Request for Education Startups

In fact, there is a huge cottage industry of exactly this in at least the software engineering world. Several companies with enough revenue to make any seed-stage startup sneeze.

Making tens of thousands of dollars for a 2 day workshop/corporatetraining is not unheard of. No millions of dollars from VCs required.

Canvas/Schoology/Others provide parents with the opportunity to monitor student assignments and grades.

The problem with parental involvement is (usually) the desire to participate rather than opportunity.

Assuming parents even have adequate information to make good choices, this seems like a surefire way to create wildly unbalanced classes. Giving difficult students to a bad teacher doesn't "punish" the bad teacher - it just creates a dysfunctional learning environment for the students who need it most.

I would seriously question the ethical resolve of my kid's school if they used such a system.

Oh hey! We're one of the companies on this list :)

We went through IK12 (now a part of YC, same people) and it was the single best decision we ever made for Kodable. Education companies have some pretty unique problems, and it is almost guaranteed that the partners will have seen it before, know how to handle it, or at least be able to connect you with someone that has. At this point I think that YC/IK12 companies have a presence in pretty much every school in the USA and most countries around the world, so the network of edtech startups you get access to is just incredible.

Edtech startups can be really hard, but this is one of the few things you can do that will actually make it just a little bit easier. If you have any questions please feel free to reach out - Jon at Kodable dot com

I work on the policy side of digitalisation. Looking at the things listed in the YC call this all doesn't seem too much line the things that are really needed. Here some major issues that education (thinking here mainly about schools but this covers all sectors. And about developed counties other than the US, which has a strange, immensely commercialised education) faces : - cost (depending on the country education can be 3-8% of GDP), most of which is salary - equity - even in the best of countries kids with the right parents fare much better - changing demographics - massive increases (including migrants but also due to housing cycles etc) in some areas while in some villages a school might end with 6 students, all at different ages. - how to truly personalise learning (without kids being on devices all day or teachers having to insert massive amounts of data) - teacher training in subject matter, technical skills and pedagogies, while time and resources are limited - lack of good teachers (often due to pay...) - relevance of learning content and methods - improving assessment - lack of time for teachers (choose resources, plan lessons, learn new rules /curricula, do a lot of admin,... -measuring impact of new policy /tools /... (issues are scale, the direct cause-effect link, worry about too much /instructive tracking, etc)

I think for none of these there are any good solutions out there short of throwing money at the system, which few places can /want to do. For anything to find actual uptake in education it needs to be timely, cost-effective, easy to train /use, respect very specific laws, and tested /proven in a real setting.

There are huge concerns about issues such as vendor lock-in. And looking at some of the proposals listed, there are things that seem crazy /near-evil, eg the suggestion to give a system free to schools but let parents pay.

This seems like a rather negative post, but I just mean to give a bit of perspective. Education is complex, deeply personal, so emotional, immensely important, shapes and determines society and our common future. There is a massive amount of both idealism and frustration on the part of the people involved (especially teachers) . Most have experienced a dozen broken tech promises and been covered in advertising leaflets of questionable commercial providers.

All that ends with either the same pretty much evil players dominating this complex market (everyone in education hates Pearson but few can avoid using some of their products as they know how to play the system, including the funding models and rules ), or with an increased influx of highly commercial tech players (Google, Microsoft, Apple,) which don't understand/care for the aims of education and just see a massive market and an opportunity to train the next generation of users on their systems.

Maybe you'll have some ideas... :-)