Greetings Anti CCSS/Fed Ed Warriors! The Weekend News is here! What can we learn from the CCSS Machine? In a short sentence: how the global education business market is growing.
A Recent Webinar:
Just a few days ago, I was among many who joined in a pro CCSS backed group’s webinar for how educational business/services can a) capitalize on the recent passage of (Every Student Succeeds Act, ESSA); b) go global with education; c) make big sales for their companies; and d) drive education as we know it straight down the tubes.
Which group was hosting? The Gates Foundation funded EdWeek, of course! What global educational consulting firm also joined the frey? The ISC (International School Consultancy). If you haven’t heard of ISC, they are based in the United Kingdom and are the oldest global education consulting group of their kind. Because of this, it was shared in the webinar, the ISC has the historical educational data to back why going global is a great thing for all of us. Among the nations attending this webinar, the most were from the U.S.A., while the next 2 biggest attendees were the U.K. and the United Arab Empire.
About 2 months ago, EdWeek launched its Marketplace, where educational business, services, and those seeking such, can get information. I was invited to join the Marketplace, so I could get all kinds of research. However, at $750.00, I decided to pass. Besides, why in the world would I support the Gates Foundation’s backed group by purchasing their research?
It was the Marketplace portion of EdWeek presenting in this webinar. According to Kevin (from Marketplace), the virtual store is where gaps of what K-12th education needs meet business providers. Thus a harmonious bridge is created. Aren’t we so lucky….Among some of the provisions are Next Generation Science Standards/Assessments, Data Mining tools, etc. Kevin also stated the ESSA is for business ‘a canary in a coal mine’ opportunity. WiseGeek.org says that for governments and businesses the phrase means a ‘harbinger of the future’. (See: http://www.wisegeek.org/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-canary-in-a-coal-mine.htm)
According to one of the slides from the Webinar, Bill Gates has predicted the education businesses (especially digital) will increase by 50% or $1.1 billion dollars. Driving the sales? Ed Tech (supposedly higher quality education/more personalized learning/evidence based results based on proven technology)
What I Have Seen/Heard:
As one who has researched the stuffing out of the ESSA, I can tell you, the increased amount of P3s (public private partnerships), businesses/educational services will increase dramatically. LEAs (local education agencies) and SEAs (State Education Agencies) will be able to open their federally provided funds up to anyone offering any type of business/service which can be related to student success (aka: student outcomes, competency based mastery, college and career readiness, post-secondary readiness, and student achievement).
Warriors, we should NOT be the last to know this information! Why do I say this?
a) The EdWeek Research arm recently partnered with the National School Superintendent’s Association to conduct a study on ESSA friendly PD (Professional Development). I have shared with you in the past how aligned to CCSS, the School Supers Association is.
b) a recent meeting I attended hosted by the North Carolina Dept. of Public Instruction was full of folks from P3s either imploring the DPI for ESSA federal funds or employing more people from those P3s (and new ones) for educational purposes! Among the most sought after? SEL (social emotional learning) My point? The pro side is wasting NO time in getting the message out. Since the state I live is in already hopping on the bandwagon, yours probably is too!
More We Need to Know From Both Hosts:
The CCSS/ESSA slanted Webinar also shared the following information:
1) Educational business and services are golden opportunities for America.
2) School leaders WANT more personalized learning (as based off Digital Promise research). (*Note from my research: Digital Promise is a huge portion of ESSA.)
3) With more personalized learning comes better data tracking via student CBE (competency based education) progress.
4) SC, MS, ND, KY, and KS lead the nation in ELL (English Language Learning) digital education content.
5) Professional Development for teachers is slowly embracing the digital shift.
6) OERs (Open Educational Resources) are popular with teachers now and are better aligned to the CCSS than previous resources. OERs also are a great business profit maker because your company can help purchasers save school funding.
7) The ESSA will give educational businesses not only more money, but give schools better accountability, too. (*Note from my research: ESSA’s main damaging points are the national assessments, the accountability of the States to the U.S. Dept. of Ed and the funding which unites all this.)
8) Non-academic education businesses/services will also have opportunities to cash in.
9) Consider all of the above as opportunities for experimentation in education, especially how our students/teachers are measured.
10) EdWeek is helping the gradual building of international education marketing and trends. In 2015, around $15.2 billion was made by those participating. ISC shared that the tuition market for profits is about $39 billion and will increase to near $90 billion by 2026. Fee based education is a huge portion of the global education aspect. All this means the global economy is very healthy and that enrollment population is increasing.
11) English is being considered the language of business, therefore the need for ELL alignment is paramount for globally recognized credentials. In the screen shot below, notice the EMEM (Engish-Medium Education Market). This is something we will see increase via ESSA and other moves.
12) Global education has 4 benefits, the top 2: labor/quality learning
13) Inclusion is a top need for those being globally educated. Globally educated students are best fed by curriculum which supports inclusion.
14) There are over 200 International School Associations.
15) UAE (United Arab Empire) leads the world in the most international schools.
16) Curriculum trends find that UK based resources and IB (International Baccalaureate) are among the most used. (*Note from my research: IB Curriculum is not only UN/UNESCO based, it’s main contributor is a noted leftist.)
17) ISC noted that the most measured global assessments they track are the IGCSE*, the IB Diploma Program, the PSAT and SAT, and the GCEA*. (*IGCSE stands for “International General Certificate of Secondary Education”.) The University of Cambridge developed this over 25 years ago. To learn more:
http://www.cie.org.uk/programmes-and-qualifications/cambridge-secondary-2/cambridge-igcse/
(*GCE stands for General Certificate of Education; the GCEA, from what I can find refers to only one level of GCEs. There are GCE-As, GCE-A2 levels. Combined, the 2 levels have 31 career based tracks you can earn your Certificate in. There is also a GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education). There are 41 career based tracks available at the secondary level.)
Warriors, does this sound familiar?! Career Pathways, Career Clusters, Career Technical Education….all part of the CCSS Machine!! To see more about GCEs:
http://ccea.org.uk/qualifications/gce; to learn more about GCSEs: http://ccea.org.uk/qualifications/gcse
Closing:
I will be taking a more in-depth look at the ISC and reporting what I find in the upcoming week. In the meantime, here are some resources you can access:
The EdWeek/ISC Webinar slides: ISCed
How GCEs are tied to Pearson: NEA1516 (*Note: NEA stands for ‘Non-examination assessments’)
7 thoughts on “Ed For Sale”