Schools from the Inside Out: Insights from the State of the K-12 Market Reports

Did you know? Education is big business! Surprise surprise. According to the National Council for Education Statistics (NCES), when all types of educational institutions are combined, total spending reaches $1.25 trillion dollars, or 7% of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). That’s a lot of buying power.

Ever imagine being a fly on the wall inside schools? To learn first-hand how they’re using tech to teach? How they’re spending budget dollars and who decides? What they think about OER resources vs. commercial materials? It would take a lot of walls and too many flies to get the answers to questions like these. The good news is that there’s a better option—no insects required!

MDR has compiled three State of the K-12 Market reports from national surveys:

We’ve found that the focus of our reports align well with what those working with the education industry are hungry to know. For example:

  • Being able to understand how classroom structure supports learning can be found in the The Impact of Learning on Student Success report.
  • Needing a solid understanding of district demographics—size, student characteristics, achievement levels, budget, among other details. This type of information is readily available, but where?  You can find the answer in the K-12 Education Landscape Report.
  • What’s the teacher use of devices and hardware in the classroom, as well as which are used most heavily by school type, size, and subject? There were some obvious skews with certain technology access and use based on subject areas and grade levels you’ll want to read about in the Teachers Talk Technology report.

Save yourself some time plotting how to spy on every school in the country. We’ve gotten the answers for you. The current three reports can be found here.