Edtech Insiders

Week in Edtech with Ben Kornell, 11/25/22

• Alex Sarlin • Season 4 • Episode 5

Share episode

Welcome to Season Two of edtech insiders, where we talk to the most interesting thought leaders, founders, entrepreneurs, educators and investors driving the future of education technology. I'm your host, Alex Sarlin, an edtech veteran with over 10 years of experience at top tech companies. Welcome to Season Two of Ed Tech insiders, where we talk to the most interesting thought leaders, founders, entrepreneurs, educators, and investors driving the future of education technology. I'm your host, Alex Sarlin, an edtech veteran with over 10 years of experience at top ed tech companies. Hi, everyone, it is Thanksgiving week if you're in the US, it is a day of overeating, lots of football, and hopefully friends and family. I've got my friend here out Sarlin And Ben Cornell and we are hosting the Thanksgiving week edition of Tech insiders. If you're listening to this, you're probably in recovery mode from your Thanksgiving coma. We have a great show for you coming up lots going on at tech space. But first, what's going on with Ed Tech insiders this week? Alex? Yeah, so we missed last week's we can ed tech. So there's a lot to catch up on on the Ed Tech insiders interview side. And we just put out a great interview with Pablo Simcoe of the cohort based learning platform co leap that's really focusing on community based learning, really interesting guy with a really interesting background, doing some interesting things in edtech. I really respect his perspective. And then next week, we're talking to Kate Eberly. Walker of presents, which is a enormous teletherapy and special needs online learning platform. And Kate Eberly, Walker was the CEO of the Princeton Review of tutor.com. And she is a heavy hitter in ad tech and is a brilliant, brilliant person. Don't miss that one. She's fantastic. Well, it is such a great set of interviews that we've had this year. And please tune in to that. On this week in ed tech. We're gonna start with some high level topics. So the first high level topic was a McKinsey Report five trends to watch in the ad tech industry. And you know, the ad tech industry has arrived when McKinsey is doing deep dives and full reports. And the main takeaways are fivefold one capital inflows are higher than ever, investors are not turned away by the kind of Ed Tech winter to Ed Tech m&a is rapidly increasing, especially around achieving scale and efficiency. So from a growth standpoint, really combining forces as is a tried and true high CAC high LTV strategy. And then the third is that large firms are viewing employee rescaling and upskilling as a necessity. Lots in this report around the talent space and workforce readiness that seems to be the hot area. And then a big section on India becoming a leader in the Ed Tech race with global aspirations. You know, what's interesting is it you know, four or five years ago, it looked like China was the emerging giant. And now India has really stepped in to drive things and has even potential to surpass the US as the kind of Mecca of edtech. And then last, the EdTech leaders are really looking at career progression. This idea that we've talked about many times of modular steppingstone learning experiences, learners want value added services, such as personalized mentoring, preparation for interviews, support, getting a job, but they also want the ability to jumpstart their career ladder. And so all in all, it was a really positive report. And, you know, my main takeaway was, Hey, Ed Tech is here to stay and it's growing baby. What was your takeaway as you read all of this? I agree, I was sort of a little surprised at how positive it was, especially around the capital inflows, they, they acknowledged very briefly that, yes, the numbers have gone down a little bit since sort of their high in 2021. But the takeaway was really, hey, even as things get a little bit back to in person, you know, the market is so big, that there's really not going to be a slowdown. And that was not entirely what I expected to hear from from McKinsey. The other thing that jumped out to me, yeah, you mentioned the sort of career progression and the upskilling kind of space. And that was definitely the focus of this. It's, it's interesting, I think, a few years ago, if McKenzie had put on an ed tech report, it really would have focused on, you know, Ed Tech as traditionally defined in K 12 and higher ed, and really, this was almost entirely really focusing on adult education and upskilling and workforce development. They had a really interesting chart and they're basically saying almost every big adult ed tech funding deal in 2021. Almost every company is offering b2b It's sort of becoming a standard play for almost all the giants of Ed Tech they talk about air Unitas and an Academy Udemy Coursera by Jews better, even masterclass, which is not you know, the most obvious b2b Play is offering b2b gild go one. We've talked about all of these companies very often on the podcast. And it's interesting to see that perspective that sort of like, hey, b2b is really hot. We've been talking about this for a long time and ad tech, but it's true. I mean, it really is interesting how much ed tech selling to corporates is really one of the biggest plays over the last few years. And it's just interesting to see that on paper. Yeah. And when McKinsey is profiling you, you've probably reached a certain level of scale. That's not quite the startup phase. And I just think it does go to show that even those models, many of that the ones who mentioned started out as b2c and have evolved to have both b2c and b2b, it does suggest that the kind of churn factor with consumer creates a limit on how much growth you can have. Whereas the high LTV, you know, paired with high CAC of corporate is actually the more reliable long term growth paths. So for our startup listeners out there, it certainly doesn't mean that you can't start out with b2c. But this idea of having both a b2c and b2b channel is important. Well, let's transition from this eye level report to an industry insider report from owl ventures, which is the largest venture capital firm dedicated to tech outlets. So our ventures put out their outcomes report following reach capitals outcomes report relatively recently. And first off, it's very exciting to see all of these venture firms really try to get very serious about what they mean by outcomes. Education is an unusual field outcomes are not the same as cryptocurrency outcomes where it's just profits or rise in value, they there's actual outcomes we want to accomplish in education. One thing that stood out to me that I really loved in the annual report was, they sort of have a spectrum of how the research is being done. They talk about, you know, usability and feasibility studies as sort of the lightest level of research and efficacy, and and almost every company in their portfolio does that type of research. At the other end of the spectrum are randomized control trials, RCT is the sort of gold standard for research in published research and academia. And then there's a number of different steps in between, they talk about pre and post data analysis, which 82% of their companies engage in correlational analysis, not causal 49% quasi experimental. So that's not a randomized controlled title, trial, but something that actually really tries to do experiments, and see how things are working. You know, the top level numbers tend to still be you know, what we often called vanity metrics, right? The the millions of minutes spent on this particular platform, or the millions of study sessions on Quizlet. But they're getting more serious. And I think the whole field is getting more serious, or the number of users of course, about trying to define outcomes in ways that we can agree on and that we can feel like, hey, this money, and this, all this effort and time and everything that everybody in edtech is doing is actually moving society for the better. One other thing that stood out to me and I'd love to hear your thoughts, Ben is that they really break down all the diversity metrics of their founders of the boards of every company have, you know, sort of every different way you can slice the ecosystem of the employees at their companies. And the goal there is trying to showcase that, that in the our portfolio, you know, women, people of color, women of color, non US born individuals and first generation college students, which is a really interesting type of, of sort of inclusion all over represented against industry benchmarks in the EdTech industry, or at least in our portfolio. I found that really exciting. So then what were your takeaways from some of these at this hour report? There's a lot in there. My takeaways on this topic are vast, but I'd say the three main that I would highlight a number one just to re emphasize, like results in impact really matter. And many of these venture firms their origin stories are not you know, some let's maximize profit origin story. It was a group of people who said hey, we can leverage private capital to scale impact and so it is really positive to see each URL and some others really pushing hard on these impact metrics. And what you can imagine do for their portfolio members, the the fact that they have to report on this stuff also keeps it front of mind for their portfolio. Number two big takeaway, wow, are they global, they have the math of the global impact, and just the number of users all over the world is really impressive. And I can only imagine that growing over time. And so this idea that the US market is the kind of center piece for many of these VC firms that may remain true going forward. It's definitely from a payer standpoint, lots of revenue. But in terms of users and user impact, it's an incredible the kind of growth in India and Asia, the kind of growth in Europe is, is quite impressive. And you can see that logjam among the our portfolios, the smallest group, but it's growing and you know, really has high growth potential. The third takeaway I would have is that this report feels really unprecedented. If you go all the way through it to the back, they allow you to deep dive basically into every single major venture that they have. So they are willing to kind of open kimono pardon the reference, but, you know, with their whole portfolio, and you have like a spread of three to four pages, you know, double sided pages around the impact of each venture. And what that tells me one is, if you want to know who else is investing in, and why there you go, but number two is what a service to their portfolio members that they produce this glossy, you know, web friendly item. So it's just a, it is we're at a moment where quantity of deals quantity of capital is no longer the problem, its quality, and the shift to VCs making the claim that they are the best in terms of impact, as well as return. That's a really interesting place to be in. And I'm very excited to see how it plays out. All right, well, one of those big investment darlings that are coming from firms like owl, although I don't think owl is invested in them. And we've had the CEO online paper has written the online tutoring Ark. During the pandemic, basically, schools realized we are way behind in math and reading, we need online tutoring providers and platforms. And there's been a variety of proliferation of different models. Some models involve in person, some models go all the way to the other extreme, and it's asynchronous, and not interpersonal paper is a model that really prides itself on in demand text based tutoring, where you actually never see the tutor. But you say, here's the question, or here's the problem that I have. And then that tutor, you can basically just see the text messages back or the video of them solving a problem or helping you with a problem. Well, there's a little bit of a upswell of concern about paper that we thought also connects with a broader concern over SR funds being spent on tutoring, paper lost and Ohio contract and Columbus, Ohio worth almost a million dollars. And there's very low usage across all districts in papers implementation. Now, I will just coming to papers defense is always the story that if ed tech is not implemented, well, it will have the flow utilization. And there were definitely pieces in the Chalkbeat article that really outlined that it was poor rollout and poor implementation that might be connected to lower utilization. And when students tended to utilize it, they tended to report positively on that utilization. It's just that they didn't come back to it again and again. And there's something here, I think, in this article and these articles that suggest that the relationship between a tutor and a student is really important in making that work. And it's not just I need help with solving the problem. It's that I need a trusted partner who can help me grow my skills. It does really speak to you know, a big seismic shake up and resorting in a tutoring space as as your dollars go away. And as we find out which models are winning and which models are not. I will say the Trump being article taps into a larger perspective or perception that there's a lot of profiteering going on in the tutoring space and overall skepticism about it in K 12. Education. I can say as a school board member that's a lot of what I hear in school board circles. So you know, this is this is like a A potential car crash and slow motion. It could just be a recalibration. Like what do you make of all this? Alex? It's really fascinating. Yeah, what I make of it is that so this is a Chalkbeat article came out this week about, you know, schools across the US have turned to papers online tutoring, some worry, it's falling short, it really reads like an expos A, it dives into the details of a number of different districts in Ohio and California, in Palm Beach County, and basically saying, hey, these tutoring sessions are being paid for, and the contracts are in place, but the usage is just nowhere near what you'd want or expect. And they're even an inch lower for high poverty schools, and they're using it for even very young kids. I think there are two takeaways from him for that. I love your metaphor of car crash in slow motion, because there's definitely a APR car crash in slow motion here at very least, if not a sort of, you know, wasteful spending car crash, which people are realizing but I think in a lot of ways, you know, I think it speaks to the sort of lack of imagination, frankly, not, you know, no offense intended. But, you know, during the pandemic, when everybody had to immediately go to alternative solutions, let's call them Plan B's, and C's and DS, very few districts were prepared. A lot of kids were sort of sent home with with virtually nothing for months. And I think that in coming back, even though the EdTech field is pretty vast, there are 1000s of companies, many people's you know, go to solution was okay. When people fall behind when there's learning loss, you need to provide more instruction, and specifically more on demand tutoring and papers, respecting papers, you know, premises, it's on demand, tutoring, it's high dosage, although I don't think that really matches what they do. But they're sort of their selling proposition is high dosage. It's anytime a kid needs it. It's point of need. And I think the missing piece in this sort of evaluation there, you could call it an implementation problem. But I think it's even maybe a little deeper than that, which is the idea that just throwing a resource at a student, especially a new kind of resource where they have to figure out how to use it or when to use it. More importantly, without, you know, a whole lot of structure and training. I think that's sort of the fundamental sin here is, we know we need a solution. This sure sounds like the kind of solution that would check our huge box saying we're helping our students by giving them tutoring, everybody knows that tutoring in many studies leads to you know, better results. So you could if you say we're providing on demand tutoring, it sounds amazing. Those of us who've worked in ad tech product or an edtech, uh, you know, marketing or all of these things, you realize that it is not just a matter of giving people access, it's never just a matter of people giving people access. And this idea that just because students have the ability to log on and ask questions of a tutor, when they're stuck, that they will at humongous numbers, is a fundamental fallacy of in the whole ad tech world. That's just not how it ever works. Even when you're providing the best service in the world. You have to socialize and market it, create structures around it, create training around it, explain it, you know, all sorts of things. So I worry that you know that the car crash that's coming, it's not only about tutoring, it could be about you know, tech, I think there may be a backlash, saying, Wow, we paid all these millions of dollars for tech solutions, and we didn't get enough out of it. So let's just reinvest back in only an in person, you know, solutions. And that I don't think would be the right conclusion from this. But that said, I think we, I think that sort of emergency funding. It's just another example of how like pandemic fueled ad tech is so suboptimal for the way you'd actually want to do ad tech. And and we've all been talking about that for years. That's my little rant about it. It also exposes the distance between the purchaser and the user. And I'm sure for the purchaser, the idea of 24/7 Anytime you want it on demand, like that's, I can message that to the community and I can get a win there. When what we know the user experience that is best is a dedicated time with a like syndicated experience where you're you're meeting with that same adult or that same tutor multiple times in a high dosage way. And that is logistically way more challenging to pull off for sure. And it's logistically probably more expensive because you need that dedicated person. Now that said what paper is doing anytime, anywhere. techspace tutoring, also logistically hard and could, you know sure, is the kind of thing where you need a certain scale to actually pull it off. But I wonder whether they were meaning by our needs and not user needs. And now, you know, I always say you got to like when the buyer and then the student is the renewer. In this key thing, they are going to have to run really fast to catch up with the student as user. Now, the other thing that our listeners should note too is, paper is a billion dollar value company, when you're valued at a billion dollars, it doesn't mean that you actually are for sure worth a billion dollars, it just basically means that they were willing to sell equity or stock in it at that price. I think there also is some strategic like considerations going on where people raise that peak in the market, knowing that that was going to be the best valuation they would see for some time to raise the capital. So it could be that paper has really long runway, it could be that, you know, their plan from the get go with, like, get in the door, and then expand to deeper and more expensive tutoring experiences. But you know, this latest wave of PR is a real issue for them, and will be both an opportunity and headwinds for others in the tutoring space. I'm going to transition us to the next topic, we've been focusing on some of the shortcomings of pandemic ad tech. Let's talk a little bit about the total opposite side of the equation shortcomings in the labor side, we had a series of articles about mental health in K 12. Alex, why don't you TSF? Yeah, so you know, we've covered sort of sporadically on the podcast, the fact that there the numbers for sort of mental health issues among young people in the US have skyrocketed in the last few years in terms of depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, sort of any, you know, many, many signals of mental health problems have gone very high, especially for girls, what's starting to happen is, the realization is starting to become very widespread. So you see, you know, PBS and the AAP and sort of very big, you know, media outlets are starting to report on the fact that both K 12 and college, but this is mostly for K 12, really are not able to get enough professional mental health providers to support the students. There's many, many students who need help. And it's being absorbed by by social workers, it's being absorbed by all sorts of different people sort of coming into the school system to help. But there's a humongous shortage in school staffing, which is in some cases, an extension of the the teacher shortage that we've reported on here in the past. And meanwhile, there's a lot of money in this. So part of the sort of federal funding for learning loss and for pandemic recovery is specifically allocated for mental health by certain districts. And I think by the by the funding itself, and they're trying to find people, they're trying to find enough psychologists and enough, you know, qualified folks to bring in to basically keep the student body from falling off a cliff. It's pretty intense. You know, we have a report in Hawaii, which had, you know, 31 vacant counselor positions, 20 vacant psychologist roles at the start of the year, and they're trying to fill it in any way they can. They're training educators, they're, they're doing telehealth, telehealth services like those provided by presents, who's on the interview podcast next week? It's a problem and an opportunity, obviously, because the EdTech world has a potential and there are a number of great companies out there that can sort of help fill these gaps. What do you think, Ben? What's your take on this? And how does it sort of connect to the ed tech world? Yeah, so first, the idea that K 12 schools are this like hub of services for kids continues to grow, and now we're seeing it dipping into the mainstream. So the expectation now is that counselling services, health care services, connection with food and other resources, and a world class education all should be delivered by these k 12 schools. And so we shouldn't be surprised that there are any challenges in delivering that. Number two is that you know, many districts when they have gotten funding for these challenges, their first move is to say we're going to hire a bunch of people. And what that strategy is now meeting with is something the health care industry has been dealing with for decades, which is there are not enough qualified professionals out there to meet those needs. I actually saw in LA County that the county health department is competing with mental health counselors with the school district. So both, you know, sides of the equation are now you know, essentially driving up each other's wages and making it really hard to find talent. On the solution side. I think the idea that the school can be a hub and identify needs, but then referring out to experts, or it can be the kind of access hub where you create the systems and structures that enable students to access it is really promising. You mentioned, you know, K and presence learning. There's also Hazel health, playful, a number of other edtech companies that have really tackled some sort of aspect of this healthcare challenge. I think the biggest problem, though, that we're going to see is any kind of indication of quality, clinical quality, or support quality is very hard for school administrators to assess. And so what I expect to happen over time, is that states get more involved with providing more generalized care for their entire state. I've already seen some of this happening in the more rural states where they already know like, access to health care, mental health, or primary care is a real issue for low income students. And so this, this might be one of those topics where a set of rural states actually lead the charge on innovation. You know, we have Ryan Stewart, from Secretary of Education in New Mexico on, there are a number of states like that Nevada comes to mind, rural Washington comes to mind, where they're really kind of leveraging the fact that there's already sparse supply in the general population, and then leveraging schools to be a delivery mechanism. I expect that to play out back to the article. I mean, it's worth reading for our listeners, some of these districts like Broward County, Florida, they've lost 90% of their school psychologists and counselors mean they've known it's a crisis and from 2019 to 2022. They're down 20%. Same with Hillsborough, and Florida, and montgomery county and maryland incredible flight from schools. And so you know, just trying to hire more people is not going to be a solution. Rhythm, which is a school checking platform is acquired by securely in April does a sort of model that's a little bit of a swap a row of what you're saying earlier, which is that maybe technology can be used to identify students struggling by doing sort of regular check ins. And then the counseling could be done either through in person or there's a lot of different interesting hybrid models. That's that's all I'm added there. But yeah, it's a big, big, big problem. Well, I have the honor of teeing up the next two topics for you, Alex. They're both in the higher ed space. And they're both areas where you have really unique perspective. We're going to talk about higher ed edX, a partnering with Emeritus, and also a US News ranking controversy on the edX in America's annex announced. So remember that to you and edX combined. And now to you is really known as edX in terms of the learning platform and the brand. They are teaming up with emeritus to fuel international expansion. I guess the question that I have is one, what does this mean? You know, practically speaking. And then number two, what are the strategic implications around how to you slash edX is going to be playing going forward? So the backstory in brief here is that to you acquired edX, partially to be able to expand means one of their main stated reasons was to be able to expand their set of offerings down into the MOOC space as a lead generation back up into certificates and degrees, which is to us sort of core offering, and are you datas, which is the sort of Indian Singaporean company that owns the product Emeritus, does business classes from top business schools. So to you, edX, and emeritus erudite is all do partnership based models with universities that are meant to take, you know, good university brands and known University brands and scale their offerings, globally, basically, to you wasn't always really global, but it's becoming increasingly global, that X was always global. And emeritus was always global, takes things like Oxford, and Stanford and Harvard and MIT and offers classes all around the world. So in some ways, there's a very natural overlap between these companies. And it makes sense that they'd be working together. You add to that the fact that many of the people who left to you or some of its acquisitions over the years, went to Emeritus, especially at sort of the C suite. And there's a lot of connections, these people know each other, they've worked together in the past, and there's sort of a lot of overlap, both in the model and in the actual, you know, people have existing relationships. So, I think this makes a lot of sense. I think that from a strategic standpoint, it makes a ton of sense what is being offered I, you know, Edexcel offer a organic chemistry class or electrical engineering class or history class, to us original degrees business will offer certificate in data analytics or a degree in social work or a degree in, you know, an MBA. And then Unitas emeritus offers a short certificate program in, you know, applied data science for business or management, and leadership or things like that. Those are all very connected offerings, they stack in, they can stack on each other based on the university. So it makes a lot of sense. I think that why it's interesting for our audience to think about is to you now known calling itself edX really has ambitions to become the one stop shop globally, for higher education, that's really the long term goal, it'd be like if you live in Bangladesh, and you want to go to college, you could either go to a local university, which has lots of constraints, or and you might not be able to get into the highest quality ones, or you go to edX, that's just your obvious go to because everything is there, all the US universities, all the European universities, Australian universities, lots of quality, lots of options. So this is another move in that direction. And I think, you know why, you know, we should all keep an eye on it. Because if it works, if this sort of aggregation of different partnership offerings into a single platform works, then it will have justified at least partially the $800 million that to you spent on edX acquisition in the first place, as well as on earlier acquisitions. And bootcamp acquisitions, which I didn't even talk about. So they have aspirations to be a global company. Meanwhile, as we've covered here, they caught 20% of their workforce earlier this year, their stock price is extremely low. So there's this grand ambition, and this low, you know, this kind of a current state. And that's why this is interesting news, even though it seems like a relatively, you know, normal, obvious partnership, it's actually a connection between, you know, sea level strategists, that is a step on this sort of very globally ambitious strategy. And I think we should all keep an eye on it, because there are not that many companies in the world that have the opportunity to try to be that sort of full spectrum offering. And you know, Ben, the lifetime value there, of course, is amazing, because if you're somebody who's taking, you know, college level courses in high school or freshman year of college, and you're going to continue to use the same platform for your degree and your MBA and your executive education, then you know, that same platform, he has you for 1015 years, or 20 years or 30 years. And that's that's the goal there. So I want to give you a chance to talk about any of this. What is your take on this before we talk about sort of that the other big news out of higher ed? Like, what would you suggest our learners, you know, take from this deal, what should they be looking for? Yeah, I think there's so many fascinating angles of this. And there's a way in which the bio juice drama has distracted us from what's really going on with these other really major edtech companies like to you Coursera, Chegg, etc. And they're undergoing massive, massive changes, but none quite to the level of to you, which basically, like two or three years ago, was a bootcamp platform, you know, through universities, and was, you know, going quite well. And I think there's a degree to which how much of this was the original strategy. There's also how much of this is driven by the tanking of their stock and stock market. But I do agree that in origin days, the idea of bringing at Exxon is the idea of owning the user funnel and journey from end to end. And I think the jury is out on whether that is possible, is it a leaky bucket will you're kind of switching costs, which are incredibly low today, eventually be high enough that you could actually keep the user all the way through? And certainly abides by my rule of in high customer acquisition cost businesses, make sure you have a high LTV. But I do think that user churn that we've seen with MOOCs leaves a lot of questions around whether you can go all the way upstream and contain that water all the way down to the ocean. The angle that I thought was actually most interesting is that people often leverage m&a for these types of deals. But this growth in partnerships, I think, is really interesting, because partnerships, number one, precede m&a. So if people are working really well together, and there's a way in which they can nail it down, but also, I think it's incredibly frustrating in the EdTech space that we have so much redundancy across so many different links. And if we could just figure out how to partner with each other, you know, look, you obtained the learner through the MOOC, we'll do the MBA, don't try to build your own MBA and make the online MBA market horrible for all of us. I love that idea. And that move, and I do think private equity firms, or that private equity mindset often leads to more creative partnerships that can ultimately be dealflow. Because they don't want to put a ton of cash into building something that somebody else has already got. So I'm going to be watching for this one around that partnership. And particularly with international, any US based, or US core company that wants to move abroad, it's incredibly risky and expensive to do it on your own is way more, you know, successful, maybe less lucrative. But you will be way more successful, you find the right partners to help you grow. And so you see, edX to you growing in terms of new categories, but also new markets, that seems like the right time to make a deal like this. One other data point here, too, is there's been a lot of executive turnover at to you at x. So you can also imagine that this was a little bit of a like a splitting point with their management team. And you see some who are all in on this strategy in this approach, and others who may question it. So I also think that, you know, the jury is going to be out on this one, an area where the jury is starting to come to consensus, though, is around rankings, and one like how imprecise and manipulable the kind of criteria are, but to how they are losing some of their utility for both students and schools alike. And we have big news around US News and World Report, I will let you kind of tee it up again on this one as it's your beat. Sure, but I'm so interested in hearing your take on this. And I love that, that growth by partnership, growth by acquisition is a core aspect of that other story as well. So the headlines you may have seen this week, basically a six different top ranked law schools, including Harvard, Yale, Georgetown, Columbia, all decided sort of in either in unison or in close proximity to opt out of the US News and World Report ranking. And you know, for those in the higher ed world, you know, the US news and world ranking holds this incredibly outsized power in higher ed and has for many years, the US News ranking uses a whole bunch of different criteria to rank the different schools. And there's a little bit of a tail wagging the dog effect that's happened for decades, where schools actually change their, you know, student teacher ratio, or their average LSAT, you no further accepted class, or all these different silly little things that that US News and World Report calculates as factoring into the ranking. And so the idea of some of the most elite institutions, all saying, You know what, we don't trust you, we don't really believe in this, we don't really want to be part of this ecosystem, we don't need you is big news. It's big news for the law field. And it's big news for higher ed in general, because it might be sort of a shot across the bow. For the traditional signals of quality and higher ed, let's put it that way. And you know, more broadly, this is in the context of a growing sort of movement. So the American Bar Association voted recently to no longer require law schools to use the LSAT as a signal of, you know, for admission. And you're also seeing at the higher ed level, LSAT scores and AC t tests are becoming more and more optional. There's a headline this week of over 1800 colleges are going to be test optional, meaning they will not require an AC T or LSAT, for fall. And the reason these two stories, I think are two sides of the same coin. Besides the fact that they both affect law schools, is these are two of the most famous and most used signals in the higher ed space. So the US News and World Report has been the signal for quality for higher ed institutions for a long time. You know, moving up to notches in the ranking is a big deal for a lot of schools, and they'll do all sorts of things to make that happen. If schools are starting to turn their back on that as the selection criteria or as the quality criteria that's going to leave an interesting vacuum for how do people decide which schools to go to outside of the US News and World Report ranking. There are lots of ways to decide but there are none that are sort of the go to you know, we have this college scorecard. We have you know, inquiry Seeing interest in ROI, we have different kinds of other rankings, the times that higher ed ranking in England, but it's really it's sort of a blank space, people don't know exactly what that's going to look like if indeed this trend continues. And on the flip side, if more and more schools continue to be test optional, then it puts the onus on a different set of signals for college admissions, which is one of the, you know, most important decisions and set of ideas that families go through in the States and all over the world. So basically, what you're seeing is a loss of the traditional signals that make these kinds of matchmaking happen. And I think the EdTech space has a incredibly unique opportunity, just a sort of moment in time to sort of leap into this looming abyss of signal and say, we can tell you what a student has done that makes them a college ready student, we have lots of ways to do that authentic assessment, extracurriculars doing college level work, you know, it can include inclusion criteria. And then on the flip side, what does a college need to do to prove that it's a quality college will maybe they actually need to partner with Ed Tech institutions or offer cutting edge mobile apps or offer up hybrid learning solutions that really work that tech could become the differentiator of quality in a way that it's never has before, because it's not really part of the US news and world ranking. So it's a little bit of an abstract take. But I think that it's behooves us all in the ad tech industry to look at this moment and say, people are rejecting these traditional signals of quality on both the student and higher ed side. So what's next? Maybe we can actually provide answers rather than sort of let the vacuum grow. Ben, what is your take? I'm sure you see this totally differently. And I'd love to hear how you think, yeah, there's layers on this one. One is to move away from standardized tests and standardized metrics. And to, you know, these kind of rankings, the rankings, one is a lot easier for me, which is basically, you know, 3040 50 years ago, there was a lack of clarity around what are good schools, what should be the way to determine between one school or another, like, what are some criteria, all that and so when US News and World Report's and some of these other college ranking programs got going, it was actually quite a helpful thing to students to really understand, you know, which is a very opaque buying process, what might be indicators of quality, it's totally lost that threat now, in fact, like it often steers learners to schools that aren't good fits for their learning objectives, their learning styles, their learning needs, and distills it down into an over simplified stack rank that obscures many manipulable metrics. And one of those is like exclusivity of admissions, which by very nature, it's around trying to get a lot of people to apply so that you can reject them. All of that said, I do feel like we don't have an effective alternative for high school students, law students, you know, students, basically, at any point, to sort out the myriad of options that they do have, and understand more from like a competency assessment framework. What are the different attributes of all of these programs writ large? And I do think the world needs like a new guidance counselor for 22nd century unbundled education. So all the entrepreneurs out there, when you fix that one, please let us know. I know, some folks are working. On the testscore side, there's no doubt in my mind that testing, regardless of who makes the test, or how it's done, inherently has some bias has had bias and will have bias. It's if you've ever designed an assessment, it's just really, really hard to design and truly unbiased assessment that still provides meaningful insights. I will just say, as somebody who was a low income student who gained access to, you know, hard to get to higher education opportunities, the kind of standardized tests was actually a key tool for me to access these things. And I wonder by de emphasizing it, or even blinding it away from admissions, which these folks saying it's optional, doesn't mean that they're banning it, but it could go that way. I think you're actually creating even more complexity in what are they really looking for and what are the application needs and procedures, and it will ultimately scare away or make it more challenging for lower income or lower access students? To process and furthermore, on that front with the Supreme Court kind of coming down imminently against affirmative action, you're going to this making things even more and more opaque is going to be the move that schools do. So going back to it, I would love to see US News and World Report's and other ratings and rankings actually respond to this by saying, We're developing a brand new framework that really puts the student at the center has some sort of self assessment component, and then has less of a ranking and more of a kind of index of the offerings and statistics that enable informed decisions from students. That's my dream. But this has clearly been many times we've talked about the pandemic accelerating things. This is one of those areas where clearly we're never going back to, here's your LSAT score. Here's the schools you're admitted to, here's your LSAT. Here's the law schools. I've turned the page on this. Agree. And I just my last quick note on this is a, I would highly recommend an article that came out this week in New York Magazine, Dr. Jeffrey Slingo, one of the absolute top higher education journalists in the world, especially in the US. He's written multiple books on college admissions, and does a terrific sort of overview of MIT, which has actually gone back and forth for test optional, and uses it as a case study to really go in depth about some of the really complex and nuanced issues that come with college admissions and test options, many of which Ben, you've just named as well, which is that it just changes the profile. He talks about Stuyvesant High School in New York, which is a magnet school that it has sent students to, you know, elite colleges for generations. And how suddenly test scores aren't making the students stand out, which is making them not get into the elite schools and change completely how they approach all sorts of things. And it's, you know, the engines of mobility can act very differently. I maintain that it's an amazing opportunity for tech guidance, counseling, college signaling, using tech to differentiate there's a lot, I mean, we talked recently on the podcast to victory XR, which creates med diversity campuses. That episode is coming out in a few weeks. And I think that may be a differentiator, you have dozens of universities, creating virtual campuses, and trying to make them as useful and fun and engaging as possible. While that may be a differentiator for the type of school you go to, especially if you're a commuter. And you're just going to see some really interesting interactions, I think, I predict between colleges and tech in a world where that old school signal of SAP is increasingly just seen as a measure of wealth, which is what more and more people are seeing it as Sorry, I thought that would be short. I got an another little rant. So I think that's it for our headlines this week. We've done a lot. Should we do a little funding and m&a Roundup? Ben? Yeah, let's do it. And by the way, you know, if you've got news on funding and m&a, send it our way, we rely on a bunch of aggregators to report this out to you, ed tech startup class logic has raised 100k and seed funding that tech firms simply learned raises 45 million in funding led by GSV. Both of these are Indian and tech companies. And one thing that we're just seeing is Indian Ed Tech rise and fall as by Jews. My it is coming on really strong this fall. We also saw a pre Series A round and tech, SAS platform Ed mingle, as well as a $3 million investment in in S company. They have mobile games that make learning fun for kids. Really interesting company if you check out our link, Messiah school also coming back to India. It's an online boot camp provider that focuses on software development and data analytics. When I first heard of this, I thought it was this like, besides in the Maasai tribes and in Africa, but no, it's a Bengali company. And it is relatively new company founded in 2019. But it's graduated over 2000 students from its software bootcamp. A couple of other funding ones outside of India speak raises $27 million. Builder base speak provides English language learning via an AI tutor. What I love about them is they have a user base concentrated in Korea. And basically, they're one of these big, big winners in language learning. You know, Chegg bought Busuu. Last year for $500 million. Pearson bought mondly. Prep Lee raised 50 million I excel has continued to roll up language learning offerings, so to speak, enters the fray and their user base in Korea is trying to learn English language A couple others just to round it out. Professor Jim, I love this one San Francisco based Professor Jim, it automatically translates educational materials into full fledged courses. So essentially, they take a, you know, something like Jane Austen in an English class or animated videos, and then they stretch that out into a full course. It seems like this is like course making as a service. Very interesting in San Francisco bass cluesive Raise 2.2 5 million. It's based in Austin and to digital training platform for blind and visually impaired people, and being raised 6.4 million. They're based in New York, and they help citizens access government financial aid, that used to be known as equity. They started as a platform for helping students access federal financial aid for attending university. But they've pivoted in this idea of generally helping all citizens access government financial aid, love the GOV tech slash ed tech move. How about on the m&a front? Yeah, just two quick comments about the funding. As we go into the shorter list of m&a, longtime listeners, the podcast will remember that we interviewed David Helene of equity before it was being many episodes ago, they were doing fascinating work, basically getting students to be aware of all of the emergency funding that they were eligible for. And now seeing them get $6 million and expand even beyond education is really exciting. It's a very smart founder and a really mission driven company. And I had the privilege just yesterday to talk to Dr. Deepak citEcar of Professor Jim and I'll tell you what they're doing is very cool. It literally can turn text into full online courses with images with personalized avatar that could be either a celebrity or the professor itself. They can make your own avatar, it is like the doctor say car has 200 patents, 15 patents, and the iPhone, he is one of the most sophisticated inventors in the world. And he's turning his attention to EdTech. So it is very exciting to see that happen. And I'm excited to see that company really take off in the m&a space. We saw Y Combinator backed ed tech startup skill link, acquire creo. And this is an Indian acquisition, we've seen a lot of roll up in Indian edtech. Over the last couple of years, the big, especially last year, the big companies are acquiring all the smaller companies. And this is another example of that. You're also saw the Ed Tech evidence exchange merge with innovate. Edu. So innovate. Edu. Aaron mode is a you know, Ben, you know, Aaron, much better than I do. But we've talked to her on the podcast as well. And this is two different amazing nonprofits that are really interested in sort of accelerating the EdTech space in a lot of different ways. So it's really cool to see them combined there, Bart Epstein, and Aaron moats organizations, and it's exciting to see what they can do together. And then lastly, another sort of insider play, achieve partners, which is a venture firm that does both workforce and K 12. Education. We've talked to Troy Williams from Achieve partners on the podcast, when they acquired both clips, they just acquired Baton Rouge based mastery prep, which provides professional development services focused on end of course exams to K 12 school districts. So the thinking it's, you know, really interesting, but it's really thinking about, hey, even though the high stakes testing field is sort of in question, and there's all this test, optional thinking, there's still really an interest in in summative assessment. And there is a lot to be able to improve, especially sort of as an equity play among, you know, for students ability to succeed on summative assessments in various ways, including standardized summative assessments. So achieved partners, really interesting venture firm that does these acquisitions at times. And those are our three mergers and acquisitions of the week. Any thoughts to wrap us up, Ben, and anything stand out to you in any of those lists? Well, my bigger thought is, you know, here in the US, we have Thanksgiving, and there's a lot of great stuff going on the education space. And I do you know, some of the things that you mentioned just here in the m&a space gives me a lot of gratitude for the incredible founders, we get to interview get to watch get to work with. Yeah, it's been a really rough and tumble pre COVID During COVID, pseudo post COVID And just seeing the the way in which people are pursuing their mission with high integrity, and creative solutions, just keeps me very, very positive around our future with Ed Tech playing an important role of scaling access to great learning experiences to the whole learners. So really, you know, our rundown today started off with McKinsey talking about big picture. Ed Tech is actually thriving and becoming a game changing industry all the way To, you know, individual companies that are really coming together to support kids or learners, it's just an exciting time. So a lot of gratitude for that. And last, I'll say, gratitude to you, Alex, we're getting close on our one year anniversary here of edtech. Insiders. It's just been incredible the amount of energy we've had from our viewers, kudos, you gratitude to you, Alex, for getting the ball rolling, and all that you do with those interviews and gratitude towards all of our listeners, who just continue to support us with positive praise and energy, and also critical feedback. But it's just been a really incredible first year, that Tech Insider. So thank you, everyone for that. And I'll leave you out with final words. I just want to say, you know, to add on to that, and say thank you to the entire ad tech ecosystem. I mean, it has been such a privilege. I started this podcast a year ago, thinking, hey, you know, it'll be fun to be able to reach out to some founders, it should be interesting, who, you know, I love talking to people. But it has been beyond my expectations, in every possible way, the caliber and the kindness of the people that I've gotten to talk to the intellectual curiosity, the professionalism and just the mission driven, the care that they show for their learners, for educators, for employees, how many of them are former educators themselves has been incredible. You know, I can't even believe how many of the people who've had on the show started out as, as teachers, or teachers recently. And I want to thank you, Ben, I mean, you brought such an incredible energy to this, I was doing the interviews, and this week in edtech format of all the news that's fit to print in edtech really was your brainchild. And it has been some of the most fun I've had all year. And we've gotten incredible feedback. We have gotten new microphones even if you can't hear it, that was one of the pieces of feedback we got quite a few times. And I want to thank the listeners that we're in 150 Something countries, people all over the world who care about education and technology and learners have listened to the podcast and subscribe to the newsletter. And this is one of the best and just most just sort of gratifying, validating exciting, you know, projects I've ever been a part of. And so I want to just thank everybody involved, who's made it a reality. It's been such a blast, Happy Thanksgiving to all those who celebrate and we are going to do some fun wrap ups for the year to celebrate our 100th episode and our first year in production. Thanks so much for being here with us at edtech insiders and week in ed tech. We'll see you next week. Thanks for listening to this episode of edtech insiders. If you liked the podcast, remember to rate it and share it with others in the tech community. For those who want even more Ed Tech Insider subscribe to the free ed tech insiders newsletter on substack.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Alex Sarlin

Host
Head Shot

Ben Kornell

Host