Future of Learning: Education companies see an “upside to the pandemic” for business

This is a weekly newsletter. Sign up for a free subscription, and invite a friend to subscribe.

A newsletter from The Hechinger Report

Share

Forward

My colleague Sarah Butrymowicz, whose name you might recognize from our joint investigation into the misleading research claims of ed tech companies, wrote this week's newsletter story. Read on for how K12 Inc. expects to profit off of the pandemic's school closures. --Tara García Mathewson

By Sarah Butrymowicz

Coronavirus shutdowns across the country have thrown school districts and higher education institutions into disarray. They’re bracing for budget cuts and other financial troubles. But for some online education companies, the upheaval represents a chance to profit.

Last month, Tara and I reported that website traffic was surging for some ed tech companies. Connections Academy, the virtual school run by Pearson, saw “strong increases in application volumes” in March. And K12 Inc., which provides online curriculum to homeschooling families and school districts, told investors in April that applications and inquiries were up. The company manages more than 70 schools in 30 states and Washington, D.C.

“Let’s talk about the upside to the pandemic in our business,” CEO Nathaniel Davis said on the company’s earnings call in April. He added that coronavirus was “unfortunate for so many people all around the world,” but continued, “when the pandemic first started to impact brick-and-mortar schools, our phones began to ring off the hook and we saw a sharp increase in traffic on our website.”

The company also plans to spend more advertising dollars to reach prospective students and parents through websites such as Facebook and YouTube. “We’ll have more digital and viral messages than we’ve ever had before,” Davis said. Between 2017 and 2019, K12 spent on average $37.4 million annually on advertising, according to SEC filings.

K12 Inc. has faced frequent criticism about poor student performance and been subject to legal scrutiny. In 2016, the company reached a $168.5 million settlement with the California attorney general over allegations that it used ads that misled parents about student success and parent satisfaction, and that it inflated attendance numbers to get more money from the state. The company paid the state $8.5 million and forgave $160 million in debts owed by the schools it managed. K12 has denied all wrongdoing.

Problems such as low graduation rates, dismal student achievement and high student turnover at many K12 schools are the result of a business model that prioritizes keeping down the costs of educating students, said Neil Campbell, director of innovation for K-12 Education Policy at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning policy institute.

“They can have their marketing materials talk about all this personalized attention and all this increased flexibility, but what they don’t talk about is they massively understaff all these schools … and unload all of that on to parents,” Campbell said.

Davis defended the company’s teacher prep, which he said ensures that students receive the necessary support. “K12 has two decades of honing the skills and training teachers need to be effective in the online classroom,” he said in a written response to questions.

Most of K12’s students enroll already behind grade level, he added, yet the company has seen significant increases in the number of K12-managed schools graduating at least two-thirds of students on time.

Even though K12 sees opportunity within the coronavirus school closures, Jeffrey Silber, managing director at BMO Capital Markets, doesn’t expect a massive increase in the number of K-12 students taking virtual courses. A slight increase maybe, but “you’re never going to get a lot of kids going to school online because you still need a teacher,” Silber told us. “You still need a parent to help.”

K12 Inc. has a rosier outlook. On the earnings call, Davis emphasized that the pandemic could increase acceptance of online education. “This moment will permanently change how the general public, school districts and regulators think about our business,” Davis said. “The short-term positive impact of the pandemic may be modest ... The long-term effect we see providing a great tailwind to our business model.”

Send story ideas and news tips to tara@hechingerreport.org. Tweet at @TaraGarciaM. Read high-quality news about innovation and inequality in education at The Hechinger Report. And, here’s a list of the latest news and trends in the future of learning.

Was this newsletter forwarded to you?
Click here to subscribe!

The Shortlist

The evidence on blended and virtual learning. The Research Alliance for New York City Schools, housed at New York University, created an overview of the evidence on virtual and blended learning to inform educators’ plans for next year. The document links to other research about blended and virtual learning and offers key takeaways for educators. It also summarizes the evidence base behind personalized learning and some popular ed tech tools and programs, and it offers some guiding questions for future research. The Research Alliance plans to keep updating this document with new research findings, especially as new studies investigate what has and has not worked during coronavirus-related school closures. Read more here.

2. The reality of remote learning. The Center on Reinventing Public Education, a research center based at UW Bothell, studied 477 school systems and their plans for remote learning, finding glaring gaps in expectations for teachers. Only one-third of school districts in the nationally representative sample expect teachers to engage and interact with all students about academic content. Only half expect teachers to track student engagement in learning. And more than 40 percent do not require teachers to monitor students’ academic progress. Researchers found the biggest divide to be between urban and rural districts. The divide between affluent and poor districts was also substantial. These findings make clear how much work schools have to do to ensure the future of learning for kids across the country prioritizes equity.

3. Federal support for education research and development. The Center for American Progress and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, organizations that focus on education research and policy (from a liberal and conservative standpoint, respectively), jointly released a federal policy proposal for greater research and development funding for K-12 education. This proposal follows their joint Moonshot for Kids initiative, which solicited ideas that would meet ambitious goals around educational achievement with the support of up to $1 billion in investment. The policy proposal makes a case for this type of research and development work, outlines how it could be organized and offers suggestions for where in the federal government it might be housed. Read more here.

4. The Write Tools Challenge. The Learning Agency Lab, a nonprofit that develops tools and programs using learning science, is collecting ideas from teachers about how a writing assistance app could better support under-served student populations, including students of color and those from low-income families. The teacher who offers the most innovative idea (as determined by a panel of educators) will get a $3,000 prize. Submissions will be accepted through July 15. Learn more and submit your idea here.

Future of Learning: Education companies see an “upside to the pandemic” for business

Older messages

How can higher ed anticipate in-demand jobs of the future?

Proof Points: Summer learning evidence

A new playbook for summer school

#BlackIntheIvory exposes racism on campus

Early Childhood: Where is it hardest to be a kid?

You Might Also Like

Kindle & Audiobook : Santa's List: A Short Christmas Story by Riley Blake

Ask your way to product market fit

The end of productivity

Setting Gift-Giving Guidelines for a Minimalist Holiday Season

[Electric Speed] Blind spots | Bluesky

The playbook that built a $360M empire

• Book Promo Super Package for Authors • FB Groups • Email Newsletter • Tweets • Pins

Grace and Typos

Prescription for Success

🎤 The SWIPES Email (Friday, November 22nd, 2024)