NewSchools Venture Fund Links with Rethink Education

NewSchools Venture Fund, a nonprofit that started out channeling philanthropic donations to charter schools and that now invests in a range of education groups and businesses, is entering into a partnership with a new venture capital fund that could result in millions more in financing.

At a time when venture capital interest in education technology companies is growing rapidly, Rethink Education Fund, founded last year to focus on education start-ups, has agreed to give part of its profits to NewSchools, based in Oakland, Calif., so the fund can invest the money in various projects.

NewSchools is well known for its financing of charter management organizations, including Aspire Public Schools, KIPP and Rocketship Education, as well as groups like the New Teacher Project, which recruits midcareer professionals into teaching, and Khan Academy, which creates online video lessons.

The fund, which has invested about $260 million over 15 years, receives financing from high-profile education donors like the Broad Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Walton Foundation. On its board are Silicon Valley leaders including John Doerr, partner in the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, and Dave Goldberg, chief executive of Survey Monkey (and husband of Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer).

In linking with Rethink Education, founded by Richard Segal, a prominent fund-raiser for President Obama and chief executive of Seavest Investment Group, and Matt Greenfield, an angel investor in education technology companies, NewSchools hopes to generate further financing for its projects. Rethink has committed to giving an undisclosed portion of the profits it generates on its investments to NewSchools.

“There may not be a need for another venture firm to fund e-commerce businesses that sell high-fashion clothing,” Mr. Greenfield said. “But in education there is a real shortage of capital for the things we think matters.” Rethink has raised $40 million and invested in nine companies.

Interest in education investments has exploded recently. According to the MoneyTree Report, an analysis of Thomson Reuters data by PriceWaterhouse Coopers and the National Venture Capital Alliance, venture capital investment in education businesses has grown 80 percent since 2005 to more than $632 million last year.

NewSchools has itself begun investing in for-profit ventures, including Engrade, which develops online grading programs for teachers, and Grockit, a social media test-preparation business.

Critics worry that businesses have motives other than the best interests of students. “I don’t think the public is paying taxes for education on the assumption that investors are going to make money,” said Diane Ravitch, the education historian and co-founder of the Network for Public Education, which advocates against high-stakes testing, charter schools and tenure changes.

Ted Mitchell, chief executive of NewSchools, said there was a role for companies in public education. “We are attempting to direct philanthropic dollars at innovations that are going to do the most for poor kids and for the system as a whole,” he said. “We believe for-profit entities have just as much capacity to do that as not-for-profits, and they ought to take a run at it.”

Google Won’t Rethink Anti-Islam Video’s Status

Google said it had already determined that the video did not violate its terms of service regarding hate speech. In this case, the video stays up because it is against the Islam religion but not Muslim people.

The company also said Friday that it had blocked access to the video in India and Indonesia because it violated local laws.

These actions came after Google temporarily blocked the video on Wednesday in Egypt and Libya of its own volition — not because it violated laws or YouTube’s terms of service — an extraordinary measure that it said it took in response to the delicacy of the situation. The video is accessible in the rest of the world, even as protests spread to nearly 20 countries, from North Africa to Indonesia.

Google said its decisions were consistent with a 2007 policy for controversial content in which the company would take into account not just laws and its own policies, but cultural norms.

“One type of content, while legal everywhere, may be almost universally unacceptable in one region, yet viewed as perfectly fine in another,” Rachel Whetstone, senior vice president for communications and public policy at Google, wrote in the 2007 policy. “We are passionate about our users, so we try to take into account local cultures and needs.”

YouTube said it was continuously monitoring the circumstances in other countries.

The controversy over the video has raised questions about the role of Google in governing free expression by determining which content is acceptable to show online and which is not.

The company does not police videos uploaded to the site because of the sheer volume involved; 72 hours of videos are uploaded each minute. It reviews videos only if users flag them as inappropriate or if it receives a valid court order or government request to remove them for violating the law.

That was the case in India and Indonesia, which have laws restricting content that provokes enmity.

Also, Google removes illegal content only in the 45 countries in which it has local Web sites, which include Egypt, Indonesia and India but not Libya, Pakistan or Afghanistan.

“We’ve restricted access to it in countries where it is illegal such as India and Indonesia as well as in Libya and Egypt given the very sensitive situations in these two countries,” YouTube said Friday in a statement.

“At Google we have a bias in favor of people’s right to free expression in everything we do,” Ms. Whetstone wrote in Google’s 2007 policy. “But we also recognize that freedom of expression can’t be — and shouldn’t be — without some limits. The difficulty is in deciding where those boundaries are drawn. For a company like Google with services in more than 100 countries — all with different national laws and cultural norms — it’s a challenge we face many times every day.”

Meanwhile, a Facebook spokeswoman confirmed that the company had restricted access to a link to the film in Pakistan, at the request of its government.

Kevin Bankston, director of the free expression project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit group that focuses on digital civil liberties, said that Google, as a private company, could decide what was appropriate on its sites and what was not. But he added, “Considering the power that many of these platforms have, it’s important for them to be as clear and transparent as possible about those decisions.”

Somini Sengupta contributed reporting.

Google Won’t Rethink Anti-Islam Video’s Status

Google said it had already determined that the video did not violate its terms of service regarding hate speech, because it was against the Muslim religion but not Muslim people.

The company also said Friday that it had blocked access to the video in India and Indonesia because it violated local laws.

These actions came after Google temporarily blocked the video on Wednesday in Egypt and Libya of its own volition — not because it violated laws or YouTube’s terms of service — an extraordinary measure that it said it took in response to the delicacy of the situation. The video is accessible in the rest of the world, even as protests spread to nearly 20 countries, from North Africa to Indonesia.

Google said its decisions were consistent with a 2007 policy for controversial content in which the company would take into account not just laws and its own policies, but cultural norms.

“One type of content, while legal everywhere, may be almost universally unacceptable in one region, yet viewed as perfectly fine in another,” Rachel Whetstone, senior vice president for communications and public policy at Google, wrote in the 2007 policy. “We are passionate about our users, so we try to take into account local cultures and needs.”

YouTube said it was continuously monitoring the circumstances in other countries.

The controversy over the video has raised questions about the role of Google in governing free expression by determining which content is acceptable to show online and which is not.

The company does not police videos uploaded to the site because of the sheer volume involved; 72 hours of videos are uploaded each minute. It reviews videos only if users flag them as inappropriate or if it receives a valid court order or government request to remove them for violating the law.

That was the case in India and Indonesia, which have laws restricting content that provokes enmity.

Also, Google removes illegal content only in the 45 countries in which it has local Web sites, which include Egypt, Indonesia and India but not Libya, Pakistan or Afghanistan.

“We’ve restricted access to it in countries where it is illegal such as India and Indonesia as well as in Libya and Egypt given the very sensitive situations in these two countries,” YouTube said Friday in a statement.

“At Google we have a bias in favor of people’s right to free expression in everything we do,” Ms. Whetstone wrote in Google’s 2007 policy. “But we also recognize that freedom of expression can’t be — and shouldn’t be — without some limits. The difficulty is in deciding where those boundaries are drawn. For a company like Google with services in more than 100 countries — all with different national laws and cultural norms — it’s a challenge we face many times every day.”

Meanwhile, a Facebook spokeswoman confirmed that the company had restricted access to a link to the film in Pakistan, at the request of its government.

Kevin Bankston, director of the free expression project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit group that focuses on digital civil liberties, said that Google, as a private company, could decide what was appropriate on its sites and what was not. But he added, “Considering the power that many of these platforms have, it’s important for them to be as clear and transparent as possible about those decisions.”

Somini Sengupta contributed reporting.