Anirudh Phadke is an executive with Career Launcher (India) Limited, an online training firm offering k-12 tutoring services to the U.S., headquartered in New Delhi.

Everyone has been talking about how the online tutoring option has impacted the tutoring business in the US. Its been quite an eventful five years since it first began. Expectedly, there have been good and bad things being talked about in terms of the effect on the students. However, it is also equally interesting to look at the other side of the outsourcing story. Parts of this story are common to the Big Daddy of outsourcing business- the contact centers and BPO's (business process outsourcing).

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Vaishali Honawar 's November 29 story in edweek.org on the New York City public schools lifted my heart. This is the way to remove teachers - or any other school district employee who can't or won't perform. (See my scenario 4 for DC schools here.)

The Teacher Performance Unit, made up of five lawyers and headed by a former prosecutor, will help principals prepare cases to fire tenured teachers who fail repeatedly to raise student test scores and are also found lacking during principals’ observations.... The plan also includes peer-intervention and other help for struggling teachers. Only if a teacher continues to fail to show improvement despite those interventions will the process for removing a teacher begin, district officials say.

Due process is central to America values, and following the rules demonstrates leaderships' commitment to principle rather than people. Public employment is an entitlement under the law for very sound historical reasons, but it carries serious responsibilities. Incompetents need to be removed. Principals and supervisors have too much on their plate to do it alone - districts need units with specific responsibility, power and accountability to perform the function.

I'm a graduate of George Washington University Law School licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia, and would gladly put my money where my mouth has been on this point if DC were to follow New York's example. I doubt the Mayor or Chancellor would welcome this pugnacious critic. Still, if asked, I would gladly serve. It's that important to me that government do things right.

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An administration as ready to import business “best practice” to public education as District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty’s must be aware of Harvard Business School professor John Kotter’s seminal work on corporate turn-arounds. After examining hundreds of failed attempts – and the handful of successes, Kotter described the results of his research to a lay audience in “Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail” in the March-April 1995 issue of Harvard Business Review, and the next year in a book with the same title.

I remember three observations of relevance to the Mayor and DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee:

• Organizational improvement requires a “picture of the future that is relatively easy to communicate and appeals to customers, stockholders, and employees” – but especially to the workforce.

• The road to change begins by building a guiding coalition of people with independent influence inside the system and the capacity to make something tangible happen.

• Leaders must actively plan for short-term wins designed to expand their coalition of supporters inside the organization.

These are not lessons guiding DC school reform today. Mayor Fenty has allowed Chancellor Rhee to go with a message promising nothing but blood, sweat and tears, employing fear as the great motivator. The Chancellor has apparently rejected the idea of building a coalition of stakeholders inside the system. And with the restructuring announcement of November 28, I can’t see any possibility of delivering a meaningful short-term win in the one area that truly matters – student and school performance.

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I have gone to one, two or more conferences sponsored by investment bankers showcasing publicly traded firms in education every year since 1991, and have a collection of increasingly elaborate tote bags to prove it. The carriers, used to store the volumes of financial and marketing materials prepared by firms presenting at the conferences, have gone from flimsy cloth affairs with an imprint of the organizers’ logo - perfect for sunglasses, a water bottle and a beach towel - to multi-functional laptop cases with the investment bank's name embroidered in some prominent location. In the 1990’s, I also came home with a nice pen. This last trip to Signal Hill’s November 27 conference yielded a 125MB thumb drive.

Conference freebies have changed, but not the format. CEO/CFO teams give a 20 minute PowerPoint presentation on their firm and its finances. Each of these “dog and pony shows” is followed by a few minutes of questions from the audience. One nice feature of the Signal Hill Conference was moving the presenters to a separate room for more interactive sessions.

An educator, eduwonk, evaluator or k-12 program developer attending the conference would probably be struck by two things.

First, the real substance of the presentations is financial – unsurprising since this is a conference for investors, but nonetheless striking. More on this below.

Second, it’s a very polite affair. Eduwonks and evaluators learn by taking presentations apart, asking pointed questions and lively debate. Investors tend to ask few questions and those are to clarify the financials. This is also my impression listening into the quarterly conference calls firms' schedule for investors.

With training in law and analysis, I learn by asking pointed questions. I’m less interested in the financials – which I can read online whenever I want – than the strength of the business strategies. What I find important about investor conferences is: first, the opportunity to judge a CEO’s grasp of environmental indicators and their implications for the business; and second, the gestalt of the conference, the collective perception of industry status and trends. I also pick up a few interesting factoids that might prove to be indicators of change.

Here’s what I learned from the Signal Hill session:

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Smaller Learning Communities: The School Improvement Providers' Entre to High School

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Evaluating School District Capacity for Emergency Response

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The U.S. Department of Education's What Work's Clearinghouse (WWC) is the closest thing the nation has to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for school improvement programs.

The WWC's Intervention Reports serve something like the function of the NHTSA's crash test ratings. You can buy almost anything you want in our free market, but if you look at the government's reports first at least you'll know something objective about what you're getting into.

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Emily Murphy, C. Blohm & Associates, Inc.

An online newsroom is a separate page located on a company’s website. The newsroom is designed to communicate information to reporters and journalists, and serves as a valuable resource for anyone seeking company information. In this Web 2.0 age, an online newsroom facilitates two-way communication by providing a business with the means to exchange information with journalists, customers and other key stakeholders.

Having the right information on your website can make or break your media coverage. A recent survey found that three of five journalists said information found on a website influences their decision to include a company in a story. A well-run online newsroom provides the media with exactly what they need when they need it, producing better coverage for the business at a lower cost.

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Washington State has seen several efforts to pass charter schools legislation. The first failed because a group supporting a proposal closer to vouchers led by Dick's Drive-In hamburger chain heir, Jim Spady, opposed a charter law put forward by the Washington Business Roundtable. (Full disclosure: I drafted much of the Roundtable's legislation.) Subsequent attempts failed as the movement's influence over legislators ebbed with the mixed educational results of charter schools nationwide.

One way of thinking about the charter idea is an effort to inject private enterprise into the operation of public schools - and thereby create a competitive market in public education. One manifestation of charter legislation has been the for-profit Education Management Organization and its sibling nonprofit Charter Management Organization. Neither have proved to be impressive models of financial or educational performance.

Without a charter law, Washington has no place for "bricks and mortar" management organizations, but it appears to be fertile ground for an online variant.

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As I quoted last week, consumers don’t buy drills, they buy holes.

Likewise, educators don’t buy edtech software, they buy improvements in student performance.

That brings us to the Software and Information Industry Association’s (SIIA) CODiE award. (The name is derived from computer "code"; "i" is the symbol for “information.”) Does winning one tell educators what they need to know about edtech products? Can a prospective buyer rely on the award as an objective indicator that their purchase will improve student performance?

The short answer is “no.”

That is a problem for the whole school improvement industry.

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Head Start - An Opportunity for For-Profits Too

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Listening to John Merrow’s November 19 report on DC Schools’ Chancellor Michelle Rhee on the PBS radio version of The News Hour took my breath away. Yes, her audacity has refreshing features. But it's also frightening.

In the space of a few minutes Merrow shows Rhee:

• Removing principals within days of arriving on the scene – she actually gives one the news for subsequent broadcast to a national audience.

• Declaring war on her own central office.

• Arguing for the right to fire staff and teachers at her sole discretion.

• Dismissing the idea of any compassion for employees, in the name of student performance.

The Chancellor is a bit short on a concrete strategy towards this end, but the report suggests it is the k-12 equivalent of “march or die” – perform or step aside.

Observing Rhee over the last several months reminds me of nothing so much as watching a dictator seize the reins of power. And as with all such stories, her rise depends on the public and its leaders being so disgusted with the prior state of affairs, and so lacking in the will to fix the problem earlier, that they readily give up cherished rights like due process, all the while forgeting to insist that Caesar define the standards of performance that will put her out in the cold she so willingly dispenses to others.

Quo vadis? Where can this lead?

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We've reached a point in public education where the informed taxpayer and the generalist elected official can't rely on data and analysis ostensibly provided to shed light on important policy problems. Every study has to be matched up against the interests of the author or proponent, subjected to a methodological review, and finally understood in the context of technical choices that inevitably tend to bias results one way or another. Opponents of whatever prescription is presented with the report attack the data and analysis with a ferocity that suggests the other side is utterly unscrupulous.

Wading through this mess is tedious. And when all is said and done, the difference between the two sides often doesn't pass the "so what?" test.

This describes the wars over privatization by Education Management Organizations, charter schools, vouchers, reading, math - and now high school dropouts.

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After a slew of scandals last year involving kickbacks to administrators in several school districts, Texas adopted procedures designed to identify potential conflict of interests in the contracting process. After the Reading First scandal, the Department of Education began to preface its reports on k-12 programs with a statement of the authors' actual and potential conflicts of interests.

On November 8, Colorado's state board of education released ethics rules for its members.

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Emily Murphy, C. Blohm & Associates, Inc.

Every year media representatives attend a select number of education trade shows. Companies can capitalize on this opportunity by arranging “show floor meetings” with attendees. These offer company representatives an opportunity to engage in meaningful, one-on-one conversations about their products, company and customer stories with key publishers, editors and reporters.

Successful show floor meetings depend on preparation, implementation and follow-up.

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In October, Brenda Belton, director of charter schools in the DC Public Schools infamous central office, plead guilty to four counts of theft and tax evasion. Among other transgressions, Belton admitted in court that she steered $446,000 in no-bid school training contracts to friends and received kickbacks for her efforts.

Washington Post staff writers Theola Labbé and V. Dion Haynes report that DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee is considering contracts with nonprofit Charter Management Organizations (CMO) for schools in or approaching restructuring status.

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In the newly-released movie American Gangster, Denzel Washington plays Frank Lucas, initially ignored by certain Sicilian businessmen as just another entrepreneur competing for the market held by his recently deceased employer and the Harlem distributor of their product. Lucas copies the Italians’ family-based business model, bypasses their upstream channels by forging a direct connection to manufacturers, and develops independent relationships with government regulators, enabling him to offer a product twice as effective at half the price. When they finally recognize the competitive threat, the New York families conclude that convincing Lucas to join their collective is a better business strategy than trying to eliminate him, and Lucas agrees.

(Note: "The Letter From" was previously the "Letter From the Editor" in School Improvement Industry Week, renamed to join the edbizbuzz lineup.)

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Free Equity Capital For Product Development

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A Systems Analysis of High School Start Times

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The New York Post's Mellissa Klein and Angela Monetefinise tell a fairly disappointing story of the city's Leadership Academy for aspiring public school principals.

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Educators, the general public and policymakers tend to believe that nonprofits have some level of moral superiority over for-profits working with public schools - even on a fee-for-service basis. My own experience has been that tax status indicates very little about honesty, commitment to the kids, or quality. Corporate culture is far more complex.

I was reminded of this some weeks ago going through state education agencies' announcements for K-12Leads and Youth Service Markets Report, and was reminded of it again going through the sites this weekend. In addition to listing grant and contract RFPs, we maintain links to state school performance and finance databases, and agency news that might affect providers' sales and marketing activities. Disasters of various kinds are items we follow because, frankly, they might offer an opening for new business.

Hawaii's experience with a nonprofit testing service provider and that provider's reaction illustrates how nonprofits are no more inclined to note their mistakes than anyone else.

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Kristen Plemon, C. Blohm & Associates, Inc.

The main rule of communication is: know your audience. This rule applies whether you are speaking with potential customers or with the media. When you take the time to learn the interests and needs of your audience members, you can craft a message with the right information and capture their attention.

Journalists are a key audience for most organizations because they are “gatekeepers” of information, charged with deciding what news is worthy of dissemination. They provide a third-party viewpoint, which can influence people’s buying decisions, and enhance or tarnish a company’s reputation. To communicate effectively with journalists, you need to understand their language, the method they prefer to receive information, their work environment, and their readers.

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Some blogs managed by k-12 providers are obvious extensions of marketing. Some take a more enlightened perspective. For-profit evaluation firm Empirical Education's monthly Latest Evidence falls in the latter category.

Now that the school improvement industry has been given a two year's reprieve on NCLB reauthorization, it has a second chance to get serious about a credible, but practical definition of the evidence required for programs to qualify for federal funding under Title I. Reasonable people can start from different positions, but should want to arrive at a consensus of all stakeholder groups. That includes providers and educators - not just practitioners of the evaluation arts. And that requires proposals and analysis intelligent laypersons can understand.

Here's where Latest Evidence adds to the dialog.

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Open source k-12 curriculum is not a new idea. It’s not even a new business strategy. But when it was adopted by assessment support provider Wireless Generation on November 7, it took on new importance.

Why?

Because CEO Larry Berger declared war on the multinational publishers that dominate k-12.

Whether the story to unfold will be that of Jeff Bridges in Tucker – A Man and His Dream or in Seabiscuit – or Peter Sellers in The Mouse That Roared, remains to be seen - and is definitely worth discussing.

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School improvement providers that can ally with moderate Democrats need a presence in Washington if they hope to preserve and expand the industry. They need to kill off two impressions: First, that the industry sees a trade off between quality and profits, and favor the latter over the former. Second, that it hopes public education will be turned over to the private sector. Listen here.

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Jonathan Tilove of the Newhouse News Service wrote a pretty good summary of the controversy around DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. As one interviewed for the story, based on what I've posted on the subject here in ebizbizz, I've got two comments.

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I added "professional blogger" to my resume this spring and landed here on edweek.org in September, so I'm still relatively new to the business.

The challenge of a professional blog is twofold:

1) Posting something everyday that will hold readers' attention. It has to be different in some compelling way from what they get from other media and other bloggers.

2) Having the equivalent of an "email to everyone" at your disposal. Unlike other people who work for a news source, the blogger - professional or otherwise - has no editor serving as a gatekeeper to the public.

We all make mistakes. And over the last few days, I've made two. I got Andrew Rotherham wrong on NCLB predictions (here). An infelicitous phrase created the wrong impression of my views on NCSPE vs. one of its writer's (here).

The two needlessly pained some people, and for that I'm sorry. Neither spell the end of the world, but three would be a trend line, so it suggested a need for reflection.

What are the lessons learned?

When you criticize someone, make sure it's deserved and err on the side of caution. The tougher the critique, the more sure you need to be of the facts - and how they are presented. Finally, bloggers have to police themselves; every posting should at least be put through a "what would an editor say?" simulation.

In the future, if you think I've made an error, please use the comment form. You are doing me a favor.

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Online Education Providers: The Good Old Days are Here and Now.

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I try to live by my rules, and one at the top is "bad news doesn't get better with age." It's better to 'fess up, especially when you are really wrong. I was really wrong about at least one of the "usual suspects."

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"Warning" matters in all political and business endeavors. If you know what's likely to happen "at current course and speed," you have a chance to seek change or prepare. The longer and more precise the warning, the greater your scope for action.

One of my pet peeves about the "usual suspect" observers of federal k-12 politics is a tendency to be about five minutes ahead of the average Education Week reader. For example, a bit more than a day before the Bemidji Pioneer's (North Dakota) editorial (based on Time from what I gather on This Week in Education) noted that Senators Kennedy and Enzi said NCLB II wasn't going to get through the Education Committee anytime soon, eduwonk Andrew Rotherham and Education Week reporter David Hoff suggested reauthorization is on hold.

When I was in high school, today's "duh" was "No s---, Sherlock."

To be fair, the usual suspects are either de facto part of the game of k-12 political advocacy or in the business of documenting its progress; helping school improvement providers or investors to make practical business decisions isn't part of their job descriptions.

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Alexander Russo has moved his provocative, impertinent and substantive blog, This Week in Education (TWIE), from edweek.org, back to its freestanding mode.

But this time it's sponsored by Scholastic Administrator, a unit of the publicly traded k-12 firm Scholastic, Inc.

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I'm not above tooting my own horn.

From the Fall 2007 issue of Converge Magazine:

The utility of the charter idea lies in its potential rather than its performance. Its potential remains as powerful as the day the first legislation passed 17 years ago, but unrealized. It depends on the academic performance of the charter schools in existence now and others being formed today. If past performance is any guide, the path will be hard and the journey slow. Only when a threshold of quality is reached across most charter schools will state legislation and school districts become more favorable to charter formation.... Until the movement is able to align school founders and foundation finance with an operationally oriented leadership representative of most charter schools, charters will remain an idea for the future rather than the present.

Download the Fall 2007 issue here.

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Sandy Fash, C. Blohm & Associates

Barely a decade ago, communication tactics were executed primarily via postal mail or the fax machine. Pitching to an editor meant picking up the telephone, and a successful campaign resulted in two or three stories embedded in the pages of a few glossy magazines. Today, the Internet has altered the communications landscape for most information industries, including Public Relations, and the press release has evolved along with the industry.

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When Dwight Eisenhower was about to succeed him, (President Harry S.) Truman snappishly remarked that "poor Ike" would think of the White House as the Army: He would sit at his desk saying, "Do this" and "Do that," and nothing would happen.

Retold by Richard Brookhiser

Today's Los Angeles Daily News carries a story by Naush Boghossian about retired Admiral, now LAUSD Superintendent, David Brewer III's failure to get his special district of 44 low-performing middle schools off the ground. The teachers union has already killed off 10, and has a great deal of trouble with the rest.

"This plan of his - which was created in a vacuum by noneducators in a think-tank environment - is bad for students, it's bad for education, and we are going to oppose this with all of our will," said A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles. "If he tries to bring this plan about, we will organize actively against it."

A superintendent who announces a plan to create a special district without having obtained union buy-in, when it's clear the union can stop its implementation, was either blind-sided, or didn't ask. Either way, it's a classic example of one of my favorite management rules: "People who don't know what they're doing, do what they know."

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