For publishers and EdTech companies, keeping up with academic standards has always been part of doing business in K-12. But standards are only one part of what states and districts are considering when they evaluate instructional products.

State priorities are changing. Portrait of a Graduate initiatives, career-connected learning, employability skills, CTE, and competency-based education are becoming more common in conversations about what students should know and be able to do when they graduate.

Those priorities can eventually show up in curriculum requirements, adoption criteria, and RFPs.

That matters for vendors.

A product may already support many of the skills or competencies a state is looking for. The challenge is being able to identify those connections and clearly communicate them when it matters.

Procurement requirements don't exist in a vacuum

An RFP rarely appears out of nowhere. The requirements in a procurement document are often connected to larger priorities a state or district has been working toward.

For example, a state that has made career readiness a priority may begin looking more closely at how instructional materials support employability skills or career-connected learning. A district focused on its Portrait of a Graduate may want vendors to demonstrate how their solutions contribute to those outcomes.

The academic standards are still there. But they may be sitting alongside additional frameworks and expectations.

For vendors, that can make responding to an RFP more complicated.

It's no longer enough to know which academic standards a product addresses. Organizations may also need to understand how their content connects to skills, competencies, career pathways, and other priorities that are important to the state or district.

The challenge is keeping track of all the pieces

This is where things can get complicated quickly.

CTE standards can vary by program and career pathway. Employability skills may be organized differently from traditional academic standards. Portrait of a Graduate frameworks can include skills and competencies that aren't represented in a typical standards repository.

And these frameworks don't necessarily replace academic standards. They add to them.

For a publisher or EdTech company serving multiple states, keeping track of these differences can become a significant undertaking. What one state calls a particular skill or competency may be represented differently somewhere else.

Having the right information is important. So is having it in a format that can actually be used.

That includes the content itself, but also the metadata and alignment information that help describe what a product supports.

What should vendors be thinking about now?

The best time to look at these questions is before an RFP arrives.

Organizations can start by looking at the frameworks and priorities that are emerging in the states and markets they serve. From there, they can determine where their existing content already connects and where additional work may be needed.

Some useful questions to ask include:

• What skills and competencies are represented in our existing content?
• Are we able to identify connections to career readiness, CTE, or other emerging frameworks?
• Can our metadata support those connections?
• How easily can we demonstrate those relationships in an RFP response?
• Are we keeping track of the standards and frameworks that matter in the states we serve?

This isn't necessarily about creating new content. In many cases, the information is already there. The challenge is being able to find it, organize it, align it, and communicate it in a way that makes sense to an evaluator.

A broader definition of alignment

At EdGate, we spend a lot of time working with standards and helping organizations manage the information behind their alignment strategies. One thing we've seen is that the definition of "alignment" continues to expand.

Academic standards remain a critical piece of the puzzle. But as states place more emphasis on skills, competencies, career readiness, and workforce preparation, vendors have more to consider when they think about how their products align with state priorities.

That doesn't mean every publisher needs to become an expert in every framework.

It does mean that staying aware of what states are adopting and understanding how those frameworks relate to existing standards can make it easier to respond when those priorities start appearing in procurement requirements.

Join EdGate and RFP School Watch

These are some of the issues we will be discussing on Tuesday, August 25 at 12 PM EDT  when EdGate's Rich Portelance joins Whiteboard Advisors education policy expert Hillary Rinaldi for a discussion on changing procurement priorities.

They will look at why Portrait of a Graduate initiatives are becoming part of procurement conversations, how career readiness and competency frameworks are being used alongside traditional academic standards, and what vendors can do now to prepare.

The discussion will also cover what procurement teams are looking for in vendor responses and why keeping track of emerging standards and skills frameworks can give organizations a better understanding of where opportunities are headed.