The Catastrophic State of EdTech and How I Plan to Plan to Help
Disclaimer: Everything below is a mix of what I observed and heard during the event. The goal isn’t to pinpoint "who exactly said what," but to share (usually) an outsider's view and overall perspective on these industries. I’m not here to act as a definitive firsthand source—readers should do their own research. I hope this inspires you to attend events, explore new industries, and hear what leaders are presenting. These notes combine my observations with thoughts on how things could run smoother and how ideas connect (IMO). I’m not an expert, you know? Just hanging out in the room with them. Enjoy.
I’m absolutely nuts-o for trying to build two communities from scratch (ish) in one week, but someone’s gotta do it. (Also, one of my friends just sat next to me and told me that the title of this blog is too long! LOL - she always gives me unsolicited advice that gives me existential criseses - like 5 times now since we’ve met hahahhaa: i said, girl… all my blog names are amazing, the titles. And - ITS NOT FOR YOU! lol. My audience? Ideally? The White House! Larry Cheng!!! Ryan Cohen - and whoever else wants to read them. Does my audience read these? NO IDEA!!!) The first community (unrelated-ish) to this blog: Improv. But the other, I bought the Seattle EdTech Community as its leader on Meetup. So now my goal and hope is to cultivate community and get people solving problems in the
Why Attend: I’m so dedicated to improving education in the USA (and world). It’s just so crappy right now, underinvested in, not glamorized… so I want to solve this. And I think a way to start is by getting great conversations going with people who care, know what they’re talking about, and want to solve things. They need a space to figure things out. It’s part of why I bought the ownership of this group. At hte moment, they just have monthly “drink at a bar and small talk” events, and I’m sorry, but that’s not going to solve much of anything. I want to solve things NONSTOP.
PHOTO COLLAGE AND COMMENTARY
NOTES FROM THE EVENT
So, I threw together an event, didn’t advertise it at all, and decided to dip my toes into this goal and see who showed up and brainstorm with them. Below are my notes from what we said… and before that, I wanna write summaries and Ideas that I came up with - using the help of AI. Because it’s just so much content and overwhelming me abit… but its lke “clues to find an answer” - and to quote my Improv Teacher (and founder of long-form improv) Charna Halpern, “There is no such thing as a ‘right choice’, just make it a chioce nad make it the right choice”. :) So let’s make some right choices for how to build community and real action in the EdTech world.
Summary + Pointers + Brainstorming Ideas
Every person in the system is being economically or emotionally pushed out of the role where they could help.
Teachers possess the domain knowledge, but they’re exhausted, underpaid, and rarely treated as experts.
Schools desperately need greater efficiency, but have tiny discretionary technology budgets and cannot tolerate another tool that creates more work.
Meanwhile, schools’ financial survival increasingly depends on satisfying parents, yet parents are rarely included in product design either.
That’s not merely a struggling industry. It’s a coordination failure.
EdTech talent is becoming disillusioned. Some people entered from corporate technology without a deep educational mission; now that the money looks worse, they’re leaving.
I need to figure out what to do, what can get people together… what will make them come to an event… and also not drain me from exhaustiona nd effort - mixed in with all my other projects.
Raw Notes:
Everyone in schools is tired
Leaders are going to a few conferences
A lot of schools are struggling in budget cause enrollment is down across the board
Up against the painful economy
Start getting people into a room in a way that feels productive
Software engineers get paid a shitton of money - primarily male-dominated, and childcare is primarily female-dominated. Undercompensated for caretaking. Things you can push off onto minorities and women.
Somewhat plays a role in the products software engineers create
Needs to scale high and quickly.
High margins
So if a school doesn’t have a lot of money - the first thing is the labor that gets cut
Schools understand the economics of labor - 70%
Computer services budget is tiny. All the software companies competing over the tiny software budget that still doesn’t meet the needs of the future
The way of the future is very targeted to bespoke to software with deep domain expertise
Tailoring schools to be more efficient and not asking teachers to put much more investment (attention)
Fractional AI consulting service, deeply embedded in schools - bespoke software component tailored to schools.
Labor efficiency gains and focus. Afords ability to give good advice, not always selling software but expertise - more nimble in AI world. Need to be able to adapt as tech changes. But then schools get someone they can trust - they’re spending all their days figuring this out.
Pooled risk based on similar schools. All using the same fractional AI service
Entire job is to make sure you succeed
Schools are so relational - head of school listens to another head of school. Go talk to this person, I think they’re not going to blow smoke off your ass.
Help you integrate it and don’t regret it.
Getting engineers in the room with teachers should be the focus.
Brightwheel - assembling a team of 10 engineers.
Maybe other people there, interested to hear from educators.
Different age groups and schools.
Engineers shoudl pay teachers
If we can provide childcare and food
LOTS OF TEACHERS ARE PARENTS - THEIR HUSBANDS are making the money that feeds them. Teh luxury of being a teacher is that it provides them childcare.
Evening evnets that provide childcare and food - even pay them for their expertise paid for by companies that want to hear from them.
Easier said than done - but it’s providing a service, consulting to those edtech companies, engineering companies need product insight from teachers.
This is waht she’s trying to do - become an essential - the future is deep domain expertises in consulting.
Once a month or once a quarter
Independent teachers 39 teachers, 150 students.
All relational.
Want teachers in a room, but whats the value add to them
Talk to teams and see who specifically they want to talk to?
Specifically from their platform who they’re trying to get access to
Sales cycle for this is so long, that thesrees a lot of value to get heads of school and decision makers in their room (pay a lot of money to get those people in their room - will spend 1-2 years cultivating a year to sell a $3,000-4,000 piece of software - and once you locked in, your moat is how painful it is to migrate to antohercompany) - long sales cycles.
Initiating the conversations
LIST OF THESE COMPANIES THAT WANT TO HEAR FROM TEACHERS
You want to really focus on finding, both, teachers that are able to articulate what they need + engineers willing to listen and have customer empathy. Risk = very different peopel into a room. If you bring peopel in that can’t articulate things well. Engineers may not find this helpful.
People who aren’t hat curious about perspective of a teacher, teachers may feel they’re condescending
-making sure they’re ready ahead of time - translate it - bring and curated groups - admin, teacher, parent - PARENT
Parents, especially in independent schools… parents are paying for a premium experience (in their mind) - but when you get to 1st grade, paying for something they coudl get for free…. Public schools. Waht you’re competing for is theproduct providing. As an independent school. Premium product?
Engineers are building something for hte school - but experiencing all of the pain points from parents- and students. Etrition in enrollment. The person to cater to is the parent - because the parent is making the buying choices that make it possible for the school to be solvent (school margins are 2-5%)
If you’re not helping a school increase their enrollment, you’re failing that school.
Even a focus group: curation of parents, admins, teachers,a nd engineer working at one of these companies - build pods. Even making a pod of 4 people that are really engagedand interest in this, all in a WhatsApp chat - meetup once a month, have conversations aboutwhats going on this month in your school and work, what questions do you
No-one will come here ifthey’re tired -
If I make this pod, have 3 other people, their backgrounds.
Curate a matchmaking service for people who shoudl be talking.
What can THIS GROUP be?
Part of the issue with teachers is so exhausting
Money, food, childcare -> barriers
A lot of it is remote- so they want to do virtual stuff?
Not how connection happens. Target peopel who live in seattle.
Going to their linkedin, stalkignthem, asing them if they wanna join -
Already have their social - what are they looking for
Potentially meetups that are intended to - for free - help connect teachers to those using AI to train them about tips and tricks how to use it in there classroom
Pair you with someone who is using AI cause you do it with your work -> tutor to train you, listen to your workflow- learn more about the workflow of teachers + teachers start to gain the training. - very helpful. Saying to teachers: let’s improve record keeping. After hours, do it here instead. And learn systems for efficiency. Come here to do recordkeepign with someone who can maybe help how to make it faster.
It’d be fun to have a shared goal of solving one problem that all the teachers agree is a problem for them
Actual problem solving
How do we solve this one problem together?
If we had - instead of a edtech generic meeting - more of a “let’s figure out scheduling”
The value in actually solving problems. You will walk away with your problems solved. Meaningful impact o your life - worth the effort.
Engineers genuinely want to hear problems.
Could go to the Seattle tech conference
Early adopters of AI teachers - “hey you’re special” and/or “someone will tutor you and give you ideas win workspace and integrate it”
- do you want to understand the problems of teachers
Do you want help with ai in your workspace
Admin = labor, expensive, yet they help you solve all of your problems.
Make information at your fingertips more easy to come by - admin not answering and reading though spreadsheets
Social proof - probably at least 10 - 20 ppl join
Exchange numbers -
Get excited
Interviews -
Create a database -
Rotation to watch kids -
Self serve
EdTech right now? People who are in the former-corporate who have moved to EdTech through their experiences trying to get out of edtech. They see the money is not there. Lots of federal/state funding issues. People with technical knowledge, product, building teams… getting the skills, but not money. Truly don’t get the mission for the education. So tehy’re getting out
The most interesitngpeople are teachers who want to get out of hte classroom - not gettin paid enough - want to go beyond teaching
Young teachers looking for opportunities to go beyond the classroom - dont want to be teachers for 30 years, like teh generation before us did
SO try to bring in peopel actually working in childcare, teachers - trying to address and understand waht the problems are = focus groups. Whats going on in your classroom. What products do you want? What can we give you?
What its he problem, then slowly connecting
Marketing, sales, customer account j
Younger, hungry teachers without a family yet - get their perspective (Maybe not seasoned educators)
The thing to be mindful of - early adopters, but more resistance when you try to deploy somthin ig you dont get those voices in .
Easier time tgeting here
Teachers social - elevate teachers perspective
Create events where businesses and business peopel come in and pitch products and teachers give feedback for that. Free pitch of business product and teachers give ideas - free panel . Focus group. Benefit. For the business.
Teacher get mentorship and you coudl do implementation training.
Teachers’ opinions are disrespected in society
So if you can empower teachers and tell them that teachers’ perspectives are crucial, please come share your voice - an opportunity to be respected.
Food + childcare will eventually help.
A room of teachers, if it becomes bigger, what if we do a rotation to take care of kids, whatever. Small group, rotate to make sure the kids are safe.
Lots of marketing and how other events do.
Lots of people are mission-driven. Want to get off the corporate ladder. They are parents and they actually are very invested in making this better for their kids.
Parents and families are a big ocean of problems, along with teachers
Parents and families are so educated about their kids. Tehy want to do sometihng purposeful.
So much info and odn’t know whats right.
But too much time,
Don’t understand how it is to run a school
Unreasonable expectations
Call if their heart rate raises on the Apple Watch and its not recess
After school, food,
Lots of generational gaps
Huge market, not tapped into.
Super labor intensive
Education is not that billion/trillion dollar idea - not capital in a capitalist society
Must be mission driven. All we can do is try to reduce labor while keeping the foucs on the kids.
Your kids deserve labor
Lots of parents have zero time with their kids. Tech parents who just have literally no time. Some kids grow up with grandparents.
Find the people willing to bridge the gap, respect hte teachers is crucial to success.
Kids need more human connection
When children are getting photos taken of them, it’s distracting, disrupting. Tehy’re already performing for you all the time. For your photos.
Until next time, I wish you the motivation and success to search for opportunities around your area. Search and explore: Who is out there giving talks? There are new things happening all of the time.
Find relatable or interesting topics you like and check them out! Maybe even something hosted at a cool venue, if there’s no other reason to go. Let’s see what you can learn and discover not too far from home. 😊
