Edtech Insiders
Edtech Insiders
Week in Edtech 01/18/2024: Duolingo Sheds Human Workers, Chatbot Teachers, Dying Unicorns and More! With Special Guest, John Rogers of TPG Rise Fund
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In this episode of Week in Edtech, Ben and Alex discuss:
1. AI
- Duolingo Sheds Some Human Workers As AI Threatens To Upend The $65 Billion Translation Industry
- Moral Panic of “Will Chatbots teach your children” is starting up:
2. Edtech
3. Workforce
Special Guest:
- John Rogers, Partner at TPG Rise Fund
Welcome to Season Eight of Edtech Insiders where we speak to educators, founders, investors, thought leaders and the industry experts who are shaping the global education technology industry. Every week we bring you the week in edtech. important updates from the edtech field, including news about core technologies and issues we know will influence the sector like artificial intelligence, extended reality, education, politics, and more. We also conduct in depth interviews with a wide variety of edtech thought leaders and bring you insights and conversations from ed tech conferences all around the world. Remember to subscribe, follow and tell your edtech friends about the podcast and to check out the Edtech Insiders substack newsletter. Thanks for being part of the Edtech Insiders community enjoy the show.
Ben Kornell:All right, everybody, we are back weekend edtech is in the hizzy. And man January, it normally is like okay, get your feet wet get started in the new year. No, it is back with a storm ed tech is in full effect. We have many, many highlights many stories from Edtech, Big Tech, education all over the place. Before we dive in, though, Alex, what's going on with pod.
Alexander Sarlin:So we just put out an episode that I'm really excited about with the CEO of Chicago Public Schools, really amazing guests, along with Dr. Maria Armstrong of the Association of Latino administrators, and superintendents, really, really cool episode all about Chicago and school, big school systems and AI, of course, so check that one out.
Ben Kornell:On the event side, we have some great events coming up on the 29th and 30th. We have the common sense, kids Summit. And the idea is that it's a really coming together of all the different people from all the different sectors that work on kids and kids issues. So the vet Murthy will be there talking about health care, and Hillary Clinton will be there talking about poverty. And then there will be breakout sessions talking about Edtech, talking about AI. And I believe there's going to be a couple big announcements. I know Sesame Street is going to announce a big partnership. And I also believe there are two AI partnerships that are going to be announced. For those of you listening, try the code ces comp. And you can get as a tech insiders listener free tickets, and the Monday night Happy Hour, which is from basically five o'clock to 8pm. It's kind of a cocktail reception is going to be a must attend event if you happen to be in the Bay Area. So figured out if you can make it in and, you know, we'll see who's working the door at deck insiders. I know you're a crafty bunch. And then on February 7, we also have the Cooley sponsored Bay Area at Tech Summit, which is found out our keynote speaker is going to be the Superintendent of Schools of Oakland USD, she's going to be talking about the state of education. So no, you know, EdTech investor panel to kick things off, we're going straight to the source. How is EdTech? How is AI? How are our products and systems fundamentally impacting schools? And where are we missing the mark. And I think it will be a great discussion. That also includes some like breakout sessions and panels but also a happy hour. And then the kind of the star of the show is the group dinners where you're randomly assigned to a table of eight perfect strangers who are also equally passionate about EdTech. So join us sign up, just went out, it will sell out super fast. So please make sure you sign up. That will be February 7. All right, Alex, we're gonna dive right into the deep end. Let's start with AI. AI has been upsetting the applecart all across the education industry. But the one area that seems to have thrived, has been language learning. But we now have some new news and that section. So tell us a little bit about it. Yeah, so
Alexander Sarlin:this is a fast company reported on some sort of scuttlebutt is happening on Reddit, but not fully confirmed. So we'll see where it all goes. But basically, it's about how Duolingo has had a number of contractors that are doing translation, which makes sense a lot of big edtech companies have contractors doing translation. And because AI is so incredibly efficient and fast at doing translation, something we've mentioned on this show a number of times, they are starting to perhaps let go of some of these different contracts and contractors. And this is you know, I think a canary in the coal mine kind of story because this is the translation industry is $65 billion industry. It is global. Obviously it is extremely relevant to a lot of education companies, especially ones in, say, Europe that work in many different countries or global education companies in the US. And this may be an interesting trend to watch that as AI translation becomes truly sophisticated, we just saw Coursera launched 4000 courses in Hindi. And I guarantee you those work done by AI, you know, we might see a big disruption to that industry. So I don't know, what do you make of this translation service story?
Ben Kornell:I mean, I think the story here is about companies that are nimble and understand how to leverage AI and companies that don't. And there is this sense of wait and see in the EdTech space. And the one company that I would say is has never been wait and see, is Duolingo. And could there be a reason why they're the most valuable edtech property now and that they're the ones who have seen their market share and growth come? Easily, you can be sitting in the CEO chair at Duolingo, and say, Oh, crap, AI is coming to eat my lunch. Instead, they're accelerating into it and saying, how do we make our product better, but also, how do we do things more efficiently, and literally overnight, you know, whether it's Changi BT or the GPT. Store, we have industries being crushed. But we have new industries forming, and Duolingo. They're one of those Skipper ships, that's able to like navigate. And then you've got the Titanic's like Pearson and some of the other large curriculum companies, that is really hard to see how they're going to combat this. Now, on the translation layer part, you know, there is a limitation of, Wow, a $65 billion industry going away for translation, that's going to be a rough landing. But the reality is the TAM of translation was much, much bigger, it just was never economically efficient to serve these other markets. So let's take like Haitian Creole 99.9% of the world's information is inaccessible if Haitian Creole is your primary language, and now all of that has opened up. And so I think, while you might see contraction in like core areas of translating into mainstream languages, you know, Mandarin, Spanish, and English, you are also going to see real new avenues that all of a sudden are incredibly efficient to serve. So headline news is nimbleness pays off right now accelerating in pays off? And will education in comments, kind of stand pat, as they seem to be doing now? Or will they lean in and I just think Duolingo is showing us the future? Yeah.
Alexander Sarlin:And it probably goes without saying, you know, Duolingo already has 43 languages on his platform, which is amazing, including things like high valerian from Game of Thrones. But in this new AI world, you will very likely see the likes of Haitian Creole, and many other languages that have fewer native speakers being accessible there, too. So that's another pretty cool outcome for Duolingo. In any language learning program. One thing that's been happening a lot this week, and I'd really like to dig into it, even though it's probably a broader conversation than we have time for today. Is that seems like we're starting to see this narrative coming up this sort of slightly cynical, maybe very cynical narrative about, oh, AI is coming to education. What does that mean? It means chatbots. teaching your children is literally the name of a story in New York Times last week, well, chatbots teach your children. And they talk about the idea of being a Silicon Valley dream. And you know that things have not lived up to the hype and talks about the sort of Audrey waters narrative of you know, we've tried teaching machines for generations, and they're always so they never get the real crux of what education is about. And I get it. And there's definitely not nothing to those arguments. We also saw Tyler Cowen and Bloomberg, this week, write about you know, how the current type of AI chatbot we've been talking about the conmigo is the sort of AI tutor chat bots will probably not be that popular, but the ones that will will be the sort of personalized chat bots that are actually act like a friend, which is, you know, in separate argument, but also sort of goes a little bit against this concept of like, whatever we're doing now is not going to work. And we saw Dan Meyer, who we love, you know, he big fan of Dan Meyer, who was the chief learning person at Desmos. And now he's the Chief Research Officer at amplify at math teacher extraordinaire, just have this sort of substack post about how basically a new report saying that not as many teachers, as you might expect, are using AI. It should really like fly in the face of all of us ad tech folks narrative that AI is coming. I don't know if I like this trend, but I feel like my instinct is try to rebut it. I may do that in the next newsletter. Yeah. What did you make of this sort of type of article that seemed to suddenly be everywhere this week? Yeah.
Ben Kornell:I mean, I have so many thoughts, but I'd say at the top level what we're We're seeing is a shift where AI is the thing to a future where I think AI is in everything. But it's not the focus. It's not, you know, their subject, verb object. AI has been the subject, and then verb Object and Object is usually students or learning or something like that. And so I think what we're going to see as a result of this, is that AI goes underground or is a subhead, not the headline, because ultimately, we are going to, and we've already seen AI infused into things in ways that are apparent or not apparent. Sure, I would also say that the use cases for AI and where AI is today are largely not student facing instructional, their assessment, their teacher efficiency, they might even be student practice, like the ability to kind of do maths problem sets, or the ability to do reading practice. But instructionally, we still have not seen and are unlikely to see AI that outperforms an educator. And in some ways, what AI is really good at is taking off some of the responsibilities on educators so that they can focus on what they're uniquely powerful in which is teaching learning, instruction, classroom culture, Kid engagement, connection, etc, etc, etc. Yeah, what I take from the stories, though, is Sal Khan, you are in the crosshairs, right. And like just to call out biases, we love Sal Khan, like, because we love how bold he is, and he's like going for it, and he's pushing it. But New York Times is going to be on a takedown campaign of Sal Khan. And it just like they just fired the shot across the bow. And you know, this is what happens with visionary founders, they, their sense of present tense and future tense converges into present tense. So you've been around these people where it's like, yeah, we will be doing x we will be doing why and soon, it's we are doing, we are doing why, and journalists love to call out that shit. Yes, but the reality is, Sal Khan is doing more to push what's possible around AI for all kids and low income kids than almost anyone else. And we should have his back. But they are going to have a whole lot of fun with the takedown pieces that are coming in the next six to 12 months on Khan Academy only has X users, like people complain, parents don't think it's good. Like, right, here's what's everything that's wrong. And we were on a panel last fall where there was somebody on the panel, who's just firing shots at Khan Academy, like where's your research, where's your data, and then the Khan Academy person was like, here's the link to our research. Here's the link to our data. So education industry, sometimes when the general press likes to oversimplify things, black or white, will AI chatbots teach your children, they have decided that conmigo is the like example of that, and they're going to try to take it down. So that's where we are.
Alexander Sarlin:And that's also I think, a byproduct of sort of people being a face of an industry, right. I mean, Kern has, for a decade been sort of the face of ad tech, I'm much more than say, like Luis von Ahn, who runs Duolingo, which is, you know, arguably the most successful ad tech company, as we've been saying, or the head of Pearson or anything like that. So whenever you're sort of out front as the face of an industry, people sort of love to build you up, and then take you down in the media. So it's gonna be really interesting. So speaking of faces of the industry, Sam Altman was a little bit in the news this week. And I think you know more about this than I do. So I'm going to kick it to you for this. But I think there's beginning to be some rumors about what is the future of GBT? Five, we covered the gap store last week, but GBT five. Tell us about that. And maybe a little bit of around the world of some of these big tech headlines. Yeah.
Ben Kornell:So on the big tech front, you know, open AI is driving the narrative. And you know, we're ad tech insiders, right? So I've been talking to founders and CEOs, and one founder, who has deep Google connections, was like, Gemini is no good. I'm using open AI. And it's like, it's amazing that Google has not managed to catch up and that their performance is not as good and not only is GPT for better than Gemini, but then the Omni modal capabilities that open AI has invested in voice, vision, and text are breaking out such a big lead. So the thought was, okay, well, everybody has this year to catch up. And then Sam Altman drops a bomb, which is now that I've got my governance figured out. And now that I've got you know, our revenue is growing like MADD on the b2b side. So, you know, it's the most successful consumer app in history. Now the b2b revenue is insane. And you've got testimonials from people who are saying this is the best thing out there. And now he's going to double down on GPT five. So what does GPT five look like? Well, each time there's been a three to four to now, five, these are not like percentage changes, these are magnitude, no changes, orders of magnitude change. And for GPT, five, to actually achieve that order of magnitude. It's got to ingest way more information and way more parameters. So connecting the dots, this is why they're doing all these content deals, and licenses with people. And essentially, they are boxing out Google and others from doing a GPT five competitor because they're doing these licenses to get access to New York Times content, and so on. So it's content. And the deal size, by the way, is like a million bucks a year. So that might seem a lot to us in the EdTech space. But on the order of magnitude of dollars that open AI is running. This is peanuts. So I would just say one, like, if we're going to ever get to AGI, there's got to be a probably a five, six and seven. That's what people are saying is the range of magnitude, no leaps that we have to do. It's like we're two or three kind of standard deviations away from, like, what would appear to us at least as AGI or have some level of AGI by the way, AGI is unlikely to appear as a single sentient, like interaction, imagine it more like a colony of bees or of ants that have this level of individual programming. But then across the kind of collection of coordination effect. That's really what AGI is likely to look like. So Okay, back to education. So if that's where things are going, how do we get our systems and our educators and everyone ready for this. So at the same time, there's work that open AI is doing to get into schools and train educators. And we highlighted they had the single page, which is like educators, here's how to use it. But we also have some inside baseball that they're going to be releasing new courses through edX, as a way for people to get certified. And you much maligned edX, which we've talked about. There are ways in which I think there is a understanding among open AI and others that much like Google classroom has really seeded the Google suite as a perma infrastructure, doing seeding open AI as your perma AI go to, could be a real opportunity. So no one's told me that directly, but I infer based on the kind of new projects that seem to be underway. And it's not around kid use. It's more around teen use, like 13 and up. But we're gonna see this battle playing out between 13 and 18 year olds, Google announced one for teens, you know, Bart, for teens, open AI is basically like, Oh, you're trying something? I'm going to crush you on that, too. So that's the scuttlebutt here in Silicon Valley. I mean, we can talk about the other big tech players. But I think that's the main headline,
Alexander Sarlin:interesting, interesting stuff, I am going to still hold the position that Google will still surpass, I think, you know, even if they're underperforming right now, it's a company with even more unlimited resources and spent a long time but maybe there'll be disrupted by this, you know, you never know it seems like there's some blood in the water. So speaking of new AI, offerings, Udacity just launched a generative AI nanodegree that this week, that's their sort of core offering. And we're getting some really interesting again, potentially rumors, but seems like there's a momentum to them that upgrade education is one of the two big Indian unicorns and I said too, for a reason is looking to buy them is actually looking to acquire Udacity. This has been in multiple Indian Ed Tech publications this week that it's something that you saw Udacity was one of the big MOOC platforms along with edX back in the day before they were bought and Coursera, which is now public, it's sort of been less in the news for quite a while it's a little bit under the radar. They haven't raised money in a while, but it looks like they may become a subsidiary of an Indian company if this goes through interesting development. Right.
Ben Kornell:You know, I think the shifting sands right now of the marketplace mean that, you know, those who we thought were in like driver's seats, and those we thought were kind of followers that might be shaking up. Yes. And, yes, you know, it also leads me to think about some of the insights from the whole and IQ report. So I don't know if you want to dive into that. But I will just say, you know, we were 2021, I think represents a local maximum for valuations for edtech companies now, is it a permanent peak permanent maximum? You know, if you look at, you know, valuation per revenue or per, you know, from a multiple standpoint, or can we get back there. So, hold on IQ came out with some sobering news, as of January 15 2023, there are now 13 edtech unicorns around the world, that's down by 29 companies over the last 12 months. So in 2023, and 2024, they've been removing people. And this last announcement removes 16 companies from the list. So on top of that, there were no exits in 2023. So there's no liquidity valuation is down. And now on the remaining unicorns list, six in the US, two in India. Now, granted, these are all private Lee held companies, there's, of course, the publicly held companies on the market. And the public companies are also under a billion in revenue. So the net effect of this one IQ report is a big slowdown in investor activity. You know, I think what was happening is we were in ad tech winter, and then things were kind of falling last fall, and this report has dropped. And I'm just hearing from VCs that, whoa, the kind of valuations, the markets still feels like, we haven't hit bottom here. And this report, which is backwards looking, really puts a pin on the kind of venture capital model, maybe not working in our space, because it is really hard to get to unicorn status. I don't know what's your take.
Alexander Sarlin:First off, I want to name some of the companies that were removed. And just because they were removed doesn't necessarily mean that the valuation is lower, it means that there's no fully good reason to believe that it's lowered means that they basically haven't raised in two years, they don't know evaluation, and it's and the likelihood is that it's down. So we just mentioned two Indian unicorns, the two Indian unicorns left on this list are upgraded. And Emeritus, which means that by Jews, for example is off is off the list along with an academy physics Wallah. But down to and lead school, so several of which just made the list. And then in terms of the some of the other ones that were removed, I mean, this is really like a who's who of a lot of the big edtech companies we see masterclass dropping off outschool Class Dojo course, hero, news, ela Quizlet, it is a pretty, as you say, sobering report to see so much paper, you know, so many of the companies that have we've seen on these, you know, large rises during the pandemic, sort of becoming synonymous with the space go guardian, suddenly, you know, being removed from this list. And I mean, it's a pretty crazy reversal to see that so low to go from, you know, high 30s, low 40s of unicorns to 13, or I count 12 on this list, but they say is 13. So pretty. Nuts. I mean, my take on it overall, is that, yes, it the local maximum is a terrific metaphor, there are a terrific analysis, I feels like, in all ways that 2021 is really seen as a VC, you know, sort of the height, at least in this era of the sort of VC funded education companies really, you know, really, really getting big. And now we're at a place, I think, partially led by by Jews in India, and partially led by some sort of various scandals in the US with things like paper having a contract issues, and and just the lack of funding. I mean, frankly, there's just haven't been any big rounds this year. There haven't been any mega rounds this year, there's been very little funding. It's just making the whole space really look hollowed out. It's pretty scary. I mean, you know, I'm still bullish on Ed Tech. I think even next year, we're going to see more investment than we have, you know, in 2023. I don't think it's the death No, but I had a sort of jaw dropping moment to see by just falling off is its own big story right by Jesus was valued at $22 billion. And there's removing it from the 1 billion or more or less. Wow, yes. It's so insane. It's a crazy moment. Just to put it in context,
Ben Kornell:though, for our listeners. And so if you're listening to this podcast you to care about like inside baseball and edtech. Right. This whole on IQ report is actually the kind of thing that affects general investors, right? Hold on IQ is kind of a bridge organization that almost like the data is seen to be a little bit more independent of like edtech evangelists. And so people have relied on it and when they've done reporting in the past, it helped fuel general investors coming into the EdTech backspace and leading rounds are participating in rounds, this kind of report is really going to formally damper that interest. And it's going to make it harder for our VCs in ed tech to raise new money from LPs, who are going to basically say, like, look in this diaspora of tech sectors, you know, we have all these specialist funds, like we are closer ed tech is closer to how people skeptically look at crypto, or web three funds than we are to like healthcare, which would be seen as like, an impact area, but where there's opportunity, we're losing the thread in terms of, you know, financial returns in our space, and people are seeing it very speculatively
Alexander Sarlin:and Udacity, was on the unicorns list based on his last valuation a few years ago. And the report that we're seeing is that upgrade is looking to buy it for $80 million. That's at least the news. So I mean, there is something I think fundamentally bewildering about the valuation story in these debt companies, I feels like it's almost like these fantasy numbers at this point, which is a little bit scary to say, but you know, a little more local news, right? FTTC is coming up next week. That's one of the bigger education conferences in Florida, the Florida Education Technology Conference, that'll be a really interesting check in and AI and virtual reality, as well as robotics and esports are going to be sort of featured there. But I think with that we should go to our guests interview. Yeah, that
Ben Kornell:sounds great. We're really excited to have John Rogers from the rise fund at TPG. And we're gonna dive into many of these questions. So let's flip it over there. All right. I am so excited for our interview today with John Rogers from TPG rise fund. Thanks so much for joining AI tech insiders. John,
John Rogers:my pleasure. It's great to talk to you, Ben.
Ben Kornell:So before we dive into the topic at hand, k 12, education in this current state, tell us a little bit about what the rise fund does.
John Rogers:Sure, the rise fund is explicitly a social impact growth equity fund. And what does social impact mean, lots of folks use that phrase for us, it means we're investing in impactful sectors like healthcare, education, energy, climate, and financial technology, it means also that we really look for third party evidence of efficacy. And one of the steps that we take that is hopefully a contribution to the field is that we really try side by side with our financial underwriting to undertake social impact evaluation exercise, and there's a little bit of false precision, there's a little bit of subjectivity. But trying to take some of the subjectivity out by really looking at the third party evidence of impact, what we do is we build a social impact valuation model, the first input to that model are the operating metric outputs of the base case of the financial model, which, as investor, you'll know is actually a pretty useful and constructive set of metrics, because you spent a lot of time beating up the financial model. So the base case really does represent what you expect to be produced in terms of operating metric outputs, we look at the third party evidence of for the outcomes of those outputs. So Dreambox learning, having more students engaged on the platform, having them engaged for longer, what are the outcomes and learning gains that result from that. And then the last step that we take is looking at the Economic Research, which says, what is the value of those outcomes. And in the case of Dreambox, you're looking at better performance in school persisting in school for longer, and even modest effects, but over very large pools of students creates quite a bit of value. And so just as we would look for multiple dollars of financial return for every dollar of investment, so too, we look for multiple dollars of social value to be created for every dollar investment. So that's a lot of what we mean when we say word Impact Fund. The other element is we're looking for those products and services that serve families at or below the 70th percentile of income. So we are also looking at access, in addition to efficacy.
Ben Kornell:You know, one thing that I love about the rise fund is that, sure you take investments in high impact organizations and companies, but just the fact that you lead with this impact rubric and framework actually bends, you know, countless companies to think about that and have that front of mind, even if they don't end up becoming a portfolio company. There's a way in which you've really done a great job of like shaping the space, especially in education.
John Rogers:The conversation consistently resonates positively with best In class management teams, which is really an underappreciated aspect, I think of social impact investing. The best management teams are very commercially ambitious. But of course, they're also mission driven. That's why they were attracted to these sectors. And when they can find capital that they think is aligned with them their goals and can help them advance their goals, but it's also mission aligned. That's a very winning combination, I find in conversations with great management teams.
Ben Kornell:That's super helpful. Yeah. And for our listeners, generally, what would be the size or magnitude of a company when they're a good fit for rice fun in terms of number of people served or the revenue size? Or like, where in the ecosystem? Do you play? Yeah,
John Rogers:good question. By dint of our size, for better or worse, we typically need to find larger platforms. So what I like to say is, we're good to great folks, that's what we're in business to do is find good platforms and make them really scale them multi fold, we're not really kind of the folks looking for the new new thing. So we're not looking for a seed stage or very early stage, we're looking for established businesses that have proof of concept where we can really help them scale, what that often means is that a business has, well, we need to write equity checks of generally 100 million or more, we may go as low as 50. But they need to be substantial equity checks. what that often means is that the business has already achieved, you know, 25 million or so in ARR. That's one benchmark relative to your question about, you know, numbers of folks served, we can look at different models, we can look at Dreambox learning, which was serving 2 million folks, when we first invested back in Jesse Willie Wilson, and grew it to 6 million before we sold most of our stake, or we can look at impacts that are very deep, but perhaps more narrow. So if we're helping students to graduate from college, there's tremendous impact on the trajectory of their earnings. But we may be helping 10s or hundreds of 1000s of students instead of millions.
Ben Kornell:Yeah, really, really incredible. And this good degree, is also about accessibility, do we really deliver the best in class technology to every learner, not just in the US, but in the world? Another time we'll talk about like global and how that's evolving. But let's dive into K 12. And, you know, it's the new year, there's a lot of like positive energy in the air and New Year's resolutions. I'm actually on a school board myself and got to go on campus. And there was a teacher PD day and there was excitement in the air. But at the same time, there are these concerning troubling trends that continue to dog K 12 education, and they feel like they're increasing year over year. What's your sense of the current state of K 12? And those core challenges? And how do you think we can develop solutions to meet those challenges or needs?
John Rogers:Well, I hear you on the first element, which is teachers and students, administrators are quite resilient people and parents, and so they do want the best, and they do have amazing capacity to learn and create things that said, I'm very, very, very concerned. As I mentioned in the article that I recently wrote that was published. Unfortunately, there are multiple crises facing our K 12 school system in the US, and they are just incredibly severe. When you think about so many issues hitting the schools, they've got some funding that's receiving, they've got just unbelievable turnover of teachers, that disrupts everything in the school and the classroom. You've got kids not coming back to school. That had been, I think, an underreported story, but it's now increasingly being reported. The number of students who are chronically absent team is at least 10% of their school days, has doubled since the pandemic mental health crises. Students were severely impacted. And it was already a growing issue before the pandemic pandemic did as accelerate a lot of terrible things, right. So
Ben Kornell:yes, it's like none of this was new, but the pandemic just tipped the scale. It wasn't the straw that broke the camel's back. It was like the anvil that broke the camel's back.
John Rogers:Yeah, so those are all pretty pretty, pretty severe crises. There are fortunately, you know, there are cost effective solutions. So relative to student mental health, there is a positive return on investment to getting the counselors into school, whether it's physically or through telehealth services. There's a terrifically positive return on investment for the schools and the states in investing in those services and programs. Getting there. are cost effective ways to get teachers into the classroom. We're not having the numbers of students graduate from traditional education programs. So you do need alternative pathways. But you can find folks who have great domain expertise, I think about my seventh grade geometry teacher who was had been a aerospace engineer. And then who knows may have gotten laid off from the boom or bust, Southern California economy, what was a terrific teacher, very relevant expertise, very practical hands on. So if we can find people with domain expertise, and get them, the classroom management, and the pedagogy and so many hours that they didn't have in the prereqs, and they didn't have and then get them field based experiences and get them certified in the classroom, those kinds of alternative pathways are very, very important part of our problem is we've also got all of these divisions partisanship at every level, local level, state level, national level, so it gets in the way of past effective and practical solutions kind of from both sides. So that's part of what's disheartening, we've got, you know, social media tearing our kids apart, we've got school boards and state legislatures, you know, tearing each other apart. So that all gets in the way of good solutions. But there are solutions out there, if we so we can put one foot in front of the other and that we don't have an alternative, the alternative to making these investments is just a tremendous drag on our national economy. If you want to know that bottom line have added its impact.
Ben Kornell:Are there any bright spots that you would point to or like organizations, districts, countries, even that you feel are trailblazing in terms of new ways of thinking about the triple crisis of teen mental health, absenteeism and, and teacher shortage? Or is this like a uniquely American situation?
John Rogers:No, it's not I mean, learning loss and teacher turnover are not uniquely American. But the kinds of solutions we've tried to support, you know, presents learning as providing special ed resources and mental health counselors in schools, Teachers for Tomorrow is training 10s of 1000s of teachers for the schools in stride is providing very cost effective degree completion programs to working adults where they need it, which is in the workplace. We just invested in outcomes first group, which is one of the largest platforms serving special needs students, groups of schools serving special needs students in the UK, and we made investments into higher ed platforms in Southeast Asia, serving students in health care, through international medical university and in technology through Asia Pacific University. So those are some of the places where we've been making, you know, major investments. And it's because each of those segments can make a big contribution in each of those countries. I think, generally, countries are facing similar issues. The partisanship is particularly bad here. But some of the basic issues are common across geographies. Yeah,
Ben Kornell:I really resonate with your point about talent aligning with impact. And, you know, if people were maximizing for financial gain, they probably wouldn't go start an education enterprise. Given those dynamics. What I really liked about your article was those impact motivated people often are former teachers and connected to the classroom. And there's a way that despite all of our investments in technology, and tools, ultimately at the center, there's a human unlock, in terms of the teacher pipeline and talent that in particular seems like an area where like alternative degree programs have struggled with quality. And, you know, given that you're looking at impact outcomes, how do you think about the quality output of those programs? Linda, darling Hammond was my professor at Stanford. And so I remember, you know, there was a lot around, you know, as a Teach for America core member, too. So there was a lot around, okay, what meets the bar versus what fills the slot? How do you think about that, and especially with career changers, I think that's really appealing. How do you ensure that quality bar is met? Well,
John Rogers:I think Linda darling Hammond is a big believer in residency programs, which are themselves forms of alternative pathways Teach for America is the biggest alternative pathway in the country. So you can answer for you know, better than I can, what you think about the quality there, but if you want, bring talented people into the classroom, the best way to do it, you've got great shortages of folks in key areas like special ed languages, you have a non diverse pipeline coming into K 12 teaching so alternative pathways are really the best way to find a lot of those folks. And then the more you can give people, you know, at bats, reps, opportunities to work at the classroom, they can either work in the classroom as substitutes. They can work in classroom during summer school, there's a lot of ways to get folks at bat,
Ben Kornell:know that there's like a simulation school in the UK where they actually have, you know, people do almost flight simulators, but with classroom teaching, not just to prepare and train them, but also to say, hey, is this a fit for me? So interesting,
John Rogers:is a website that's got simulations and videos that folks can participate in, folks can upload, you know, their own videos of them teaching and get critiques. So there are things that you can do with technology to try to scale, you know, opportunities for teachers to get coaching and get feedback. So that as part of what we're trying to do with Teachers of Tomorrow, so and then you need folks to have mentors, right? Once they get into the classroom, if you've been through a traditional teaching program, you've done student teaching, and you've had some of that mentorship up front, you've gone through an alternative pathway, your first year is really a continuation of the education, you're really an intern for that first year. And so you need a high quality mentor, you need a high quality coach, it's kind of a three part, you know, three legs of a stool to support the teaching candidate, and you need to get them continuing coaching and professional development. The number one reason you know folks quit teaching isn't because of the pay, it's because they don't feel supported. So the more you can get teachers the best support, the better they're going to perform and the best potential you're going to have. And all the research says that the best indicator, the best predictor of quality education as the quality of the teacher in the classroom, well,
Ben Kornell:I think this might be an unexpected interview for most to might think TPG would be doubling down on curriculum or the technology. But it sounds very much like TPG and rise fund is really focused on the human element of education. John Rogers, thanks for joining us. John is the partner that leads the education work at the rise fund. His article can be found@fortune.com It's called the new normal in US schools is unsustainable, and inaction could cost 28 trillion. Really, the clarity of your article is super great. We'll include it in our show notes. And thank you so much for joining edtech insiders.
John Rogers:Thank you, Ben. It was a great pleasure speaking with you today.
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