Schooling relies on the dynamic knowledge industry.
Educators interested in the commercial context of schooling will find the Berkery, Noyes & Company scrolling news update of investments and mergers in the knowledge industry worth monitoring. Other companies offer similar services.
The transactions they report at least influence the business part of public and private schooling.
Indirectly, these companies affect decisions about which PCs, Internet connection services, database access contracts, etc. a school permits teachers and students to use on campus.
The commercial context of education consists of what companies do that sell textbooks, communication services and devices, etc. upon which educators rely to offer schooling.
For example, a university president told me he approved a contract for campus wide use of X Brand PCs because of their warranty. He dropped contracts with another company, because they no longer gave educators discounts. I know that X Brand has for a decade had around a 25 percent return rate on their PCs. Users need that warranty. When the product is returned, it is repaired and sometimes resold as a new product. The company he dropped has less than a five percent return and problem rate.
In today’s economy, communication technologies that schools and learners use are commodities. Companies buy and sell commodities before educators buy them. Prior purchases influence what technologies educators and learners have available today and only maybe tomorrow.
For example, when a company merges with another company, their policies may change what PCs to offer and support, what wireless devices to drop, where they find worthy investments in database software, as well as what education trends they follow.
Monitoring scrolling news updates about the knowledge industry at least provides teachers with a heads up alert. Then, we can individually decide how much confidence to have in business contracts upon which we rely to assist learners assigned to us.
Thanks Greg Davis for pointing me to Berkery, Noyes.