The New Research Competition That Could Spark an Edtech Revolution

Another school year has kicked off, and school officials will spend more than $13 billion on technology solutions that claim to work but often fail to generate the desired outcome. The question of whether or not something “works” in the abstract is very different from the question of whether it might work in your district. That’s because education research has historically paid little attention to the sort of implementation variables (such as teacher buy-in, planning time, data interoperability and school culture) that can affect outcomes in the classroom. It’s a dynamic that leads superintendents to repeat an adage that should be familiar to many educators: “a mediocre intervention implemented well is better than a great intervention implemented poorly.” Even the venerable “What Works Clearinghouse,” a division within the U.S. Department of Education that reviews existing research on educational programs, products and practices, offers precious little insight into the myriad ways that technology tools are likely to work—or not—across a range of schools and district contexts.