Thomas Ultican wrote a post about the billionaire-driven world of educational technology, which has nothing to do with education or learning, but everything to do with scoring profits.
The edtech industry is driven by greed.
He begins:
Anthony Kim founded Education Elements in 2010. He sold Provost Systems – which built virtual schools – to Edison Schools in 2008 and was ready for a new project. His new company sells personalized learning systems and consulting services to several school districts. Education Elements is one of more than a hundred ed tech companies being supported by venture capital organizations hoping for one big score. It is representative of the education technology startup business.
With education businesses there is opportunity for magnificent profits because of the large scale of education spending. The United States alone spends $650 billion dollar a year on public education. If businesses can convince people that learning at a digital screen is equivalent to or even better than a teacher led classroom, education technology would become America’s next great profit center minting many new billionaires. This allure of lavish profits is driving education technology.
The Venture Capital Firms
Crunchbase, which analyzes venture capital and startups, lists five venture capital companies investing in Education Elements.
Harmony is the only one of the five venture funds that does not focus specifically on education technology. They simply say, “Over the past 20 years, we have invested over $750 million in 80 companies.” They list their current investments which includes Education Elements.
NewSchools Venture Fund is the most strident in its commitment to disrupting public education. NewSchools is a non-profit that claims they are a “venture philanthropy working to reimagine public education investing in education entrepreneurs.” Their venture portfolio contains more than 150 companies.
Every year NewSchools hosts a “Summit” in Oakland, California which they state brings together more than 1,200 educators, entrepreneurs, community leaders, funders, and policy makers to share ideas on how to “reimagine learning.” The “Platinum” sponsors for the 2020 gathering are the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and The Walton Family Foundation who are also well-known leaders in the movement to monetize and privatize public education.
Twelve Organizations Contributing $5 Million Plus to NewSchools Venture Fund
Eleven of the twelve organizations listed above are known for promoting market based education reform. The twelfth, Anonymous, most likely has the same ideology.
Rethink Education is the third venture fund. It claims to focus on “Crucial Life Skills, Personalized Learning, Vocational Preparation, Curation of Workforce Learning Resources, College Dropout Prevention.” Jenny Abramson is the founder and Managing Partner of Rethink. She is a former Teach For America (TFA) corps member and a board member of the Washington DC charter school, DC Prep.
Imagine K12 is the forth fund investing in Education Elements. It was founded in 2011 as a startup accelerator for education technology companies. In 2016 Imagine merged with Y Combinator. The joint companies have invested in over 100 education technology focused companies.
Tugboat Ventures is the fifth fund invested in Education Elements which is one of its 35 listed properties.
The thread that ties together these ventures is the pursuit of profits. That is a mighty thread indeed.
He lists the members of the Board of Directors, all from the financial world.
No actual teachers in sight.
He adds:
Due to lobbying by billionaires like Bill Gates and Reed Hastings, the latest update to the national education law turned the US Department of Education (USED) into an education technology sales hub. Critically for companies like Education Elements, the federal technology pitch includes Competency Based Education (CBE). In order to have an inexpensive cyber based education system, there must be small skills that can be drilled and then tested. The USED says,
“Competency-based strategies provide flexibility in the way that credit can be earned or awarded, and provide students with personalized learning opportunities. These strategies include online and blended learning, dual enrollment and early college high schools, project-based and community-based learning, and credit recovery, among others.”
Unfortunately CBE is just an update of previous failed teaching strategies. In the 1970’s it was called Mastery Learning and in the 1990’s it was called Outcome Based Education. CBE is simply putting Mastery Leaning on a computer instead of using worksheets and paper assessments. It is still bad pedagogy. Computer based credit recovery is the fraud engendering the recent soaring graduation rates.
What is called “education reform” is a giant scam. It is not about “education” and it is not about “reform.” It is about money.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“If businesses can convince people that learning at a digital screen is equivalent to or even better than a teacher led classroom, education technology would become America’s next great profit center minting many new billionaires.”
Convincing people to purchase items is all about marketing, not substance. In this case, the purchase is an array of expensive hardware and software that constantly needs updating. That is a recipe for beaucoup bucks! How can we teach students to be aware consumers unless we are as well? Unfortunately, these decisions are left to those that work in the central office rather than those that actually teach students.
My district had a very logical policy that was implemented under the late great Judy Johnson. It was simple. We will not make any new adoptions without evidence based on research. Teachers always were members of any new adoption committee as well as members of administration. We also piloted a new adoption prior to purchasing for the whole system. This was part of a larger curriculum cycle. However, it forced us to be good stewards of tax payers’ dollars, and it kept us from jumping on and off bandwagons. We need to return decisions about education to educators, not marketeers.
Technology is a useful tool. However, there are many reasons to be skeptical about claims made by Big Tech. Of prime importance is the health and well being of students. There is mounting evidence against an over reliance on technology, particularly for young students. The physical and mental well-being of students must be a primary consideration.
Once infected by greed, it is almost impossible to be cured by this viral, brain eating disease.
Once the greed virus gains a foothold in your brain, it spreads very fast until it has replaced every brain cell you were born with.
It’s even harder for someone born into a wealthy, greed-infected family to break the cycle of greed. Just think of Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos as perfect examples of individuals born with a terminal brain cancer called Greed.
It isn’t like we do not know the dangers of greed:
Thousands of years ago, we were warned and that warning has been in print a long time in the Bible: “More objectively, according to Guinness World Records, the Bible is the best-selling book of all time with over 5 billion copies sold and distributed as of this year.”
“But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.” – Timothy 6:9
And the Quran (The Guinness Book of World Records estimates that more the 800 million copies of the Quran are out there, too)
92:8–16 “But as for him who is stingy and complacent. And denies goodness. We will ease his way towards difficulty. And his money will not avail him when he plummets … I have warned you of a Fierce Blaze. None will burn in it except the very wicked.”
I sometimes wonder if we should even rail against “ed-tech” per se. It’s the digital version of a pattern that has been around a long time. “Standardization” has always been the goal. Sell a mass-produced product to the huge public shool market, market it as “new” and thus better; build in obsolescence so they’ll replace it frequently.
I put Tom’s article up at Oped news.
https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Ed-Tech-about-Profits-NOT-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Billionaires_Education_Educational-Crisis_Privatize-Education-191213-504.html#comment751769