One of the biggest financial and technological questions facing schools these days is one that has also been a long time coming: Microsoft Corp. is ending support for the Windows XP operating system, which is expected to leave districts across the country with some major buying decisions.

The loss of support, slated for April 8, 2014, means that users of XP—who are thought to include a substantial portion of the nation's K-12 districts—will not receive the automatic patches and upgrades to provide them with security, or the technical support they need when problems arise. And new software and programs are increasingly unlikely to be compatible with the XP model, Microsoft has warned.

The Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant has been stating its intention to end support for XP for years. But as I explain in a story this week, many districts appear to have been slow to face that reality, and so now they face a time crunch.

Another factor adding to the pressure: More than 40 states have said they plan to implement online tests aligned to the Common Core State Standards, beginning in the 2014-2015 school year. The two consortia of states that are designing the tests are recommending that districts upgrade to Windows 7 or 8, or a similarly up-to-date operating system, to get ready.

But many tech advocates who work in or with districts say that some school systems that upgrade to 7 or 8 will also have to upgrade their aging stocks of computing devices, which may not be compatible with newer versions of Windows. That's no small investment. In one district described in my story, serving Janesville, Wis., school officials are likely to buy more than 3,000 computers over the next two years, and their tech equipment budget could jump from $900,000 to $2.2 million, with $1.3 million of that going to equipment.

Districts could, of course, also choose other operating systems, like Linux or Mac OS X. Or they could try options such as moving towards virtualization of operating systems.

In any case, it appears that many districts will be exploring their tech options soon, if they haven't already.

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The past few years have been a busy time for mergers and acquisitions in the education industry, with companies seeking to strengthen, or in some cases diversify, their presence in the K-12 market, particularly in the digital world.

Which education companies have been most active players in acquiring privately held education technology companies over the past few years? CB Insights, a New York City-based business that analyzes and tracks the market, has taken a look.

It finds that Pearson tops the list, having made 15 acquisitions or investments in ed-tech companies from 2010-2013, followed by Blackboard and the Macmillan Group, each with seven. Other well-known names, like Kaplan and McGraw-Hill, also make the list, followed by others like Chegg and Rosetta Stone. (See the full list below.) Chegg is a Silicon Valley company that originally launched as a textbook rental company. It now offers an array of educational materials, from textbooks to homework help. Rosetta Stone is a provider of software to learn languages.

CB Insights' list includes both public and private companies. The analysis points out that the list is focused on companies, and does not include private-equity firms and other players that could be making mergers and acquisitions.

Overall, there were fewer high-profile education mergers and acquistions in 2012 than the previous year, as Education Week reported recently. About $7 billion changed hands in more than 250 total transactions in 2012, down from $12 billion in 2011, according to a report by the investment banking company Berkery Noyes.

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When you think of Brazil, restraint is not usually what comes to mind.

So perhaps it's appropriate that a request for education proposals issued from the South American country is drawing attention for its outsized nature. It's a project worth a reported $2.73 billion in U.S. dollars, covering an array of content and services, one that has attracted bids from some of the biggest names in the K-12 industry, according to one recently published analysis.

The government of the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo floated the RFP for equipment, educational content, and teacher training about a year ago, as reported recently by Nelson B. Heller, an education industry analyst and consultant who is the president of the HellerResults Group. (Heller's piece was published by EdNET Insight, and the Association of Educational Publishers also ran a version of it on its site.)

The Brazilian government's education project calls for an estimated $5.5 billion in spending in Brazilian currency over 10 years—which amounts to about $273 million per year. To put that in some context, the Los Angeles Unified School District, the United States' second-biggest school system, recently put out an RFP for computing devices worth about $50 million initially, and potentially $500 million over time.

The project initially received interest from 30 organizations or consortia of them, says Heller, who prior to launching his current business was president of EdNET at MDR, a publisher of education news and analysis. That list has since been whittled down to nine bidders for the project, a couple of whom are affiliated with some of the biggest names in the education industry: 100% PROMO Marketing Promocional Ltda; Cassiano Zeferino e Carvalho Neto; College-Ensinos presenciais, online; interativos e multimídias; Dell Computadores do Brasil Ltda; Fundação Carlos Alberto Vanzolini; KPMG Structured Finance S/A; Pearson Education do Brasil Ltda; Planeta Educação, Gráfica e Editora Ltda; and Positivo Informática S/A.

(An official for Dell confirmed to Education Week that the company had submitted a proposal for the Brazilian project, and said the company understands the bids to be under review in Brazil, but declined further comment. Pearson had not yet responded to a request for comment.)

What's unclear about the project is what happens now. It's been roughly a year since the request for proposal was issued, Heller says. He quotes an unnamed official from one of the companies responding to the bid who speculates that Brazilian officials may not have been happy with the offers they received, which could explain why things appear to be at a standstill.

An article in the Brazilian press from last year (for all of you Portuguese readers out there) quotes a teachers' union leader as voicing concerns about the government hiring a private company to provide the various products and services.

Regardless of the outcome, Heller suggests, the Brazilian RFP is a sign of the potentially lucrative market in Brazil for education companies from the United States and elsewhere, assuming, of course, that government officials are willing to do business with commercial vendors from abroad.

Brazil is a nation of more than 200 million people, the world's 5th most populated. It would appear to be a ripe environment for educational services: Twenty-four percent of its population is 14 years old or younger; in the United States, the number is 20 percent. Heller points out that Brazil's GDP is $2.5 trillion, greater than that of India and Russia, and that for the first time, the Brazilian Ministry of Education has recently called for bids for high school textbooks that are digital.

It's one slice of what appears to be a growing international market for K-12, overall. The global market for education stands at $4.4 trillion according to an estimate from IBIS Capital, which also projects that the need for e-learning will rise by more than 20 percent between now and 2017.

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The Association of Educational Publishers and the school division of the Association of American Publishers are planning to merge operations, marking the union of a pair of leading voices in the K-12 industry.

The two groups said in a statement released Monday that the new alliance would combine the AEP's focus on programming and professional development services with the other organization's advocacy on policy to represent companies making their way in a "rapidly changing environment."

In a fact sheet explaining the merger, the AEP said the two organizations had signed a memorandum of understanding to merge into a "restructured division" of the American Association of Publishers. The move will be completed by the third quarter of this year, the two groups said.

Jay Diskey, the executive director of the school division at the Association of American Publishers, said in a statement that coordination between the two organizations has increased over the past few years, and that the merger was a "logical next step."

"Through this partnership, we will be able to support professionals across the industry in deeper, richer ways," added Lee Wilson, the president of the board of the Association of Educational Publishers.

The two organizations noted that they have collaborated recently on a number of projects, in areas such as digital learning and international publishing.

The American Association of Publishers is a national trade organization representing 300 publishers in areas such as entertainment, scientific content, and education. The Association of Educational Publishers, founded in 1895 and based in Wilmington, Del., advocates for publishers of school materials.

More details surrounding the merger will be discussed next month, the two organizations said.

The joining of forces comes during a time of rapid, and broad, changes in the school publishing industry. States and districts are increasingly looking to adopt digital textbooks and other materials and content that can be delivered online for both professional development and classroom instruction.

In addition, the vast majority of states have agreed to take part in the Common Core State Standards, a policy designed to bring more consistency to academic content across states. That multistate effort and the alignment of tests to those new standards are expected to shape academic content and instruction for years to come.

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By guest blogger Morgan Miller

A Virginia district plans to end its contract with the company that operates the state's largest full-time, statewide online school, K12 Inc., which is also major for-profit provider of virtual education across the country.

The Virginia Virtual Academy received a confirmation letter in April from the school board in Carroll County, a 3,900-student district in southwestern Virginia, that it will no longer continue to sponsor the program. The online program served students from across Virginia.

Originally, the Carroll County district's goal with the online school was to try to bring homeschooled students from across the state into the public school arena, said Strader Blankenship, the superintendent of the districts.

Satisfaction among parents with the program has been high, and K12 currently has a waiting list of students wanting to be served through the program, the superintendent said. The decision to cancel the contract had nothing to do with the quality of the program, he said, but was based on other factors—one of which was that relatively few students from the school district have been using the academy. While 350 students statewide are enrolled in the online school, only five students were from the district itself.

Blankenship added that that sponsoring the school has brought increased burdens for the district in complying with federal disabilities laws. The district has been expected to create Individualized Education Programs for students, no matter where they live. About 11 percent of the academy's students are designated as having special needs, and they live in 29 different school divisions, making it difficult and time-consuming for the board to track down these students and set up an IEP.

K12's courses, programs and services are used by about 2,000 other school districts across the country. The company provides a range of online services, included blended-learning programs, assessment, and the management of schools.

The online provider says that one of its goals is to provide educational options for parents and students who struggle in traditional classrooms. But K12 also has drawn criticism in some states from those who question its academic performance and its operations. Earlier this year, for instance, a preliminary state report in Florida found that K12 assigned teachers to classes outside their certified fields in one district, and provided records of educators working with students who they did not actually teach.

Blankenship said the district's immediate focus will be on trying to ensure that the five students enrolled in the program have access to an online provider.

Erin Rubinstein, a special education teacher who works for the Virginia Virtual Academy, voiced disappointment with the district's decision. She said that parents interested in keeping the online school open have spoken with state lawmakers about their options.

"When a teacher sees success, when they know this is the right environment, it's a tragedy for those who worked so hard" to see a virtual school close, Rubinstein said.

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By guest blogger Sean Meehan

Legislation in North Carolina that would create a grant program to promote innovation in schools, and collaboration between K-12, colleges, and businesses, is moving through state's House of Representatives with bipartisan support.

House bill 902, the Education Workforce Innovation Act, was unanimously approved this week by the chamber's education committee.

The measure would establish the North Carolina Education and Workforce Innovation Commission, made up of leaders from businesses, colleges, and public school leaders. That panel would provide grants to schools, districts, or groups of districts for innovative projects. A number of states and districts, including Minnesota, have established innovation zones designed to encourage creative thinking among school officials and ties with local industry. Those innovation programs have been created with different goals in mind, from raising academic achievement to streamlining operations and saving costs.

"The whole idea is to connect the dots," North Carolina state Representative D. Craig Horn said in an interview. "What we attempted to do in this bill is give a vision for the state about sharing resources, business participation, and ensuring that our kids are career- and college-ready."

Horn, a Republican, is one of four primary sponsors of the legislation, along with state Reps. James H. Langdon and Linda P. Johnson, both Republicans, and Joe P. Tolson, a Democrat.

According to the bill, recipients of the grants would have to meet a number of criteria, including establishing a partnership with a public or private university or community college, a partnership with a regional business, and a sustainable plan for innovation once the grant funding ends.

The legislation states that its purpose is "to create innovative education programs that reshape classrooms, allow high school students to earn valued industry credentials or up to two years of college credit, provide comprehensive teacher professional development, and create scalable methods of success in education."

Grant recipients are also required to match the amount of money provided by the state. Local funds must make up 25 percent of the total program costs, and an additional 25 percent must be raised by private funds statewide.

According to Horn, businesses and business organizations in the state have already expressed support for the bill, which has bipartisan support in the state House of Representatives.

"Fortunately, we have a number of businesses lining up to participate," he said. "They're willing to put their money up, so we need to put some of ours up as well."

Having made it out of the education committee, the bill now goes to a full vote of the House of Representatives. Horn is confident that the bill will not only gain support in the House, but also in the Senate.

"It goes right to the heart of what we've all been talking about," Horn said, "bringing our commercial and education sectors together with a focus on making the best future for everybody and using technology to get there."

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Updated

The Education Industry Association, which represents companies that do business with schools, is hoping to make recommendations on technology and instructional products and services through a school organization representing 13,000 district administrators.

In a statement released this week, the EIA said it wants to make its recommendations through the American Association of School Administrators' School Solutions Center, a resource designed to help AASA members make high-quality purchases and control costs.

Chuck Woodruff, the AASA's chief operating officer, cautioned in an interview with Education Week that the two organizations are only exploring an arrangement at this point, and that any such deal is still a ways from being finalized. There are "large potential benefits, but there some thing we still have to work out," Woodruff said Wednesday.

What's the benefit to vendors who receive that recommendation? The EIA says it will help companies "promote [the] AASA connection to local district decisionmakers."

The School Solutions Center was created in 2009 as a resource for AASA members seeking to control costs, and make purchases and decisions that benefit schools, according to a description on the AASA's website. The organization offers the caveat that "districts should do their own due diligence before signing contracts with the companies that belong to the AASA School Solutions Center." The AASA draws a small portion of revenue from companies who participate, based on the extent of their business with schools, Woodruff explained.

The EIA has made a recent push on several fronts to make it easier for commercial vendors to gain access to K-12 schools and understand schools' needs.

Those efforts will include plans to try to work with policymakers to streamline the process through which school districts buy products and services. The EIA is also trying to work with for-profit companies to obtain independent research on their products, a process that can be costly and confusing for vendors.

Update: I've updated this post with comments from Woodruff at the AASA, who said that discussions between the two groups are underway, but that no agreement has been reached yet. Woodruff said he expects more details to emerge over the coming month.

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Join us tomorrow at 2 p.m. ET as Education Week hosts a webinar on colleges and universities creating programs and courses designed to spawn entrepreneurship in K-12 education, a growing area of focus on campuses nationwide.

You can register for the event, "Producing the Next Generation of K-12 Enterpreneurs," and submit questions, through Education Week's website. The topic is one that has a lot of relevance today, as K-12 and higher education officials and business leaders look for ways to make school systems more innovative, academically and financially.

Our guests will be Andrea Hodge, the executive director of Rice University's Education Entrepreneurship Program, located within the Jones Graduate School of Business; and Kendra Hearn, a clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan school of education who helped design a new course on educational entrepreneurship. I'll be moderating.

You can see my recent Ed Week story for background on the issue, as well as an item I wrote on the University of Pennsylvania creating a new center designed to give enterpreneurs and startups access to academic scholars and advice on research and other issues.

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Philadelphia

A new project at the University of Pennsylvania will attempt to give promising education startups and entrepreneurs targeted advice and other help, including access to academic researchers, so that those organizations grow and succeed.

The university's graduate school of education unveiled plans to launch the program, known as the "Education Design Studio Fund," here on Penn's campus on Wednesday. The announcement came on the same day the graduate program announced the winners of a competition that will provide a combined $145,000 to education-focused entrepreneurs, money designed to help them either get off the ground or build on what they already have. (See the list of winners, below.)

The graduate school says the design studio fund is meant to create an "ecosystem" of entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, and education practitioners, with the goal of fostering innovations that can help schools.

The fund is one part of the Penn school of education's overall effort to bridge the gaps that separate K-12 entrepreneurs, academic scholars who could potentially inform their work, and school officials who might benefit from new ideas and products.

Startups and other companies and organizations who are selected for the program will be given access to researchers from the graduate school, who will receive honorariums for time spent helping the entrepreneurs refine their ideas in the studio, said Bobbi Kurshan, executive director of academic innovation at the graduate school. Faculty could end up serving on the boards of companies or consulting with them on an ongoing basis, she said.

The design studio fund is likely to provide less upfront money to entrepreneurs' efforts than traditional accelerator or incubator programs, Kurshan said. But the rewards to entrepreneurs will come in other ways. Startups and other participants will take part in intensive reviews of their work lasting several weeks and provided through the studio, in which they'll receive advice on myriad aspects of their operations, from legal and financial issues to analyses of their overall business models.

During the first year of the design studio, only finalists in 2013 Milken-Penn GSE Education Business Plan Competition will be eligible to take part, Kurshan said, but that could change in the future.

She predicts that the studio will eventually partner with schools of education at other institutions, which can bring additional expertise to the project and to the entrepreneurs served by it. A substantial portion of the design studio's work will be conducted and made available online, Kurshan added.

Penn officials announced the winners on the second day of an event that brought together the finalists, faculty at the graduate schools, and judges of the competition, among others.

Four entrepreneurial efforts won seven prizes during this year's competition, after being whittled down from a pool of 250 applications from 17 countries.

• The big winner was Raise Labs, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that envisions a system for offering students "micro-scholarships" for college, which they can begin earning as early as 9th grade through various accomplishments. The organization won three prizes worth a combined $75,000.

• Persistence Plus, based in Boston, won two prizes worth a total of $40,000. The for-profit company is creating a mobile technology platform designed to use behavioral research to "nudge" students to acquire a variety of skills, including increased resilience, in pursuing a college degree.

• Autism Expressed, based in Philadelphia, won $20,000 to support its creation of a "highly synthesized learning system" to engage autistic students, give them marketable skills, and increase their independence.

• And finally, BiblioNasium, located in New York, won $10,000 to support its creation of a free, protected social network for children ages 6-12 to build their interest in reading. The system links teachers, students, and parents.

Marjan Ghara, the founder of BiblioNasium, said the prize would help on several fronts.

"Every penny helps, but I see the recognition as more important," Ghara said not long after the prizes were announced. "It's a validation of an idea, to make it through a competition involving so many people."

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We reported last week on the news that Coursera, a big name in the world of "massively open online courses," is moving into K-12 by partnering with teacher colleges and other institutions to offer ongoing professional development to educators.

Teachers typically face requirements to update their professional training regularly, and they end up doing so through a variety of sources. So Coursera could presumably be tapping into a major area of need, while also connecting colleges to an audience—practicing educators—they're eager to reach with offers of high-quality PD.

In fact, Coursera's co-founder, Andrew Ng, told Education Week that the initial courses offered by the schools of education and other institutions are not meant to be taken for credit, but rather to serve as continuing education for teachers who have requirements to fulfill, or for educators and others who are otherwise interested in honing a skill.

So what MOOCs are initially being offered to K-12 teachers and others through Coursera? It's an eclectic list of 28 courses, in some cases delving into specific content, in others focused on strengthening educators' overall classroom skills.

Here's a taste of the course lineup:

• The New Teacher Center has a course designed to help first-year teachers, focused on building sound relationships with students, creating positive classroom environments, setting behavior expectations, and using instructional time wisely.

• New York's Museum of Modern Art is offering a course on how teachers can blend lessons on works of art into their classes using "inquiry-based" teaching originally designed for education occurring in museum galleries.

• The University of Virginia's Curry School of Education has included a course on how to improve early-childhood teachers' knowledge of teacher-child interactions that promote children's development, a longstanding area of focus at the university.

• One offering from Johns Hopkins' school of education focuses on "brain-targeted teaching," or helping educators apply what's known about neuro and cognitive sciences into their teaching in practical ways.

• The American Museum of Natural History, in New York, is offering a free online course to help educators discuss evolutionary science in their classroom lessons.

The courses vary in length, and they have different start dates. Their initial popularity, and the extent to which a business model evolves out of this, will probably go a long way to determining whether whether this new model of MOOC takes hold.

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