Education Policy, Business and Technology

Unused: Instructional Software's Dark Secret

Government Technology: A recent report from the Penn Center for Learning Analytics, funded by BrightBytes, a K-12 data and learning analytics company, offers a glimpse into U.S. schools and their students’ use of instructional software and applications. The report’s findings should give pause to any school leader responsible for purchasing instructional applications.

I recommend reading a Hechinger Report article for its overview of the Penn Center work, which included these findings: Of the 48 school districts whose data was used in the analysis, it was found that a median of 97.6 percent of their apps weren’t used to their intended levels, and 70 percent of their districts’ student app licenses weren’t used at all.

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