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education marketplace

November 22, 2010

Murdoch buys education tech company Wireless Generation

by Anna Phillips, at 11:43 pm

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation took its second step into the education world this evening when it made a deal to buy Wireless Generation, a Brooklyn-based education technology company.

Murdoch took his first step nearly two weeks ago, when he acquired the chancellor of New York City’s public schools, Joel Klein. In an announcement that took most of his staff and top advisors by surprise, Klein told reporters that he was leaving the Department of Education for a job at News Corp., where he will be an executive vice president overseeing investments in digital learning companies.

After Klein resigned, News Corp. officials told The New York Times that they planned to make “seed investments” in entrepreneurial education companies. The acquisition of Wireless Generation may be the first of these investments.

“Wireless Generation is positioned to grow aggressively, and it was the right time in the company’s journey to find a home where it will have access to the resources it needs to fuel that aggressive growth,” said spokeswoman Andrea Reibel in a statement.

Reibel would not comment on when talks began, but said the deal was finalized this evening. For $360 million in cash, News Corp. now owns 90 percent of Wireless Generation, a company with 400 employees.

“When it comes to K through 12 education, 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,” said News Corporation Chairman and CEO, Rupert Murdoch in a statement.

“Wireless Generation is at the forefront of individualized, technology-based learning that is poised to revolutionize public education for a new generation of students,” he said.

Wireless Generation has made its business partly by cobbling together government contracts with school systems. In New York City, it took over development and management of ARIS, the city’s online warehouse of student data, which began under IBM. It also helped write the algorithm for School of One, a program run by the DOE that teaches students math by having them run through a playlist of exercises on their laptops and face-to-face with teachers.

The company is likely to make a bid to build the technological pieces of the national tests that will be tied to the “common core” standards.

Wireless Generation CEO Larry Berger has made a name for himself in the education world in part because of a PowerPoint presentation he delivers explaining the barriers to innovation in the education sector, especially the challenges of breaking the monopolies held by the education publishing companies.

In recent weeks, Klein has mentioned his interest in other online learning ventures such as Israeli-based Time to Know, which sells an online curriculum to about 20 city schools, and School of One.

News Corp.’s full press release follows:

News Corporation today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire 90 percent of Wireless Generation, a privately-held Brooklyn-based education technology company for approximately $360 million in cash.

Upon completion of the transaction, Wireless Generation will become a subsidiary of News Corporation and will be managed by founder and CEO Larry Berger, President and COO Josh Reibel, and Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer Laurence Holt, who will collectively retain a 10 percent interest.

Established in 2000, Wireless Generation provides mobile and web software, data systems and professional services that enable teachers to use data to assess student progress and deliver individualized instruction. Serving more than 200,000 teachers and three million students across all 50 states, the Company is dedicated to creating innovative tools to help educators teach smarter. It currently has 400 employees.

“When it comes to K through 12 education, 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,” said News Corporation Chairman and CEO, Rupert Murdoch. “Wireless Generation is at the forefront of individualized, technology-based learning that is poised to revolutionize public education for a new generation of students.”

A recognized leader in the movement to personalize the educational experience through the use of data and technology, Wireless Generation also builds large-scale data systems that centralize student data, give educators and parents unprecedented visibility into learning and foster professional communities of educators with social networking tools. The Company 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, named by TIME Magazine as one of the Best Inventions of 2009.

“We’re delighted to be joining a company that has a long history of growing entrepreneurial, innovative businesses,” said Larry Berger, CEO of Wireless Generation. “Rupert believes in the power of digital platforms to reach more people with better information, more swiftly than ever and he understands the transformative effect technology can bring to the process of learning.”

News Corporation (NASDAQ: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV) had total assets as of September 30, 2010 of approximately US$56 billion and total annual revenues of approximately US$33 billion. News Corporation is a diversified global media company with operations in six industry segments: cable network programming; filmed entertainment; television; direct broadcast satellite television; publishing; and other. The activities of News

Corporation are conducted principally in the United States, Continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, Asia and Latin America.

About Wireless Generation

Wireless Generation creates innovative tools, systems and services that help educators teach smarter. With its solutions, educators can feasibly apply research-based, proven practices such as frequent progress monitoring and needs diagnosis, data-informed decision-making, differentiated instruction and professional collaborations across classrooms, grades, schools. The company has helped educators to address and solve some of the most pressing challenges in teaching and learning. Wireless Generation currently serves more than 200,000 educators and three million students.

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  • John Johnson

    Isn’t Wireless Generation is also under investigation by the New Jersey attorney general for their part in screwing up Jerseys Race to the top bid?

  • Math teacher Bklyn

    In other words in 10 years I will be replaced by a computer and then three years later I will get my job back because they will notice the obvious students are smarter than computers.
    What is the next fad in education?

  • A Teacher

    This is why they are promoting the frame that test scores are the “product” of the school business. It’s also why they manipulate test data. This way when they come out with a computer program they’ll be able to show (because they’ll be so good at manipulating data by then) how their program raises scores more than sending your kid to school does. They are hoping to cash in on a big home schooling craze.

  • http://www.edreformer.com Douglas

    I don’t think they are going to cash in on a “home schooling craze.” I think that clearly there will be more use of computer and social networking technology in schools. The effort will be on making schools better, teachers even more excellent than they are, and curriculum that is student-centric rather than the kind of standards-based learning that makes it hard to really know how students learn or what works best for them. 

    Also, I think it’s a a little bit of dystopian paranoia to assume that the goal is to eliminate teachers by replacing them with machines. I don’t know a single education technology that has this as its mission. 

  • Jerk

    “Murdoch took his first step nearly two weeks ago, when he acquired the chancellor of New York City’s public schools, Joel Klein.”

    Gotta say — “acquired” was a good way to put it.

  • Mitch

    $23 billion dollars is a lot of money. This is just the beginning of the private fleecing of public education dollars. Nothing like bringing the business model to public education!

  • Michael Fiorillo

    Douglas,

    “I don’t know a single education technology that has this as its mission.” Technology, in and of itself, has no mission. It’s institutions, and the people who control them, that do. In this case we are speaking about companies whose “mission” is profit maximization, and which is spelled out quite explicitly in their by-laws, and which now infests public education by means of the ongoing hostile takeover of the schools by a failed and amoral business model. That profit-seeking entities use technology to control labor and its costs is axiomatic.

  • Douglas

    I made a mistake. I meant “a single education technology company.”

  • California Teacher

    The interesting paradox is that on the one hand, teachers are currently being held accountable (and blamed) for the achievement of students, no matter what, no excuses. While at the same time, people like Murdoch are investing in technological solutions to education, which may or may not include teachers themselves, and in the natural progression will likely eliminate at least some teaching positions. These investors don’t know exactly what is coming, they just want to be there when the bucks are flowing.

    However, if a significant slice of public education is converted to a screen-based paradigm, who will then be accountable? Won’t a screen-based system demand more responsibility on the part of students? Doesn’t online learning imply self-pacing and self-management? And what about those who do not have access to technology in their homes? I just find it ironic that the political ideology that wants teachers to be entirely responsible for achievement is also willing to place students into the virtual world where they must be far more accountable to themselves.

  • Michael M.

    CT,

    The local irony is that Klein was never held accountable, and now an unqualified candidate is being nominated, and the town’s celebrity and media machinery has all but ordered a case of Dom Perignon annointing fluid.

    As to your interesting paradox, note that part of the bash-the-teachers narrative has been to avoid anything that even smacks of looking at the kids, their home situations, their income levels, etc, etc. I specifically note Natalie Ravitz’s DOE-approved assaults on Dianne Ravitch for even daring to suggest it might maybe matter. Of course they already have the standardized test data to suggest it DOES.

    http (colon) //www (dot) huffingtonpost (dot) com/natalie-ravitz

    More irony:
    “[Senator Boxer] has and will continue to work to improve our public schools by helping communities repair crumbling schools, reduce class sizes, and hire more highly qualified teachers.”
    http (colon) //boxer (dot) senate (dot) gov/en/issues-legislation/issues/education (dot) cfm

    My bad; that was Ms. Ravitz’s PRIOR boss, perhaps written by Ms. Ravitz’s successor.

  • Michael Fiorillo

    Douglas,

    “…I meant a single education technology company.” Fair enough, but do you really think that these companies will come out and openly say that they’ve developed these tools to control and replace human labor? You might want to see what they actually do, rather than focus on what they say to the public: it’s much more reliable.

  • Michael M.

    Just think of the money to be made running a “take-your-online-class-for-you” start-up. Maybe we should schedule the IPO now.

    If the market wants it, let it be so.

    No Edupreneur Left Behind.

  • Diana Senechal

    Will the School of One’s computer algorithm ever be made available to the public? A program that structures (and in some ways determines) the curriculum and instruction should not be protected from public scrutiny.

  • v

    Diana – Further, ed depts everywhere could demand that all ed software be open source, creating an ecosystem around it instead of these little monopolies. I imagine we could save a lot of public money if every city in the world could pick up, customize, and use these tools for free.

  • Pingback: Borderland › Reformer Quality

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  • Professor Matt

    Gee, the schools are doing their job so well that we shouldn’t think about trying anything new…  I agree that blaming teachers is stupid.  In a school without discipline and a guarantee of safety, it doesn’t matter what a teacher does.  If kids are getting beaten up for being too studious, and if the bullies run wild in the halls and disrupt class discussion, it is impossible to teach effectively.  Conversely, within a well-run school like those of KIPP or Achievement First, even a mediocre teacher will probably get decent results.  Public schools are handicapped by regulations and tradtions in their efforts to create safe learning environments.

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