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Economics has all the explanations and the solutions in education right now. From "learning loss" as long term GDP reduction to edtech as its cure, there is a certain style of thinking that tech will mitigate economic pandemic problems. And...
Investors are going mad for edtech. There's a lot of excitement that $16bn was invested in edtech last year. Market intel agencies like HolonIQ project huge growth, both cataloguing past market trends and catalyzing investor enthusiasm...
These market projections, though, I think, are now becoming predictions, even desirable imaginaries of how future education *should be*. Big asset management companies are getting in. They are funding imaginaries of education into reality... https://www.credit-suisse.com/uk/en/asset-management/news-and-insights/investment-themes/thematic-equity-investing/edutainment.html?t=777_0.31916302157594756
New investment models in edtech too. "Special purpose acquisition companies" are moving into education. SPACs generate funding purely to make company purchases and ROI. They're chiefly after profiting from AIed and personalized learning tech... https://www.edsurge.com/news/2021-01-27-public-edtech-companies-have-been-rare-these-spacs-will-change-that
Then there is edtech index investing. Rather than investing in individual companies, these "exchange-traded funds" compile "baskets" of shares in multiple high-ROI edtech companies. For example...
The Rize ETF injects funds into a basket of edtech companies based on HolonIQ valuations. This isn't funding individual companies but a consensual vision that the basket will achieve. There are other funders too... https://rizeetf.com/funds/education-tech-and-digital-learning/
Eric Schmidt formerly of Google set up an investment-philanthropy initiative to fund edtech to "accelerate the recovery from pandemic learning loss and advance the field of learning engineering" with support from Citadel, another big finance org https://futuresforumonlearning.org/tools-competition/
Ok. So pandemic recovery of education is important. But finance seems to be currently setting the vision. Funding is going to data-driven, AI, and learning engineering models, dressed up as learning loss mitigation. Where is the voice of education in this cascade of valuations?
There is a style of thinking here that assumes private finance and tech can sort out education. But not just that - that investors know best, because the market says.
If you fancy reading more about economics and its involvement "with some of the most consequential decisions that societies make" (education after Covid in our case) this by Marion Fourcade is brilliant https://sjes.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41937-017-0019-2
Two key takeaways from that Fourcade article: 1) economics presents itself as apolitical and 2) creates make-believe substitutes of social reality that circle back to change the world it purports only to measure and value.
Reckon that's where we are with economics and education.
Reckon that's where we are with economics and education.
