In January 2001 as the dot com boom burst online education site wwwrrr.com went out of business overnight, literally. Coverage tended to focus on the employees – who ultimately filed a class action lawsuit for back pay and 401k contributions. Lost in that ugly coverage was the blunt reality for teachers and…
The Common Core Standards are causing a lot of angst across the world of education. Fortunately Brandt Redd is here to help. Over at Of That he lays it all out in a lucid and well linked overview “The Common Core State Standards – For My Concerned Friends.” He cuts through…
We’ve all heard the voices of DOOM about the looming budget cuts from the sequester. I call BS, at least as it affects K12 education. Laziness often drives how we talk about education funding. Because it is easy to track federal spending we focus our energy there. But this willfully…
PCI Education was sold to PRO-ED, Inc. in mid-December 2012. Since then I’ve fielded a lot questions about the sale. This post is an attempt, from my perspective as PCI’s former CEO, to answer the big questions in one place.* What Is The Rationale For The Deal? There are several…
Last December I penned (keyed?) a relatively optimistic piece about education spending, with the conclusion that the textbook adoption market was in a crash but supplemental materials were in a short-term stall. I had it right on the first point and wrong on the second – we have seen a…
These are grim days for the world of education. Funding cuts past, present, and future loom over schools and districts. Class sizes are swelling, essential services are being trimmed, and any spending decision that can be delayed is sitting in limbo. The companies that serve schools are feeling the pinch…
iPads in the classroom are all the rage in the education publishing market – somedays the oxygen for discussing anything but learning tablets has been sucked out of the room. As we move beyond the giggling crush stage there are a couple of points to consider that might give publishers…
My guess is that if you are in the office today you aren’t all that busy. So take 7 minutes and watch this great little video, particularly if you are skeptic about video games and learning. Video – Tangential Learning His central point, that a well designed game experience tees…
In “Four years into the ebook revolution: things we know and things we don’t know” Mike Shatzkin does a great job of summarizing the state of the trade publishing business. Education Publishers take note – this is your future. In “Predicting Player Behavior and How Zynga Profits From Data Analysis”…
Distilling the range of policy positions on our current economic malaise is a huge challenge, but fortunately Rortybomb is up to the task. I recommend his post – A Topological Mapping of Explanations and Policy Solutions to Our Weak Economy. Not only does he provide spiffy venn diagrams that distill…