we had set for ourselves," she told the newspaper...more>>
Inside Higher Ed: MOOCs Are "Dead." What's Next? Uh-oh.
One overhyped technology fades as another surges...more>>
Ed Dive: What is the future of accreditation - and how do microcredentials impact it?
While the state of the nation's current higher education accreditation systems has many education advocates concerned, a Seton Hall professor writes in a new report that any federal legislative changes could be difficult...more>>
University Ventures: Money Changes Everything
It's going to take a lot more than football for colleges and universities to regain popularity. In fact, spending more on football will probably make the problem worse. What will it take?...more>>
Ed Dive: U of Wisconsin proposes massive mergers for two and four-year institutions
All of the two-year colleges in the University of Wisconsin System may be merged into its four-year institutions starting in July 2018, according to a potential new overhaul announced by the system's leadership, according to the Wisconsin State Journal...more>>
Hechinger: Colleges and universities join together to survive enrollment and financial problems
Many schools are setting up alliances to save on everything from software to security...more>>
Ed Dive: How will colleges handle population growth, demographic shifts?
The population of incoming college freshmen will vacillate by region during the next fifteen years, with the Midwest and Northeast expected to see declines in the numbers of high school graduates who could potentially become college applicants...more>>
Inside Higher Ed: Enrollment and Market Forces
Enrollment at graduate schools is still increasing, but at a slower pace than before. Researchers point to a market correction and declining growth in international students...more>>
WSJ: Universities Take a Harder Look at Whether M.B.A. Programs Are Worth It
Business schools are facing a tough business problem. While graduate schools of management can make money for the institutions that house them, their M.B.A. programs sometimes bring in little more than prestige...more>>
Ed Dive: Mergers could have long-term financial benefits for public institutions, report finds
A new report from the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA) finds that as federal and state support for public higher ed institutions continues to decrease, mergers may be the most financially and sustainably strategic option...more>>
Hechinger: Like their students, colleges are vastly increasing the amount they borrow
Hoping to boost enrollments with new features, institutions take on billions in debt...more>>
Hechinger: In-demand graduate programs become a cash cow for colleges in financial distress
Josh Caouette was cramming for a test in the doctoral program he's just begun in physical therapy at Simmons College, for which he's relying on student loans to pay the $51,850-a-year tuition and fees...more>>
Times Higher Ed: Are 'edusceptics' right to portray higher education as a big con?
A recent wave of commentators have been disparaging universities and painting all who work in them as complicit in a fraud. Philip Cowan examines their case...more>>
Observatory: The crisis of the college degree
In The Future of the Degree: How Colleges Can Survive the New Credential Economy, Jeffrey J. Selingo, professor and expert in higher education, outlines the biggest challenges college degrees face today in the knowledge economy...more>>
HBS: Dismissed by Degrees
How degree inflation is undermining U.S. competitiveness and hurting America's middle class...more>>
MarketWatch: John Grisham's new novel grapples with the $1.4 trillion student debt crisis
'There's a day of reckoning coming with all of this debt and students who are unable to pay it.' If the internet is any indication, student loan borrowers would go to great lengths to get rid of their student debt...more>>
Inside Higher Ed: Net Price Keeps Creeping Up
Tuition and fees increased by a few percentage points across the board, and aid failed to keep pace, annual College Board report shows...more>>
Ed Dive: Consortiums growing in popularity to promote ROI
Twenty years ago, three prominent liberal arts colleges created the Liberal Arts Career Network to improve the availability of information about real world experience and substantive career opportunities...more>>
Politico: How U.S. News college rankings promote economic inequality on campus
America's universities are getting two report cards this year. The first, from the Equality of Opportunity Project, brought the shocking revelation that many top universities, including Princeton and Yale, admit more students from the top 1 percent of earners than the bottom 60 percent combined...more>>
WSJ: Americans Losing Faith in College Degrees, Poll Finds
Men, young adults and rural residents increasingly say college isn't worth the cost...more>>
U.S. News: States Connect Students With Degrees They Don't Know They've Earned
To help catch up to lagging education targets, states reach out to non-grads...more>>
Consumer Affairs: Survey finds debt may be discouraging students from college careers
Nearly half of young people opting out of college say cost is a factor...more>>
Inside Higher Ed: Post-Recession Borrowers Struggle to Repay Loans
New federal data show that college students are taking out more student loan debt and also taking longer to pay it off...more>>
The Hill: Education is key to America's workforce investment strategy
...The funding changes reflect a fundamental change in the workforce. Because most jobs today require some level of postsecondary education, the Higher Education Act has become our nation's workforce investment strategy....more>>
Career Education Review: New Federal Student Aid Chief Speaks
A. Wayne Johnson, the head of the Education Department's Office of Federal Student Aid, on Wednesday gave his first public remarks since he was appointed to that role by Secretary Betsy DeVos in July...more>>
Hechinger: New research questions the value of certificates pushed by colleges, policymakers
Studies suggest these popular credentials often don't improve job prospects or pay...more>>
EdSurge: Who's Holding Coding Bootcamp Accountability Accountable?
When it comes to reporting graduation and job-placement rates, the numbers don't always add up at for-profit coding bootcamps...more>>
Campus Technology: New Online Bootcamp Comes to the States; Offers Free Access to 'Dreamers'
A new bootcamp is coming to America, this one by way of France. OpenClassrooms is an online program that offers certification tracks in development, product management and, soon, design...more>>
Fast Company: This Is What Coding Bootcamps Need To Do To Beat The Backlash
With two major bootcamps shutting down this summer, some are questioning the future of the model. Here's what it will take for bootcamps to stay relevant...more>>

Et Alia
HBR: A Survey of How 1,000 CEOs Spend Their Day Reveals What Makes Leaders Successful
In new research, we use survey data from over 1,000 CEOs across six countries and the financial performance of their companies to explore these questions. And our evidence suggests that hands-on managerial CEOs are, on average, less effective than leaders who stay more high-level...more>>
Observatory: Gartner reveals the top tech trends for business in 2018
The advisory firm Gartner has released a report on the technology trends that will reshape business in 2018. Among them are artificial intelligence, immersive experiences, and event thinking...more>>
EdTech: EDUCAUSE 2017: Michio Kaku Ponders the Future of Connectivity
Futurist predicts that constant connection will fundamentally change the role of educators...more>>
CBC News: 'We're designing minds': Industry insider reveals secrets of addictive app trade
The average Canadian teenager is on track to spend nearly a decade of their life staring at a smartphone, and that's no accident, according to an industry insider who shared some time-sucking secrets of the app design trade...more>>
The Guardian: 'Our minds can be hijacked': the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia
Google, Twitter and Facebook workers who helped make technology so addictive are disconnecting themselves from the internet. Paul Lewis reports on the Silicon Valley refuseniks alarmed by a race for human attention...more>>
The Atlantic: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?
More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they're on the brink of a mental-health crisis...more>>
Independent: Young people cut down smartphone use, saying they waste too much time on them
For the first time, young people have started using their smartphones less than they were before. New research from Kantar TNS has recorded a small decline in smartphone use amongst 16-24-year-olds...more>>
MIT Technology Review: Big Data Poses Special Risks for Children, Says UNICEF
Children are poorly represented in the debate about data collection, say UNICEF researchers. And that needs to change...more>>
McKinsey: The digital effect
What does the digitization of industries mean for future revenue and profit growth? The findings are bad news for average companies...more>>
America Succeeds: Age of Agility
In this report, America Succeeds tells stories and presents data about the seismic shift underway in the education-to-employment pipeline...more>>
Hechinger: Without changes in education, the future of work will leave more people behind
New Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows big employment gains in health care, social aid...more>>
Stanford Business: Four Ways Work Will Change in the Future
In the future, a traditional college degree will remain useful to build fundamental skills, but after graduation, workers will be expected to continue their education throughout their careers...more>>
Washington Post: Apprenticeships, long common in blue-collar industries, are coming to white-collar office work
Andrew Skelnik grew up in what he calls a "strong blue-collar background" in Chicago. His father was an electrician, his uncle was a carpenter and his first job out of high school was in the mailroom of a printing plant, where he worked his way up to become a pressman...more>>
Forbes: Freelancers Now Make Up 35% Of U.S. Workforce
Freelancers now make up 35% of U.S. workers and collectively earned $1 trillion in the past year, according to the "Freelancing in America: 2016" survey released this morning by the Freelancers Union, based in New York City, and the giant freelancing platform Upwork, headquartered in Silicon Valley...more>>
EdSurge: Filling the Other Skills Gap
...But there is another employment gap that is arguably far more pressing that receives much less attention from professional investors and budding entrepreneurs. This is the gap that exists among the 103 million Americans who do not have a college degree, but are in no less need of a bridge between their formal education and employment...more>>
IoT Agenda: The high-tech skills gap and education
On Sept. 26, Software.org: the BSA Foundation released a new report titled "The Economic Impact of Software." The study details the rapid growth of the software industry in the United States and its resulting impact across the economy - both at national and state levels...more>>
TechCrunch: Google commits $1 billion in grants to train U.S. workers for high-tech jobs
The nature of work is changing on a global level at a rapid pace. Sure, it's not the first time work has been dramatically impacted by technology, but the growth of automation, robotics, AI and the like have the potential to displace jobs at an unprecedented rate...more>>
HR Dive: Randstad: One-third of U.S. workers did nothing to upskill in the past year
Employers and employees apparently have different ideas about upskilling, says Business Insider, citing a Randstad U.S. report. The quarterly Randstad Workmonitor survey found that although 80% of workers feel upskilling is their responsibility, neither they nor their employers are acting on upskilling opportunities...more>>
Observatory: Education, skills and employability in 2030
To address the threat of automation and the skills gap, Pearson, in collaboration with Nesta and the Oxford Martin School, has published the report The Future of Skills. Employment in 2030, a publication that identifies the skills and competencies that professionals will need to remain relevant in the -not so distant- future...more>>
Pitchbook: 3 things to know about VC investment in edtech
This week is proving a busy one in the edtech world. Early-stage firm Brighteye Ventures has closed its education-focused debut fund on €50 million, and Kano, a code-teaching startup based in London, has clocked up a $28 million Series B round led by Thames Trust and Breyer Capital...more>>
Observatory: New report shows the emerging trends of learning technology
A new paper by the Center for Innovative Research in Cyberlearning (CIRCL) has revealed six emerging trends in the area of learning sciences and computer science, and three advancing methods to study and improve these learning designs...more>>
Education Week: When Classroom Technology Impedes Student Learning
New research in the latest issue of Education Next does an elegant job of capturing the perils of ed tech...more>>
Markets Insider: Owl Ventures, EdTech VC, Raises $185M to Lead Education Innovation
...The capital will be used to lead investments in education technology startups that are harnessing the new wave of entrepreneurship and innovation across the education spectrum including early childhood, K-12, higher education and career mobility/professional learning...more>>
inc42: New Trends Which Will Disrupt The Edtech Space In 2018
Mobile Learning, Gamification And More Will Govern Edtech In 2018...more>>
Observatory: Edu Trends | Mentoring
Mentoring is a flexible relationship that can be understood and developed in many ways, in both business organizations and educational systems, where it is gaining prestige year after year...more>>
The 74: The Age of Automation Demands a New American School System, Study Declares
Today's high school students will graduate into a workforce destabilized by technological innovation, according to a new publication from America Succeeds, and even graduates of competitive four-year colleges will have to continually acquire new skills to remain employed in the dawning age of artificial intelligence...more>>
VC Circle: Upskilling India: The $2 bn ed-tech potential
One of the most telling signs of the promise that education technology holds is the sheer number and increasing rate of ed-tech players in the Indian market alone...more>>
China Money Network: China's New Oriental Education Said To Launch $1.8B Funds Targeting Start-Ups, M&A
New York-listed Chinese educational company New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc. will establish funds worth a combined US$1.8 billion to invest in education industry start-ups and pursue mergers and acquisitions globally, according to local reports...more>>
EdSurge: MIT Moves Beyond the MOOC to Court Companies, Professional Learners...more>>
Providing courses to companies, and adults not enrolled in a full-time degree program, has long been a way for universities to extend their reach (and pockets) beyond the physical lecture hall. In 2013, MIT began offering online programs for working professionals to meet learners across the globe...more>>
U.S. News: DeVos Outlines Vision for 'American Education'
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has outlined in the most specific terms to date her vision and policy priorities for education in the United States...more>>
NPR: Betsy DeVos' First Semester: A Status Report
It has been more than six months since Betsy DeVos was confirmed as education secretary after one of the most contentious Cabinet nomination battles in memory, and so we thought it worth an update on her major moves so far - and the public response...more>>