I think my agency is lucky to be serving several clients in the education industry being that my husband/business partner Bage Anderson and I have two elementary-aged children. Two clients are schools — Vanguard is college preparatory school for 7-12 graders; the Abilene Christian University is a private, yep you guessed it, Christian University. Our son is in 6th grade, and our daughter is in 4th grade. As a school marketing consultant for Vanguard, what Bage and I have learned as parents about middle school is that in non-selective sports, everyone who wants to play on a team can. No one is required to try out. We’ve learned that prepping for the SAT should begin during the sophomore year of high school, and that there’s a really big difference between National Merit Finalists and Commended Scholars. Did you know the average bachelor degree is taking six years instead of four? Have you drilled down about the rising cost of college tuition — increasing at nine percent a year; doubling every nine years? As a parent I say, “Yikes.” As a school marketing consultant in higher ed, our focus has been on educational technology PR. The economic impact of digital books over printed is huge. At ACU, students spend roughly $1,668.00 per semester on printed books. As part of its mobile-learning initiative ACU Connected, 75 percent of ACU students reported they were willing to fund the purchase of an iPad textbook reader if at least half of their textbooks were available in digital format. In 2012, 82 percent of college students will have a mobile device, so should teachers really expect these devices to be turned off before class starts? Parent hat back on….Our son loves his Kindle. His goal is finish The Hunger Games in less than a week. Our daughter was given $100 recently, and she bought herself a Kindle. Both have phones (not smart phones because the data plans are so expensive, but that’s another blog post), and both have iPod touches. Both are encouraged to use their devices to look up a words as well as check new movies o Apple TV. Being school marketing consultants at the very same time we are raising our children and planning for their future is definitely an eye-opening experience. Why can’t they stay in their Montessori elementary school forever? Nah, we really would not want that….for them or for us.
