The National Superintendents Roundtable published a report calling on tech vendors to get out of the way during the pandemic and “Just Stop It.”
COVID-19 has unleashed a tsunami of work for school superintendents as they distribute food to students, implement distance learning, and prepare for a different fall school environment. What’s not helping, they say, is a flood of sales calls from technology vendors offering to help.
The Roundtable surveyed its members on this issue and the responses, in a report entitled Just Stop It!, reveal a deep vein of irritation with marketing campaigns aimed at schools during the pandemic.
A press release detailing the study’s findings was published in 142 outlets in a matter of hours, ranging from Dow newsletters and Yahoo Finance to publications from Nevada to Pennsylvania. These outlets hold a potential audience in the millions. Very detailed accounts of the study were also published by Brian Bradley in Education Week and Dian Schaffhauser in The Journal.
The complete report on the study’s findings can be found here.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
A bunch of ugly, money sucking vultures. Ed-Tech’s commercials hitting the air over the last few months have increased in volume AND in stirring fear in parents. I love the MUTE button on my remote.
key strategy: fear, fear, fear
SETDA (State Education Technology Directors Association)- an organization of public employees funded by Gates, propagandizing for tech.
They wont “stop it” because they see the current situation as a promotional opportunity.
like David Coleman after the Parkland high school shooting.
Of course, it’s unethical and grotesque behavior but when did that ever stop such folks?
The “Stop It” survey is interesting, but there is more to this marketing problem and some of the survey respondents may be involved. I am referring to The Education Research & Development Institute (ERDI), a marketing platform for vendors, currently offering school administrators 44 “solutions” to Covid-19. https://www.erdius.org/erdi-solution-provider-covid-19-offers.html
Since 2018, members of ERDI, from 162 school districts, have participated in the perks offered by 25 ERDI “experts” who “provide overall expertise and thought partnership to our members.” These “education experts and leaders hold ‘office hours’ for personalized consultations with school administrators during Institutes.” Of these experts, only two have any experience as superintendents, and that was before they became marketers of products for ERDI. These experts serve as intermediaries who connect members who are educators with members called “Solution Providers” who are vendors.
ERDI’s Solution Providers are representatives from 87 companies who hope to get sales from their “office hour” meetings with school district leaders. These meeting happen during The Institute Experience, a fancy name for sales conferences normally held several times a year.
If you have been to a professional conference and seen commercial exhibits, ERDI is a variant with nothing but buying and selling products and with perks for school administrators who attend and in one role: as potential buyers. School administrators get the benefit of having a public record that says they were attending an educational R&D institute when in fact they were being wined, dined, and subjected to marketing pitches and meetings with vendors who hope for sales, or at minimum some ideas for product improvements and marketing pitches.
ERDI recruits members from district administrators who can authorize purchases, especially Superintendents and CFO’s. ERDI evolved from an earlier scandal-plagued organization.
See some of the history at https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/?s=ERDI
and https://www.salon.com/2019/09/20/school-leadership-disaster-private-companies-work-an-insider-game-to-reap-lucrative-contracts_partner/
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In my experience here in NY about 70 miles or so north of NYC, school boards, superintendents, district and building level admin, and a majority of teachers SWOON over Ed tech and their vendors offerings. There is ZERO demarcation between research and what these vendors proclaim when it comes to the above people. It’s like a sad theater of used car salesman playing on the dupes and morons of society. When I bring these things up, like how all the “research” vendors push forward is produced by the Ed tech industry I get blank stares and when folks are feeling defensive and on their game they burp up canards like “well it’s inevitable so we should just learn it!” Ah!! The myth of technological inevitability!
Anyway, Ed tech seems to have won pretty much from where I’m sitting.
When it’s all said and done, it will be teachers and administrators who sold out the shop. We can’t get mad at corporations for doing what corporations do, which is find everything that isn’t bolted down and try to turn a profit off of it. They are very predictable. Lack of ability to predict and perceive a bit in advance on our part is, well…our fault for being so dumb.
With all those superintendents understanding that their jobs entail a great deal more complexity than shopping for tech products, it makes me wonder how to get one of them to replace the superintendent I have to work around, a close associate of billionaire Eli Broad who thinks his only responsibility is to buy more tech products and consultants. Los Angeles is very unfortunate to have Austin Beutner. Well, at least with all those good superintendents out there, maybe there’s hope — unless he bankrupts the district before we get rid of him.
With re to Laura Chapman’s comment above, historically, ERDI reportedly paid superintendents to meet with school vendors. It may have changed its business model recently?
Susan Enfield, who is listed as being on the National Superintendent’s Roundtable report, was reportedly an ERDI supe. https://www.knkx.org/youth-education/2018-08-14/why-are-top-school-officials-from-washington-getting-paid-to-meet-with-tech-companies
Hard to say no when your boss shares a “promising product or service.”
I doubt ERDI is the only firm with this history.