Coming Attractions Tomorrow (May 21st) I’m moderating a discussion on an Eedi Linkedin Live with Eedi’s Bibi Groot, Farmington Public Schools Superintendent Kelly Coffin, and school founder and education advisor Mike Goldstein. We’ll discuss evidence and education technology and AI. More details and how to register through that link. 12p ET, 9a PT, 5p BST. … Continue reading "The Techlash Is Counternarrative?"
Coming Attractions
Tomorrow (May 21st) I’m moderating a discussion on an Eedi Linkedin Live with Eedi’s Bibi Groot, Farmington Public Schools Superintendent Kelly Coffin, and school founder and education advisor Mike Goldstein. We’ll discuss evidence and education technology and AI.
More details and how to register through that link. 12p ET, 9a PT, 5p BST.
Techlash Odds and Ends
The techlash is hard to miss. Across the country, skepticism toward technology — especially around schools and young people — is rising. I don’t think that wave has come close to peaking.
Why? Consider what’s on tap: a new Pixar Toy Story film tapping into anxieties about screens and tech. Growing public unease about what AI means for learning, work, and creativity. Serious concern about social media’s effects on kids. K-12 belt tightening combined with deepening frustration with the quality of ed-tech tools in classrooms. Witch’s brew.
Substantively there is plenty to be concerned about. And also genuine reason for concern that we rarely see the best policy made in a panic or when the education issue in question is really a proxy for broader social issues.
And yet…
Outcome-based contracting might be a winner. That’s good!
One likely beneficiary of the techlash? Outcome-based contracting: tying payment to measurable results. It’s a direct response to concerns about efficacy and cost, and done right, it’s a genuine step forward. It forces vendors to stand behind their products. Yes procurement doesn’t sound glamorous. But it is one of those things: Amateurs talk about spending, pros talk about procurement.
Sure, it doesn’t work for everything. Take core curriculum: district decisions often drive results as much as — or more than — vendor actions. And a cynic might argue that all outcome-based contracting will really accomplish is creating demand for better lobbyists and lawyers.
Still, even greater clarity about the conditions for success would be progress. And actually focusing on results in any kind of consequential way — even just for renewal and adoption decisions — would move the needle. A greater focus on efficiency and efficacy? Perhaps.
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The ed-tech CEO stereotype
The stereotype I hear frequently in the non-profit, policy, and ed community is that ed-tech and publishing CEOs are education conservatives — fans of drill-and-kill approaches, indifferent to student joy! That hasn’t been my experience. If anything, whether for market reasons (what districts want) or personal conviction (what they think is best), they tend to lean progressive on questions of instruction.
Consider the pushback from traditionalists on some of what Amplify’s* Larry Berger said in his recent interview with Rick Hess, which probably would not land as particularly controversial in most education circles.
Here’s Berger elsewhere in that same interview,
We’re excited about many of the things that AI can do for the math classroom, but the tools that have shown the most promise so far are those that extend the reach of teachers.
Here’s HMH* CEO Jack Lynch in a recent publication,
“…the conversation starts not with technology, but with what teachers and schools need to support students on their learning journey.”
In my experience, these leaders aren’t people indifferent to how learning happens. They’re running businesses, sure, but they’re pretty dialed into the teacher’s role in learning. The people who talk about replacing teachers get the headlines — but most ed-tech and publishing types are focused on how to help teachers deliver better instruction.
Reasonable people can disagree about how best to do that, of course, but there may be more common cause among some of the critics and some of the c-suites than it might first appear. Some of that common ground might even be at odds with the best evidence today about how students learn.
In other words, doesn’t mean they’re always right, but does mean, as with other education issues, the various alignments people assume might obscure some of the issues. There might be odd bedfellows. And some of it might be more complicated than it appears at first glance.
What They’re Sayin’
*Current or former BW clients.
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