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Monday, September 23, 2013

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Techies vie with ed conglomerates for a piece of the Common Core market

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Techies vie with ed conglomerates for a piece of the Common Core market:

Techies vie with ed conglomerates for a piece of the Common Core market

It's ed tech start-up companies vs. the oligopoly at Stanford conference.

Silicon Valley tech companies, conferencing at Stanford, are trying to become the "Facebook of education," writes Lauren Hepler in the Silicon Valley Business Journal ("Online kindergarten? Tech bets on K-12 disruption"). The potential for superprofits has Valley heads spinning.

Hepler points out that, overall, the market for education is massive. She says the $1.5 trillion US education industry accounts for roughly 10 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product, or the second-biggest sector after healthcare,

After meeting with power philanthropist Bill Gates, tech entrepreneur Mick Hewitt, co-founder and CEO of MasteryConnect, sees the looming implementation of government “Common Core” standards for reading and math in elementary,