Business Insider reports that the latest new thing, AltSchool, is not making it.
Backed by Mark Zuckerberg and tech entrepreneur-Trump acolyte Peter Thiel, started by a former Google executive, AltSchool was lauded lavishly when it opened. It was supposed to revolutionize education.
AltSchool, an educational software developer and network of “micro-schools” with four locations in California and New York, is shuttering another outpost.
The startup’s schoolhouse in Manhattan’s East Village will close its doors at the end of the academic year, according to an email obtained by Business Insider from vice president of schools at AltSchool, Sam Franklin, to parents of AltSchool students on Thursday night.
It’s the second closure that AltSchool has announced in two days, after the buzzy ed-tech startup revealed it’s closing its location in Silicon Valley. AltSchool appears to be refocusing its energy on licensing its educational software to existing schools, rather than creating new ones.
In an email to parents, Franklin apologized to parents who may have learned about the school closures “in the news rather than hearing it from us.”
AltSchool counted the Oxycontin billionaire family, the Sacklers, among its investors. Also Laurene Powell Jobs. All the really smart and very rich folks.
Sad. Very sad. Just a tax write-off.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The relevance this has for public school families is that the business model depends on selling these models to public schools.
The private (or charter) schools themselves don’t mean anything- the goal here is to sell the product to the much larger public school market.
That’s why we see this relentless marketing of ed tech by ed reformers like Arne Duncan and Jeb Bush- the target market isn’t high income parents, it’s low and middle income parents.
Don’t be bamboozled by this hype- this could be a REALLY bad investment for public schools. Treat these folks like the salespeople they are. They’re pushing product and that’s ALL they’re doing. Treat them as you would any other salesperson.
Also- nothing is “free”. The product that Summit charters and Facebook is pushing into public schools is an investment for public schools. People have been offering “free” products to break into lucrative markets for centuries. There is NOTHING innovative about it and it is NEVER “free” because time and effort aren’t free.
If you’re planning on offering up your school as a test market for commercial product at least go into it with your eyes open. This touchy-feely language they use – “personalized learning” – is NOT about your students it’s about their sales.
I read the AltSchool advertisement in the last link. One section was entitled Creating a Central Operating System for Education.
Disturbing.
Public schools have a duty to stop buying this ed reform hype blindly. Public schools are IN CONTROL of whether or not they buy – they cannot blame this on ed reform.
Are ed reformers hyping this? Yes. Are the adults who run public schools capable of resisting a sale’s pitch? I hope so. If they aren’t they shouldn’t be running public schools. Say “no”- that’s allowed.
130 public school districts have allowed the Summit/Facebook program into their schools. Where is the evidence that this is worthwhile and valuable for their students? Why did they volunteer whole districts to act as product testers? Are they so susceptible to marketing that they are incapable of saying “no” when ed tech promoters come knocking? Because that’s a problem that’s bigger than these salespeople.
Zuckerberg again. Wish he and his wife, Chan, would just GO AWAY and just play checkers.
I think being RICH begets many “ILLNESSes” in people.
Though I readily admit I am not religious, remember the CAMEL and the eye of a needle. Seems more appropriate today than ever before.
Do you really want your child in front of a screen for hours getting the bulk of their learning from a computer program? ….yeah I didn’t thimk so…and your child really does not want that either…technology is an adjunct…it is not the real thing…
I guess the parents caught on to the worthless scam of having students vegetate in front of a screen all day. It is not worth $27,000 per year in tuition for the tedious, boring experience.
Our school district has gone whole-hog with technology, starting with IPads for kindergartners to Chromebooks for all! Teachers are to use Google classroom and Google Drive. The result? Our s
tudents are distracted by the screens all day, and teachers struggle to get them to actually write (not type) a paragraph. I really think the admin’s and superintendent’s goal is to use technology as much as possible to avoid having to hire more pesky unionized teachers.
Our district is so bedazzled with technology that one could slap a label saying “Ed Technology Guaranteed to Raise Student Test Scores” on a can of lard, and admins would rush to buy 5,000 of them!
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.