This question lay at the heart of the discussion between David Saleh Rauf from EdWeek Market Brief, and Libby Hills and John Soleanicov – Co-Leads of our Learning Schools portfolio.
In their interview, they discussed their new model for assessing the quality of EdTech products and aiming to build an evidence base, the reasons why there continues to be a lack of evidence in the EdTech marketplace, and how attitudes are shifting in the sector.
They found that conducting research can be difficult for education companies as it can be costly and complex, and many organizations don’t know where to begin in the evidence-assessment process. To combat this, Libby and John used an existing framework from the ‘Every Student Succeeds Act’ to create an assessment methodology—and it’s already seen the uptake of evidence increase across partners in the education sector.
When asked if education companies are becoming more concerned about providing evidence, John observed that there’s a big education ecosystem with “different players facing a different set of incentives and parameters.” People are certainly beginning to talk more about the need for evidence and an evolution – although slow – is taking place in the education sector.
Read their full interview in EdWeek Market Brief to learn about industry reactions to the new assessment for evidence and the lessons learned during the process.