Giving Compass' Take:

• School districts across the country regularly battle with tech companies over pricing for EdTech that is vital to student success. With high, inconsistent prices districts are constantly struggling to afford the materials they need for the success of their students. 

• Should tech companies offer EdTech to school districts below market rate? How can philanthropy help fill the gap between students' need for technology and district budgets? 

• Read about the importance of rigorous EdTech evaluations. 

When administrators in Ohio’s Mentor Public Schools were buying MacBooks during the 2015-16 school year, the local Best Buy was offering a lower price than Apple, even after the company’s standard discount for school districts. Superintendent Matt Miller pushed for a better deal, but Apple said it would not budge from its price list. The company prohibits most third parties from selling new devices to school districts, so Miller couldn’t place a bulk order with Best Buy as a district official.

He told Apple he would buy gift cards for each of his 2,700 high school students, bus them to Best Buy and let them purchase their own MacBooks. He threatened to invite local news outlets and create a media circus. Apple backed down.

Miller, now superintendent of the Lakota Local School District in Ohio, can be a bulldog at the negotiating table, but thinks he shouldn’t have to be.

Miller is one of many vocal critics of the wide disparities in education technology pricing, which he and others contend is becoming an increasingly pressing problem as more devices and software enter U.S. classrooms. Almost 14 million devices were shipped to schools last year, up from 3 million in 2010, according to the market research firm Futuresource Consulting. Technology has become a vital component of teaching and learning, and it is considered a classroom requirement to adequately prepare students for life after graduation. The market research firm IDC estimates that $4.9 billion was spent on devices by K-12 schools in 2015, and the Software and Information Industry Association estimates that nearly $8.4 billion was spent on software.

Yet the same device or program can cost more from one state to another and even from district to district.

Read the full article on EdTech pricing by Sarah Butrymowicz and Tara García Mathewson at The Hechinger Report.