EdTech Quality Collaborative Launches New Guide to Help School Districts Streamline Procurement and Reduce Administrative Burden

A unified initiative by 1EdTech, CAST, CoSN, Digital Promise, ISTE, and SETDA to operationalize product quality standards in K-12 education

WASHINGTON, July 6, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- To equip school districts with the clear insights needed to confidently select effective classroom technology, the EdTech Quality Collaborative (EQC) has launched a new guide to simplify how education leaders evaluate and purchase classroom technology.

School districts manage a significant volume of digital tools, with the average district accessing nearly 3,000 distinct edtech products in a single school year. Without a centralized framework to evaluate these tools, education leaders often turn to compliance checklists that operate in isolation from classroom contexts. Research indicates this fragmentation can lead to low utilization, with an estimated 65% of purchased edtech licenses going unused. 

Bridging the gap between high-level quality standards and daily school operations, the EdTech Quality Indicators Guide builds on the procurement process established in Digital Promise's EdTech Procurement Framework, to offer a practical roadmap for integrating trusted, nonprofit-issued certifications directly into existing procurement workflows. This resource shows K-12 leaders where and how to evaluate product quality during active purchasing cycles, helping districts shift away from isolated buying habits toward safe, evidence-based, and cost-effective technology choices.

"School districts often shoulder the complex burden of independently vetting hundreds of digital tools, which takes valuable time and resources away from supporting teachers and students," said Jean-Claude Brizard, president and CEO of Digital Promise. "At Digital Promise, our work centers on translating what research proves into actionable resources that directly support educators and students. This guide does exactly that by helping district leaders transition from fragmented, compliance-based checklists to structured, intentional purchasing workflows. By leveraging shared quality indicators, we can significantly lighten the operational load on administrators while ensuring that classroom technology is safe, accessible, and built to help every student succeed."

The guide is built upon the Five EdTech Quality Indicators—a unified definition of product quality co-developed by the collaborative to protect and support school communities:

• Safe: Ensuring robust data privacy, data minimization, and cybersecurity measures protect student and educator data.
• Evidence-Based: Verifying that product designs and performance claims are grounded in rigorous research and align with established educational evidence standards.
• Inclusive: Prioritizing accessibility, universal design, and equitable features that support diverse learners and mitigate algorithmic bias.
• Usable: Providing intuitive digital experiences that minimize cognitive load for both students and teachers.
• Interoperable: Adhering to open data standards to ensure secure data exchange and smooth integration within a district's existing technology systems.

"CoSN's 2026 State of EdTech Report found that while education technology leaders are already considering factors such as safety, interoperability, usability, and evidence in procurement decisions, many are still unfamiliar with the Five Quality Indicators framework," said Keith Krueger, CEO of CoSN. "The EdTech Quality Indicators Guide helps address that need by providing a common roadmap for evaluating technology through trusted quality standards. This collaborative effort will help bring greater consistency, transparency, and confidence to education technology procurement decisions."

Rather than requiring individual districts to manually vet every tool against these dimensions, the guide outlines how leaders can leverage trusted, third-party validations hosted on the EdTech Index. This shifts the validation burden away from district staff, saving administrative time and streamlining the evaluation process. 

"As families and school communities demand greater accountability and transparency about how schools implement technology to support teaching and learning, school leaders need confidence that tools being used in classrooms are safe, research-backed, and effective," said Richard Culatta, CEO of the International Society for Transforming Education (ISTE). "That's why we've invested in resources like the EdTech Index to connect school technology decision-makers with high-quality edtech tools, our "From Screentime to Screen Value" research summary to provide information on what works and what doesn't, and our Safe & Purposeful EdTech School Pledge to ensure schools commit to using technology safely and meaningfully with students. This guide adds a helpful tool for anyone leading school procurement to make informed decisions about technology grounded in evidence and aligned with safe, purposeful quality standards described by the Five EdTech Quality Indicators."

By uniting the nation's leading education technology organizations, the EQC establishes valuable industry consensus on what product quality actually means. Rather than forcing school systems and technology developers to navigate competing, fragmented standards, the EQC's collective effort creates a single, trusted framework. This shared approach brings much needed consistency and clarity to the K-12 sector, raising the bar for product design while lowering the verification burden for individual school systems.

"Making education technology work better for everyone means bringing the entire education community together to define what quality looks like," said Curtiss Barnes, 1EdTech CEO. "The EdTech Quality Indicators Guide is the result of that collaboration. By creating a shared framework for evaluating edtech, we're helping schools make more informed decisions while giving providers clearer guidance on how to build products that meet educators' needs. Interoperability is a critical part of that conversation, and independent certification, like 1EdTech's, gives districts confidence that the products they choose will work securely and reliably with the systems they already have in place."

"Quality edtech should be designed to address learner variability from the start," said Christine Fox, chief growth and innovation officer and co-project director, CITES, CAST. "The EdTech Quality Indicators Guide helps districts prioritize accessibility, inclusion, and Universal Design for Learning while streamlining procurement decisions. Together, we can reduce barriers for educators and learners to ensure that technology investments deliver meaningful impact for every student."

By adopting the EdTech Quality Indicators Guide, school systems can work toward practical outcomes including:

• Reduced Administrative Overhead: Streamlined review processes allow districts to save time by relying on verified, third-party data. 
• Consistent Quality Standards: Clear alignment with established indicators helps ensure classroom software is safe, interoperable, and fully accessible to all learners.
• Better Resource Alignment: Procurement processes aligned with instructional needs help districts ensure that technology investments match actual classroom usage.

"State education leaders are committed to ensuring every technology investment advances teaching and learning while protecting students and making the best use of limited public resources," said Dorann Avey, board chair of SETDA. "The EdTech Quality Indicators Guide gives states and districts a trusted framework for making informed procurement decisions with greater confidence. By providing a common approach to evaluating quality, this resource helps education leaders reduce risk, strengthen collaboration, and maximize the impact of every edtech investment."

To explore the EdTech Quality Indicators Guide, visit digitalpromise.org/EQC.

About Digital Promise
Digital Promise is a global nonprofit working to expand opportunity for every learner. We work with educators, researchers, technology leaders, and communities to design, investigate, and scale innovations that support learners. Our vision is that every person engages in powerful learning experiences that lead to a life of well-being, fulfillment, and economic mobility. For more information, visit the Digital Promise website and follow Digital Promise for updates.

About the EdTech Quality Collaborative
The EdTech Quality Collaborative (EQC) is a coalition of leading education technology organizations committed to reducing the evaluation burden on school systems. By establishing common indicators of product quality and promoting trusted independent validations, the EQC supports districts in making informed, impactful technology choices.

SOURCE Digital Promise