Imagine K12 • Hacker News Board

Re: Imagine K12

#21

Post by BenSS » Thu, Mar 17, 2011, 7:41 PM UTC

shii wrote: post #13

It seems Imagine K12 will/has solved the classic chicken-and-egg problem with education startups. I've been asking on how to get traction at schools online in different communities for years when I was working on a side project in this area. It's virtually impossible to sell to school districts, and unless pioneering teachers who are savvy enough to use something like Google Apps for their classrooms and see your pro…

"It's virtually impossible to sell to school districts"

This is exactly the problem I've been wrestling with. The best idea so far has been to appeal to private&charter schools first, and then attempt the big system. Public education is very much like a large company (risk-adverse, and process-oriented).

Re: Imagine K12

#22

Post by mcn » Thu, Mar 17, 2011, 7:44 PM UTC

u48998 wrote: post #15

btipling wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you expect publishers to print and give away textbooks for free too?

I expect basic education to stay within the realm of government and free. Public giving up education to private/corporate sector is a recipe for disaster. How technology can help government improve the quality, and how technology can keep the education free for the masses, is another thing.

I don't think that the goal here is to degrade public education; one of the main attractions with this incubator is that it has connections to get your product into public schools.

Re: Imagine K12

#23

Post by JoachimSchipper » Thu, Mar 17, 2011, 7:47 PM UTC

maxharris wrote: post #20

gte910h wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You can't have an absolute right to something that requires someone else to provide a service for you Like a lawyer? Pretty sure I have a right to one of them when charged with a crime. I understand to go with the clean logic of Ayn Rand's definitely of rights and everything, but that doesn't mean it fits all situations of the word right. Positive rights have some traction and serve a useful purpose too, even though…

The 'right' to an attorney should mean that the government cannot prevent you from attempting to obtain an attorney to represent you. (edit: added the italicized words) Edit: Don't many public defenders think of their jobs as a form of partial charity? Edit 2: Is it a violation of rights that these public defenders aren't the best lawyers available? I don't think so, and the onus is on people that accept positive rig…

Actually, many legal systems provide some way of getting free representation. The government is involved in many cases.

Similarly, many states will intervene to prevent their citizens from starving, even if they have to spend everyone else's tax money to do so.

Re: Imagine K12

#24

Post by huherto » Thu, Mar 17, 2011, 7:47 PM UTC

u48998 wrote: post #5

Two things which should be basic human rights and absolutely free, are: communication and education. But people wish to earn $$ off of them. And then they wonder why the world is in such a messed up state. Kudos to Khan Academy and Bill Gates for patronizing and liberating the education.

Quality education must accessible to everybody. It might, but it doesn't have to be free. What we currently have in many parts of the world is free education of poor quality. That needs to be fixed.

Re: Imagine K12

#25

Post by gcheong » Thu, Mar 17, 2011, 7:59 PM UTC

I'd really like to see a "request for startups" type post from this group.

Re: Imagine K12

#26

Post by philfreo » Thu, Mar 17, 2011, 8:07 PM UTC

I'm excited about this program. Hopefully it will bring a lot more smart entrepreneurs and developers into the edu-tech space. It's definitely an industry that's in need of good talent, innovation, and creative problem solving.

Quizlet.com (Alan Louie, one of this program's founders, is an advisor) is looking for a few great people to join the small team in SF. If you have an interest in edu-tech (or just working on a web product that's helping millions of students study already), please get in touch. Email phil@[thedomain] or http://quizlet.com/jobs/

Re: Imagine K12

#27

Post by shaggyfrog » Thu, Mar 17, 2011, 8:09 PM UTC

prestia wrote: post #10

This is a really exciting announcement! Education is probably the most important factor in maintaining long-term competitiveness and the American system is in desperate need of improvement. That said, the hurdles in this area are overwhelming. To name a few: -Layer upon layer of bureaucracy (states, counties, districts, individual school administrators) -Teachers that are reluctant to adopt new technology -Students t…

I'll add another one: academia who teach education seem to have an almost visceral reaction to any suggestion of for-profit educational product development. There's this almost dogmatic principal that anything related to education should be done not-for-profit. I speak from experience... I have an idea for an educational game (software) and I haven't had any luck getting the time of day.

Re: Imagine K12

#28

Post by frak_your_couch » Thu, Mar 17, 2011, 8:11 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #16

frak_your_couch wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'd love and welcome a good high-quality open source textbook movement that happens to also be high quality. It's the quality issue that's the major problem at the moment, I'd say. I've LOVE to see, for instance, Math textbooks written like they wrote "Real World Haskell" in wiki format with a single (or a small,finite set of) editor(s) ensuring that content and quality is up-to-snuff. I think that there really…

Quality isn't the issue for most subjects. There are plenty of free and cheap textbooks with perfectly fine quality. For example, when I took thermodynamics in college (in 2001), I used a thermo book from the early 70's which cost me $8 on eBay (as opposed to the modern version which cost $100). I also skipped purchasing many books entirely, and just used free materials online, including this newfangled site called w…

Well, I do disagree on the quality aspect. I'd like to see a high quality Calc I and II textbook that's free, coherent, and not aimed at MIT students. My wife is a faculty member and if you can find me one, I'll pass it along (they're constantly looking for one). It's just hard to not choose Stewart..it's a solid textbook for a broad range of students, but it's expensive as shit. A lot of professors are getting that this (if they don't, I make damned sure I mention it when we socialize with them) is a barrier for a lot of students.

Anyway, you're absolutely 100% correct about problem sets. Good problem sets go a VERY long way to making a good textbook.

Re: Imagine K12

#29

Post by ianb » Thu, Mar 17, 2011, 8:29 PM UTC

shaggyfrog wrote: post #27

prestia wrote: post #10

This is a really exciting announcement! Education is probably the most important factor in maintaining long-term competitiveness and the American system is in desperate need of improvement. That said, the hurdles in this area are overwhelming. To name a few: -Layer upon layer of bureaucracy (states, counties, districts, individual school administrators) -Teachers that are reluctant to adopt new technology -Students t…

I'll add another one: academia who teach education seem to have an almost visceral reaction to any suggestion of for-profit educational product development. There's this almost dogmatic principal that anything related to education should be done not-for-profit. I speak from experience... I have an idea for an educational game (software) and I haven't had any luck getting the time of day.

OTOH, there are a lot of for-profit educational ventures, and they all seem really skeevy to me -- places like Kaplan or Phoenix University, for instance, or frankly a lot of educational software.

Perhaps a pro-market explanation is that the bureaucracy itself undermines the market, creating a market that is not truly driven by stated goals (education) but other factors. I'm not sure I believe that, but it's possible. The difficulty of procurement might in part mean that heavy up-front marketing costs dominate, and once you've made a sale it's both fairly large and neither increases nor decreases based on the quality of the product -- poor products tend to be maintained based on the commitment of the administration even when in practice they don't end up being useful.

It would be interesting if teachers were allocated money to purchase products themselves. While it seems somewhat chaotic, and challenging with student turnover (which is generally very high in the US in particular), it seems like the only way to actually have a market driven by real experience and taste rather than politics or theory.

Re: Imagine K12

#30

Post by ianb » Thu, Mar 17, 2011, 8:35 PM UTC

maxharris wrote: post #20

gte910h wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You can't have an absolute right to something that requires someone else to provide a service for you Like a lawyer? Pretty sure I have a right to one of them when charged with a crime. I understand to go with the clean logic of Ayn Rand's definitely of rights and everything, but that doesn't mean it fits all situations of the word right. Positive rights have some traction and serve a useful purpose too, even though…

The 'right' to an attorney should mean that the government cannot prevent you from attempting to obtain an attorney to represent you. (edit: added the italicized words) Edit: Don't many public defenders think of their jobs as a form of partial charity? Edit 2: Is it a violation of rights that these public defenders aren't the best lawyers available? I don't think so, and the onus is on people that accept positive rig…

Not that I'm a libertarian, but if I was I would be inclined to argue the right to an attorney is specifically in place when the government initiates legal action against you. Outside of specific government action you have no right to an attorney -- you can't for instance sue the government and demand the government provide you with an attorney to do so.