Giving Compass Take:

• Jonathan Haber argues that an education technology invention (no matter how brilliant) or reform effort (no matter how necessary) is likely to fail if the people behind them don’t put the time and effort needed to understand the effects.

• The future of education and its success will not be entirely based on technology, but on how educators can utilize tech to their advantage in the classroom. What support might teachers need to do this effectively?

• Read about why education technology is a global opportunity. 


Education reformers and technologists often lament that the best ideas or tools don’t win. Might those failures have less to do with financial challenges or lack of product-market “fit,” than with a failure to understand the pieces and politics at play in the board game of education?

I thought of this while reading a fascinating and provocative article titled “Want to Fix Public Schools? Fix the Public First” by David J. Ferrero, an educational consultant and former program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Paul G. Allen Foundation, that provides a comprehensive run-down of public-school stakeholders and the interactions between them.

Educational stakeholders, according to Ferrero, fall into three categories: “Professionals” (which include teachers, researchers, entrepreneurs and reformers), “Provocateurs” (including journalists, politicians and advocacy groups), and “People” (including students, parents and taxpayers), all of which interact in complex and dynamic ways. Ideally, new education ideas or reform efforts should align as many interested parties as possible, and leave no one behind.

While noble, this desire can blind even the best-intentioned of us to the fact that genuine and legitimate interests come into conflict all the time. Teachers want and need more resources that taxpayers do not always want to provide. Similarly, when a family sues a school district over equitable distribution of resources, conflict between parties has risen to a point that the legal system must intervene.

Read the full article about education technology and reform by Jonathan Haber at EdSurge.