Ron Packard, CEO, K12, Inc.

I flew into Dulles Airport and can guarantee you that they have the nicest taxis.

My first stop in the Washington, DC Metro area was to see Ron Packard, CEO, K12, Inc. He is based in Herndon, Virginia.

We quickly got on the topic of the future. Ron sees a massive uptake of technology and the fits and starts that goes with that. Eventually the K12 side of education is going to iron out a teacher-centric add-value model for hybrid bricks and mortar / digital that will take -- hopefully -- American education into the global competitive marketplace.



Ron is a very smart guy. We talked about many things and if his take is a good indicator on how business operators are thinking about education there are three things on their minds: technology, teachers and ensuring American kids develop skills that make them valuable to the global economy.

Stay tuned for links to some ideas on the web about what is most valuable to students growing up in the global world.

Dan Madzelan, Department of Education

We have good news at the Education Industry Investment Forum. I spoke with Dan Madzelan, Acting Assistant Secretary Post Secondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education, and he has agreed to speak as one of our keynote speakers at the forum in March.

This is great. It means we have voices from government, voices from accreditation agencies, for-profit colleges, universities and K12 charter schools, and private equity investors from around the world to take part.

Dan will be speaking about the role that community, government and business / investors can play in making American education world class.

Over the course of the few weeks I have been traveling around North America, it's become clear that everyone is talking about boosting American education.

They want to see private, public and community options for helping boost completion rates, monitor quality in education and improving placement rates in colleges beyond k12.

I think this forum will go a long way to furthering this conversation and it will do so on a city, state and federal level. And it will reach through the spectrum of community colleges, traditional higher ed and for-profit K12 and post secondary schools.

I am talking to one other person who will serve as a keynote during the three days, but I will keep his name under wraps for now till everything is confirmed. If he does accept then we are looking at a pretty explosive and debate-worthy forum in 2010.

The Printed Book -- What is Tangible and What is Changeable

While I am sitting here at the Boston Public Library on Copley Square, trying to decompress after a morning and afternoon of interviews, it left me happy to see that Surabhi Dewra, a young entrepreneur from India, was also online.

The experience of being able to instantly reach out to someone on another continent, thousands of miles away, and discuss the same subject from the same points of view got me to thinking about my newest theory.

Perhaps it is not that new. In fact, it is somewhat inspired by Buddhism, and the idea that reality is an illusion. Let me refine this perspective.

Clearly there is something tangible about the world, but the momentary existence of the world offers much opportunity in the way of learning and it speaks to the general mission of the education industry.

When individuals connect, and when they exchange views, they bring into that momentary awareness of what is happening a new idea, or a fresh description of the conscious elements of the world.

this is what teaching is, and this is what is kind of problematic about standards.

boiled down:

Standards are created by the same people who, like me and anyone else I am talking about, come together, and set to root an idea about what that standard is.

In essence, they "freeze" a certain standard level, and what troubles me about this is that they leave out the opportunity for new views.

If teaching is an open space, devoid of what is real, and we inject our views into that space, forming what is to be learned by our exchange of views, then aren't we compromising chances to add to that learning in a model where review of materials or the insertion of new tools for learning only happens once a year?

What happens when budget concerns keep one model in play while not allowing another model to form?

When will it be possible for students and teachers to have just as much of a say in a real time application of editing of subject material, as they learn new things?

I can tell you that as a former teacher, sometimes the textbooks were wrong. Especially in English literature or history. we would read as a class a specific piece of information and come to a consensus that, in fact, we didn't believe that material to be right.

How can we change it? We cannot. That is the textbook. That is the printed matter.

Hope I am not getting too philosophical, but it remains to be seen, will budgetary pressures in some of the largest school districts and states in the country force a change in the delivery of publications to students, teachers, or organizations like schools?

The Movement Toward The Affect In K-12 Education

Steve Weigler, CEO, of ScholarCentric and speaker at next week’s Education Industry Investment Forum recently forwarded us his latest white paper, The Movement Toward The Affect In K-12 Education. In this paper Steve explores the following:

• The Change in Educational Landscape Spurred by a Dropout Crisis
• Financial Opportunities/Analysis
• ScholarCentric’s Approach to The Emerging Affective Market

Take a couple of minutes to read through the whitepaper, as we are all trying to make sense of things to come with Obama’s new focus on education. Enjoy!

Read the white paper

Doing Math Like They Do It In India

The New York Times is recommending that young children struggling in math take a lesson from India, literally.

The Education Industry Investment Forum is in Research Mode

I'm Doug Crets, your conference director for the 11th Annual Education Industry Investment Forum, to be held again in 2009 in Phoenix, Arizona.

You can look forward to constant updates on this site, as well as interviews, trends pieces and, when the conference starts in March 2009, a live blogging from the Biltmore Resort & Spa, the home of the Education Industry Investment Forum, March 9-11.

Join us on this blog. Leave your comments and tell me what you would like to see here. You can write me emails at dcrets [at] iirusa dot com.

I want to hear from you. You know better than I do the trends that move investment in post secondary and K-12 private education. And you know the up and coming services and innovation companies that are changing the industry, from publishing to content management and campus management.

NCLB Increasing in Visibility

As the Democratic Convention gets going, experts on NCLB are finding more and more to talk about.

No Child Left Behind is becoming a more important discussion point in the run-up to the election, as next year is the planned reauthorization of the law that frames accountability standards for K12 public and private education.