It’s time for the EdTech Market Briefing and introduction to Learning Leadership Vs. Systemic Inequities, presented by Learning Counsel CEO LeiLani Cauthen. In this update, Cauthen calls ‘em like she sees ‘em, aided by the unique research capabilities of the Learning Counsel.

For example, Cauthen calls out the top pressure points experienced by educators, according to the latest Learning Counsel research. “The number one biggest school administrative pressure, and this is also invisible for many people,” says Cauthen, “is space and time use. Students are demanding remote flexibility for almost every single district. This increasing need for time and space flexibility is here, which is resulting in a master schedule, complexity that districts have never had to deal with before.
And then, there’s a ‘you gotta be in the building option,’ because a lot of parents do still want the hands-on science labs, the art labs, the music, and they want to be on the football team, but everything else they want to do virtually, and they want to do it on their own time. They want to do it fully personalized. So, there's a really weird sort of world to try to operate in with your master schedule. That's the number one pressure, and fixing it is the focus on hybrid logistics and the structure.

“In 2019, we were already seeing acceleration of homeschooling at 20 percent annually. And 27 percent of the United States population of an estimated 56 million kids already opted out of traditional public school education. The estimate in 2020 was 33.6 percent had opted out. And it's continuing to accelerate right now, especially where there are mandates.

“The number two biggest pressure is staffing. When we were in Indianapolis a couple weeks ago, the superintendent that spoke that day said she has 84 school bus drivers. She needs 101. So she had to move some of her licensed food service people into driving buses just to keep the school open, because she can't bus just some of the kids and not all of the kids. It's a different level of the equity conversation. So none of the kids are getting hot meals anymore. The really big issue is she's also short of teaching staff. That's true almost everywhere right now. There's a huge shortage continuing to grow. A lot of the baby boomers have opted out entirely and retired early. We also found that one of the things driving that high pressure, this was a January survey this year, is that teachers were feeling overwhelmed, 74 percent were overwhelmed or burnt out. It's hard to be in a hybrid environment.”

You’ll want to watch the video to understand the rest of the pressure points educators are experiencing, and to get the inside story on American education you can’t get anywhere else. Cauthen’s briefing is richly layered with the most extensive research available, and peppered with stories from many of America’s best education minds, told to Cauthen so she can share with you. No one delivers like Cauthen, and your home district is sure to be the beneficiary of all this knowledge.