Dr. Sabrina Kay, CEO, Fremont College

Dr Sabrina Kay's Background and the Beginning of Fremont College - Dr. Kay is one of the many for-profit operators visiting the forum to talk about operational strategies, funding do's and don'ts, and to present firsthand case studies on how to build scale in for-profit higher education.

We have a series of three videos from Dr. Kay, and we start with this one today.

The beginning of Sabrina Kay's education mission

Please visit visit the registration page for the Education Industry Investment Forum. Use code XU2175SK to achieve a 15% discount on the current registration rate.

You'll have a chance to meet Sabrina Kay and several other for-profit operators at the forum, including:

Teachers and the Future: Why Won't We Pay Them More?

I am excited to participate in this blog and be part of a unique exchange of ideas that are expanding beyond the traditional channels of education reform; moving from academics to the world of social entrepreneurs. I hope my input will bring greater focus to the teaching profession and the need to elevate its status. Now, more than ever, we need to recognize and value teachers and reward them for the significant role they play in our nation’s economic future.

While a classroom teacher, I became deeply aware of the deterioration of the teaching profession. As the need for better education grew, the respect, and power of teachers became significantly less. Teachers became the problem and the scapegoats; we were being held responsible for everything wrong with the system and not having any power to influence the decisions that directly affected our ability to be effective. Then, adding insult to injury, trying to live on an annual salary of $32,000.

In 2004 I started a non-profit for teachers. It is called EPIC (because that is the kind of reform we need). Real and meaningful change to the education system will happen when we start paying greater attention to the teaching profession and its status.

Who in a young person’s life is most directly responsible for their academic success? Studies have shown teachers.

If we are as concerned as we say we are with our nation’s economic future, shouldn’t we be doing all we can to make sure our children receive the best education possible? So many have answered "yes", but it stops there.

EPIC is currently working on developing a pilot project that aims to solve the recruitment and retention crisis in the teaching profession through higher pay. One is already happening in New York, The Equity Project (TEP) Charter. They are paying their teachers $125,000 a year. The EPIC Project consists of individuals who want to expand those efforts into the Public School System.

Isn’t it time teachers made $125,000 a year? Currently, the average salary of a teacher is $31,000. When you look at the amount of education teachers receive, the level of responsibility expected and their value to society and then compare it to other professions, one could argue teachers should be paid much more.

As the only non-profit focusing on this issue, we believe that targeting recruitment and retention through higher pay will significantly transform the profession and the system. In exchange for paying teachers more, teachers will be expected to do more. They will construct curriculum (which is dominated by curriculum companies---curriculum is expensive!), direct school policies, handle administrative duties and be expected to work all year. Most teachers I know want this control especially if they are going to be compensated for it.

To make it possible to pay teachers more, would require a major shift in attitudes and perceptions. It will also challenge us to re-examine priorites and the current role of administration and other forces that have dictated much of what goes on in our school systems. Do they help or hurt education? Are prinicpals necessary? What other forces have caused our schools to suffer?

If the priority is, and always must be, student achievement, then we have to honestly ask ourselves hard questions about what are REAL needs in education. I know that if your give a great teacher a cardboard box, they will build a castle.

Simply put, if we want to give our children the best education to strengthen our nation’s economic future, we must attract the most talented individuals to the profession and keep them. Pay them!

Half a Millenium

If this was cricket, we would have almost completed five centuries -- you Indian fans know what I am talking about.

If you would like to join us and be one of the next ten people to sign up for the Education Investment forum's LinkedIn group, I am prepared to help you with a discount to attend this forum on March 1-3, 2010 in Phoenix, Arizona.

Be a part of strategic discussions about financing, mergers and acquisitions, and growth in the for-profit education industry, and keep this conversation going.

This is an era of significant change and billions in deployable capital. Help our LinkedIn Group reach 500 education industry leaders, investors and operators.

StraighterLine CEO Burck Smith

Just had a phone call with Burck Smith, who started StraighterLine. Burck has kindly agreed to give a keynote on the value of education and the role that investors and operators in K12 can play in developing greater quality in the space.

He suggested some links, so I am going to put these up here for people to read, in order to get a clearer idea of what Burck is about and where his vision is directed.

College for US$99 a Month

Internet revolution in Higher Education

Inside Higher Ed article

College by Subscription

Moving Towards a Transformative Model for Education

This road trip is almost over. I'm in the LAX airport, resting, after discovering that you can actually get from downtown LA to the airport in under an hour for only US$1.25.

I'm serious.

You take the subway, which is not really a subway, it's a tram. And then you take a bus to the airport. Simple. US$1.25. In Los Angeles. Do you realize the implications!

It may destroy LA's image as being a city of vehicles. I may have just deconstructed the mythology of "you need a car to get around LA."

I've met a lot of people on this trip. Some of them have said things to me that I have mentioned here. Some have said things off the record. But all of them share a common purpose. They believe that business has a role in education.

Over the next few weeks, I am going to be unpacking my notes and writing out some of what I have learned. Here's a taste for you today.

Coming up, we will have new bloggers. One of them is a woman I used to work with at a private day school in Virginia. Myra Sawyers, who used to work on the Hill and who used to teach 1st grade, is working on a non-profit organization. So, why is she writing on a for-profit blog?

Because, one thing I have learned in this journey is that both the non-profits and the for-profits are potentially great partners in the enterprise in improving students' lives, improving teacher performance, and expanding the global role of the outcome of America's education system -- namely people who can function at high levels in the global economy

This blog has been a place to find information. It's becoming a place where you can learn things. I hope you enjoy the future.

Here are some thoughts that stick out to me as I wait for the red eye back to New York:

1. Who is education for?
2. Who can be tasked to speak for education and to implement solutions called for by the disrepair and the opportunities embedded in the system?
3. What general results are education thinkers, investors, operations managers and owners trying to bring to the market and to the government / associations that regulate for-profits?
4. Who is listening -- this is a hard one to answer, because the answer is delineated by who, first of all, has access to the people who should be listening. Bear with me.

Even that question is sticky. I've heard it said by people not interviewed specifically for this blog that traditional higher ed institutions, for instance, may be hindered in their ability to interact with for-profit purveyors and even internally to initiate ideas into action because of two or three things:

a. Bureaucracy is as thick and muddled as a journey through cotton oatmeal
b. Incentive to change or adopt new procedures? -- traditional higher ed, say some, works on a value system that is less about capitalist profit and loss at the crucial level, the educator, and more about instilling ethics, social values, or even a control mechanism that elevates one class of people over another. Is this cynical? No, it's not meant to be. Perhaps a better choice of words is to say that, if education, universally, is about placement and advancement, then traditional higher ed rests on its laurels, especially among prestigious universities, that that education as great as it is, is valuable foremost from a marketing perspective. Even that is a contentious statement that can be pummeled to death. I admit it. It's not exactly my opinion but it's close to what I have heard from some.

[ed. note: we will save for another time the great debate about exclusivity and value, filtering and prestige, and whether students who are already smart are just selected for innate intelligence or whether or not everyone could potentially perform as if they just stepped out of an Ivy League school.]

c. A clear division between the profit-driven and the non-profit driven -- It's sometimes quite evident that there is a non-profit and a for-profit model. When they seem distinct, they don't mingle. As long as they don't, there's no need to figure out why they are separate.


But there are the moments where the for-profit and the non-profit do intermingle -- and here you can point to an open source education model as an example, like in publishing -- then you begin to wonder, is it possible to bring in some models to education that are a hybrid of a non-profit and for-profit model?

Right now, public schools operate in a non-profit way, earning a substantial amount of their budget from property taxes. Can that always be the case? I don't have the alternative, but it is fair to ask the question.

Many questions more can be asked. And you can ask them. You can ask them to me. You can ask them to my fellow bloggers.

Just write me an email or leave a comment. We will communicate. dcrets [at] iirusa [dot] com

My answers or my points of differentiation are not meant to be definitive. They should only show that there are conversations happening out there that point to a movement of change, and who can say in which direction it is headed? I don't know. It seems like a hybrid, a transformative model for education.

What We're Reading on the Web Today

What kind of debt do you have? Is debt healthy?

A new study suggests that if you are an entrepreneur, it's not a really good idea to rack up some credit card debt, many entrepreneurs turn to credit cards to finance their businesses.

School grading system tightening? If so, the New York Times alleges that this change would make it more difficult for schools to pass the test and thereby stay open.

School Grading system tightening in New York City

Around the World in 30 Days

I did a little arithmetic. By the time I am done with The Road Trip for Education, I will have traveled a distance nearly equal to the circumference of the earth.

Using a rough bit of calculations from Google Maps, I sketched out each of my destinations and measured the distance between each, factored in the back and forth, a little driving and a few walks up and down the beach and I came up with this.

Distance traveled during Road Trip: 21,500 miles
Circumference of the Earth at the Equator: 24,901 miles

How's that for a Road Trip?

Sony E-Reader to Launch in December

Will it have an education component like the rumored Apple tablet?

The Sony eReader will compete with the Kindle 2.

There are some aspects to this device that may be positive for school districts.

1. The device allows the user to type in a zip code and obtain virtual copies of books from the local library branches.

2. The device is not tethered to one single distribution center like the Kindle 2.

For a review of what one school district is considering, check out this comment from Matt Mello, technology director at Holly Area Schools:

Would be great if the Sony solution permits single point of administration of content for their wireless eBook readers. Its quite apparent that Amazon does not have this capability.

We're evaluating eBook readers as possible replacement for our school district's textbooks. We purchased several of the larger Kindles and though a great reader for individuals / consumer market, Amazon does not have a solution for distributing and controlling a volume of eBooks devices.

It is clear that Amazon doesn't even have a strategy for this, based on experiences of calling their customer support. They had no information to offer, either now or in the long run. Their only solution is to have an individual email account tying each Kindle to an end-user. This is very problematic to manage for several thousand students. Also, you cannot speak directly to a Sales or Technical Acct Exec for Kindles at Amazon. Only someone who has general information.

I hope Sony develops such strategies as central point of administration for managing a volume of wireless eBook readers and have an organizational account structure where there is an individual / team with whom we can speak directly on product features or support.

I think these strategies would be key selling points and allow widespread adoption by educational institutions.

The Road Trip for Education -- EIIF Hits the Road

Ten Cities. Thirty Days.

Next month, I am going to be flying all over the United States and to one city in Canada to meet the new leaders in for-profit educational services and learning in North America. This is my attempt to glorify and promote what has become one of the most successful strategy sessions for investors in for-profit education in K12 and post secondary schools and services.

Do you want to be included in this list? We have spots for five more interviews, and then we will have to close the door on new applicants.

Each of these interviews will be showcased on this blog, and also at other sites around the web, including Fast Company, where I manage a blog on entrepreneurship in Asia and abroad.

Here's the list of confirmed meetings, along with the cities (dates are not final, yet):

New York City

Stephen Tave, American Higher Education Development Corporation
Elliot Levine, Hewlett-Packard Education Services
Bernard West, Banyan Education Capital
Meg Mude, Entrepreneur

Chicago

Dr. Darcy Tannehill, Chicago School of Professional Psychology
Andrew Howard, Brain Hurricane

Washington, DC

Doug Mesecar, Scholastic
Bobbi Kurshan, Curriki
June Herald, KinMix
Scott Fleming, Madison Education Group
Michael Ratti, Regent Education
Members of K12,Inc

San Francisco

Dennis Diligent, CPP, Inc.
John Grillos, WorldSage, Inc

Boston

Peter Stokes, Eduventures, Inc
George Kane, Pearson Education
Amit Shah, Green Comma

Vancouver

Toby Chu, CIBT Education
Dean Dupperon, Sprott-Shaw Community College

Los Angeles

Charles Paul, World Wise Education
Alex Kaplan, IBM Educational Services
Sabrina Kay, Fremont College
Rob Chandler, Fairmont Schools

Fort Lauderdale

John Hage and Carl Tsang, Charter Schools USA

Phoenix

Steve Cooper, Tech University of America
Dr. Clinton Gardner, NorthCentral University
Gene Hayes, Piccolo International University
Rob Crawford, Life Development Institute

And that's it...

So Far.

It looks like it's going to be a great month of learning, investing and spreading the word about the 12th Annual Education Industry Investment Forum in Phoenix, Arizona, March 1-3, 2010. Come join us!

Teacher Voices Frustration Over Hiring Freeze

Recently, a teacher confronted New York City School Chancellor Joel Klein over a hiring freeze.

Does the current climate lend itself to finding more online solutions? I've been hearing about pressure being put on budgets that lead to the cutting of teacher positions, these freezes on new hires, and most pressing of all, halts on spending for teacher development.

Why is professional development one of the first choices in the budget bloodletting? Intuitive logic would tell us that if you are keeping the teacher from developing his or her skills, you are making them less integral to the teaching curriculum, thereby fulfilling a maligned sort of destiny -- cutting salaries or positions.

Seems like a type of cycle.

This will be one of the topics at the Education Industry Investment Forum held in Phoenix, Arizona March1-3. 2010.

Flying Around America, Looking for a For-Profit Education Business Model

A perfect for-profit education model may not exist.

As many operators and investors and financiers there are, there are just as many business models.

But I am going to make an attempt to find the best ones that I can.

From September 8 to October 8, 2009, I will be flying to several different cities around North America searching out and interviewing the young, the old, the good, the bad and the ugly in for-profit education.

I'm taking nominees now. I've already sent out several invitations and gotten a few acceptances. I will be meeting with a few people in the following cities during this month long Road Trip for Education.

Here are the cities so far:

Austin, Texas
Chicago, Illinois
New York, New York
Vancouver, British Columbia
Seattle, Washington
Phoenix, Arizona
San Francisco and Los Angeles, California
Washington, DC
Orlando, Florida
Fort Lauderdale, Florida


If you live in or near these cities, and you fancy yourself a leader in for-profit education, or if you know someone who is a leader, leave me a comment on this blog, or email me at dcrets [at] iirusa dot com. Let's talk.

The schedule is being worked up now. Put yourself into this conversation and you will see our video interview together on this blog and on other social media sites.

You will also have an opportunity to be a guest speaker at one of our breakfast meetings in New York City and the March 1-3, 2010 forum in Phoenix, Arizona.

More information here: Education Industry Investment Forum.

On the Web

Links we are looking at today during our research for the 12th Annual Education Industry Investment Forum:

Education Dynamics

So, what's an e-reader? Is that like electronic ink?

How much should you pay a teacher?

Do textbooks cost too much?

The Chicago School for Professional Psychology

Ahmed Abdulwahab, CEO, inetoo

Ahmed Abdulwahab tells the Education Industry Investment Forum that he hopes that inetoo, an online collaborative study tool, can be taken up by more students across the country.

NT, CEO and Founder, Tabula Digita

NT went from a young man armed with an idea, to a young man building a success story in the gaming and electronic learning space. Listen to how he describes to The Education Industry Investment Forum the philosophy that kept his goals in sight and helped him build a business out of conviction.

You can visit NT's site and vision at Tabula Digita.

Jordan Goldman, CEO and Founder, Unigo.com

The youngest entrepreneur at the Education Industry Investment Forum, Jordan Goldman discusses "filters of perception" and how a social networking site called Unigo, run primarily by students, will change the way colleges and universities sell themselves to the next generation of students.

In essence, students will decide how students will be marketed to, in the post secondary space and you can see how they are doing it at at Unigo's web site.

Rita Ferrandino, Managing Director, ARC Capital Development

NCLB is on the mind of Rita Ferrandino of ARC Capital Development as she discusses what she came to the forum to learn and what she eventually will take back to her company. She believes the industry will see an NCLB Reauthorization in 2010.

You can visit ARC Capital Development here.

Malgosia Green, CEO, LearnHub

Malgosia Green, one half of the duo that runs LearnHub, a distance learning platform for Indian students learning in English, explains how she went from being a top engineering student in Canada to working as one of the top businesswomen in the start-up genre of the online education industry.

You can visit LearnHub right here.

Howard Block, Knowledge Investment Partners

I talked with Howard Block after his speech at the Education Industry Investment Forum in Phoenix. Mr. Block is always good for a direct and dramatic commentary.

You can visit Knowledge Investment Partners here

Obama's State of the Union: Are You Ready to Go Back To School?

The core of the for-profit education industry can benefit from doing more to interact with the government over new provisions that will fund education and distribute money to agencies, institutions, colleges, charter schools and school districts that need to grow, that need to become more efficient, and that need, most critically, to raise the standard of education and boost graduation rates. And don't forget addressing the 90/10 Rule, lending standards, and the crucial issue of rule making.

The President himself said that it's time for the nation to go back to school:

It is our responsibility as lawmakers and educators to make this system work. But it is the responsibility of every citizen to participate in it. And so tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma. And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It's not just quitting on yourself, it's quitting on your country - and this country needs and values the talents of every American. That is why we will provide the support necessary for you to complete college and meet a new goal: by 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.

Tom Netting from Jefferson Government Relations will be addressing the subject of what the US$100 billion set aside for education will mean for your business. He is joined by Michael Musante, Director -- Government Relations, Edison Learning.

Tuesday, March 10, 9.55AM

Refining Capital Strategies to Address Changes to the Higher Education Act’s Student Financing Requirements

• How will the 90/10 rule alter the way schools grow and change
their business in 2009 and 2010?
• Ensuring proper growth and scale of domestic for-profit education
based in America to sustain the economy and address immediate
crises in student financing needs
• Strategizing to address the HEA reauthorization that focuses
on expanding the default observation window to ensure tuition
payment and stable value of degree program
• Earmarking techniques to raise tuition in a narrow band under more
increased scrutiny, diversifying and expense control

Michael Musante, Director – Government Relations,
Edison Learning

Tom Netting, Vice President, Jefferson Government Relations

FAFSA and the Angst of Getting Aid for College

The FAFSA application has become the bane of the education industry. It's complexity has become so frustrating that some students give up in filling it out. Companies have taken shape that actually do the application for people. And there is talk now in the Obama Administration of changign the form, following the lead of former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings to make it a simple three pages document that you can finish in twenty or thirty minutes. Not six hours!

More of that in the article about FAFSA that you and your colleagues should read.