Most companies entering the U.S. market assume their content is closer to ready than it actually is. The gap analysis tells a different story.
I want to talk about a specific conversation that happens early in almost every market entry engagement we have with an international EdTech company. We ask them how their content aligns to U.S. standards. They tell us it aligns well -- Common Core math is not so different from what they are already doing, the literacy approach is similar, the science content covers the same ground.
Then we do the actual analysis and find out what 'aligns well' really means. Usually it means 60 to 75 percent alignment to a given state's standards, with meaningful gaps in the remaining quarter. Sometimes it means strong alignment in one subject and significant gaps in another. And occasionally it means the product is built on a pedagogical framework that runs directly counter to what the target state's standards require -- which is a much bigger problem than a content gap.
This is not a knock on the companies that come in with this assumption. It is a structural feature of how standards vary across the U.S. The gaps are not always obvious until you do the mapping.
