Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Ed Tech Giant Powerschool Keeps Eating the World

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

I don't really do merger and acquisition coverage but this article offers a perspective on a market we don't usually see. Or at least, I don't. Anyhow, "PowerSchool was a simple little program for taking care of classroom clerical work. Of the e-gradebooks I was forced to use in my career, it was the last and the most usable." The it got acquired, then sold, by Pearson. Now that "they have finalized the purchase of Schoology, a learning management system that boasts a presence in over 60,000 schools," this makes nine acquisitions since 2015. The goal is "to connect assessment, enrollment, gradebook, professional learning and special education data services to its flagship student information system." Or, as the Peter Greene says, "PowerSchool is working on micromanagement and data mining in order to make things easier for the bosses. Big brother just keeps getting bigger, but mostly what that does is make a world in which the people who actually do the work just look smaller and smaller."

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Apr 25, 2024 8:02 p.m.

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