A Peek into How the Education Sector Works
Many of us have the sense that profit has become increasingly involved in the world of education, but while the term “education sector” has come into our lexicon, we have only the vaguest idea about the many ways profit is driving privatization in and around our public schools. Nor do we really understand how the for-profit education sector is wound together with the operation of laws and policies like No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.
A new article, For Education Entrepreneurs, Innovation Yields High Returns: Learning from Larry Berger, Jonathan Harber, and Ron Packard, posted on the website of conservativeEducation Next, helps fill in the gaps about the growing role of venture capital and for-profit corporations in education.
Writer Julie Landry Petersen describes the struggles and frequent failures of many private education companies over the past 25 years, but contends that, “the economics of education investing are changing. Schools are now wired and have accountability incentives to invest in technology to boost student achievement, while teachers are ready to experiment with new tools. For start-ups, hardware costs have come down and software is cheaper than ever to develop. Longtime education banker Michael Moe of GSV Capital says a higher quality of entrepreneurs is entering the space. Consequently, education technology companies raised $1.1 billion in funding from venture capitalists in 2012, more than double the amount raised