NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein's new job: Murdoch's for-profit education arm

[Hannah Bell]

Joel Klein has moved into the K12 online for profit education business now that he's working for News Corp.

Leaving aside the conflict of interest generated by Murdoch's buying an online for profit education company that does business with the NYCDOE and has been promoted by Chancellor Klein as the future of education (indeed, his biggest regret as chancellor was NOT doing more business with this company) right after Klein joined Murdoch's company, one wonders how well the for profits do at educating people.

The Education Trust found they do not do well at all, though the for profit companies themselves do quite well:

A new report on graduation rates at for-profit colleges by a nonprofit research and advocacy group charges that such colleges deliver “little more than crippling debt,” citing federal data that suggests only 9 percent of the first-time, full-time bachelor’s degree students at the University of Phoenix, the nation’s largest for-profit college, graduate within six years.

The report, “Subprime Opportunity,” by the Education Trust, found that in 2008, only 22 percent of the first-time, full-time bachelor’s degree students at for-profit colleges over all graduate within six years, compared with 55 percent at public institutions and 65 percent at private nonprofit colleges...

In a separate study also released Tuesday, the Pew Research Center reported that almost one-quarter of those who received bachelor’s degrees at for-profit schools in 2008 borrowed more than $40,000, compared with 5 percent at public institutions and 14 percent at not-for-profit colleges.

http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/

[moondust]

1. Not only that.

11/23/10

Murdoch buys education technology company

This didn't take long: Joel Klein announces Nov. 9 that at year’s end he will resign as York City’s Schools chancellor to become executive vice president at Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Yesterday, the company announced that it was buying a technology company with big financial ties to the New York City school system.

Murdoch’s company, according to a story at businesswire.com, is acquiring 90 percent of Wireless Generation, a privately held Brooklyn-based education technology company, for approximately $360 million in cash. It will become a subsidiary of News Corp.

One of the things Wireless Generation does is build large-scale data systems that centralize student data and is a “key partner to New York City’s Department of Education on its Achievement Reporting and Innovation System (ARIS) as well as on the City’s School of One initiative,” the story said.

~snip~

“When it comes to K through 12 education,” Murdoch said in a statement about the Wireless Generation purchase, “we see a $500 billion sector in the U.S. alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed by big breakthroughs that extend the reach of great teaching.”

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/murdoch-buys-education-technol.html

Going after the kids now?

[yurbud]

3. that's worth a separate thread of its own

[no_hypocrisy]

2. That's laughable. Joel Klein wasn't qualified to begin with to run NYC's public schools.

He's an attorney. Never had any educational training, education, or background. He may have technically been the chancellor of the school system, but he didn't know one test from another or the theory behind reading skills.

[yurbud]

4. his real job was probably funneling the schools' funds to the right contractors

[madinmaryland]

5. This revolving door from government to the major corporate world is

disgusting and ruining the credibility of this country.