The Liberian government received a report on the various for-profit corporations providing schooling. The bottom line: scores went up, but the cost of services varied dramatically. The most expensive of all the providers was Bridge International Academies, the for-profit corporation that is funded by Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and other luminaries of the tech sector. Their costs were so much higher than that of any other service that it is doubtful that they are sustainable.
The so-called Partnership schools received double the funding of the public schools: $100 instead of only $50. And the Ministry of Education made sure that the Partnership schools were well-supplied with teachers, including the best-trained.
Four of the networks managed to produce results for less than $100 per pupil. Bridge, however, cost more than $1,000 per pupil, a figure dramatically higher than any other network, and their results were not markedly better.
Will Nicholas Kristof reconsider his fulsome praise for Bridge International Academies? The skeptics were right to be concerned about sustainability and scalability. Why did the billionaires think it was a good idea to try to turn a profit off the backs of the poorest people in the world? These Silicon Valley geniuses may be good at selling product, but they are not very good at creating or providing an education system.
Download the brief here. Download the report here.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I hope that Bridge International tanks, but I suspect that these profit seekers are going to be refining what they do internationally and then sell the package back here in the US, complete with the virtual reality science lab kit–made in China of cardboard and JGE Just Good Enough to market as a breakthrough–no science teachers or facilities needed. The Learning Management System is so sophisticated that someone with a high school education can be trained to deliver it, rote instruction with a few manipulatives that can be used as if in support of “project-based” learning. Everything is programmed, but these hucksters will call it personalized instruction.
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“Why did the billionaires think it was a good idea to try to turn a profit off the backs of the poorest people in the world?”
The answer is because they are addicted to wealth and the power it brings and that scrambles their ability to reason just like any addict. They are no different than heroin or cocaine addicts except for having too much wealth and power.
A recent piece in National Geographic Magazine reveals that addiction is a disease of the mind and body and that addiction-disease changes the way the brain functions.
“The Science of Addiction, New discoveries about the brain can help us kick the habit.”
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/09/science-of-addiction/
The piece does not mention that wealth and power is an addiction but gambling is an addiction, and it is an easy stretch to see what happens when a psychopath with wealth becomes addicted to his or her power?
In short, the U.S. is being taken over by rich and powerful addicts.
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“Bridge, however, cost more than $1,000 per pupil, a figure dramatically higher than any other network, and their results were not markedly better.”
Higher yes, but I think you may have somewhat overstated the case… Correct me if I’m wrong, but it looks to me that the original projected budget was over $1,000 per child but actual expenditures were less: $662.74. And the majority of that reflected start up costs, with the recurring costs being $321.15. See footnote 4 on page 2 of the brief.
The recurring costs for Rising Academies were calculated at $270 per child, and More Than Me $255, and a great deal less for Street Child and Omega (Omega had test score losses rather than gains).
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Stephen,
Liberia can afford $50 per child.
These costs are not sustainable unless the billionaires subsidize the costs.
In any event, there is no profit here. The investors will not make money.
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But Liberia budgets $50 per child. Increased to $100 for the Partnership schools. Even at $321, how is this sustainable or profitable?
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Message from DR:
The exorbitant cost of Bridge International Academies guarantees that it will not be sustainable in poor countries and that it will never be profitable. Beyond those points, I see no point in letting a company spokesperson take space on my blog.
I recommend you read Peg Tyre’s excellent article in the New York Times magazine about BIA’s methods and challenges.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/27/magazine/can-a-tech-start-up-successfully-educate-children-in-the-developing-world.amp.html
BIA is a for-profit business not a charity. If it doesn’t make a profit, investors will flee. At a cost many times what the poor nation can spend, the business will fail.
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There is a special place in Hell for those who take advantage of those in need.
To me, this is a form of price gouging, like those who were overcharging Floridians for water or companies who jacked up the price of an airline ticket.
It should be illegal and African countries would be wise to kick out these capitalists who only care about the bottom line and not the children they Service.
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These billionaires are drunk with power, they already have enough money for the next 100,000 years (adjusted for inflation). They can wield more power and influence than the elected officials whom they have bought off in the first place.
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Bridge is incredibly proud of its results and the results of PSL as a whole and celebrates the hard work and outstanding performance of pupils and teachers. These extraordinary results are a testament to the vision of the MOE, and the courage to break with orthodoxy and embrace, support and encourage innovation in the education sector. We stand behind Liberia and the Ministry of Education’s ‘ambitious attempt to kick start change based on best practice’.
Read more here: http://www.bridgeinternationalacademies.com/news-opinions/bridge-psl-success/
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Why don’t you take your marketing propaganda elsewhere?
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Bridge is not innovative or “best practice.”
It is the old orthodoxy of colonialism.
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Someone has to bear the white man’s burden, right?
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“Someone has to bear the white man’s burden, right?”
Indeed, just as “someone” (and we all know who that is) has to extract the wealth from the colonized populations (which now includes most of us here in the US, as well), while congratulating themselves in the dead marketing-speak of bridgeintlacads and his/her ilk.
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Our side needs to stop validating the use of test scores as success
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The scores are not godd measures of education.
But they are for now the coin of the realm.
If the reformers claim they can raise scores, and they fail, we need to say so.
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Education has nothing to do with it. The real profits are hidden. When you get people on mobile devices you monetize them. You give them account numbers. You give them credit cards. They obtain debt. They owe you money. They are indentured debtors. You own them. You have recolonized.
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You are right, LeftCoastTeacher
It is all about creating markets.
Gates even said as much when he talked about the need for national standards (aka, Common Core) in the US.
People should listen to the billionaires not because they have something valid to say but because they broadcast the real reason behind their schemes.
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I’m extremely disappointed in you Diane.
You appear not to even have actually READ the report. I just did. It is 100% clear the authors are ideologically critical of Bridge, but it also shows in no uncertain terms: Bridge raised scores the most, and also had positive impacts on parent satisfaction, teacher satisfaction, student satisfaction, civic engagement, teacher attendance, student attendance and much more. It also does not, as you falsely claim, indicate that Bridge SPENT more than $1,000. it says that bridge BUDGETED more than $1,000. It indicates that Bridge and the other operators didn’t receive ANY funding from the Liberian government, and that most good operators (both for profit and non profit) spent about the same amount on operating costs. Commenter Stephan points this out, and you rudely dismiss him instead of correcting your error.
Should Liberia spend more on the education of its children? Yes! But, why are you criticizing billionaires contributing money to one of the poorest countries in the world? There is no way that they actually expect a return on their “investment” That’s laughable, they make more in interest each year than the GDP of Liberia. What is clear is that they believe that finding a sustainable educational model requires up-front investment, especially for the poorest of the poor. Ironically, that also seems to be what you argue for every other day of the week in terms of funding for facilities, teacher salaries, equipment and more. It’s normally why I read your blog.
To be clear, Nicholas Kristof has actual experience in Africa. He clearly visited the Bridge schools himself and saw with his own eyes what literally millions of families in Africa have already decided too: Government-run schools in Africa have been failing for decades and a bold new model is necessary.
Can you, or anyone on this list, show us anywhere in the developing world, literally anywhere, where government-run schools serve the underclass/disenfranchised extremely well? So far as I can tell after two decades of teaching and leadership, there isn’t a single example.
And yet you continue to criticize anyone, and anything, that doesn’t use the very model that has failed the poorest of the poor. The same system which leaves 500+ million kids not in school at all or not learning anything at all when they are in school. You should actually visit Africa’s schools before you continue to opine so illogically.
I expect more of you.
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Peg Tyre predicted that Bridge would fail in Liberia.
She visited Liberian schools and met with parents.
She saw kids pushed out because their parents could not afford to pay.
She reported that the curriculum was written by charter teachers in Boston for delivery in Liberia.
Whatever BIA does, it is not profitable. The billionaire rats will desert the ship.
Why do I suspect you are a BIA troll?
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Laughable that a troll for a for-profit company would claim that the company doesn’t collect any profits. If “Actual” “Educator” with (tablet script reading) “Experience” is right, Bridge is a company seeking investors who hope to lose money. If he or she is wrong, well, he or she is wrong. Education is not an investment. It’s a public responsibility. If billionaires wanted to a ‘Actually’ help Liberians or Kenyans or Americans, they would create charities instead of companies.
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And billionaires would have to stop being so racist.
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If they wanted to help them, they would build the schools and give them to communities.
They would empower the local people to make ALl the decisions about curriculum, teachers and all the rest.
The reason so many “development” projects have failed in Africa is because the African people did not have a stake and hence felt no “ownership” in the outcome.
Not just ownership in the money sense, but ownership in the more general sense.
Some people never learn.
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I’m pretty certain parents don’t have to pay anything in Liberia, so if Tyre found that, it would not be in Liberia but one of their other countries. This RCT was just on Liberia.
I just expect and count on you to get your facts right, even when you’re ideologically opposed to Bridge, at least don’t lie about them and then provide a link to the evidence that proves you’re lying for all of us to read. Most commenters may not have read the linked report, but I did.
Do you disagree with any of my summary of the findings? If so, what evidence can you share with me and your readers?
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You are wrong. Parents pay to send their children to for-profit schools in Liberia.
Have you read Peg Tyre’s excellent article in The NY Times magazine?
An excerpt:
“Bridge operates 405 schools in Kenya, educating children from preschool through eighth grade, for a fee of between $54 and $126 per year, depending on the location of the school. It was founded in 2007 by May and her husband, Jay Kimmelman, along with a friend, Phil Frei. From early on, the founders’ plans for the world’s poor were audacious. ‘‘An aggressive start-up company that could figure out how to profitably deliver education at a high quality for less than $5 a month could radically disrupt the status quo in education for these 700 million children and ultimately create what could be a billion-dollar new global education company,’’ Kimmelman said in 2014. Just as titans in Silicon Valley were remaking communication and commerce, Bridge founders promised to revolutionize primary-school education. ‘‘It’s the Tesla of education companies,’’ says Whitney Tilson, a Bridge investor and hedge-fund manager in New York who helped found Teach for America and is a vocal supporter of charter schools.
“The Bridge concept — low-cost private schools for the world’s poorest children — has galvanized many of the Western investors and Silicon Valley moguls who learn about the project. Bill Gates, the Omidyar Network, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the World Bank have all invested in the company; Pearson, the multinational textbook-and-assessment company, has done so through a venture-capital fund. Tilson talked about the company to Bill Ackman, the hedge-fund manager of Pershing Square, which ultimately invested $5.8 million through its foundation. By early 2015, Bridge had secured more than $100 million, according to The Wall Street Journal.”
If parents can’t pay, their kids are kicked out.
Liberia can’t afford to pay BIA costs. Neither can parents.
This for-profit won’t make a profit.
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The bridge business plan makes no sense.
There is no way they are going to EVER be able to operate a sustainable — to say nothing of profitable — business simply by charging parents in some of the world’s poorest countries.
The very astute business people who have invested in Bridge surely understand this.
So there is clearly more to it than the “profit from poor parents” business plan (which would be laughable if it were not so cruel)
It’s hardly a stretch to think that the REAL (and potentially very profitable) long term business plan involves having African governments pay Bridge to operate Bridge schools in place of government schools.
Liberian government has already contracted with Bridge to operate some 50 of the government schools.
This current arrangement is quite obviously intended by both parties as a proof of concept.
Why doesn’t Bridge just come out and say that this is their plan?
Because many people in Liberia would not go along with the outsourcing of their schools to a foreign controlled corporation.
I can’t imagine why,can you?
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It is called colonialism.
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