An article in the Detroit Free Press describes how technology drives Michigan’s classrooms: Weapon detection is built into cameras throughout campuses. Artificial intelligence is used by teachers to streamline work and by students for assignments and research. Digital tutors are becoming common. Ridesharing apps geared for education get students to school.
But the edtech industry is a vast, unregulated and largely unchecked business, according to the article. Many tech companies lobby the Michigan Legislature to create an even larger market for their products, spending at least $872,519 in 2024 and 2025 combined to encourage policymakers to route taxpayer funds to them, according to an analysis by the Detroit Free Press. And there is a payoff, with grants created seemingly geared to their products or through specific earmarks.
But the technology coming to schools is not always subject to diligent quality checks, the Detroit Free Press found. Lawmakers are sometimes sold on products by word-of-mouth, through lobbying backed by thousands, or even tens of thousands, of dollars.
The vetting of these companies could be better, as concerns grow that students are spending too much time on screens in school, lawmakers acknowledged.
Edtech is a massive industry that has boomed since the pandemic. Districts across the nation used an average of 2,982 edtech tools in the 2024-25 school year, up from 851 in the 2018-19 school year, according to an annual industry report from Instructure, an edtech company. With the rise of artificial intelligence in education, even more tools have come to market.
Some school leaders have separate phone numbers and email addresses they keep from the public because they’re so bombarded by sales pitches from edtech companies, said Richard Culatta, CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education. His Virginia-based organization is advocating for better quality checks for edtech in the classroom.
“The current system is so broken that it is just completely overwhelming,” Culatta said. “We want these great new apps to be used in schools, but we want them to be used in schools when they’re ready to be put in front of a kid and not having kids just be guinea pigs for app developers.”
The Detroit Free Press examined education tech lobbying at the state Legislature, tracking how those companies end up in public school classrooms. Investigation findings:
- Education tech companies that lobby at the state level often have lucrative contracts — for as much as $17 million — either with the state or with public school districts.
- Language in education budget bills can be specific, steering districts to certain edtech products, experts said, particularly in school safety.
- Several big safety and security firms with edtech products for schools began to lobby in the year following — or, in one case, one week after — the November 2021 Oxford High School shooting that killed four students and injured seven people.
- The drive for intensive tutoring after school closures and the push to better align early literacy instruction to the science of reading has coincided with lobbying from companies offering digital tutoring and online literacy resources.
Technology companies targeting schools include research on their own websites about the efficacy of their tools, but that research can often be biased.
“It’s really important that we’re looking at evidence-based research around these tools and not just the research that companies are putting out,” said Liz Kolb, a professor of education technology at the University of Michigan. “A lot of schools don’t have the time to truly do these deep-dive evaluations … so they end up trusting what the vendors are telling them and pushing on them because they just don’t have the time or the capacity.”
“Oftentimes, schools buy the best marketed product as opposed to the best product,” said Chad Marlow, a privacy and surveillance expert.
There is a need to make sure students are “learning and academically growing, and that the software really truly benefits them and doesn’t harm them,” said Kolb.
Detroit Free Press
