Education Week - October 29, 2014 - 8

DIGITAL DIRECTIONS > Tracking news and ideas in educational technology
www.digitaldirections.org
Ed. Startups Get Money, Advice From Federal Program
By Sean Cavanagh
Washington
Education technology entrepreneurs
trying to make it in the often
insular and opaque school market
have an unusual ally-one found
not in the world of venture capital,
but in a competitive federal program
charged with guiding small
companies to prosperity.
The Small Business Innovation
Research program, located within
the research arm of the U.S. Department
of Education, has seen applications
for its grants jump recently, as
the number of companies in the market
has surged, and as the companies
receiving financing through the program
have gained traction in schools.
Applications for the program's
initial funding phase jumped over
the past year from 180 to more than
250 for 12 grants awarded, and department
officials say the quality of
the companies seeking money has
risen, too.
Many entrepreneurs bemoan the
difficulty of bringing new technology
products and ideas into schools.
K-12 officials, in turn, often complain
that the tools and devices
thrust at them lack evidence of effectiveness,
and aren't helpful to
teachers or students.
In some respects, the SBIR program's
design is meant to overcome
those pitfalls by asking that applicants
conduct ongoing research to
improve their products, in exchange
for helping them reach the commercial
market.
Participants in the SBIR program
say they've benefited not only from
the money provided to develop products-either
up to $150,000, or up to
$900,000, depending on the nature of
the work-but also from the support
and recognition they receive.
The SBIR also offers another, obvious
advantage for fledgling companies
that might otherwise have to
pursue private investment dollars:
The federal government's goal is to
see their products succeed commercially,
but unlike private investors, it
doesn't demand a monetary return
on the money it provides.
"We're a social venture. From the
beginning, our strategy was to grow
gradually and raise money from our
customers," said Eduardo Briceno,
the CEO of Mindset Works, which develops
online curricula, professional
development, and other tools to help
improve student motivation. "It's a
huge change we're striving for-and
change will not be quick."
The problem with private investment
funding, he said, is that it "is
not very patient funding."
"If we're going to have people give
us money at all, it makes sense
they're in it for the long term," Mr.
Briceno added. In that sense, the SBIR
program "was transformational for
us."
Sustainability Sought
Congress created the Small Business
Innovation Research program
in 1982, and today the Education
Department is one of 11 agencies
that spend a collective $2 billion a
year on the small-business effort.
Agencies that devote more than
$100 million annually to external
research and development are required
by law to put aside roughly
3 percent of that money for the SBIR.
The Education Department's SBIR
operation has an $8 million annual
budget-minuscule compared with
those of some agencies, particularly
those whose work is more closely
associated with major industries.
For instance, the National Science
Foundation's SBIR annual budget is
about $140 million, and the program
in the Department of Defense
is funded at $925 million.
In the Education Department, the
SBIR is housed within the Institute
of Education Sciences, the research
wing of the agency. For the past decade,
the program has been directed
by Edward Metz, who works out of
a modest window office in the institute's
headquarters, located a few
blocks from the U.S. Capitol.
Mr. Metz, who holds a Ph.D. in developmental
psychology, oversees everything
from program administration
to writing requests for proposals
to providing technical assistance to
grantees. He has sought to spread
word about the program at businessincubator
and industry events targeting
K-12 entrepreneurs.
Those company officials are operating
in a crowded and increasingly
well-financed arena. Venture capitalists
invested nearly $1.2 billion
in education and training companies
last year, almost four times the
money spent five years earlier, according
to GSV Advisors, a Chicagobased
organization that consults on
education and business issues.
Despite investors' confidence, many
businesses seeking to crack the K-12
market will fail. It's a highly regulated
and risk-averse market, industry
officials say, one governed by
relatively strict procurement rules
and administrators with different
interests and levels of expertise. It
can be difficult for companies to get
feedback on products, in some cases
because it's hard to find districts willing
to work with them.
Mr. Metz's office attempts to press
companies to clear those hurdles.
The program's application process is
designed to reward companies willing
to commit to developing strong
plans to research and refine their
products and partner with K-12 officials
to test them.
The ultimate test is "can you get
[your product] to the end user, and
do they want to use it?" Mr. Metz
said during an interview. "And then,
can you keep it alive, through revenue
or some other way to sustain
it? For me, it's about dissemination
and sustainability."
Many companies have brought
products into the commercial arena
on their own with the SBIR'S help.
Others have been acquired by larger
companies, deals that Mr. Metz
views as a success if they help small
companies sell their ideas to bigger
audiences.
A number of SBIR grantees,
meanwhile, have won recognition
within the tech industry. Filament
Games, based in Madison, Wis.,
N.Y.C. Schools to Repeal
Student Cellphone Ban
By Sam Atkeson
The country's largest school district
plans to end its ban on student
cellphones in schools, following
the path of a growing number of
school systems that now see the devices
as tools for academic learning
and communicating with parents,
rather than classroom distractions.
The New York City schools' cellphone
policy-which experts say is
one of the strictest in the country-
is scheduled to undergo changes
that will align it with policies established
by other large urban districts,
such as the Los Angeles Unified
school system, Chicago public
school district, and the Miami-Dade
County, Fla., school system.
The push to end the ban in the
1.1 million-student district-
prompted by Mayor Bill de Blasio
and city schools Chancellor Carmen
Fariña-is the most recent chapter
in a debate that has long pitted city
education officials against parents
and students. The sides have argued
over the value of students carrying
cellphones for safety reasons
against their potential to disrupt
learning.
Currently, students are prohibited
from possessing a cellphone on
school grounds, even if it is turned
off and stowed away.
City education officials are currently
working with school principals
to establish a new policy, but
are not sure when it will be in place.
One of the biggest problems with
the ban, according to parents and advocates
of a more open policy, is that
its enforcement has varied over the
years and across the district's 1,700
schools.
Safety Concerns
During one of the most intense
periods of enforcement in the past
decade, a 2006 initiative led by thenMayor
Michael R. Bloomberg and
then-schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein
involved the use of mobile scanning
equipment to uncover and confiscate
over 3,000 student cellphones.
In response, the United Federation
of Teachers' executive board
voted unanimously to pass a resolution
opposing the cellphone ban.
But now, strict enforcement of
the policy is mostly confined to the
88 schools in the district that are
equipped with metal detectors, according
to advocates for a more open
policy. There, students who wish to
carry cellphones to and from school
must pay to keep them at one of
the commercial cellphone storage
vehicles parked strategically
around the city. At most of the city's
8 | EDUCATION WEEK | October 29, 2014 | www.edweek.org
other schools, little is done to catch
cellphones that do not create an
overt disturbance.
That disparity of enforcement is
problematic, said Leonie Haimson,
the executive director of Class Size
Matters, a nonprofit organization
that advocates for smaller classes in
the city's public schools, among other
issues.
Class Size Matters has opposed
the cellphone ban from the start,
Ms. Haimson said, who argued that
the policy disproportionately affects
poor students and students of color.
"The reality is that most schools do
allow cellphones," said Ms. Haimson.
"Most schools do not enforce the policy,
and the schools that do enforce
the policy-those with scanners-are
very unevenly distributed across the
city. They are in areas where there
are large numbers of poor students
and students of color, and where the
neighborhoods are more dangerous."
Those neighborhoods, Ms. Haimson
argued, are often where students
need cellphones the most.
Tenika Boyd, the mother of a 3rd
grade student at PS 321 in BrookStudents
from Norman
Thomas High School in
New York City pay a
vendor a dollar a day
to store their cellphones.
The city district currently
bans the possession
of student-owned digital
devices in school.
Richard Drew/AP
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Education Week - October 29, 2014

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