This is a really cool idea. Kinda reminds me of Reading Rainbow, which I grew up on.
I'm curious how y'all plan to address one of the markets that need this the most -- public schools in the American South? Those schools are notoriously underfunded, so how do y'all plan to overcome budget issues? Sounds like you know what you're doing with the "budget line item process", so I'm curious to hear what you might have in mind.
Great point and thank you for the kind feedback! The truth is all states (and cities within some states) are very different in their process for adopting new vendors. Funding per pupil in Southern states also varies greatly. For instance Florida and Texas are pretty well funded compared to other states in the South. We have only now started entering some state/cities outside of NYCDOE so i don’t feel I can give you the most scientific answer here (yet), except to say that all districts are kinda different (as I’m aware you already know). Any feedback or ideas are welcome!
I'm not an educator, only an individual with no children who is interested in education. I do some volunteer work for education non-profits, so not sure how much help I'd be about budget stuff. Was really just curious when I asked that question.
With that said, most of my knowledge is about Mississippi. We have tons of problems with our public education system. Budget constraints are always a big issue for teachers, and one that might make it difficult to adopt a new program. At a very high level: https://mississippitoday.org/2018/04/16/analysis-shows-state...
If you're trying to make an impact in Mississippi, the Barksdale Reading Institute works in this space: https://msreads.org/.
Really cool resources (esp msreads). Thank you! To clarify, while teacher budgets for SaaS tools and even core education materials are 100% pretty limited, for low income schools, the federal Title 1 budget funding helps compensate for local principals to adopt programs like ours by allocating chunks of budget to help schools that need it most. Again, still learning as we grow.
Finally, love that you volunteer for edu orgs - if I may ask, which ones are you involved with?
I'm curious how y'all plan to address one of the markets that need this the most -- public schools in the American South? Those schools are notoriously underfunded, so how do y'all plan to overcome budget issues? Sounds like you know what you're doing with the "budget line item process", so I'm curious to hear what you might have in mind.