BUBBLE, BUBBLE, TOIL, & TROUBLE: K-12 market speculation is heating up with Renaissance Learning's eye-opening $1.1B acquisition-- and with it, more talks of the proverbial edtech bubble. But if Rethink Education's Matt Greenfield has any say, the only bubble is with institutionally-backed products that can't and shouldn't work:
Greenfield proceeds to explain how digital textbook platforms (there's 42 of them!) were "obsolete at birth" only perpetuated by a business model that plays on investor's desire to avoid the messy business of institutional sales. But where he retains some level of tact for his VC brethren, E-Literate's Michael Feldstein doesn't hold back on the "Valley's obsession with disruption":
If Greenfield and Feldstein have any say on the matter, it would appear that whatever bubble does or doesn't exist stems from a generally poor approach to education innovation from the start, not speculation on winners and losers at the end.