Research & Forecasts


image shows a Pivot Interactives digital science experiment with a runner going uphill and measuring ruler overlaid

The Best Ed Tech Innovations Will Be Emergent – If We Do This Right

Without minimizing the need to honor students’ privacy rights, we as an ed tech community should also not miss the opportunity to search for the new emergent patterns that will no doubt appear when we look at how students, teachers, and their data all interact. It’s these new patterns, like ripples in the sand, that will likely offer insights into the heretofore most intractable questions in education.

Almost Half of Public School Students Started the Academic Year Behind

Most schools are using various forms of tutoring as part of their learning recovery strategies, in addition to formative assessments, remediation, and individualized instruction.

Get More Math logo and THE Journal logo with screenshot from Get More Math website on tips for spiral review and math retention

Rethinking How We Teach Math: Three Tips for Better Long-term Retention

Students need to learn not only math shortcuts, processes, and formulas — they also must learn the underlying concepts behind them. Students need a deeper conceptual understanding of math so they can transfer their knowledge to new contexts and are less prone to making mistakes. They also need more time for learning math in school and more focus on long-term retention.

Sample fraction math problem illustrating why math schema is more important than skills alone, and THEJournal.com logo

Schools Must Adopt the Science of Math

With so-called learning loss from the pandemic continuing to harm students, schools can't just return to normal methods of teaching math. Fortunately, researchers have a strong understanding of how people learn math, just as they did with the now widely accepted science of reading. However, that understanding is taking too long to filter into classroom instruction.

Report: Federal Broadband Funding, States, and Internet Providers Together Can Close the Digital Divide for the Greater Good

A new report examines how bringing internet connectivity to all results in broader benefits to society, using federal funds, with states and internet providers cooperating.

Report: 96% of School Apps Send Kids’ Personal Data to Potentially Harmful Third Parties

In a new K–12 ed tech safety benchmark report, “School Mobile Apps Student Data Sharing Behavior,” Internet Safety Labs finds that 96% of all apps used in schools share children’s personal information with third parties without the knowledge or consent of the users or the schools.

Nearly Half of Public Schools Have Open Teaching Positions

Forty-five percent of public schools in the United States had at least one teaching vacancy as of October 2022, with 27% reporting multiple vacancies, according to information released today by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The shortages disproportionately affect schools in areas of high poverty (57% versus 41% in more affluent areas) and in schools with a student body composed of 75% or more minority students (60% versus 32% of schools with 25% or less minority population).

National Survey Finds High School Graduates Not Prepared for College or Career Decisions

According to a new survey, "75% of high school graduates are not ready to make college and career decisions. This is despite the fact that the National Center for Education Statistics reported that in the 2018-2019 school year, the graduation rate for high schools was 86%, the highest it had been since 2010."

These 5 Proven Methods for Teaching Foundational Literacy are Vital to Overcoming Pandemic Losses

While addressing the needs of all students (especially after a global pandemic) could never boil down to a common formula, educators as well as families and tutors must rely on proven methods for teaching foundational literacy skills, says a literacy instruction expert from ReadingPartners.org, who offers five key elements that every literacy learner needs.

NCES Data Show More Than Half K–12 Schools Offer After-School Help, but A Large Percentage Require Minimal COVID-19 Prevention

A National Center for Education Statistics School Pulse Panel K–12 survey done in September 2022 of 1,010 public schools showed that over 56% offered intensive summer school or after-school programs during the 2022-23 school year, but measures to prevent COVID-19 have stayed the same or decreased since the 2021-22 school year.