I want you to picture a scene. It's a Tuesday
morning, maybe 10 a .m. We're in a conference
room at a big school district's central office.
Oh, I know that room. You know that room. It
smells like stale coffee and floor wax. And around
this huge table, you've got the power players,
the superintendent, assistant superintendent
for instruction, maybe HR. Well, comfortable.
Mm -hmm. They're leaning back. They know each
other. Exactly. They're laughing at some inside
joke about state testing. And the vibe is just...
it's coherent. They speak a shared language,
finish each other's sentences about, you know...
pedagogy and stakeholder engagement. It's club.
It's a club. But then I want you to shift your
focus to the far end of that table. There's one
person sitting there. Yeah. And they're not laughing.
They're looking at a laptop, maybe typing furiously,
maybe just staring. Physically in the room, but
mentally somewhere else entirely. He might as
well be on Mars. That is the perfect image to
start with. Because today we're talking about
that person. the tech leader, and why, according
to the research, they are the loneliest person
in that room. Welcome back to the Deep Dive.
We're doing something a little different today.
Usually when we talk ed tech, we're talking about
the gadgets, right? The VR headsets, the AI tutors,
the Wi -Fi. The shiny objects. The shiny objects.
But today, we are ignoring the hardware. We're
looking at the human architecture that decides
how all that hardware gets used. And that is
such a critical pivot. We so often blame the
technology when things go wrong in a school.
Oh, totally. The app is glitchy. The network
is slow. But the source we're looking at today
argues the glitch isn't in the software. The
glitch is in the org chart. We are digging into
a really fascinating piece called School Leaders
in Technology. It was written by Gary Ackerman
for Hack Science Education, and it just came
out February 2026. So this is, you know, fresh
thinking. And Ackerman really puts his finger
on a structural tension. He argues there's this
fundamental disconnect between the people who
hold the power in schools, the traditional leadership,
and the people who hold the digital keys. And
it all starts with what he calls the pathway
to power. I love that phrase. It sounds like
a documentary about medieval kings, the pathway
to power. It does, doesn't it? But in this case,
it's really just about the resume. How does someone
get to sit in the superintendent's chair? Ackerman
breaks down the typical career arc. Walk us through
that. It's remarkably consistent. If you look
at the resume of almost any high level school
administrator, where does it start? The classroom.
Exactly. They start as teachers. They spend years
with students, grading papers, dealing with the
day -to -day of instruction. Then they decide
they want to lead. So what's the next step? They
go back to school. Get that admin credential.
Right. They go to grad school. And let's look
at what they study there. They study school law.
They study finance and budgeting, personnel management.
All the nuts and bolts of running a physical
school. Precisely. Then they become an assistant
principal. They spend a few years breaking up
fights in the cafeteria, dealing with bus schedules.
Then they become a principal and eventually they
move to the central office. So by the time they're
making these big decisions, they have 20, maybe
30 years of experience, they are absolute experts
in the rhythm of the school system. They are.
But, and this is the massive but that Ackerman
highlights, at no point in that whole 20 -year
journey was technology stratagem. core requirement.
Wasn't a gatekeeper. Not at all. You can become
the CEO of a multi -million dollar school district
without ever really understanding how a server
works or what an API is or how data privacy architecture
is built. That is wild when you really think
about it. In 2026, a school district is basically
a massive data corporation that also happens
to teach kids. How can you run the place if you
don't understand the infrastructure? And Ackerman
makes a really subtle distinction here. He notes
that these leaders do use technology. They're
on email. They use the student information system.
They're glued to their phones. Of course. They're
consumers. Exactly. But there is a massive difference
between consuming technology and managing it.
It's a difference between driving a car and being
a Or, to take it a step further, it's the difference
between driving a car and being the city planner
who designs the whole traffic grid. Ackerman
points out that while these leaders are prepared
for almost everything else, legal, financial,
pedagogical, they just have not built a career
around studying or deploying technology. And
what I found so interesting in the article is
that this isn't some secret. They're not trying
to hide this. No, not at all. Ackerman notes
that most school leaders will freely admit it.
How many times have you heard a principal or
a superintendent say something like, oh, don't
ask me, I'm not a tech person? A million times.
It's usually said with a little chuckle, like,
oh, I can barely program the microwave. Exactly.
It's the socially acceptable admission of ignorance.
But let's just swap the nouns for a second. Imagine
if a superintendent stood up at a budget hearing
and said, with a laugh, Oh, don't ask me about
the numbers. I'm just not a finance person. I
don't really get how money works. They would
be escorted out of the building. Immediately.
Or imagine them saying, you know, I'm not really
a child safety person. You cannot say that. It's
disqualifying. Of course not. But in education
leadership, saying I'm not a tech person is seen
as a perfectly valid standard limitation. It's
almost a badge of honor, like it proves you're
focused on the human side of things. But the
irony is that the human side. now runs on digital
rails. You can't protect student safety if you
don't understand cybersecurity. You can't manage
the budget if you don't understand software licensing
costs. That is the crux of the issue. We've put
people in charge who self -identify as novices
in a critical infrastructure layer. But Ackerman
goes deeper. He says the problem isn't just the
individual leader, it's who they hang out with.
The group. The advisory circle. The cabinet.
Whatever you want to call it. Okay, so, let's
play devil's advocate for a second. If I'm a
CEO and I know I'm weak in tech, shouldn't I
just surround myself with people who are good
at it? I mean, that's management 101. You would
think so, but Ackerman highlights a phenomenon
called homophily. It's a fancy term that basically
just means birds of a feather flock together.
Okay, so how does that play out in the superintendent's
cabinet? Well, look at who gets hired for those
top roles. Yeah. The assistant superintendent
for instruction. Former teacher, former principal.
The director of student services. Former teacher,
former principal. The director of HR. Often a
former principal, you see the pattern. It's the
same resume, just with different names at the
top. Essentially. Ackerman points out, this group
is made up of professionals on a path just like
the one the CEO took. They have, and I'm quoting
here, similar preparation and similar experiences.
They share a professional DNA. They do. And Ackerman
is fair about this. He notes, that has huge gilfits.
Right, the shorthand. They can move quickly.
Exactly. They don't have to explain to each other
what a formative assessment is or why bus duty
is a nightmare. They share a mental model of
how a school should work. They get the same jokes.
But the downside is pretty big. They all share
the same blind spot. Correct. It leads to what
he calls groupthink. Because they have such similar
experiences, they tend to validate each other's
perspectives. If the superintendent says, I'm
not a tech person, so let's just buy what the
district next door bought, Everyone else nods.
That makes sense. We aren't tech people either.
It becomes this echo chamber of technical avoidance.
It creates a consensus reality where technology
is just a commodity like buying paper towels
rather than a strategic lever. And because they
all agree, they feel confident in the decision,
even if that decision is, you know, technically
a disaster waiting to happen. Which brings us
right back to our lonely figure at the end of
the table, the one person who is not a former
principal. The tech director. The single voice.
Ackerman really emphasizes this. In most of those
leadership cabinets, you're likely to have only
one technology professional. Just one. Against
a whole phalanx of former principals. Think about
that contrast. The curriculum director has a
team. They have instructional coaches, principals,
department heads. They all speak curriculum.
They have peers to bounce ideas off of. And the
tech leader is a singular entity at that level.
A singular entity. And Ackerman says they work
in isolation. Yes. And he doesn't just mean they
sit in a different office, right? No, he means
intellectual isolation. This is the part of the
article that really hit me. Ackerman writes that
the tech leader has limited access to others
on the leadership team to brainstorm or otherwise
problem solve. Let's unpack that word brainstorm
because I think people hear it and they think
of like sticky notes on a whiteboard. It's much
deeper than that. It's about the cognitive process
of solving a complex problem. To brainstorm effectively,
you need a partner who actually understands the
nuances of what you're talking about. Give me
an example. Okay, so imagine you're a principal
and you have a crisis with a parent group. You
walk into another principal's office and say,
the PTA is revolting. The other person immediately
gets the context, the politics, the stakes. They
get it. You can riff. You can bounce ideas back
and forth. What if we tried this? No, that would
backfire because of X. You're building a solution
together. Because you speak the same language.
Precisely. Now... Imagine you're the tech director.
You realize that the new AI platform the board
wants to buy is going to require opening up firewall
ports that create a massive security vulnerability.
OK, that sounds bad. It is bad. So you go to
the assistant superintendent to brainstorm. You
explain the port issue. You explain the firewall
architecture. And they just look at you like
you're speaking Klingon. They literally cannot
process the information. They can't offer a suggestion
like, well, what if we routed it through a proxy?
because they don't know what a proxy is. The
conversation just dies. They just ask, well,
can we use the app or not? So the tech director
isn't having a strategic dialogue. They're just
reporting a status. It's a yes or no. That is
the brainstorming deficit. When the tech leader
works in isolation, they're forced to simplify
these incredibly complex problems into binary
choices. They can't walk the team through the
why or the how. They can only deliver the what.
And that feels like a really dangerous place
for an organization to be. It's incredibly dangerous.
It means the organization is making major decisions
without ever understanding the trade -offs. It
silences all the nuance. It also seems like it
would force the tech director into a corner.
If you can't explain the nuance and you know
there's a risk, you basically just have to say
no all the time. And you become the department
of no. This is such a common complaint in schools.
Oh, IT blocks everything. It won't let us have
any fun. We've all heard that. But Ackerman's
analysis suggests this isn't because IT people
are grumpy. It's because they are the only ones
carrying the full weight of the risk. That is
a great point. If a reading program fails, Who
takes the blame? The whole team. They all reviewed
it. They all agreed on the pedagogy. It's a collective
failure. But if the network gets hacked... It's
the tech director's fault. One hundred percent.
Exclusively. So you've got a situation where
the tech director has the highest personal risk
and the lowest amount of collaborative support.
Of course they're going to be conservative. Of
course they're going to block things. They're
defending the castle all by themselves. Meanwhile,
the group is getting frustrated because they
don't understand why they can't just buy the
cool new thing they saw at a conference. And
because of that group think dynamic we talked
about, the group usually wins. Ackerman suggests
the collective desire of the administration just
overpowers the solitary concern of the tech professional.
So the group says we're doing it anyway, and
the tech person is left to frantically try and
patch it all together in the background. Exactly.
The tech professional becomes a contractor in
their own house. They aren't helping to shape
the strategy. They're just being told to execute
a strategy that was decided by people who don't
understand the tools. This explains so much.
I mean, if you're a listener and you've ever
wondered... why school technology feels so clunky
or disjointed or like it was bought by someone
who has never used a computer. It's because it
probably was. Or at least the decision was driven
by a group who prioritized educational theory
over technical reality. And the one person who
could have bridged that gap was structurally
sidelined. And it's important to say again, Ackerman
isn't saying these are bad people. The superintendent
isn't trying to cause problems. No, absolutely
not. These are dedicated, intelligent professionals.
Ackerman is critiquing the system, not the individuals.
It's a structural flaw in how we set up our educational
hierarchies. We have a preparation gap where
we don't train leaders in tech colliding with
an isolation factor, where we don't give tech
leaders any peers. It's like building a hospital
where all the administrators are brilliant surgeons,
which makes sense. But the person running the
electricity and the life support systems is kept
in the basement and only allowed to speak for
two minutes at the end of the meeting. That is
a perfect analogy. And when the power goes out
during surgery, everyone yells at the electrician,
even though the surgeons all voted to cut the
generator budget because they wanted nicer scalpels.
And the electrician is just standing there saying,
I tried to tell you. I sent you a memo. But because
the memo was technical, nobody read it. So, okay,
we've diagnosed the patient. The school system
is suffering from this disconnect between authority
and technical competency. What's the takeaway
here? If I'm listening, why does this matter
to me beyond just, you know, schools are messy?
I think the big takeaway from Ackerman's work
is that we need to stop looking at technology
as a product that schools buy and start looking
at it as a competency that schools need to embody.
What does that mean in practice? It means we
probably need to rethink that path to power.
Maybe we need to start requiring technology strategy
as part of the admin credential. Maybe a principal
shouldn't be able to get certified unless they
can demonstrate they understand data privacy.
So close the preparation gap. Right. And stop
accepting I'm not a tech person as a valid excuse.
In 2026, if you're not a tech person, you're
not a leader. You're a liability. Ooh, that is
harsh. You're a liability. It is harsh, but look
at the world. Look at AI. Look at the data breaches
happening every week. If the person at the top
doesn't get it, the entire organization is vulnerable.
And what about the loneliness of the tech leader?
How do we fix that part? We have to break the
silo. Ackerman implies that the isolation is
the root cause of that brainstorming deficit.
So maybe the cabinet needs more than one tech
voice. Safety in numbers. Or at least diversity
of thought. Maybe you need a chief technology
officer and a chief data officer. Or maybe the
assistant superintendents need to be cross -trained
enough that they can actually be thought partners
on this stuff. They need to learn to speak just
a little bit of Klingon. Just enough to have
a conversation. Just enough to say, OK, I understand
why that firewall port is a problem. Let's brainstorm
a different way to get this data. That feels
like the dream, right? a roundtable where everyone
actually speaks the same language or at least
enough of it to function as a real team. That's
the goal. But until we address these structural
issues, the resume gap and the silo effect, we're
just going to keep seeing this friction. It really
changes how you look at a school board meeting,
doesn't it? You see that row of people up there
and you realize there's this invisible wall between
the one person with a laptop and everyone else.
It's a reminder that organizations are just people.
And if those people are sorted into buckets where
they can't effectively talk to each other, the
whole organization is going to stutter. So let's
wrap this up. We've unpacked Gary Ackerman's
piece, School Leaders in Technology. We've seen
the preparation gap. We've seen the isolation
factor and the danger of groupthink. And we've
seen why the tech person always says no. Justice
for the tech person. But seriously, I want to
leave our listener with a final thought to chew
on. We've been talking about the present, but
let's look, say, five years down the road. Okay.
Technology is not getting any simpler. It's getting
exponentially more complex. We're talking about
immersive VR, biometric data tracking, AI that
runs the curriculum. The stakes are getting higher
every single day. So if we don't fix this structural
disconnect now, if we continue to have decision
makers who openly admit they don't understand
the tools they're buying, here's the question.
Are our schools structurally designed to lose
control of their own future? That is the haunting
question because if the leadership can't understand
the machine, eventually the machine just runs
itself. And on that slightly terrifying note.
Sorry to bring the doom. No, it's good. It's
what we do here. We dive deep. We certainly do.
Thank you for helping us unpack the human architecture
of our school. Always a pleasure. And thank you
for listening. We'll see you on the next Deep
Dive.