THE BUSINESS OF PUBLIC EDUCATION PART 3: THE ECOSYSTEM

[Shadowninja]

🐇 THE BUSINESS OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

PART 3: THE ECOSYSTEM

Dearest reader,

Part One followed the company.

Part Two followed the money.

Now we're going to connect the dots.

Because Munetrix doesn't exist in a little software bubble somewhere outside Michigan public education.

It sits inside an ecosystem.

And once you put the pieces on the same page, you begin to see just how many different parts of that ecosystem touch one another.

Let's start with the State.

Michigan's own MICIP platform, the Michigan Integrated Continuous Improvement Process, allows districts to enable Munetrix as an optional third-party integration.

In plain English?

If a district is already a Munetrix customer, Munetrix reports can be accessed through the State's MICIP platform.
Then there's Michigan DataHub.

Munetrix provides instructions for districts to authorize it to pull district data through Michigan DataHub.

And we're not just talking about budget numbers.

Munetrix's own documentation says its Michigan DataHub integration can involve student and teacher data, rosters and attendance.

Another Munetrix checklist describes roster, assessment, demographic, socioeconomic, attendance, course-grade, staff and behavior data flowing through the DataHub pipeline into its products.

Its Early Warning Module says Michigan data is pulled through the DataHub API and updated nightly.

That is a substantially different picture from:

"They host the district's transparency page."

But the connections don't stop with State systems.

Remember all those professional associations we've been discussing?

Hello again.

In 2018, Munetrix announced an EXCLUSIVE partnership with the Michigan Elementary & Middle School Principals Association, MEMSPA, intended to broaden the use of Munetrix analytics among Michigan principals.

And Munetrix is also a strategic partner of the Michigan Association of Superintendents & Administrators — MASA.

That relationship isn't ancient history.

MASA's current strategic-partner listings still include Munetrix.

Now put those pieces beside what we found in Part Two.

Public school districts pay membership dues to professional associations.

Professional associations develop partnerships with private education vendors.

Public school districts separately purchase products and services from those vendors.

Meanwhile, those products can integrate with public education infrastructure such as Michigan DataHub and MICIP.

And some of the information being analyzed originates with public schools and public agencies in the first place.

Round and round the ledger goes.

Now, before somebody gets terribly excited:

A connection is not evidence of wrongdoing.

A partnership is not evidence of corruption.

A software integration is not evidence of some nefarious scheme.

And I found NO evidence that Munetrix somehow convinced Michigan not to build a competing transparency system.

If I had found that receipt, you'd be looking at it.

I didn't.

That's not what this series is about.

What I DID find is something I suspect most Michi