Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2026 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “What rules should govern the uses of digital technology in schools—and who should set them?” Learn more.
It’s understandable why state education leaders don’t want to touch the edtech debate with a ten-foot pole.
After years of schools buying seemingly every new technology under the sun, the backlash is here. Parents are (rightfully) worried about how much time their children spend staring at screens. Teachers are exhausted by the sheer number of products they’re expected to use—and train students to use. Policymakers are responding with proposals to restrict technology in classrooms, and the edtech industry is watching nervously to see what comes next.
For a state chief, there’s very little political upside to wading into this conversation. Say something positive about technology, and you risk looking out of touch with parents and educators. Push back against sweeping bans, and you risk being labeled a defender of the very industry people are frustrated with.
Regardless of where you fall on the “tech is good” versus “tech is bad” continuum, decisions about technology in classrooms are being made every day, whether state leaders engage or not. If states don’t take an active role in shaping those decisions, someone else will.
Chiefs don’t have to be champions of technology. They have to be champions of excellent instruction. Right now, that means taking responsibility for the role technology plays in classrooms.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
1. Start with the academic vision, not the technology.
The biggest mistake we can make is treating edtech as its own strategy, separate from the work of improving teaching and learning.
We’ve ended up in the current edtech predicament in part because technology decisions have become disconnected from academic strategy. IT teams, multilingual learner leads, special education directors, and curriculum leaders are often making purchasing decisions independently, while vendors are eager to sell them the next solution. The result is a patchwork of tools that may each serve a purpose but don’t necessarily add up to better instruction.
Strong state leadership should start with a clear vision for what excellent instruction looks like in literacy, math, and other core subjects. The state’s chief academic officer should be in the driver’s seat, bringing teams across the agency together to make sure technology decisions support that vision.
Take literacy, for example. Say your vision is that every student reads authentic, grade-level texts and has opportunities to write and speak about the ideas in those texts.
To make that vision a reality for every kid, we have to get specific about the support students and teachers need. Maybe multilingual learners need help building the vocabulary to access those texts. Maybe students struggling to decode multisyllabic words need targeted practice to read them accurately and fluently.
These are specific instructional needs that technology might help address.
So when a vendor comes knocking with a product promising to revolutionize reading instruction, you know what you’re looking for. You’re interested in tools that address those needs, not a product that wants to replace your core curriculum with an entirely different approach to reading.
2. Don’t wait for perfect evidence. Build it.
Once you’ve identified where technology might add value, the next step is to test that hypothesis.
We worry that our response to the edtech backlash will be to swing too far in the other direction: demanding that every product come with years of peer-reviewed research before we even consider putting it in a classroom.
This is no knock on evidence; we should absolutely expect vendors to demonstrate that their products improve student learning. But many emerging technologies don’t yet have that evidence base. States have an opportunity to help build that evidence through small, carefully designed pilots in real classrooms.
Consider our literacy example. If a state sees potential for technology to help multilingual learners build vocabulary and access grade-level texts, here’s how it might test that idea:
- Start small. Recruit a handful of districts willing to test a few promising tools. Invite vendors to participate and be clear from the outset about what you’re trying to learn.
- Learn from what happens in classrooms. Give teachers time to use the products and provide feedback. Look at student learning, and pay attention to what teachers are experiencing, too.
- Make decisions based on what you learn. Stop using tools that aren’t improving student learning. Work with vendors to refine products that show early signs of effectiveness but still need improvement. For tools that are delivering results, figure out what it would take to bring them to more schools.
When we were working in Louisiana, we piloted everything from curriculum to professional development to high school pathways. We started with a handful of classrooms to understand what was working and what needed improvement, both in the materials themselves and in how teachers were using them. We took what we learned, made adjustments to the materials and implementation support, and then expanded to more schools.
We can take the same approach with edtech, identifying tools that could support a state’s academic vision and testing them in classrooms before making large-scale investments.
3. Use what you learn to curate the marketplace.
Once states have identified which tools work, they can make it easier for districts to buy those tools and harder for ineffective products to keep finding their way into classrooms.
If a state has piloted vocabulary tools with multilingual learners and identified which products improve student learning, it can use those findings to create a vetted list of tools that districts can easily purchase and implement. States can also use their purchasing power to push vendors to improve their products and better meet schools’ instructional needs.
As we often say at Watershed, the goal is to make the right choices, the easy choices: Give vendors a reason to build what schools actually need and help districts choose tools that improve student learning.
State leaders need to own this.
Technology will continue to evolve, and the debate over its place in classrooms isn’t going away. There will always be another product promising to transform education, another concern about screen time, and another round of calls for more or less technology in schools.
State leaders don’t need to have all the answers about where technology is headed. But the best leaders know what they’re trying to accomplish for students—and take responsibility for making sure technology helps get them there.
