Most EdTech companies think impressive dashboards sell themselves. Show district leaders your engagement metrics, tout your time-on-platform stats, and watch the renewals roll in.
Won Ko learned that in education, you have to do a little more homework.
After two years managing partnerships for Subject's "Netflix of education" platform, he knows that schools don't buy technology based on numbers alone. They need proof their students' lives actually changed.
Today we're breaking down his two-track system for proving real value.
Here’s what’s on the dashboard this week:
Today’s Deep Dive: The human metric that matters
Reading Rainbow: It’s all about the Benjamin, kids!
From Our Desk: Call us Mr. Worldwide
Watch of the Week: MrBeast returns!
When it comes to selling to schools, the person who signs the check rarely uses your product.
An assistant superintendent buys your platform, passes implementation to the director of instruction, who hands it to the curriculum coordinator, who assigns it to some overwhelmed teacher.
Have you lost the thread yet?
By the time your product reaches actual classrooms, nobody remembers why they bought it. Then that assistant superintendent leaves for another district after two years, and your three-year implementation plan evaporates.
Won figured out you can't just send quarterly business reviews with pretty charts like you would to engineering teams. Education requires running two parallel tracks simultaneously.
Track One: Platform Metrics Student activity rates, course completion stats, feature adoption numbers. Won queries this backend data constantly to prove the platform actually works.
Track Two: On-Site Reality Teachers saying "I'm connecting with my kids again." Students from Syria using translated courses to earn diplomas. Kids who worked fields all day staying on track to graduate. Won spends thousands of dollars flying to districts to collect these stories himself.
Won spends thousands of extra dollars flying to districts, sitting in classrooms, and building relationships at every organizational level. When staff turnover hits, he's already identified the next stakeholder and earned their trust.
Dashboard metrics pushes the doors open. Human stories keep them propped that way.
Standards-Based Grading Finally Gets a Comprehensive Game Plan: Tired of standards-based grading that feels more like "making-it-up-as-we-go" grading? Edutopia breaks down how to actually implement consistent SBG throughout your school instead of letting each teacher freestyle their own interpretation.
Academic Ranking Lists Drop Their Annual Hot Takes: Here’s a round up of who’s who among America's "top education scholars" this year. It's like the Oscars for academia, except instead of red carpet interviews, you get footnotes and really passionate debates about methodology (which honestly sounds more entertaining).
College Kids Ditched Phones for a Week, Survived to Tell the Tale: The New York Times follows college students who went phone-free for seven days and lived to document the experience (ironically, probably on their phones). Who would’ve thought that human connection still works without WiFi?!
Financial Literacy Finally Makes It to Elementary School: TEACH Magazine tackles why we're still not teaching kids about money until they're already drowning in student loans. Because apparently learning about investments is less important than memorizing the state capitals (looking at you, Montpelier, Vermont).
We have one event left in January and a ton coming up in February:
ACSA's Superintendents' Symposium, January 28-30, in Indian Wells, CA
TCEA Convention & Exposition, January 31-February 4 in San Antonio, TX
GAEL 2026 Winter Conference, February 1-3 in Athens, GA
CCIS 2026 Winter Conference, February 4-6 in San Diego, CA
Curious about the energy we bring to conferences? Here’s a look at our latest speaking opportunity, where we tackled AI in schools—what’s holding educators back, and how we can responsibly integrate it for students and staff.
Find us on the floor and get in touch with [email protected] if you want to chat!
Our pick of the week: Beast Games
Why We’re Obsessed: Season 2 just dropped and your students are definitely already binge-watching MrBeast's latest creation. Instead of scratching your head, give it the old college try. This is your chance to stay relevant without looking like you're trying too hard to be the "cool teacher."
Recommended lesson integration:
Media Analysis & Production Techniques: Analyze how MrBeast structures episodes for maximum engagement and what production choices keep viewers hooked. No, it's not just throwing money at everything…
Statistics & Data Analysis: Use viewership numbers, engagement rates, and prize distributions to teach real-world math that students actually care about. Finally, math problems that don't involve buying 47 watermelons!
Psychology & Social Behavior: Examine the psychology of competition, group dynamics under pressure, and what motivates people when cameras are rolling. Guess it’s not always about the moola…
Creative Writing & Storytelling: Analyze narrative structure in reality TV and how producers create story arcs from real events (because yes, even "reality" has a script).
Thank you for joining us for another edition of On The Subject. We’ll see you again in a week, with more stories from the hallways.
The Subject Team
Want to learn more about our curriculum offerings? Contact us today.
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