The following transcript has been edited for readability. Timestamps have been removed and minor transcription errors corrected. Speaker comments and context have been preserved.

Opening Remarks

Rich Portelance

Welcome to the EdGate podcast. Today, we're here to talk about how edtech companies can check all the right boxes to win K-12 contracts, and with me is Maria Slabaugh from MMS Education, and her background is in research. I'll let her give a summary, but we're excited to talk a little bit about how research can help edtech companies to check those boxes. Maria?

Maria Slabaugh

Great. Thank you so much, Rich. I'm very excited to be joining you today. So, MMS Education is an agency that works with nonprofit and for-profit companies, and we're focused solely on the K-12 education market. We've been providing a range of services, like data, marketing, and research, for more than 40 years, and that's a huge asset in terms of our wealth of knowledge and experience that we bring to the table to tackle hard problems and surface big opportunities. So, personally, as you mentioned, I’m the head of our research division; I've been with MMS Education for many years. Prior to that, I was working in a marketing and strategy role for many– across many industries, so I bring all of that experience to the table as well. And so, in our research division, we're able to provide a range of quantitative and qualitative research services, and that important layer of strategic consulting on top of it to make sure outcomes are actionable and align with those strategic goals. I know we'll dive into a little bit more about some specifics about what MMS Education does, but, yeah, that's a quick introduction to myself.

Discussion

Rich Portelance

Well, terrific. Thank you for giving us some background. There's clearly some important concepts there that especially edtech companies, and– I'm– you know, today we're kind of separating them a little bit from publishers, because publishers traditionally have a better sense of that marketplace–they've been there for a long time; they have the people onboard. And if they don't have the people on board, they have the relationships. But newer edtech companies coming into this market really, you know, sometimes– and I've been there, you know, having started my own edtech company back over 10 years ago now, you're a little bright eyed about what you see out there and you think you're going to be able to attack a market, but often, there's this chasm that you don't realize, or these challenges that you don't realize exist that prevent you from winning those contracts, even if your product is fantastic. And so, I think we want to try to, you know, articulate what some of those things are so the viewers can get a better sense of what they might need to tackle within their strategies. 

And, you know, in doing that, we want to, you know, we're going to touch on a little bit of the quantitative and qualitative, and I can give a little bit of background about EdGate. I do want to mention to the audience too that we're going to be having a webinar on this topic with a group of panelists–including Maria and including myself–on April 4th. I'll give more information on the backend of this interview so that you can join–that will be a more detailed conversation. But to jump into today's conversation, I wanted to start off with a question about qualitative research and how can that impact edtech companies looking to gain traction, Maria? 

Maria Slabaugh

Yeah, I think it's a great question, and qualitative research can take, of course, many forms, and figuring out what is the right research and what is most impactful for whatever the challenge or opportunity is is really key to making sure that you're making the best use of your time and resources. I've worked for a lot of startups as well, and I know that it's always a push and pull around speed-to-market and getting something out there, and seeing what the market reaction is against taking that time to, you know, really think through and make informed decisions. So, it's probably not surprising for me to say this, but to me, good research is essential in the K-12 education space. The market is changing rapidly; we hear that all the time, but it feels very much that, right now, in this moment, those uncertainties and changes are really significant. There's a lot going on with buyers and end users–they have a lot of competing pressures–and as you said, even if a market is– a product is amazing, the market might not be ready to receive it or be receptive in the ways that you might think that it is. So, we work with a lot of edtech companies trying to figure out that balance between “go with your gut” to keep things moving forward versus taking, again, that time for those research-informed decisions. 

So, a lot of times when we look at qualitative research, what we're really trying to do is separate that, you know, internal opinions and internal experiences, which are so valuable, from what the market and the participants are saying. So we do things like interviews with experts who have a view of the entire marketplace and can give you a broad perspective, all the way down to the actual end users of products, like the people that you are trying to convince that will be using your product, and, of course, those important decision-makers in between. And we specialize in doing that combination of qualitative–which I think is so valuable–of those opinions, and then rolling it up into trends and insights, so you're not just taking, you know, “This interview said ‘this’, and this one said ‘that’.” Collectively, what do those different inputs tell you about where the market is going, and what those buyers want? 

And then a lot of times we're able to conduct qualitative research that is a bit in-between. You know, quantitative is great because it gives you the numbers so that you feel confident, and sometimes qualitative gets the short end of the stick to say, “Well, it's just, you know, a few interviews, or whatever it may be.” I think the magic is combining enough qualitative that's done right so that you feel the confidence, but you also have that deep insight about what people are actually saying about your opportunity and your product. So, you know, I guess a real quick example: we worked with a company recently–they were trying to enter the U.S. market with an edtech product. They had a great concept–they still do have a great concept–but they didn't really even know how to position themselves, or how potential buyers or end users might react. And so, we were able to design some custom questions, and target the right people, and go deeply into understanding those important questions, and that ended up leading to qualitative insight– quantitative insights, rather. It doesn't always have to, but it led to quantitative insights that were more on the mark to get to the important information that they were looking for. 

Rich Portelance

And that's– I think that's fantastic, and, you know, it brings me back a little bit–I want to give you an example and see, because I think this would be helpful for listeners. Back when… Prior to starting CareerPath, we worked with Valparaiso University, and they had asked us to do some work with their career center–they had a lack of engagement. So, we went in there and we tried to figure out why they had a lack of engagement. So, we did some in-depth interviews with the students, with the professors, and the people in the career center, so that was super helpful. And then, there was a lack of quantitative data. You know, I'd say there were some topline numbers, like, you know, “Okay, well, here's the number of students coming in, and…” you know. So, we had a little bit, but not a ton. 

But, anyway, the metric at the end of the day when we created a program–we created the predecessor of CareerPath–it was a little mobile platform that helped to engage students, and we used some measure within the application itself to compare students to their cohort, so they knew if 87% of their cohort had completed a milestone, then, you know, they needed to get on their horse and get it done. But when we rolled that forward, and we started CareerPath, and we were working with Dartmouth College–which was our first client–they asked us to kind of recreate that for them. We really went on that antidotal information, or that, you know, what we had learned from Valparaiso. You know, okay, here's, you know, here's how successful it was, and now we've had another school ask us, we were all excited, you know, and a little psyched about, “Okay, well, this is a market that's ripe for opportunity.” At that point in time, what would you have recommended to us to do to change the trajectory of– or to change the approach to the marketplace? 

Maria Slabaugh

Yeah, that's, I think, a great example, and when we talk to companies like that who have these great ideas, and they understandably think about the opportunity from their own lens and their perspective of, “Here's what we bring to the market,” but the market has all sorts of stuff going on that's competing for time, and resources, and funding. And so, a lot of times when we hear someone coming and saying, “I've got this idea, what do we think about it?” we could go to a survey, and you would say to people, “Rate on the scale of one to five what you think about this, this, this, and this,” and like, “Do you like that, that, and that?” A lot of times, you end up getting what you are looking for because you're asking very narrow questions. With qualitative, what we really do is kind of understand– maybe– you ask without asking. So, you find a way to say, what are your pain points, what are those opportunities, what are you seeing in the competitive landscape, what do you like about something, and where does something come up short? And then, what you look to do is align what you know about a product that you want to bring to market. Or if it was already out there being piloted, you connect those dots and say, here's the sweet spot–here's the thing that's going to not only make people happy, but have a bigger opportunity for you, because it's going to solve a problem. 

And so, when you come into it from a “Here's my product, let's test that product,” versus “What's going on with that actual decision-maker–their headaches? What's going on with the end user–their needs and what they're looking for?” When you find that sweet spot, often qualitative is essential to unearth the things you maybe hadn't even considered. They might come up with an idea that you hadn't even thought of, but it's perfectly aligned with your product. So, I think it's an example of using qualitative to get at the heart of things that are bigger than just a product questionnaire. 

Rich Portelance

Yeah. And I would definitely recommend, you know, having been in the seat of an entrepreneur, as you're going through fundraising, and, you know, one of the keys that entrepreneurs look at is is the MVP (minimum viable product), you know, here’s the starting point–we want to gather as much feedback as possible, we want to understand how this product addresses a market need, we want to tweak it before we get to a point where we can really go for gathering some paying customers. 

So, you know, there's a couple of different phases there, and if you're fundraising– if you're getting into a seed fundraising round, I would highly recommend, you know, bringing in someone like Maria to get the qualitative research done, because it makes a huge difference. You may understand a lot of antidotal information about the marketplace at that time, but having the in-depth knowledge and the qualitative research makes a difference. So, there's a little plug and recommendation, but, you know, for a company that's more advanced, the other advantage, Maria, it seems like, you know, you know the players in the marketplace because you specialize in education. Can you talk a little bit about that, because I may say I want to get into K-12 and I start to understand it, but, you know, you're going to have a much broader scope and understanding of the players in the industry than I would, as someone just trying to come into the market, right? 

Maria Slabaugh

Yeah, absolutely. And I was just thinking the same thing as you were describing that, you know, MVP process. We worked with companies before who are either looking to enter the market as a brand new company, or with a new product line, or whatever it might be, and we've worked with those movers and shakers in this space. There are definitely districts, names that we all know–I'm not going to name-drop right now, but names we know of when a district makes a move for a product, everyone else pays attention. And we've gone out and done qualitative research where we present that MVP. It could be little sketches, it could be journeys, it could be whatever it is to bring the idea to life, and get that input and reaction. And these are people who also understand the market beyond their own district–they're just wonderful sources of information. And when you gather that up against, again, identifying those pain points, and then also doing some market-sizing, you know, if it's SEL (social-emotional learning) or whatever the type of product is, there's definitely market-sizing data that you can add to the picture to say, these big influencers out there–they like it–the market sizing looks interesting, if you were to go after this piece of it, then you could expect to build on some success. 

And then also, the importance of piloting. So, can you get someone to say yes to a pilot? Can you get out there and gather that data also by knowing, you know, who to go to, how to present an opportunity, get them to give you that additional feedback, and hopefully a thumbs up, or at least give very valuable feedback about the direction you're taking? 

Rich Portelance

So, that's an interesting point, because my, again, anecdotal theory is that there are very few early adopters in education–it's mostly a follower’s market. And that's not a criticism; it's just the fact that, you know, educators in general are extremely busy, and they leverage the learnings of other people in order to assess and to adopt new technologies for themselves. And so, the experience I had at Dartmouth was, we had an entrepreneurial director of the career center who said, “All right, we want to do something new.” That doesn't– in my experience, that doesn't really exist in education too much. So, how would you frame that up for somebody who has an MVP–or maybe a little bit beyond–as they're looking for those early adopters compared to, you know, more of a mainstream– you know, how do you see that market from your perspective? 

Maria Slabaugh

Yeah, that's a great question, and I think the market, with big quotes around it, “the market,” is huge and complex, and what is it really? And so, it depends on what product it is. Let's say, for example, we have been working with a lot of companies right now that want to bring in products that align with science of reading, and that's just such a hot topic, but you really need to know the market down to the state, and sometimes district-level, because you've got legislation happening, so that impacts where you're most likely to find success, you've got districts that have local control versus top-down control of the products, and, you know, what they bring into their districts. Having that knowledge about what's going on in different states, identifying where you're most likely to find interest in success, looking at, you know, the state-level funding–are they funding family engagement products? Are they funding ELL (English language learner) products? 

So, we take a look when we have someone come to us and say, “Where do we think you're going to find the most success?” And then once we say… Let's say, here's the top five states where we think your product's going to have the funding, have the need, have the mandates. And then we say, “Well then, who do we know, and who can we start reaching out to to get feedback on… more on that local level?” And then we say, “Let's whittle it down,” and then we also can help companies. Because I work in the research department–we have plenty of other people at MMS Education–we have the ability to then start to broker those conversations about what might a pilot look like, or just feedback. Like, if you were to go out to market, what might some parameters be for pricing? Like, whatever those big questions are, we kind of look at it from that perspective of where are you most likely to have success, who do we know, and what do we need to ask? And then, it helps kind of, you know, smooth that process as you try to move forward.

Rich Portelance

Yeah. That's really helpful, and that's where, oftentimes, MMS Education and EdGate, you know, kind of come together, because that's where, you know, companies who are trying to approach a market, they need to adopt the standards, they need to align to the standards, and EdGate has similar relationships, so we often kind of cross paths with MMS Education at that point in time as, you know, these are the things that you have to do to gain access to a market, these are the checkboxes that we talked about, right, that's part of the topic here. From your experience, what are some of the key practices that are often overlooked by software creators that inhibit their chances for adoption? It's kind of the other end of this, right? Is, you know, what are you going to do to get adopted? What are the inhibitors? 

Maria Slabaugh

Yeah, I mean, these are things that I think that any business, especially one that's growing and is innovating, goes through, which is speed to market, wanting to move forward, you know, reacting to all the pressures out there, like, “Oh, ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) funding is ending, I need to hurry up and do this thing.” Or not, maybe carefully thinking through opportunity costs. Like any business, if you decide to do this versus that, there's a cost, there's a tradeoff; what are they? And I think having an honest conversation or honest assessment of what your strengths and weaknesses are, where you actually fit in the competitive marketplace, those things are– they feel big to tackle, and I think that's why MMS Education plays such an important role–to break it down and make it so that you can figure those things out. 

But I think number one is, you know, not– maybe taking an honest assessment about your own product, company, and opportunity, and the speed versus thoughtfulness. Having that out of balance is something that I think is understandable, a lot of companies are–and why would they be?–are not staffed to be able to tackle and understand those questions internally, and so having a good partner, having a, you know, someone that can help with that actionable insight, and help you inform the best decision around what opportunity to pursue. So I think that kind of speed and rush against thoughtfulness–finding the right balance–is definitely important for a company to be successful.

Rich Portelance 

Well, often in entrepreneurial circles and some of the the work that I've done, we talk about, you know, “a sharp blade cuts deeper than a hammer,” and what that talks to is, you know, often entrepreneurs want to– or our younger companies, they want to expand to market quickly and they want to get as broad as they can, and the challenge with that is you stretch your resources very thin, it costs money, and, you know, it leaves a lot of failure points. Whereas if you pick a sweet spot, really focus in on that, and sharpen that up, you're going to be able to get much further along and break open a market, and then you have chances to expand. How do you use the research and the services that MMS Education would provide in order to sharpen that blade and to get as deep of a cut as you can? 

Maria Slabaugh

Yeah, I think the sort of life cycle of research whenever you're doing, you know, a market plan, go-to-market, whatever it is you're doing, whatever stage you're in, is sort of the upfront work, which is, much like I was just describing, understanding the market, the personas, like all of that. So, you make your best effort to put together a plan that's informed and thoughtful, then the next step really is the gathering data along the way part–what's that feedback loop look like? Are you doing qualitative and quantitative to, you know, get that feedback from end users, or whoever's testing out your product, or whatever is going on with the market? How are you tracking successes and failures that you're learning, and that you're doing that sort of “fast-fail” mentality of learn, adapt, come back at it again? And then when you hit the right moment in that lifecycle, how are you feeding information back into your product team, your sales team, and your marketing team so that you're saying, “Well, this is what resonated–this is where we're standing out”? How do we hone our, you know, sales strategy, and how is that also being informed by research? 

So I think skipping any of those steps is tough because you're not learning; you're not– it's not a sharp blade, or, you know, you're not making enough cuts to really understand what's going on and how– and to be responsive to that process, and learn along the way. So I think each step in that process has a research component, and it shouldn't be daunting. When you work with someone like MMS Education or EdGate, you know, it's really like that consultative approach to say, “One size does not fit all. How can we take our expertise on how you do each of those things, and adapt it to where you are and where you're trying to go?” 

Rich Portelance 

I would also provide a little bit of a warning to, you know, “put down the hammer” warning, because one of the things that we're seeing is a rapid change of standards in a ton of different states. Literally year-over-year changes that are affecting the marketplace greatly. So if you don't have an understanding of that particular state, you know, make sure you're fully prepared to change, to fix any gaps that exist within your content, because I guarantee, you know, if you're going into a state, most likely, their standards have changed at many different levels or grade levels, so it's hard to keep up. And, you know, even frankly for a company like EdGate–which specializes in standards and doing these correlation services–you know, it's a herculean task. You know, we have web watchers and people out there, like, gathering information all the time and trying to keep us as fresh as possible, and then adding the metadata to the standards to make them as readable as possible and useful, but it's challenging. So I think, you know, having that qualitative, having the quantitative understanding, and then having the right tools in place, you know, and getting your “blade” sharp, as we say, is really critical today. 

Maria Slabaugh

Yeah. I mean, all the research that we've done–no surprise–well, actually I was going to say “no surprise”, but maybe it might be. You know, standards alignment increasingly is the cost of doing business, and when you don't know where you stand on alignment with standards, you're setting yourself up for a lot of challenges because you can't walk into a district and offer a product without expecting one of the first questions to be, “How do you align with state standards?” And if you don't know how to answer that, or if you don't really understand the range of ways to answer that, it's going to be a challenge. So I was just talking to a district in Texas yesterday, and they're one of those states that has seen so much change, and there's a lot of rigidity around the standards when you look at it from maybe the top-down. So you need to understand, with Texas, for example, where do we fit? Do we align with 80% of the standards? And how do they actually– What does that mean in Texas? Where's the room to maneuver around standards? And when I was speaking to this educator yesterday, I got the real story about, you know what, this is what we hear and you need to know that, but actually, in my district, here's the room to play around with, and here's a “supplemental” versus a “core” product, and what does that mean. And so, I think also the high-level information about standards is critical–it's guiding a lot of purchase decisions. And then in other states, you might find it's important to know, but there's more flexibility. If you don't know which state you're talking to and what the situation is, you're going to have maybe a lot of frustrated salespeople who are coming back to you and saying, “I wasn't prepared for this, and you need to answer how you can help.” 

Rich Portelance 

Yeah. And as a matter of fact, I know when we do work with edtech companies, usually the leader in those efforts is a salesperson; as compared to the publishers, it's someone who has been in education, who understands those, you know, has an advanced degree, and really understands the need for standards and has a specialty. So I think there's– the personas are different, right, and, you know, we need to approach them, you know, for ourselves a little bit differently. And they, in turn, need to approach the marketplace in a thoughtful way. So that leads me into kind of what's next: we have our budget cycle coming up for 2024-25, what are you seeing in that marketplace, and what are some insights you could share that might help our audience? 

Maria Slabaugh

Yes, that is what is on everyone's mind is, unbelievably, we're entering another end-of-school-year approach as we move into April and May. So as we look ahead to 2025, I guess if I had to pick maybe three things to focus on–it's hard to pick, but one of them definitely that's on my mind is the ESSER funding cliff. So of course, you know, that's the need to have the ability to request extensions, and to develop district plans, and get things approved–that's coming at the end of September. And so, everything's related to the COVID recovery efforts, and so, right now, a lot of districts are trying to figure out which products are going to make the cut after that happens. So, are you going to be an essential product? Are you on the chopping block? What's retention looking like? Where are there opportunities for new sales and new edtech products? What's going on? So I think looking beyond a bit of that funding cliff drama–which is definitely legitimate, but it's taking up a lot of air and energy–and understanding what that really means for states, for example. Some states are supplementing funding to try to close that gap. Understanding what's really going on is super important, and trying to cut through the noise and make sure that you're keeping, you know, customers if you're in there,  and not missing the boat on when they make those cuts. 

The other thing that's going on, everybody's talking about the “sciences movement”. So I think aligning to evidence-based standards and having data-driven solutions is really important. A lot of the pandemic learning loss backlash has led to a lot of districts wanting that evidence. So if you're proving your worth, you're showing student achievement, and providing the right kinds of evidence and efficacy around your products is super important. It does vary state-by-state, and sometimes, again, district by district, but when you talk about standards, when you talk about assessments, when you talk about all those things that are evidence-based, it really is important to be knowing what matters to your decision-makers and making sure your product aligns with that. 

And then I guess we couldn't talk about K-12 education if we didn't talk about AI, so that is definitely on the top of everyone's minds. It is everywhere–you cannot read an article about education without thinking about AI. So I think especially with edtech products, what is the noise… the signal from the noise–the myth from reality–where can you really make sure you're checking boxes if that's necessary? And adding value where it's important with AI. And that's a great example of how research can really say, “What are the boundaries of AI? What are the expectations? What are the pain points?”, versus the fear factor, and how do you balance AI so that you get people's attention without AI that scares buyers away. 

So I think that separating that myth from reality, I'm really interested to see how that evolves in the coming school year, and how that might affect decision-makers and buyers. 

Rich Portelance 

I think it's important too to have the mindset that you don't talk about the feature–you talk about the benefit. It's easy to say “AI” and everybody, like, their ears perk up and either they cringe, or they're like, “Oh!–” 

Maria Slabaugh

Or they lean in! 

Rich Portelance 

“There's something there. Okay, what could it be?” But, you know, it's really about the end benefit of what it's going to provide to the educator, to the district. So, you know, when you are approaching a market, don't lead with AI–lead with the benefit, because that's what's going to get them, you know, really excited about what you're doing. And then if it's powered by AI, that's great; they understand that, you know, maybe it has some speed or there are some advantages to it. So, that's just kind of my two cents on it, you know, from a marketing perspective, how to approach to win those contracts, you know, because the funding is one piece, but, you know, having all the right talking points and having it, you know, the ability to back it up, and like you say with the research component, you know, you're able to really go in there as fully prepared as possible to win that contract because you'll have the information on what they're looking for, and what's going to resonate–what's winning and what's not winning within their space. 

Are there any other examples of what you see as great opportunities or winning strategies that you want to share? 

Maria Slabaugh

Yeah. I think it does go back to, as you were just mentioning, those pain points–they are many. The pain points that are out there in education right now are really opportunities for solutions, and I think a lot of times companies are coming in saying, “Here's my solution,” like you were just saying. “Now find a problem that it addresses.” And that is not a great approach, but it's understandable. When you really take the kind of the generalizations that are out there in education, you toss them aside, and you say, “Let me actually dig deep and understand what's going on.” It's not, it's… It's complicated in a way, but we try to make it simple. So really boiling down those personas and connecting your products to meet those needs is really the way for success. 

And I think when you combine the qualitative research, the quantitative research, and also the important internal knowledge, that's another thing that we do; we don't discard the people working in a company who have, you know, the blood, sweat, and tears that have gone into designing products; that's valuable also. We hold internal focus groups with stakeholders to pull that information out. 

But I would say the one thing that I see all too often is the actual voice of, whether it's the– sometimes it's students'–youth voice–like, what do they think about your product? It's the voice of the educator; it's the voice of the administrator. What are they really feeling, and how can you address that? And that's the thing that we focus on, is no generalizations. Whether it's the company we work with, we customize things to understand what their opportunities and needs are, and then connect it to the marketplace for what they're really looking for. So, the voice of the customer is so important; aligning it to pain points–not just features–we have to focus on those benefits. 

Rich Portelance 

And that it was interesting what you just said about the internal audience, you know, understanding the people on your team; there may be some insights there that, you know, you as the head of sales, or you as the CEO, or, you know, someone in charge, may not understand. And so, you know, digging into that a little bit is really interesting. I never really considered that, Maria, but I think, you know, that was a great– 

Maria Slabaugh

It's usually valuable. Yeah, when we start engagements, we will talk to those heads of sales, and marketing and product teams, and the founder, and whoever it is, and we also connect the dots, because if a company fundamentally doesn't have either the skills, or interest, or mandate, or whatever it is to pursue a certain thing, it's better to be self-reflective and know that, and then focus on those strengths, and focus on the combined opportunities. So, you know, it might be nice to go chase AI, but if at your heart, you're not really an AI business and it's not what you're really about, then don't go there, like you don't need to. 

And so we sometimes, you know, the stakeholder interviews are so important, because we're that third party, we have the expertise like you mentioned in the market, we know how to ask certain questions that maybe haven't gotten teased out in the product development process, or the planning, or whatever it may be, so I think that's a step– You know, you were asking earlier about missteps or missed opportunities, I think that's a huge one is that self-reflection, and we enjoy doing that with the companies we work with. 

Rich Portelance 

It's funny, the upcoming ASU-GSV (Arizona State University and Global Silicon Valley) Conference–which is in San Diego–a lot of people will attend that conference–they're having a specific show just for AI, and, you know, there's like, you know, over a thousand vendors signed up already; it's crazy. But, you know, everybody wants in on that game, and, you know, I look back at what EdGate has done and I think we've been using AI components for five or six years and we just never talked about it because it never was a topic–it didn't matter–it was just, you know, a technology component or something that you did to speed some results that we wanted to see from our taxonomy, and being able to do some alignments in the background quicker. And all of a sudden, you know, we have to kind of, oh, turn on the switch and say, you know, put the neon light up and say, “Oh, we have AI here.” So, almost like the cost of entry these days. But is it that important? You know, and I think that's what you help to reveal. 

Maria Slabaugh

Absolutely. So when you talk to, let's say, an administrator, or a chief technology officer, whoever it is, they're going to have a very different view on AI than an educator is. And I think it's all too tempting to say, “Oh, educators are technology-resistant, and they don't want to be taken out of the equation, and they don't want their own abilities to be, you know, to have AI take over whatever those things are.” That's easy to say, but the reality is much different. 

At the end of the day, they're looking to serve students, meet them where they are, customize whatever they're doing to reach students, and AI can, of course, help with that in the right form, but what does that really mean, and what's the– you know, what's the line between educator and AI? What are they looking to have offloaded? What do they want to retain? And you don't know that until you talk to them. You don't know what it means to aid with grading, or whatever your tool does. So, understanding that pain point as we've been talking about all along is essential, because the opportunity is there, but if you miss the mark by going a little “this” way or a little “that” way, or a little– and you keep yourself out of the market, it's something that you could have known–that could have been research-informed–and it can not only create those opportunities, but avoid some of those barriers and missteps. 

Rich Portelance 

Fantastic. From your perspective, because we're talking about, you know, checking all the right boxes, and we talked a lot about how quantitative research can be utilized for the client-side, we talked about how it could be used internally to gather quantitative– or, I guess there could be qualitative too, right? It can be both–on internal teams, and how important that is. Do you feel that newer edtech companies are aware of the space and the need to do things like alignments and understand standards? Or do you think there's a misperception or lack of understanding about some of those best practices? 

Maria Slabaugh

Yeah. I mean, I think there are a couple of things: one, I would say, is there– I think generally, there is perhaps not an appreciation of how important they–standards–are. Because it has evolved so quickly, there's a lot to keep track of, and there's only so much an individual company, especially a startup, can keep track of. So I think it's moving rapidly, and the other thing is that it's really complex, and you need support–it's not something that a company could just figure out on their own. 

So I think it's understandable–it's rapidly changing, it's complex, and it might be easy to say, “Well, our product is just doing this one thing. I don't need to worry about that. We're not a core– whatever, we can just slip in,” and I think that's increasingly not the case. There's much more rigor around what is being utilized in classrooms and by districts, so it's ever-evolving and rapidly changing, so it's important to keep an eye on that because it will be a quick “no”. These RFPs that are being pumped out by school districts these days, the rigor behind what they're asking for, it used to be if it was a smaller product or smaller purchase, it didn't matter, but we're seeing the rigor around that increase tremendously, and if you're not able to answer those questions, and get through their process, and, who knows, maybe they're using AI to evaluate RFPs these days, it's entirely possible, you might not make the cut; you might not check those boxes, and you're going to… It's something you perhaps could have done and would regret, versus getting out ahead of it with that confidence. 

Rich Portelance 

That's an interesting point. I hadn't thought about that, but it's true. Similar to a resume process when you're applying for jobs, a lot of the candidates are just smoked right out by the AI engine and, you know, they could be a perfectly good candidate, but there's some piece missing. And, you know, similarly, you know, even if it is reviewed by a human, if you're missing a component, certainly an AI engine will just, you know, smoke it out. But, you know, if a human sees that there's fields missing or something that's short, you know, you're going to quickly get swept away because there's too much competition within the space. 

Maria Slabaugh

You might not get the feedback either. Some districts are good about giving feedback, like, “Here's where you were missing.” If you have a good relationship, you might hear, “Oh, here's this and resubmit,” but you might not, and so I think that not knowing that information–that lack of information–could be really daunting. Whereas, again, if you go in knowing things like standards you must have, and it's, you know, got to check that box, you'll be much more confident and successful with getting through that process. 

Rich Portelance 

I would imagine a company like MMS Education has familiarity with what's coming up in terms of different RFPs too, right? 

Maria Slabaugh

Yeah. The adoption cycles that are going on, the new standards that are coming out, it is something that requires that eye on what's going on in the market now, but also that view of the future. And, like, especially I mentioned the science of reading earlier, there's all this legislation happening; what does that really mean? What's the timeline? When do these things happen? And when do you need to be prepared? It could be now, or it could be three years from now, and you need to know it so that you focus on the things that you've got to address now, but that eye towards the future is really important so that, you know, find yourself three years down the road, oops, we should have invested in this and focused on that and we didn't, and now we're out. 

Rich Portelance 

Boy, that's a real competitive advantage to have that insider knowledge, you know, someone on your team that can bring about that industry expertise, that's invaluable. I know that, you know, EdGate has been around for a long time, and I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention, you know, some of the tools that we're using today, one of which is–and you and I have spoken about–is ExACT. And we just launched a new feature within ExACT, and, you know, I guess for the audience's sake, ExACT is an alignment tool, that's where it started off is, you know, saying you can have this set of content that you upload, you can have a specific set of standards, and you can do the alignment, and the tool will manage that process, but we built a new feature so that people can view standards right in line within the tool, which is really helpful. 

You know, they can drill down and see the benchmarks, the sub-benchmarks, and everything that goes into the standards, and still manage their content. But one of the biggest features is the Gap Analysis, so if you're saying, “I have fourth grade math and I have it for Texas,” but now I'm trying to go out for the other, you know, 49 states or 50–or 51 if I include Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. as, you know, kind of quasi-states in this particular example–you know, I can start to understand how many states directly align, and then it'll show me those gaps along the way, and, you know, they'll get larger and larger over time with some of the states, and then I could fill those gaps with new content that's required, right? So that's a pretty specific process. Quantitative research is much the same, right? It's, you know, you're creating that measure, and you're kind of, in some way, showing the gap within the space so that the edtech company can fill that gap in order to get the contract, or at least be a viable candidate, right? 

Maria Slabaugh

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, a couple of things I would comment on–I think the Gap Analysis is so important, and also understanding the requirements of the market. Like, for example, yeah, I keep picking on Texas because I think it's so interesting the way that they've approached things. I was talking to a different administrator decision-maker last week, and she was telling me how a product that only covered K through two–she loved the product. You know, she said it was wonderful, you know, the teachers were thrilled with it, but they had to get rid of it because the new standards required it to cover K through three, and they hadn't adjusted and adapted accordingly. 

Similarly with standards, you know, we're looking at– the quantitative sometimes is helpful, because there might be a standard–let's just say that your product meets 70% of the standards. Well, do you know if that district or that state mandate is that it has to be at least 50%, so you're good? Does it have to be 75%, so you've got a gap that you need to address? Like, what's the actual story going on? And that data is also, it is just one piece, but so important. And then when you think about, you know, how you use a BI (business intelligence) plan, a go-to-market plan, a sales lead plan to kind of score leads and things like that, well, if you're meeting the standards and you've got other factors that are positive, then that lead might bubble to the top. And so, I think not only knowing where you sit with the standards is an important piece, but also the other factors that say, you know, where do we– where could we find the most success? Where do we have a gap that we need to address before we go and go after that lead? You don't want to waste an opportunity or a contact if you're going to end up with a, “Oh, we really like you, but sorry, you missed that important thing.” 

Rich Portelance

Yeah. I know there's a number of states now that are requiring third-party reviews to ensure, you know, adoption of their standard, which I– you know, it's an extra step for companies, and I get that. I mean, it ensures that alignment, which is really good and that's valuable, but it's unfortunate that, you know, there's that added cost for the edtech companies. But, you know I guess if you win contracts, then you'll be smiling at the end of the day. 

But from my discussions with other industry leaders, it seems to me that a few states–without naming the states–have gotten a little bit out over their skis in terms of such rapid changes, that they are having a real hard time to manage the process, right, because, you know, they're starting to go a little too quick, you know, cycles are coming up, deadlines are coming up, they're not quite ready to make assessments and to enforce what's going on. Do you see kind of the same thing happening? 

Maria Slabaugh

Yeah, certainly. You know, again, like, I keep mentioning we talked to a lot of districts, and I was talking to another curriculum director the other day, and we were chatting about the fact that her state had that list of acceptable materials, and it took forever, they promised that it's coming, it's coming, they finally produced– the state produced their sort of, you know, approved materials list, and then there was some backlash because then when it got into the hands of, you know, down to the district level, the school, and the classroom level, there was some, you know, unhappiness with the selection. And then there was a backpedaling, which was to say, “Well, this is not the only list, but if you want to use a different material, or technology, or whatever it is, you need to prove to us ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’ to have us say it's acceptable.” And so knowing what's really going on and knowing that, you know, if you didn't know that, you might say, “Well, we're not on that list, and it's too hard to get on it, and we can't even do it.” But if you know that there's a back door, and if you build those champions at the, you know, at the influential level, and then you can say, “Well, if we prove this, this, and this, then, you know, you can put our name forward,” then there's a way to get on that list. 

And then once you're on that list, and you can go to other districts and say, “We got on that list,” then there's a path in. So I think that nuance of what's going on in the market–and it is evolving like, monthly, daily, maybe, you know, it's always changing with different legislation and different rules, and things that are getting put out at the state level. 

Closing Thoughts

Rich Portelance

So, let's– I want to get some closing thoughts, and so if you had to pick one or two things that that you think, all right, well, we've talked about a lot, and if people weren't listening or if they wanted a summary, what are the two things that they need to do to win and check a few of the boxes, Maria, from your perspective? 

Maria Slabaugh

Yeah, I guess I would say, first of all, repeat after me, which is– it's not that I can't afford research for my company; it's that I can't afford not to do research. And I'd like to acknowledge that research can be expensive–it can take a long time–but it doesn't have to be some big, daunting thing. So just starting to say, “How can we incorporate qualitative or quantitative research in any form into the way that we do business?” 

Like, you must start doing that. There's a lot of customer feedback you could be gathering; there's a lot of internal information that you could be gathering, and your customers who are fans you can be gathering. And the other thing is, you know, really keeping an eye on the market. And as we've been talking about you– you need help to do that, and who can you turn to that's a trusted source to say, “What are the essential things to focus on? There's a lot of noise out there, and how can I just start monitoring the market movement? 

And then monitoring through research what's going on with my own product and our opportunities.” And so, it's like, you know, research first, and research, when I say that, includes what EdGate provides; it is data and information that informs decisions and provides actionable insights. What can you do to make that part of your mandate for your business and how you operate? So, starting with everybody can do something, where do you begin? And using that information to make more informed decisions.

Rich Portelance

Fantastic. And, Maria, if people wanted to get hold of you, would it be okay to include your information in the notes below, and–

Maria Slabaugh

Yeah, absolutely. 

Rich Portelance

–we want to give people a little heads up how they– what the best way to contact you is. 

Maria Slabaugh

Yeah, absolutely. You know, MMSEducation.com is our website; we're on all the socials as well. You can reach out to me directly at mslabaugh@MMSEducation.com. One of my absolute favorite things is to talk to companies and take on those really challenging, but really exciting opportunities. I love nothing more than the problem that no one else thinks that they can figure out, because I know with MMS Education, we enjoy that collaboration and teasing out from stakeholders what is the real potential for any business to be successful in the K-12 space, so I’m happy to talk to anyone about what's going on and how research can be a part of that success.

Rich Portelance

Well, thank you, and, you know, EdGate would like to acknowledge MMS Education and Maria Slabaugh–we appreciate your partnership–you're one of the quality partners that we have, you know, over the last 26 years we've been operating. I know you guys have been in business for a long time as well, and as you said at the beginning of the podcast, you've been in the research space for your entire career, so this is not something that you're coming into fresh–you have a deep background, and we really appreciate your insights today. 

Maria Slabaugh

Great, thank you, and same with EdGate. We've enjoyed our partnership, and also just really appreciate this opportunity to talk about research. I could talk about it all day long because it is a very dynamic and exciting space, but we appreciate the opportunity to talk today.

Rich Portelance

Well, on that note, April 4th will be the upcoming webinar. Maria will be there, myself, Conni Francini from Clarity Consulting, and Gina Faulk, the general manager of EdGate, will all be on the podcast. We'll be talking about how to make the cut in K-12 in 2024-2025. Please join us. The information is below. Thank you, Maria. Have a great day. 

Maria Slabaugh

Thanks, Rich.