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This background note on technology innovations in education offers a market overview of the edtech sector and discusses trends, common challenges, and criticisms encountered in exploring edtech ventures. The note introduces the promise of educational technology as it directly affects classroom instruction and discusses the common growth drivers (e.g., school accountability, 21st century skills, and advanced technological innovations) and theories of change (e.g., personalization, access, and productivity) for edtech products and services. Furthermore, the note defines the conditions necessary for the success of innovations in educational technology in the classroom including adequate teacher training, funding, and technology infrastructure. The note also highlights several challenges, risks, and criticisms common to the edtech sector, such as the evolving role of teachers, issues of student privacy and data security, implementation challenges, and the limits of education technology's impact in the classroom.

This supplements the "A" case. Joel Rose and Chris Rush decide to spin-off from School of One to found New Classrooms Innovation Partners. Rose and Rush navigate the strategic complexities of the spin-off process to make their mission-driven product a reality. The case explores the co-founders' decision to pursue either a for-profit or nonprofit structure and their strategy for scaling their product, Teach to One.

In 2011, a group of passionate social entrepreneurs in Rio de Janeiro, with the support and encouragement of several prominent philanthropists and members of government, launch Ensina!, seizing Brazil's unprecedented economic growth and national commitment to education. The new independent educational non-profit is to be part of Teach For All, a global network of organizations inspired by Teach For America. While Ensina! is quickly able to raise the initial capital, recruit graduates from top colleges, garner positive press, and demonstrate early success in increasing student performance, the organization runs into a number of operational challenges in implementing its programs in schools. After pursuing various avenues to address obstacles for Ensina!'s execution found in navigating national education policy and funding, forging partnerships with municipal and state governments, confronting widespread cultural perspectives on teaching as a profession, and managing relationships with local school administrators and staff, Ensina!'s staff and board, despite some success and demonstrated impact, decide to suspend the program in January. Following this decision, Fabio Campos, the most recent CEO of Ensina!, contemplates the possibility of relauching a restructured Ensina! to help bring about enduring, transformative reform to Brazil's public education system, which he believes to be crucial to the future success of Brazil as a nation. The case presents students the opportunity to explore conditions necessary for successful collaborations between non-profit organizations and the government, grapple with the challenges of long-term large-scale performance improvement in public education, and examine Ensina!'s goals in public education reform and different operational strategies for organizations like Ensina! to consider implementing in the future.

In the fall of 2012, Dr. Andres Alonso had much to celebrate about in his five-year tenure as CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools, including the approval and implementation of an innovative teachers' contract with a jointly-governed four-tier career pathway that tied teacher pay and promotion to performance and peer review. Nonetheless, Alonso was concerned about the future of the contract and the reforms it introduced. It took two votes before the teachers ratified the contract in November 2010. Since then, implementation had been laborious, complicated, and uncertain. many questions would have to be answered in the coming months. Was the district making the transition to a contract that rewarded "engagement" in a career pathway rather than passive reliance on steps and lanes? Were the processes for earning Achievement Units and progressing through the pathways rigorous enough so that the contract wouldn't default to the past practice where everyone moves up and earns more money? Were the joint governance structures established to direct and manage the career pathways, pay system, and peer-review process working effectively? How did the new system support the district's underlying theory of change?