What would happen if EdTech stopped chasing features and aligned around two simple goals: postsecondary readiness and clear ROI for districts?

Matthew Kennard, CEO of BetterLesson, joins Elana to unpack how EdTech can move beyond features and usage stats to what really matters: outcomes. He shares his path from finance to education, why accountability is essential for both vendors and leaders, and how outcome-based professional learning can drive real change. Together, they explore the Guskey framework, the need for resilient systems, and what it takes to partner with districts in a time of shrinking budgets and rising expectations.

Whether you’re a founder, a marketer, or a school leader, this conversation will push you to rethink how your work ties back to student outcomes.

What You’ll Learn

• Why EdTech isn’t really B2B, and how that changes the ways we successfully market and sell
• The two outcomes district leaders are truly held accountable for (and how vendors can support them)
• How to use the Guskey framework to evaluate professional learning and product impact
• Practical baby steps for moving toward outcomes-based measurement without a massive budget
• Why building system resiliency matters more than point solutions in times of uncertainty
• How to help district leaders become better storytellers of impact

Why It Matters

Districts are being asked to do more with less, while showing evidence of ROI and preparing every student for a postsecondary pathway. Vendors who only talk features or usage risk being cut. As Matt puts it, our industry has to simplify what matters and hold ourselves accountable to outcomes that truly move the system forward.

Show notes on our website.

Elana, welcome to all things marketing and education. I'm your host. Elana Leone, and I have had the honor of working alongside education and edtech brands for almost two decades. As a marketer. I've built lasting connections with educators, innovators and leaders who are all shaping the future of learning, and I don't say that lightly, on this podcast, I bring those voices forward so you can learn from their experiences, shift your perspective and put those things into action. Well, hello everyone, and welcome back to the show. I'm Ilana, and today I am joined by Matthew Kennard. He is the CEO of betterlesson, and I'm just going to tell you, you are in for a treat. I met Matthew at ASU GSB, a conference that happens annually in San Diego, and we just got talking, and I said, You should be on the show. And here it is. So I love synergies like that. Matt is so passionate. He's so inspiring. It's truly an episode that you're going to want on repeat. It's one of those things you say and you're like, Ah, wow. Rewind. So if you don't know Matt yet, he brings a unique perspective to our space. He comes into edtech a little later in his career, after years specializing in mergers and acquisitions, finance, strategy, all of that, he's now leading better lesson. So we talk about all of the things that really deeply matter to us in this episode, and some of those things are why measuring academic outcomes and not just the usage of the tool or attendance, has to be the standard now for every edtech investment. If you don't know what we're talking about, we're going to get into it also we talk about how leaders and vendors can and should partner more effectively to tell stories of real impact and help each other in this and we talk really about what is shaken in education. There's a lot of moving and shaken. He has some really great advice that has stuck with me to this day, and he talks about how we should stay calm and strategic in the face of shrinking budgets. Esser is done for funding the heightened scrutiny on ROI and the tech bloat that's just decreasing and decreasing, right? So there's so much going on in education. He has some great advice, so stick around to the end for that. And I just love this conversation, because it will resonate with no matter who you are in education, I don't care if you're in edtech, at the helm, if you're in marketing in ed tech, if you're a district leader, or if you're just an educator, trying to understand what the heck is going on right now, and how can I make a difference? All right, I'll let you jump in right now. Please enjoy. Hey, hey Matt, thank you so much for joining all things marketing and education. We started talking beforehand, and I was like, hold it for the show. So welcome. First and foremost,

no Food Network jokes, no god theory jokes, we'll keep

I told you, I'm gentle on this show. That's right. You are,

you are. Well, listen, I'm excited to be here. Love to have the opportunity to chat, and have been looking forward to doing this, man since ASU, GSV months ago.

Yes, when I said I got a podcast, and I just listened to you on edtech insiders, and here you are. And what I think is really cool about our show is you get to pivot as who you are as a leader right now and who you are leading in education and Ed Tech. And there's so many people listening right now that are in your shoes, and we're all needing to learn from each other. So we're going to talk a little bit more about that, but I just want people to understand who you are in your background a little bit more. So you have worked in education and tech. You worked at Learn zillion. Learn zillion. Excuse me, and now you're the CEO of better lesson. Can you just talk a little bit about yourself? Why education and what's really exciting you right now or scaring you?

Well, the thing that's scaring me right now is the fact that I'm no longer an elder millennial. I'm apparently a geriatric millennial. So that's a new

you might be the same age as me. I think I'm a geriatric too. Yeah, we

Wow, yeah, and there's so many, like, follow up questions around that, but like, can you tell me? Like, because you mentioned that transition, what were the things that kind of almost slapped you in the face about, oh my gosh, this is a new industry. I may not be able to operate the same way.

Yeah, and the tension like, not only are we overwhelmed as human beings right now in this world of uncertainty, but the smaller the time they actually have to really devote to things, and they're getting blasted across everything. So as marketers, we're really trying to figure out what truly works like what really works to break through that ice, but do it in a way that matches our mission, like we all didn't join edtech to just be this spray and pray. We joined to be a true partner to make outcomes improve better. But how do we do that? That's harder, right?

Well, I think the question becomes, how do we think about measuring the outcomes, and what does success look like? And I think, you know, as as I have learned from getting the opportunity to chat with folks like you and great marketers and our own awesome marketing leader, Rachel Jordan here at better lesson, you know, it's not just about features and stories, right? It's about outcomes. It's about how do you help people understand what they will get, and especially for our leaders, what they will get by investing in the tools and offerings that we have. Because at the end of the day, they've got to turn around and go to a school board, go to parents and most importantly, go to their students and educators and whole be held responsible for putting something in front of them that is meant to drive outcomes. And if those outcomes aren't showing up, right, that's on them. And so how are we really thinking about an outcome based world where we're really thinking through, did the things that we invested in do the things that we do really lead to those great outcomes your students and educators are hoping for.

All right, since you're mentioning it, I'm gonna go in Guy Fieri and really say, okay, that all makes sense. But we know measuring outcomes is the holy grail. We know that when we think about it, there's a gradient of how we can measure it, but that's all correlative to cost, time and capacity, and there's systematic things that are really out of our control sometimes when we think about measuring student outcomes. So how do you go about just like, transitioning to measuring outcomes? And maybe for people listening, are there baby steps to get there? Because there's some people going, oh gosh, I definitely want to go there, but it's expensive, it's hard, but that's what's needed right now, when we think about the uncertainty and people really cutting tools that aren't making that Mark,

I mean, it's a shift. It's a it's a mindful shift of what is actually like, what, what actually matters about it all and and sometimes we piecemeal things, because that's what we have. And some data is better than no data, but some of it's like, all right, are people using my platform? And if we assume use. We're assuming outcomes, but you can't necessarily connect that dotted line always pausing because I know some of our listeners are going, why was that framework he talked about you? Called it the gusky? Yep, correct. All right. So we will put a link in the show notes for those of you that don't like to Google or just want to get into our show notes, but the more you can build for those listening, the more you can build on things that are already there will really help you. And I want you like while Matt was talking, I was almost thinking linearly, like a theory of action, because when you are thinking about those things you're saying, you eventually want to say, do my inputs of what I provide as a product actually align with what I ultimately want to achieve in the industry, and that's what we call a theory of action. And I'll put in a couple of we've had three different guests on our show really talk about how to start small with that, but it can completely shift your way of thinking. Which I love, the way you're thinking as a leader is like, we need to do that, because our leaders need to do that. Our industry needs that I

think sometimes what we need. I have a huge amount of respect for anybody who's chosen to come into this field and wanted to dedicate time to improving the educational outcomes for students, right? There are many people who will never give that time. Had to sacrifice, right? And, you know, there's the old phrase, you know, it takes a certain type of person to plant trees the shade of which they will never experience, and those are people who are willing to plant those trees. What we sometimes need to make sure, though, is we're planting those trees in fertile soil where they're designed to hit the end outcome, which is growing a tree. If I put an acorn on a rock, my effort is great. Ain't no tree growing. I think it's incumbent on us to make sure that we are building the tools to be able to plant our acorns in fertile soil, where they can really do the thing that they were designed to do. And sometimes we have to understand that innovation is great, but it's going to be innovation with a purpose that we can tie back to an outcome. And I think that as a leader of an organization, and you know, having talked to a number of district leaders and other edtech CEOs and founders getting more disciplined as an industry to say, okay, my thing does this. Here's the data to show what it can do, and here's where it's applicable, is really kind of one of those baseline expectations that I think we sometimes skip over because we know people are trying to do good but yes, you have to try and do good things, but those good things have to be also be aligned to the outcomes we know are important for moving our system forward, for improving educational outcomes, for arresting the slot like the International slide in, you know, US education right as compared to other countries that we're also looking for other areas of the world where we're seeing excellent educational outcomes and results and using those as models for things that can work. Here good example of that, moving past the stigma that four year college for all is the only possible outcome. College can mean many things. I mean two year school. Can mean an associate's degree. Can mean a four year college. It could also mean working for some period of time and then coming back to college. Could mean being enlisted and then coming back and paying with a GI Bill. There are lots of ways for us to think about success, successful post secondary outcomes. We need to work hard, like you see in Scandinavia or Germany or other places, to remove the stigma that if it's not four year college, it's not a good plan for a kid and financially, like we cannot saddle every student with $400,000 debt on the idea that the only possible option when they went to a four year college. From many industries, four year college is important, but there's lots of ways to do that, including going and being employed for some period of time and potentially having your employer pay for it, right? Like, there's lots of pathways. How do we have that communication and how are we designing our systems and our solutions to give kids lots of options that allow them to be hyper functional, highly contributing members of society?

Yes, and for those of you that are not watching us on video, I am head nodding a lot, and I think a tenant of a good conversation is there's so much we could build upon when you say things because it's like, yes, oh yes. But one thing in particular was skills based hiring. Like, I'm not telling you anything you don't know is catapulting right now, I just had a friend who works at LinkedIn, gave me a look at a new report, talked about how people are hiring more and more for skills, micro skills that they can demonstrate, rather than a four year degree, sometimes too. So we know that there's trends to support this. It's really just, how do we shift in education to help exacerbate those trends? Because they're really good things for all things, equity, access, all the things. But let's go back to what you were saying really quickly about outcome oriented and things. And ultimately, you said, we need to make sure that these leaders are able to tell the story and they're held accountable for these purchases, right? So I think that for those of you listening, I want you to really think about, are you helping as a partner tell that story. Are you giving them that data? Are you giving them that talking points? Because leaders ultimately have to be storytellers. They have to still like sell that story of impact, and it has to be a real story. But if we're not vendors giving them what they need, it's that's, it's a little bit hard, right? That's my passion. I love to teach leaders about how to be storytellers, and I and I have taught them how to tweet. I've taught them to be and told them and even guilt trip and said, Hey, you're selfish if you're not telling your school and district story. You need to be able to tell that so other people can get, you know, excited, and then be able to adapt it into their own environment, too. But I just wanted to hone in on. That our role is to help them be better storytellers, to help them show that. This is why we purchased this for the kids, for the outcomes. And it's working.

Yeah, thank you for that. I mean, I think what I I feel empowered listening to you talk. And sometimes it can be scary for people, but there's also like this freedom of this is your guiding framework outcomes. Does it do that? Cut it if it doesn't? Or what does it take to revamp it? And you're looking at the numbers from a numbers perspective too, but having that lens one, it so aligns with your mission, but it gives you that freedom. You know, like to be like, All right, why? Let's not continue to do things that don't 100% align. So love it. I want to shift. Because when we started the conversation, before we got on, we talked a little bit about some uncertainty, what we're seeing in education, we're seeing, you know, with Esser funds kind of dead at this point and budgets shrinking, really basically uncertainty, because it depends state by state, all of the things. But when there's uncertainty in the industry, sometimes there's a halting of, like, there's a little bit more over conservativeness of spending. And then they were already looking at their tech stack. And really looking with the efficacy mindset. So what do you have to say to some people that are in your shoes? They're leaders, they're marketers, they're sales people, and they're like, holy crap, this just got harder. Like, how do we approach this to really be aligned with what we care about in ed tech, but still move the needle?

Yeah, I think one of the things it's I love about your question is, what was our guiding principle in the first place, right? And I think if we look at five years of NAEP scores, the uneven results of Esser spending, right? I think the question became, for me, as I look at it, is, what can we learn from what happened to get us to the right place? I think part of what we learned was point solutions and uncoordinated spending don't always get us to the thing that we're trying to get to as opposed to saying, what would it mean for us to invest in truly resilient teaching and learning organizations? What would it mean for us to entrust our leaders with the levers that are required for them to deliver what we look for, everything from HQ I am to teacher certification to strategic planning to deployment of professional learning to give them the ability to narrow the number of pathways that students can fall follow to enabling better communication right? What I think we have seen exposed in the last five years is that we have often tried to take on point problems, but we haven't necessarily addressed the idea of system wide solution solving, right? How do we make resilient systems and give our leaders and our educators the real tooling necessary so when there's another pandemic, or when you're sitting in a state like Louisiana, you have five hurricanes ripped through you in a 10 week period, you're able to move into a flexible model and support your students and think about the health and safety of your educators, right? Because you want to be able to do all of that within the framework of what you're dealing with. How do we think about overall system resiliency, and what are the pieces that are required for that? Right? And that comes down to things like distribution of high quality instructional materials, ensuring we have the right technological solutions in the hands of our students and educators, making sure that like the strategic plan isn't just a glossy thing that we put on a shelf, but it's a well action plan, including its implications for professional learning, its implications for instruction that you know what's happening in Mrs. Jones biology class at PS 103 on a Tuesday is reflective of that same strategic plan and those tenants for continuity and effectiveness and instruction. I think that we have educators who want to do this. They want to build that resilience in we need to start thinking about how we are helping them build that across a system, versus saying, Hey, we're going to solve this one problem for you.

Yeah, it's so funny, because my inclination is sometimes like the system has been broken in parts for so long. So my inclination is, whoa. That's scary. There's a lot stuff that is out of our control. And let me show you how to make momentum in this one little area, but you're kind of pushing me to think a little differently sometimes, and and then I can show momentum, and then I scaffold it into something else. And, but that's a long term, and it's not guaranteed to fix or improve the broken system. And you may argue that, then, why are you even doing it to begin with?

Right? What I would argue is, if we're gonna ask people to produce 100%

post secondary readiness, we're gonna ask them to show ROI for the dollars. Let's make sure there's an industry we're putting the tools in place that allow them to show 100% post secondary readiness and show ROI for the dollars. I think it's actually incumbent on us as service providers to look at the needs and listen to the needs of our leaders and our educators and our students, to say, what are the things that actually lead to sustainable outcomes and sustainable success for the system as a whole, and really try to think about our ability to contribute to that. And I think you're seeing that as providers get broader in the things that they do, folks who are doing things like strategic planning are also executing on some of those plans. So it's not just, oh well, we told you what to do and you got to go find the people to do it, but instead we're going to help you figure out what to do and then hold ourselves accountable for executing on that plan within the constraints we have, or here our partners can do it. I think we're seeing the right movement there, and a reduction of the cognitive load to the leader and the buyer. We need to continue that right and most importantly, as solution providers, are we holding ourselves accountable? Multiple to the student data that sits at the back end of that and know, our contribution to that work. I'm not saying it's not complicated, right? There's a lot of things that are going on, but that's why we have data scientists. That's why we have places like learn platform. That's why we have, you know, teams of data scientists like we do for our able work, who can help us really isolate and understand the impact of the work that we do. And I think as leaders, you know, I say this to the leaders of districts and states, if you're not asking the question of, help me understand not just anecdotal feedback on your impact, but show me the data of what you're able to do, you're missing an opportunity to, I think, ask a critical question prior to investing in the solution.

I love your answer because your vantage point is more systems oriented. You've got able you've got other pieces within that kind of hit different parts of the system, but the system itself is fragmented. So for those of you that have a tool that just does one little thing, but does it really well, I think you also need to look at the ecosystem as a whole and say, What are you collectively doing? And am I by, am I being redundant in certain areas, but like, that's where I was kind of going. It's like, oh, he's he's like, you know, with better lesson, you've got lots of tools that almost can create system wide change. And that's I know why you love working in an organization that holistically can hit different points too, especially with the ABLE acquisition a lot of the stuff you're doing in professional learning. But for those of you listening that are doing one small thing, also look at Partners. Look at strategic partners. Look at the ecosystem. You are not operating alone here. And so that's what it reminded me of. I know we are almost out of time, Matt, but I want to try something new, because you've seen game for for new, fun things. It's our first ever lightning round, and I'm just going to ask you quick questions, and then, you know, give me a sentence of like, you know what? You know, one pointed thing, like, what's your favorite? Blah, and then I'll wrap up with one kind of light hearted you as a human question, okay, fair enough. All right. And thank you for being game so lightning. Round number one, what is your current go to AI tool as an education leader?

I mean, I'm in the Claude chatgpt world, I think that it has helped to significantly speed up my day to day work.

Yes, yes. And then what is one leadership lesson you had to learn the harder way. That's a hard one. I told you I was throwing the spaghetti at you.

You gotta apologize quicker than anything else. When you're wrong, you gotta admit it, and you'll build more trust with the folks you work with if you're willing to admit you're wrong than anything else.

Yep, what is one thing every education organization, Ed Tech organization just should stop doing right now. Just stop hold the phone. Stop it.

Panicking. Think that it's easy in a world of uncertainty, or moving to block grants for states, or thinking about some of the outcomes we've seen to panic, but you know, the best advice I've ever gotten is five minutes is a very long time. If you use it wisely, we have a lot of time in front of us, and we can use it wisely. And I think we know where our areas of weakness are as an industry. Let's collectively pull ourselves together to figure out how we move forward, because then there's also a incredible opportunity in front of the US education industry today to say what could be different five years from now, five minutes from now, transition.

What is giving you hope in education these days?

I think that we are simplifying the outcome. You know, I'm not joking when I say there's two things we're really holding people accountable for. When's the last time you heard about two points of accountability in us? Education in one sentence, it

doesn't really exist. I mean, we've got, we're swimming in too much right now.

Agree, yeah, wholeheartedly, awesome.

Okay, Matt, as a human you've talked to me a little bit about your hobbies, but what's one thing that you do or you watch that kind of gets you inspired as a leader and a mission driven leader? We know there are days you just want to, like, hit your head against the wall, that your heart is fully into it. What kind of recharges you to go back to your organization and lead it every day?

See, two things are fun for me. I think one is, I had the opportunity a few years ago with one of my best friends from middle school, known each other since we were 12, to create a business called no bunkers, no bogeys, golf club. It's a fun, lighthearted community. Community about creating greater access to golf. We kind of did it for fun, and we woke up, you know, a couple years later with a 22,000 person Instagram community and an opportunity to go deeper into a game we both love, and it's been a lot of fun to do on the side. The other one is, I love to cook. And, you know, the beauty of cooking is it takes the time that it's going to take to get it done, right? I think for all of us who are in high stress industries, whether it's playing around a golf or cooking or taking a walk, find something that makes you put your clock down for a minute and do just be out try something different.

Yeah, and you're in that moment with cooking, you're just chopping it may take you a while to wind down, but once you get into it, it's going to take the time it takes, right? And sometimes there are no cutting corners, because you can taste it, right.

Yes, someone who has probably 12 different ways to make coffee in his house, I would agree with that,

holy moly. Okay, coffee on you next time I see 100% 100% All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been really enlightening, and you've really kind of pushed me to think about what do we need to do as leaders? What do we need to do to move this space even more? And I can't think of a more critical time to have these discussions right now. So thank you for being a guest on all things marketing and education. For those of you that liked this podcast, please go do the five star review. Do the comments. It helps us reach more and more people. All right, so we will see you all next time on all things marketing and education. Oh, wait, Matt, throw in your how people can contact you and betterlesson, 100%

Well, if you want to contact us, definitely reach out. Go to betterlesson.com Check us out. We'd love to chat with you, and Elena can throw my email out there in the markup.

Yeah, you can stock them on LinkedIn if you want to all the things, right? Okay, so thank you all very much. We will see you next time on all things marketing and education, take care. Thanks again for listening to all things marketing and education. If you like what you heard and want to dive deeper, you can find more episodes at Leone consulting group.com, backslash podcast. You can also continue the conversation with us on Twitter, at Leone group, or on LinkedIn. And don't forget, if you enjoyed today's show, make sure to subscribe to our podcast and Libra review, we're so appreciative of every single subscriber and review we get, and it helps us reach even more people that need help. So we'll see you next time on all things marketing and education, take care. You.