Venture Capital in Education—Education Technology and On-Line Charters Viewed as Investments
Late last week The Nation posted on-line a series of articles that will appear in the October 13, print edition of the magazine—a special issue on education. These are in-depth pieces on issues such as the crisis in Philadelphia’s public schools, the role of teachers unions, lack of regulation in charter schools, Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy Charters, and two articles this blog will explore today on the push by so-called “education reformers” to promote the use of technology and on-line education. Lee Fang’s blockbuster investigation, Venture Capitalists are Poised to “Disrupt” Everything About the Education Market is available to all readers on-line only; it is not restricted behind a paywall. Many of the others are for subscribers-only (though The Nation is promoting six months’ of on-line access for only $9.50). As the week continues, this blog will explore some of the other articles in The Nation‘s special issue on education.
“As the articles in this issue illustrate,” write the magazine’s editors as they introduce the special issue, “the strategies pursued by education reformers frequently dovetail with those of austerity hawks. The latter burnish their conservative credentials by cutting budgets and defunding schools. The reformers sweep in to capitalize on the situation, introducing charter chains like Rocketship and K12, which produce no real benefits for children. The chains do, however, generate cash for investors, as a new trove of public money is directed to private coffers.”
Pointing out that in the last quarter century, the marketplace has “carefully crafted business strategies (that) have transformed markets to create huge profits in unlikely sectors”—most notably healthcare—Fang writes, “Next year, the market size of K-12 education is projected to be $788.7 billion. And currently, much of that money is spent in the public sector. ‘It’s really the last honeypot for Wall Street,’ says Donald Cohen, the executive director of In the Public Interest, a think tank that tracks the privatization of roads, prisons, schools and other parts of the economy.” Fang quotes a venture capital investor who believes that “despite the Venture Capital in Education—Education Technology and On-Line Charters Viewed as Investments | janresseger: