Top Trends in Education That Publishers and Edtech Companies Should Know

Since the pandemic, the K-12 education sector has been roiled by a host of challenging issues ranging from learning loss and teacher burnout to increasing mental health concerns and a powerful parental choice movement—not to mention the rise of AI.

A new white paper titled The K-12 Education Industry: 3 Megatrends Impacting Educational Publishers by Simba Information, a leading education market research firm and a division of The Freedonia Group, explores these issues in detail.

To learn more about these education trends, I spoke with Robert Berkman, Managing Editor of Simba Information. Read the interview below to learn more about hot-button issues and trends in education that publishers and edtech companies need to know.

How are culture war politics impacting educational publishers?

Culture war politics is putting educational publishers in a very tricky spot, as several politically conservative states such as Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, and Tennessee continue to pass laws that prohibit or place restrictions on the use of certain books and discussions in the classroom on what have come to be called “divisive topics,” mainly around gender, race, and sex. These will force the hand of instructional material providers to make some hard choices. They need to decide whether to go along with these restrictions and either eliminate or modify materials for use in those states; pull out of those markets altogether; or figure out some other approach. For many publishers it means going back to determining their fundamental values and goals, and making decisions that are aligned with those basic principles.

Most recently, some of these restricted topics are being expanded to cover new areas such as how to cover diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), US history and the impact, and even into areas of science such as understanding and solving the growing climate crisis.

What remedy for learning loss is receiving the most attention right now?

Pandemic-related learning loss has been and continues to receive huge amount of attention among virtually all educational stakeholders—not just teachers, but principals, administrators, school boards, states, non-profit educational associations, and providers of educational materials. The potential remedy that is receiving the most attention recently is to help schools select what are called High Quality Instructional Materials (HQIM), which refer to evidence-based curriculum content that is aligned to the relevant standards.

While much of the focus is ensuring high quality in the use of supplemental materials in the classroom, as a high percentage of these materials come from unregulated online marketplaces such as teacher sharing sites, YouTube, and the open Web, it is also being applied to traditional curriculum content such as reading (where it is linked to the emphasis on utilizing a Science of Reading approach) and now to math and science as well.

Since the initial launch of ChatGPT, how has the conversation about AI in the classroom changed?

It has changed dramatically. Initially, when ChatGPT and other generative AI was launched in November 2022, the initial reaction by many school districts was to reject and in some cases ban the use out of concern over student cheating and unauthorized uses. Since that time, however, creative teachers have discovered that there are in fact very useful applications of generative AI in the classroom; among them are for creating highly customized lesson plans for diverse types of students; and developing personalized learning and using it for high-dosage one-on-one tutoring.

However, while these represent some early successes in the use of AI, there remains a whole host of worrisome and unresolved matters. These include teachers’ need for much more AI literacy training and professional development; concerns over student privacy and personal data; and worries over students short circuiting their learning and critical thinking by relying too much on AI summaries to complete assignments and do research. Another concern is that because AI has become de rigueur for educational technology firms to integrate into their products, it is becoming increasingly difficult for schools and teachers to sort through all the options and find the best and most relevant products for their needs.

Access Simba’s white paper on top education trends

Download a free copy of Simba Information’s white paper on education trends in 2024-2025 to learn more about increased scrutiny of curriculum, learning loss remediation, and the role of AI in the classrom.
 

About the blogger: Sarah Schmidt is a Managing Editor at The Freedonia Group, the parent company of Simba Information and a premier international business research company.