Blackboard now owns WebCT and ANGEL. 2008 higher education CMS usage table adapted from the March 2009 ITC Distance Education Survey

This most recent acquisition is a surprising but not unpredictable indicator of Blackboard’s lust to dominate the higher ed CMS market. In 2006 the US Patent Office awarded Blackboard a broad and hotly contested patent on learning management system features, which Blackboard immediately used to sue its next largest commercial rival, Desire2Learn. And though Blackboard was successful in its legal actions, twice since then the US Patent Office has rejected the original 44 patent claims, first in March of 2008 and again in April of this year.

Blackboard, however, presses on, appealing the rejections, fighting with Desire2Learn in the courts, suing the US Patent Office, and even filing more patents (including one detailing a 3D learning environment, and a set of claims in Canada[!]) on which they can base new lawsuits against D2L.

As ITC noted in its March 2009 survey, ANGEL had gained considerable market share in the US, putting it in the #2 slot against Blackboard+WebCT. What once looked like good news for Angel has become a nightmare for an CMS consumer market in need of diverse and innovative choices, and a looming shadow for other CMS producers, as Blackboard continues to thwart and denigrate healthy competition in the field of e-learning. At this point I’m continuing to put my faith in Moodle, the popular open source CMS, and wondering if US antitrust law contradicts Blackboard’s aggressive behavior.

My take on this is fairly mundane. First, I think that the online learning thing was not Mr. McCain’s idea; rather, he likely had a savvy adviser who laid out the potential benefits of online K-12 education, and online learning’s growing attraction to students and parents alike. Nonetheless, he has taken a position that may rankle those who favor the traditional means of obtaining that coveted piece of paper, whereas Mr. Obama has not.

Secondly, as has been suggested by at least two Obama supporters on their my.barackobama.com-hosted blogs, Mr. Obama would probably prefer to focus on investing federal funds in existing “real” schools. This is akin to a comment purportedly made by our current university President, who said, “I don’t want online learning to flourish because it takes revenue away from the brick-and-mortar.” Someone needs to let these folks that online learning is more cost-effective than brick-and-mortar, especially if built right. At the same time, I will disclaim the disparity by suggesting that Mr. Obama, once fully informed, is likely to counterprove some of his supporters by coming out in support of online learning and virtual schools when challenged on the issue. In the big game of presidential election politics, this is not a campaign-breaking issue.

But since Mr. McCain has beaten Mr. Obama to the punch, let my proffer my opinion on his suggestions:

1. “…$500 million in current federal funds to build new virtual schools and support the development of online course offerings for students.”
2. “…$250 million through a competitive grant program to support states that commit to expanding Online education opportunities.”
3. “…$250 million for digital passport scholarships to help students pay for Online tutors or enroll in virtual schools. Low-income students will be eligible to receive up to $4,000 to enroll in an online course, SAT/ACT prep course, credit recovery or tutoring services offered by a virtual provider.”

Total: $1 billion. For a fiscal conservative who is adamant about reducing government spending, that’s a lot of money, right? As they say, a million here, a million there and pretty soon you’re talking about real money. I had to put this in perspective: While the US annual spending on K-12 education is around $536 billion, only about $43 billion comes from federal funding. Adding in Mr. McCain’s proposed $1 billion would become just under 3% of the current annual federal expenditures for K-12. Because the US Constitution leaves education funding primarily in state hands, I think Mr. McCain is right to offer 25% of that billion as grants to states, and another 25% directly to students. This reminds me of Clayton Christensen’s Disrupting Class, which suggests that the monolithic nature of K-12 public education will make the sort of necessary disruptive innovations difficult at first, and that the first stage of the disruption will likely happen through outside server providers. In fact, Mr. Christensen uses nearly identical key language that Mr. McCain uses: “tutoring services offered by a virtual provider”.

Let me preface this by stating that I do not argue one way or another for either Reading First or No Child Left Behind–I have not examined enough information to be competent to make any conclusion, nor am I sure that current research efforts have been appropriately thorough or scientific. Though I have opinions on what is most effective in reading education, and though I am troubled by a report that suggests our brightest students are languishing under NCLB, I haven’t yet bet on a pony.

Not too long ago we received an interim report from the National Center for Education Evaluation covering 2004-05 and 2005-06 school years. While this report showed some positive increases in the amount of time spent on reading education in the classroom, it found no significant statistical increase in reading scores from Reading First programs. Opponents of Reading First leapt on these results as more evidence to condemn the program itself (and NCLB by simple association).

Reading First is a program that we already know to be beleagured by mismanagement and hindered by internal corruption. So to me, an interim report showing no statistically significant increase in student results is insufficient evidence for termination. Yet popular news reports have called the program “ineffective” and opponents accused it of outright “failure”, when the reality is report shows at least Reading First is at least as effective as existing instructional efforts, though not proven to be more effective. And not surprisingly, Congress and Senate education panels have both voted to drop funding for the program.

What irks me is how opponents of NCLB and Reading First were perfectly willing to accept the standardized test-based results of the Reading First report because it supports their position, and yet then turn around and completely discount a new report out today that finds that since the implementation of No Child Left Behind, student test scores have been on the rise by stating that standardized testing is no way to measure student ability, and is in fact contrary to the higher goals and purposes of education in general.

Am I the only one that sniffs and cringes at the hypocrisy here? Or is it merely that the hypocrisy and hyperbole comes mostly from the lowest common denominator of anti-NCLB bloggers and commenters, made pungent for being broadly accessible and visible through Our Connected Web?