Thought Leaders in Online Education: Cheryl Vedoe, CEO of Apex Learning (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: My question was slightly different, though. My question is what percentage of US schools have virtual advanced placement programs?

Cheryl Vedoe: I can’t tell you that off the top of my head. That’s not a data point that we track. I can tell you that we do have thousands of students who enroll in our online AP courses every year. They come from school districts around the country. We also have students from private schools. I can’t tell you what percentage of schools that is.

Sramana Mitra: What about for the remedial programs? What percentage of schools are using virtual technologies in school? >>>

Thought Leaders in Online Education: Cheryl Vedoe, CEO of Apex Learning (Part 3)

Cheryl Vedoe: For example, in programs such as a credit recovery program, the teacher has access at his or her fingertips to data in real-time to show how every student is progressing and what their quality of work is. In our platform, teachers get alerts when there are things that they should discuss with students so that they can engage individually with students. I should also point out that I used the example of credit recovery, but our courses are used in that very same model as the curriculum for original credit in many programs as well as when the student body being served is one that has demonstrated they are not successful in that traditional classroom. >>>

Thought Leaders in Online Education: Cheryl Vedoe, CEO of Apex Learning (Part 2)

Cheryl Vedoe:What we have found in surveying students who have an unsuccessful track record is that the programs using it most successfully are actually brick-and-mortar programs where the teacher is in the classroom with the student. Very consistent with the point that you made, we find that those students who need more support and help are generally not students who will do well in a virtual environment. If you go back to the early days of Apex, we were serving advanced placement students, and exclusively virtual students.

Today, over 95% of the students we serve are actually engaging with our digital curriculum or online courses in a brick-and-mortar classroom. The reason that digital curriculum is working so well for those students is that it is through the use of digital curriculum that schools are able to provide the experience that each student needs. The challenge for a teacher in the classroom is well understood. A typical high school teacher has a class of 30 students who have different foundational skills and different abilities to move through the content. Frankly, different learning styles as well. >>>

Thought Leaders in Online Education: Cheryl Vedoe, CEO of Apex Learning (Part 1)

Online education in K-12 has had very few ventures survive or scale. Apex Learning is one of those rare birds. We first covered their story eight years back. This is a catch up conversation with their CEO Cheryl Vedoe that steps us through the ongoing evolution of the K-12 online education sector.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with giving our audience a little bit of an update on where you are and where Apex is. We did an Entrepreneur Journeys story on you and the company about eight years ago. A lot of things have happened in the industry and in your company since. Give us a bit of an update.

Cheryl Vedoe: I think there is a lot that is very much the same when you compare with where we were eight years ago. There is also a great deal that is very different. Our focus remains digital curriculum with an orientation towards personalizing learning and increasing the quality of educational options available to >>>

Thought Leaders in Online Education: Executive Director of Academic Innovation at University of Pennsylvania, Bobbi Kurshnan (Part 6)

Bobbi Kurshnan: People who come to an incubator come because they’re going to get money. Hopefully, they’re going to finish the program and their company is going to be further along. Entrepreneurs who are doing something in education come to our program because they want to understand and not just to go out and do it. As I said, there are people who read the manual first versus people that do it and when all else fails, read the manual.

I don’t think entrepreneurs can be made. I think entrepreneurs are born in the same way that teachers are born. I think I can make a better entrepreneur.

Sramana Mitra: That’s right. I agree with that.

Bobbi Kurshnan: I think we do it in multiple ways. I’ve studied incubator programs globally. >>>

Thought Leaders in Online Education: Executive Director of Academic Innovation at University of Pennsylvania, Bobbi Kurshnan (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What have you seen in that program? How many of the people that have gone through that program have actually started EdTech companies?

Bobbi Kurshnan: They’re required to build a business plan as their thesis. It’s very interesting. I’ve compared the data from our incubator to our Master’s program. I think of this as a continuum. The people who come to our Master’s program are the people who read the manual first. The people that come to our incubator are those that read the manual and all else fails. >>>

Thought Leaders in Online Education: Executive Director of Academic Innovation at University of Pennsylvania, Bobbi Kurshnan (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: I actually have seen a lot of bootstrapped companies that have reached even $20 million but they’ve taken more time to get there. I’m very much in favor of that model of building EdTech companies because it takes out all of these tensions in hyper-fast expectation.

Bobbi Kurshnan: I agree with you. I’m not suggesting that education doesn’t have a long runway. I think the work you’re doing is very interesting. I think there are a lot of people out there who are going to give you $1,000 to invest because they believe in the mission.

Sramana Mitra: We don’t raise money for people. It’s a pure education program. >>>

Thought Leaders in Online Education: Executive Director of Academic Innovation at University of Pennsylvania, Bobbi Kurshnan (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What is very successful?

Bobbi Kurshnan: What do you define as very successful?

Sramana Mitra: What I’m trying to gauge is are these going to be self-sustaining venture-funded companies. Is it going to be possible for these companies to grow at a rate where it makes sense for angels and VCs to invest in them?

Bobbi Kurshnan: No, if I don’t see a company that goes from minimal revenue to a run rate $100,000 a month in three years, then I’m not seeing a model that works. >>>