A large number of schools are still acting like everything could go “back to normal” in education. But what’s normal is now of great concern to trend-watchers and researchers like the Learning Counsel, who are sounding the alarm that things are far from being anywhere near the cultural, economic or technology realities of the pre-pandemic world.

The fact is, getting “back to normal” in most schools would mean the same schedule, grades-by-age batches, and structure of the last hundred years with mild tweaks like social distancing and use of video conferencing. It’s a great legacy, embedded deep in our collective psyche, making change and particularly technology change, very hard. It was also slowly failing even before the pandemic. Luckily, we found a rising tide of innovators from our Digital Transition Survey. We profile those schools/districts as we announce our winners from 2020 in this Special Report.

Transformation is about more than tacking on tech to old organizational structures. It has the potential to affect everything about delivery of learning. We believe this is the key to positioning tech for full effect – how time and space and tech is logistically managed to become a better overall experience for all.