Are principals ready to negotiate with some of tech’s savviest sales teams?

I began my career with the NYC Department of Education (DOE) as a student-teacher in Alphabet City. The setting, a struggling inner-city public school comprising 86% minority students, forced me to be aware of classroom inequities. Just four years out of a NYC public high school myself, I was astounded by the vast differences in technology between schools — virtually every system at East Side Community was different and generally inferior to what I had used as a student.

Upon shifting to the DOE central offices, I was able to dig deeper into the why of this problem. Principals have significant purchasing autonomy. This freedom, though important, has left them increasingly vulnerable to exploitation by education software companies. Principals, generally career educators, struggle to both identify effective products and procure efficiently priced licenses. The total cost of software ownership is often ambiguous, dependent on usage, onboarding, bundling, etc. Given the time, resources and specific expertise needed to thoughtfully unpack these decisions and negotiate terms, principals are at a serious disadvantage. The ultimate stakeholders, teachers and students, pay the price as ballooned software expenses leave less for discretionary spending. Underprepared schools are punished twice with inferior software and diminished resources.

Principals occupy unique positions as leaders of one of society’s fundamental organizational units. I believe there is a massive opportunity for value creation through empowering them as software purchasers. The pandemic has only accelerated the education software needs of each school and now more than ever our principals need support to successfully negotiate with some of tech’s savviest sales teams.

In fact, a survey conducted by The Technology for Education Consortium, a non-profit organization founded to provide greater transparency surrounding the procurement of Ed Tech across the U.S., revealed a staggering 20% variation on software prices charged to school districts. This 20% variation amounted to almost $1.7 B of the estimated $8.3 B software expenditures back in 2015. In most cases, these variations were due to “random discounts” added to district contracts. As software expenditures continue to increase, the need for price-sharing practices across school districts becomes all the more important.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a platform for K-12 districts to streamline the purchasing of education software in schools nationwide? A system that enables the effective vetting, pricing and reviewing of products will help bring equality back to the true stakeholders — our teachers and students.