REWARDING TEACHERS: Teachers Pay Teachers is becoming an Amazon-slick marketplace of lesson plans and other resources by--and for--teachers as it launches its third makeover. (Here's the old look.) Interesting side notes: the preK-2 market is hopping, reports site founder, Paul Edelman. Within the past 6 to 12 months, hundreds of primary teachers have started blogs to help one another (and link to TPT to sell materials). Notes Edelman: "Publishers largely ignore this age group, or have lost any inventiveness for them, so prek-k teachers have had to create their own materials, especially as kids are coming to school more advanced (many already reading)." A market gap filled by practitioners--and profitably so. Teachers made $2 million this past year via TPT, led by a K teacher who pulled in $130K. Instructive for edtech startups: there is an emerging pricing sweet spot around $3.50 an item. Customers are actually spending a bit more: about $14 per order, and about 3 items per order.
