As a management consultant, I’ve spent much time thinking about business cases and cost-benefit analyses for major technology purchases. You know that often-sensible need that project initiatives must be demonstrable winners, paying for themselves by returning more cash than they consume. Most are gathered using financial formulas and hard dollars and cents calculations. Asking a company to make a one-hundred thousand dollar investment, I have to show how they will earn at least that investment back, if not more.

Arriving at that return is not always pleasant. At times a change in process or a new computer replaces a co-worker. But, other times it will make someone’s job much easier and faster, thus increasing productivity. Reducing that payroll expense while increasing productivity is the return on investment that allows many companies to spend their money, or at least borrow it and show the bank how it is to be paid back.

But how do schools justify technology spending? Where is their return on investment? It’s not as if they can reduce the teacher rankings if they buy computers. Nor will any child graduate faster with technology by their side.

It’s not as if they can reduce the teacher rankings if they buy computers.

Value is determined by the acquirer, and that may be the problem. Who is really buying at your school? Is it the school board, administrators, teachers, students or parents? Combine all five groups, throw in a few businesses and a politician or two and you have a community. The community is the ultimate buyer through tax levies, bond issues and donations.

Poor election results are the primary cause of school budget cutbacks. This is particularly true of large urban school districts, because they have a larger community to answer to. The requests for tax and bond amounts keep growing, along with changes in education priorities as an influence on budgetary issues— maybe a hint that districts are looking to better align their curriculum and IT efforts.

Perhaps hard-number dollar justification is not necessary. Was there a cost-benefit analysis needed when the No.2 pencil was invented? What about when the ink pen came about? How fast do the schools change history or geography textbooks when world events make them obsolete, or just different?

Thinking back 40 years, I did not take a “Pencil” class to learn how to write, in the same vain as students have computer class. I learned “Pencil” in Mathematics, Social Studies, and English class among others. And just about everything I learned in “Pencil” I was able to use in “Ink Pen”. I used a pencil until is was but a nub and my ink pens went dry.

So do I need to buy a thousand dollar computer to learn keyboarding if I fumbled through it with an old Smith-Corona? (That’s a typewriter for you youngsters, but the keyboard is the same). Will I write faster? Better? Will the Quadratic Equation suddenly make sense to millions of students on a computer screen when it didn’t on the blackboard? And does this equipment need to be the newest of the new?

No. What’s important is Readin’ Writin’ and ‘Rithmetic fundamentals, and using all the tools available --computers alongside pencils, pens and paper. In a few short years, these students will be our doctors, lawyers, politicians and other professionals and trades people. Do we really want them to do their jobs without all the tools available? 

Technology is a tool that when used properly in a suitable learning environment can be effective in whatever task it is applied. Trying to value education technology in the same way as business technology is wrong. Just because an item does not have a direct dollar value return does not mean that it is not useful nor should it mean to bypass its acquisition. Sometimes we need to just go with the gut and accept that Education Technology is a cost AND a benefit.

And in the end, that may be one of the unspoken, and ironic, implications of my experiences in cost-benefit analyses. If you're a superintendent or director or business manager heading into a meeting with the school board or the community, leave the return on investment PowerPoint presentation in your office. Have the courage to say, "Of course this is about money. And yes, I've thought through some of the costs and risks. But it's first and foremost about how we create new opportunities for our children. Let’s start there..."