The challenges—and opportunities—defining the next era of K–12 education.
INTERVIEW | by Victor Rivero
As schools race to keep pace with technological change, the challenges facing education leaders extend far beyond connectivity. Equity, affordability, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and student opportunity are increasingly intertwined—creating new gaps even as old ones begin to close.
Few people have tracked—and helped shape—these shifts as closely as Michael Flood.
Over the course of his career, he has helped schools and organizations navigate the evolving intersection of technology, access, and innovation. Today, through Alpine Frog, his strategic advisory firm, and his involvement with CoSN, ISTE, and Future Focus Forums (F3), he continues to advise education leaders and solution providers on what comes next.
In this conversation with EdTech Digest, Flood shares lessons from the pandemic, insights on digital equity and AI, and his perspective on the challenges—and opportunities—shaping the next era of K–12 education.
You’ve helped scale education and public sector solutions to reach thousands of institutions—what did the pandemic reveal about the true state of digital equity, and what still isn’t being addressed?
I was at Kajeet when the pandemic arrived, focused on connecting students to broadband off campus. We were in over 1,000 school districts by the end of 2019, and the vast majority of those deployments were to help students from disadvantaged families get to the internet to do their homework. You may recall that being referred to as the Homework Gap back then. We even had an entire campaign around Homework Gap Heroes recognizing the school district leaders who helped these students connect. A smaller number of deployments were supporting full-time virtual school students or hospital- and homebound students—but most of those were not doing live video.
Fast forward to the end of 2020 and we were in the midst of the pandemic. We had more than double the number of district customers and, IIRC, about 12x the number of students connected and 40x the traffic due to the heavy use of live video. That explosion showed us that the number of students who raised their hand for help with online homework was a fraction of the true digital divide in broadband access. Far more students lacked broadband access at home that could support their needs—often with multiple students in the same home and parents also sharing the connection.
‘That explosion showed us that the number of students who raised their hand for help with online homework was a fraction of the true digital divide in broadband access.’
Today, as you may have heard about the “K-shaped economy,” I hear a similar story about broadband access. Broadband has improved in availability and performance (speed). Affordability for consumers has actually slid backward, just when economically challenged households are facing so many other rising costs in their lives. This means that those without access, or with insufficient access, are at an even greater technical disadvantage. Many schools are also confronted with a lack of funding to support device refresh cycles and are thus pulling back from 1:1 commitments within grade levels or entire schools. Students may now face challenges with device and broadband access. We had brief hope for E-Rate support for off-campus access, as was passed by the former FCC, but the current FCC reversed that decision in the middle of the academic year!
Alpine Frog is built around “market-based solutions” and “triple-win outcomes.” What does that look like in practice for education—and where do you see the biggest opportunity for meaningful disruption right now?
Businesses, from entrepreneurs to well-established companies, often struggle with the fragmented nature of the K-12 education market. We have over 10,000 school districts, run by locally elected school boards, with high superintendent turnover rates, overseen by 50 different state agencies and (currently) a very dynamic federal landscape. Innovation is easier today than ever before, but scaling is incredibly hard.
Alpine Frog works with solution providers, primarily on the operational side of edtech, who have a working business model and are addressing a current need that matters to schools and will improve outcomes for students. We help them build their go-to-market strategy understanding education customer priorities, segmentation, channels, association partnerships, funding, procurement pathways, and deployment quality. Our goal is to help our public schools by improving alignment and removing misunderstandings or delays (friction) from the solutions process.
“Meaningful disruption” is an interesting phrase. The speed of disruption at school districts in recent years has created challenges for successful systemic change. Technology developments support operational improvements and/or cost savings in telecommunications, energy efficiency, cybersecurity, and backend platforms supporting everything from student identity, records, MTSS service delivery, etc. However, I believe the biggest disruptions will come from public school district responses to growing school choice and support for both college- and career-ready pathways. This includes more non-traditional educational opportunities engaging students beyond their local school campus.
‘I believe the biggest disruptions will come from public school district responses to growing school choice and support for both college- and career-ready pathways.’
With your deep background in wireless, 4G/5G, and connectivity, how should schools be thinking differently about infrastructure in an era of AI, IoT, and always-on learning?
The cost of connectivity continues to plummet. In 2011, schools were spending $30 – $40 / month for limited 3G connections. Today unlimited 5G is available for less than $8 / month, sometimes less. Students are engaging with AI in a myriad of ways, often without educational scaffolding, and most parents have little knowledge or capacity to direct that use appropriately. Schools are being careful and thoughtful about how AI can support learning and expand opportunities inside and outside the classroom. As districts move forward with those strategies, they must reconsider the requirements for devices and broadband access. In many states (but not all) online learning programs are required to provide devices and broadband access for students who need it.
We are also seeing a mix of school safety, community demand, and operational needs drive renewed interest in improving cellular coverage and capacity in schools and administrative buildings. Advancements in multi-carrier distributed antenna systems have enabled new managed service models with forward compatibility (6G, etc.) on college campuses, in K-12 schools, and administration buildings.
You’ve worked across startups, Fortune 50 environments, and the public sector—what’s the biggest disconnect you see between innovation and implementation in education today?
Innovation in education is very common but frequently fails at scaling up. In fact, due to the fragmentation, you may find hundreds of different projects working to solve the same problem in schools across the country. These projects often start with little to no resources by stakeholders with shared interests and shared environments (same school, same district, or maybe in other common factors). Scaling, however, means attempting to implement the “solution” in highly dissimilar environments leading to significant requirements for funding, development, and staff support that often break the model or impede progress to scale. Furthermore, while most businesses measure results quarterly or annually, schools are looking at longitudinal evaluations that can take many years.
Cybersecurity and student data protection are rising concerns, especially for under-resourced districts. What practical steps should education leaders prioritize right now to stay ahead of emerging threats?
Start by ensuring authority and responsibility are well defined and understood at the leadership level. Cybersecurity is not just a technical problem – it connects to governance, finance (budgeting, risk management, and procurement), communications, professional development, operations and facilities. If not already done, a comprehensive inventory of data (types, locations), access (who, where, how), policies, monitoring and enforcement mechanisms is crucial. Minimize the access to and exposure of information via masked identity, zero-trust networking, and elimination of legacy or duplicative platforms. Join shared knowledge and resource communities such as K12 SIX, MS-ISAC, and state or regional collaboratives to leverage existing best practices and standards. Invest in staff development, but also know their limitations and find partners with the expertise and capacity you lack.
You’ve been deeply involved with organizations like CoSN and ISTE, and now even F3. From your vantage point, what trends are overhyped—and which ones are quietly transformative?
I have found the Gartner Hype Cycle to be very applicable to most edtech solutions. I have seen various trends take over the tradeshow floor or even the conference agenda in their early days leading to a classing over-promise / under-deliver result. Many of those go on to become quietly transformative for much smaller groups of students in properly targeted situations. Examples from the past include gamification, XR, and 3D printing – all of which have proper use cases today. AI is probably overhyped today due to external factors, but I believe it will also be quietly transformative over the long term. I also believe there are currently numerous social/political “trends” that have minimal actual consequence (good or bad) for student learning – avoid distractions!
‘AI is probably overhyped today due to external factors, but I believe it will also be quietly transformative over the long term.’
You describe a personal interest in futurism and education transformation—looking ahead 5–10 years, what does a truly “connected” and equitable learning ecosystem look like?
I believe we can (and should!) get to a point where students have greater freedom to pursue a wider range of opportunities. In my ideal system this would mean a reduced dependence on time and place. Mastery of standards would replace fixed pacing (periods, days, Carnegie units, grade levels, school years). Knowledge and skill maps would make it easier for students, parents, and caregivers to understand options and the implications for future learning or career pathways. Students should have access to the technology required to support their chosen engagements and connectivity should be ubiquitous whenever and wherever they engage. I am skeptical this will be possible everywhere in 5-10 years due less to technology than to human capacity and will for change.
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Victor Rivero is the Editor-in-Chief of EdTech Digest and Executive Producer of EdTech Digest’s Future Focus Forums (F3), bringing together edtech companies with top U.S. school district technology leaders for the most effective way to get feedback on new and existing products. Write to: victor@edtechdigest.com
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