Techies vie with ed conglomerates for a piece of the Common Core market
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| It's ed tech start-up companies vs. the oligopoly at Stanford conference. |
Silicon Valley tech companies, conferencing at Stanford, are trying to become the "Facebook of education," writes Lauren Hepler in the Silicon Valley Business Journal ("Online kindergarten? Tech bets on K-12 disruption"). The potential for superprofits has Valley heads spinning.
Hepler points out that, overall, the market for education is massive. She says the $1.5 trillion US education industry accounts for roughly 10 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product, or the second-biggest sector after healthcare,
After meeting with power philanthropist Bill Gates, tech entrepreneur Mick Hewitt, co-founder and CEO of MasteryConnect, sees the looming implementation of government “Common Core” standards for reading and math in elementary,