
Silicon Valley Courts Brand-Name Teachers, Raising Ethics Issues - japhyr
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/02/technology/silicon-valley-teachers-tech.html
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gnicholas
Glad to see this issue discussed. I work in edtech and have been somewhat
uncomfortable with the way things work. There's a lot of paid-but-undisclosed
promotion going on, and some people feel that "it's just the way business gets
done."

As an entrepreneur, I feel that companies bear the primary responsibility for
keeping their noses clean. If you're paying someone to promote your product,
and it's not clear to others that there's a quid pro quo, that should set off
warning bells that there may be an ethical problem.

I've actually had long discussions with other entrepreneurs who insisted —
even after seeing the FTC regulations on undisclosed promotions — that it was
ok to do. Why? Because they'd seen kickbacks in other industries, so it must
be ok here. And after all, we're helping kids, right?

But teachers bear some of the responsibility as well — especially the ones who
heavily monetize their social media presence. I've been approached by teacher
bloggers who allegedly write both product reviews and sponsored posts. When I
replied asking about their product review process (and noting the many awards
that my company's products had won), they sent back only a rate card. In
reality, there were no unpaid product reviews — every post was bought and paid
for. This particular teacher actually added a disclaimer to her site,
indicating that some posts might be paid for. But there was no indication of
which posts those were — probably because then it would be obvious that they
were all sponsored.

I hope this article sparks a conversation in edtech and education circles. In
the context of the recent NYT article on the lack of efficacy of many edtech
tools, the rampant quid pro quo is even more disturbing.

