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A few weeks ago, we published what educators said about the EdTech industry in their own words. The response was significant enough that we went back to the data.
This time we're going a little deeper by looking beyond what educators had to say about the industry in general, and get their perspective on a collection of specific market segments and the key operators therein. We asked educators to rate specific providers in SEL, assessment, student information systems, and curriculum and then asked what those providers are missing.
While the first big question centered on what educators feel about the industry, the second line of inquiry asks for specifics. That’s where it gets interesting.
Over 280 U.S. educators responded: Classroom teachers, building administrators, district administrators, special education teachers, counselors, instructional coaches. Representing the full K-12 spectrum, we heard from educators across every region in the country.
Here's what they said.
SEL: The Integration Problem Nobody's Solving
The SEL category has a lot of providers competing for a lot of mindshare. Educators are familiar with most of them: Second Step, Character Counts, Leader in Me, RULER, Character Strong, Panorama Education, and several others all showed up in this survey with meaningful response counts.
The ratings clustered tightly, with every provider landed between "Good" and "Excellent" when educators who knew them made a judgment. While nobody failed the perception test, nobody dominated, which may be of some concern for operators in this specific segment.
When the field is this compressed, aligning to unmet needs becomes the real differentiator. And when we asked educators what SEL providers are getting wrong, what they are missing, two things came up more than anything else.
First: Implementation. Not the curriculum itself but the rollout. One assistant principal in Massachusetts put it plainly: "I think the best programs are going to really invest in training their educators." A teaching assistant principal in the same state said the same thing from a different angle: "The SEL curriculum can really only happen if teachers are trained and prepared to meet the needs of the content."
As a general rule, teachers aren't rejecting SEL, but they’re asking for supporting infrastructure to actually use it.
Second, and this one surprised us: SEL for educators themselves. Multiple respondents across roles and grade levels actually named teacher wellbeing as a gap the SEL category is almost entirely ignoring. One elementary teacher in Virginia described the core ask in a simple way: "An SEL curriculum with all materials prepped." She was referring to a program that requires significant physical prep before each lesson. "There are a million things you need to print and cut in anticipation of lessons and it is ridiculous."
The companies building SEL for students are largely not building SEL for the people who deliver it, which is both a product problem and a messaging problem.
Assessment: The Data That Doesn't Travel
i-Ready, Renaissance Learning, NWEA, IXL, and Amplify all showed up with meaningful ratings here. IXL was the most-rated provider in the entire survey, with 213 educators weighing in, a signal of how thoroughly it has penetrated the market. Curriculum Associates (i-Ready) earned the highest share of Excellent ratings in the category at 34 percent.
But the unmet need that showed up repeatedly across every provider had nothing to do with the assessment itself. Instead, it has to do with what happens after.
"I watch so many teachers know how to find the data, but don't know what to do with it." That's a student services coordinator in Louisiana describing not one platform but all of them.
A special education teacher in Missouri: "i-Ready is the best that we use." And then, without pause: "There's a lot of life skills content that is missed in this education sector." This suggests that the tool is good, but the scope of its use isn't wide enough.
A classroom teacher in Texas made the gamification critique that probably lives in the back of every product team's mind: "It's okay to 'gamify' a little, but too much makes kids just click through. Also, having every question look like a standardized test can be so boring for kids."
And, a 20-year veteran elementary teacher in Massachusetts made an observation the industry would do well to take seriously: "For students in grades K–3, all computerized assessments should be given either one-on-one or in a small group setting only in order to get a more accurate picture of what the student really knows. Students often just click through the questions if they don't understand what is being asked. The BEST data that is the most meaningful in supporting my instruction is when I administer assessments one-on-one with a child. You learn so much from sitting with them and really listening to their thinking. This is something that cannot be assessed through the computer."
What we find interesting is that this isn’t a fringe opinion, but instead a methodological observation from someone who's done both. Success for companies in the assessment category is measured by scale and market share. It seems that there's tension between these two.
SIS: Everyone Wants One Platform and Nobody Has It
Student information systems are the category that generates the most operational frustration in schools. This doesn’t equate to high rates of failure, as most earned a “Good” ranking, but clearly educators experience a meaningful degree of friction with these systems.
Skyward drew the highest concentration of Poor ratings in the category, while PowerSchool, the most-rated provider, carries specific complaints about reliability, grades disappearing, bugs, and accessibility issues.
The dominant theme wasn't about any single platform; fundamentally, this category isn’t delivering on the promise of a unified platform.
One building administrator in Florida: "Would love one system to cover it all. I know that is a pipe dream."
A middle school teacher in Texas: "If there could be one program for all student data — grades, attendance, discipline, IEPs, 504s, BIPs, etc. — it would be great. Switching back and forth between apps feels clunky and inefficient."
An instructional technology coach in Illinois: "It would be great if they all provided a way for families to view work and grades within the online system."
Nobody in this category asked for more features. They asked for fewer products. The SIS market has built a fragmented ecosystem and educators are living with the consequences of that every day.
Here’s another interesting insight. An instructional coach in Illinois offered what might be the most pointed summary of what the category needs: "Intelligent dashboards or alerts that synthesize academic, behavioral, and SEL indicators to help educators identify and support at-risk students proactively."
This educator’s voice has spoken to the product capacity that educators desire, but it seems that the industry has yet to deliver.
Curriculum: The Differentiation Gap Is Real
The curriculum category had some of the most specific and sustained feedback in the entire survey, which is important for companies in this segment to act on.
BrainPop led all providers in Excellent ratings at 39 percent, while Newsela and Scholastic followed closely. What those three have in common: most educators know them, and most educators who know them have a reasonably clear sense of what they do and for whom.
The unmet need that ran through nearly every curriculum response, however, was differentiation. While the industry uses this as an SEO keyword or a presentation buzzword, it seems that this kind of daily challenge is being addressed by the industry in words only, not in deeds.
A reading and dyslexia specialist in Colorado: "Most of these products assume most students are on grade level and don't offer teachers support for struggling learners that is practical and based on good science."
A classroom teacher in Michigan, with real specificity: "Why aren't companies providing curriculum with differentiation? Could they also provide a special education version of the curriculum? We are receiving third grade curriculum that is asking students to write a narrative when they can't even write a sentence."
A math coach in California: "Curriculums should not replace teachers. There should be more PD and research given to teachers and in-depth discussions and work around the standards so teachers understand student thinking and development better."
And one classroom teacher in Massachusetts, who spent more words on this survey than almost anyone else, summarized the curriculum category's central failure in a single sentence: "Teachers are not the barrier, they're the bridge. But we're exhausted, and we need less to do more."
Two other threads worth noting.
Science of Reading alignment came up repeatedly and specifically. Multiple educators named it as an unmet need, not as a philosophical position, but as a practical complaint. Products that claim alignment aren't always delivering it in ways teachers can see and use.
Cost is a real factor. One middle school teacher in Colorado: "My school is getting rid of [Newsela] next year due to the cost." That's a retention problem wearing a product problem's clothing. If a teacher's favorite curriculum tool gets cut because of price, the company loses an advocate and a case study at the same time.
The Through line
Across four categories, focusing on four sets of providers, three major themes emerged, which serve as through lines that the industry as a whole must follow in order to improve perception across the board.
- Training
Not onboarding decks. Not tutorial videos. Educators are asking for the institutional support to go from licensed to capable. That transition is where most EdTech investments go to die. - Differentiation
The market continues to build for the average student in the average classroom. Average students are a statistical construct. They are not who teachers are actually in front of every day. - Integration
Educators are not asking for more tools. They're asking for fewer, better-connected ones. The platforms that figure out how to talk to each other — or that build enough scope that they don't have to — have a real structural advantage over the ones that continue operating in isolation.
These aren't new problems, but that’s the point. And that’s why it’s so important for the industry to keep listening.
Part One of this series — "Educator Perceptions of the Industry...In Their Own Words" — is available to Navigate EdTech subscribers. This survey drew 282 U.S. K–12 educators across roles and grade bands. All direct quotes are reproduced as written.
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