Bill Gates and news go hand in hand, so the hoopla surrounding his recent comments about education technology at the ASU GSV Summit in San Diego shouldn't come as a surprise. But it should be a wakeup call for parents, students, school districts, authorities and education departments.

Gates said that despite years of technology-infused innovation, the ed-tech industry has not really lived up to its transformational promise. A lot of education technology entrepreneurs present at the venue reacted to the sheer shock value of the statement, but the stark reality is technology has been more of a hype than a difference-maker for improved student learning.

Much of this hype has centered on "personalized learning," with sophisticated technological systems that are meant to transform education in the 21st century. As the former head of Microsoft pointed out, we haven't really been able to change students' academic outcomes despite spending millions of dollars.

When a prominent figure like Gates makes statement people sit up and take notice, some even express shock. But this is not the first time that ed-tech efforts have been questioned. In September, the United Nations Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published a report that showed computers and other classroom technologies haven't improved student achievement.

Sydney Grammar, one of Australia's top private schools, recently made headlines when it banned laptops in the classroom. Instead of wasting money on classroom technology that distracted instead of contributing to quality teaching, they are now focusing on going to back the basics of education, where learning is about social interaction between teachers and students.

Technology, they felt, inhibited conversation and the interactive nature of learning. Technological "personalized learning" has had a powerful normative effect with student disagreements, questions and interactions taken away from the equation. Instead of being the game changer it promised to be, it has done just the opposite.

Gates pointed out that the industry need to get a better grasp of student and teacher needs before delivering more ed-tech solutions — without which, return on investment will be slow. Other issues with ed-tech are also coming to the forefront with research showing that keyboard expressions, rather than handwritten ones, can lower cognitive value. Grades have plummeted with more online exams as opposed to tests on paper, and too much "screen time" has had damaging effects on both brain development and social adjustment.

One major issue is helping kids stay engaged. Technology has done little to keep them hooked when the material is not quite interesting or relevant immediately. Even teachers have agreed that digital techniques and the plethora of new gadgets have not been able to boost learning. Perhaps, we need to address this before questioning why our students are consistently outperformed by their international peers.

The current high school graduation rate of 81 percent is a "stunningly low" number, according to Gates. He pitted these figures with the future workforce needs, which shows there will be a staggering shortfall of students with higher-ed credentials (close to 11 million) to fill jobs.

Gates predicted the U.S. market for digital instruction materials be around $1.1 billion through 2020. But this technology needs to scale not fail if we want our students to succeed. So deep engagement with educators and a long-term approach should be applied by ed-tech entrepreneurs and investors. Before real-time education is replaced completely with digital learning, personalized learning concerns need to be dealt with.

According to Gates, with evidence-based changes and innovations, effective personalized learning solutions can be formulated. There is an imperative need to be more engaging than a textbook, which will accelerate learning for students and incorporate improved teacher-preparation programs for overall effectiveness.

There is also the need to optimize products that are not used or less used in the classroom so overall spending can be controlled. This will help districts stay within their ed-tech budgets, get better ROI from their spending, and close the equity gap in American education.