Introduction
Is the
Asora Education Enterprises Company Attractive to
Investors?
Before
describing Asora Education Enterprises’ company
characteristics and plans, let’s review its prospects
as a profitable enterprise. We believe that our proposed
franchising network and the franchisor provided
instructional services will be successful and popular. The
question regarding projected revenues is: what market share
will be achieved? What is to stop other operators with
nearly identical services from competing and eroding our
market share?
Currently, Asora does not have patents, copyrights,
proprietary secrets, brand recognition, or exclusive
licenses to protect it from competitors who may be able to
“execute” this type of operation more
efficiently than Asora. So how do we proceed? How can we
reasonably assure prospective investors of some return on
their capital?
The answer is that Asora needs to obtain the aforesaid
“missing” items. We would like to have an
exclusive arrangement with Hillsdale Academy to hold an
exclusive license to use their name as a second name for
our enterprise: The Hillsdale Online Academy. As Asora
develops the numerous courses for its K-12 schools, it will
hold copyrights to them. In many of these courses, the
instructors’ lecture notes will comprise the primary
text and these will be published as a hardcopy book in
addition to having a digitized version on the
student’s computer. The examination database, which
under Asora’s practice, defines the Stellar Schools
curriculum will also be copyrighted. If Asora can make the
licensing arrangement with Hillsdale Academy, that will
help build the Asora brand. In the course of building the
instructional environment for Stellar Schools, we may be
able to patent various methods that we invent. Other
procedures and policies may be protected as proprietary
secrets.
Because of these vulnerabilities, we think that at this
time investors, and particularly passive ones, will be
reluctant to provide Asora capital. Alternatively, active
investors who may want to participate in making Asora
Education Enterprises a thriving concern may find joining
the Asora enterprise an acceptable risk. When we say active
investors we assume they would contribute “sweat
equity” as well as capital. In fact, we welcome
“sweat equity” investors without capital if
they can contribute to the development of the Asora
Education Enterprises company. We intend to pay such
contributors with company stock.
Additionally, Asora will encourage the development of an
"allied" non-profit enterprise that will likely be called
the Stellar Schools Development Corporation (SSDC). Its
goal will be to obtain grants and donations to fund the
development of Stellar Schools. Altruism is a powerful
motivating factor in the field of education reform. It may
lead donors to look favorably on the Stellar Schools
concept and the SSDC. When (or if) the non-profit version
of Stellar Schools demonstrates that its services are
superior to the alternatives and that they are popular
among parents, it will be a model worth emulating by Asora
or another for-profit enterprise, if Asora has not already
developed its own Stellar Schools first. Since we can't
predict the for-profit or non-profit form that major
financial resources contributed to our efforts will take,
we think it prudent to work on both sides of the
for-profit/non-profit divide.
To keep the discussion focused on the for-profit
Asora Education Enterprises we shall not further discuss
the non-profit SSDC effort although many of the points to
be made will also apply to it as well.
Overview
of Asora's Stellar Schools
Students
of journalism are often taught to address the “What,
why, where, how, and when” in stories they write. So,
too, we will summarize Asora's Stellar Schools effort in
that framework. In terms of a headline, we say that...
Asora's
Stellar Schools will Overcome Mediocrity with
Excellence.
What:
Our
organization, Asora Education Enterprises, under its
Stellar Schools Franchising Project, intends to develop and
operate a K-12 on-line instructional service to be used in
its own physical schools and by others under contract such
as homeschoolers. Its primary functions will be instruction
and testing. We eventually plan Asora to be the franchisor
of the Stellar Schools network of franchisee schools and
also the provider of instructional services to home
schooling families. Asora's Stellar School division will
operate an on-line school and will distinguish itself among
its competitors by including video lectures and a novel
method of assessment. All routine teacher chores will be
automated leaving teachers to work one-on-one with students
needing help. We will provide instruction based on the
curriculum publicly available from the Hillsdale Academy.
As the company's resources expand we may add other
curricula to its repertoire. Instruction will be self-paced
in most of the core courses although some group instruction
may be included in elective areas. The video instructors
will work in pairs with one an experienced K-12 teacher and
the other a university/college instructor highly expert in
the subject. Asora's Stellar Schools will accept part-time
students and will issue certificates of mastery to students
who complete its various courses. Diplomas will also be
issued to full-time students who master all the courses.
Mastery of a course requires achieving a score of 95 or
higher.
Why:
Many
studies of our current K-12 educational systems, including
both public and private schools, conclude that we are not
producing adequate levels of student performance and that
we are expending far too many resources for such
unacceptable outcomes. We believe that K-12 instructional
services can be reformed to greatly improve student
performance and do so at less cost than the status quo. We
also intend to provide subject content that is free as
possible of politically biased information- unlike what is
seen in many public and some private schools. We see no
need to force our customers (parents and their children) to
be enrolled full-time. We can adapt to customer needs by
teaching them in the areas they deem important. Of course,
the certificates of achievement and/or diplomas will not be
issued unless all relevant subjects are mastered at the 95
percent level.
These schools will provide three important (and long
sought) benefits: Superior instruction, lower tuition, and
an absolute end to the harms of social promotion.
We are encouraged to develop Asora’s schools and
services because we are witnessing many successes in these
types of instructional services that are now becoming more
available at the college level. There are also scattered
success stories in K-12 education as well. A number of
vendors already provide the full range of K-12 courses
on-line including testing and other services. We hope to
extend those services- particularly with extensive video
lectures- that will add another dimension to the
instructional environment (which will make it more
traditional as well). The rapidly falling costs of
providing video content over the Internet makes it feasible
for Asora's Stellar Schools to offer the video components.
For example, each course will have about 5 gigabytes of
content; typical Web servers now charge less than $1 per
gigabyte transferred, which suggests a nominal cost for the
video component even in today’s cost structures.
My personal experiences as a student of an early form of
distance education as well as more recent experiences with
a course I took that was computer based are among the facts
that have convinced me that I’m on the right path.
They each demonstrated the two essential elements: Higher
quality instruction and lower costs of delivery. These two
are needed to make instructional services more effective
and more affordable, respectively. If I have benefited from
what were rather crude implementations of the
methodologies/technologies, surely others can benefit if
these avenues are further perfected.
Several individuals, who are well known experts in their
fields, such as economics, business, education, and
computer technologies, have provided valuable supportive
feedback. The little negative feedback I’ve heard
mainly revolved around the worry that computer instruction
would bore the students. Luckily, there are counter
examples of on-line instruction that even children in
kindergarten find stimulating.
Where:
Asora
is now and will continue to be based in the United States
and will mainly serve customers within the country in its
early operations. Asora, itself, is the franchisor and lead
organization in a network of franchisee operated schools.
It is currently located in Providence, Rhode Island but is
considering having a facility in Southern California, as it
expands. Like many franchisors, it will provide goods and
services from its franchisor location and will coordinate
the delivery of many other goods and services that will go
directly from third party suppliers to its franchisees and
other home-schooling customers. We intend to serve home
schooling families in all parts of the U.S. In its initial
stages Asora will also operate a small wholly owned network
of K-12 schools in order to perfect its operational format.
The locations of these schools have not been determined. As
Asora moves into the franchising phase it will seek
existing schools to be converted to franchisee operations
and also solicit developers of new franchisee schools.
How:
We at
Asora Education Enterprises have been developing many of
the ideas and plans for Stellar Schools over the past four
years. We have a fairly detailed (120 page) business plan.
It will surely evolve as we gain experience and input from
other players. We have been lining up informal (unpaid)
advisors (correspondents, friends, potential suppliers) who
have given us valuable feedback.
In a sense the whole effort in building Asora's Stellar
Schools revolves around expanding the list of suppliers- as
conceived in a general sense. Thus we need suppliers of
capital, suppliers of labor, as well as the usual third
party suppliers of those goods and services that will not
be within our core competencies. Our most recent efforts
have resulted in identifying potential suppliers of our
computer based instructional system: hosted application
service providers. We have identified a number of suppliers
of our curriculum: Hillsdale Academy, Hirsch's Core
Knowledge Sequence, The College Board's Advanced Placement
content, and the International Baccalaureate requirements.
Generally, as we identify a list of willing suppliers it
helps us refine our business plan which should increase our
likelihood of raising investment capital- including the
recruitment of those players willing to invest their
“sweat equity.”
To demonstrate how such methodologies/technologies will
work, we have embarked on the development of a mathematics
course: Algebra 1. We have completed one video lecture (the
first of the course) that runs about 30 minutes. It is
integrated with the examination data base to show how
closely connected the knowledge items are connected to
possible examination questions, on the one hand, and the
actual instructional material, on the other. These items
are included in the demonstration CD currently being
developed.
When:
The
Stellar Schools effort began in mid-2003 as we began to
explore the idea that technology could be combined with
franchising to develop a school system model that would be
more effective and less expensive than existing public and
private systems. Since then we have developed a list of
several hundred correspondents who we have kept informed
about SSC developments. A few dozen of these have provided
us feedback on an informal basis.
Four years have now passed since we began this endeavor and
we have yet to find financial resources nor have we found
partners to carry out the leadership roles.
When we ask ourselves if deficiencies within our plans and
efforts are responsible for our lack of wherewithal we
don't get a simple answer. If we saw competitors advancing
that might suggest defects in our approach, but we see no
one advancing in this area. In fact, if we do see anyone
moving forward in this area, they'll be hearing offers of
assistance from us. Failing that we'll aspire to be their
competitor.