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Preparing K-12 and higher education IT leaders for the exponential era
Instructure and InnovateEDU’s analysis of common classroom technologies found 60 percent of designated ed-tech tools and 98 percent of consumer tools haven’t met standards of evidence recognized by the ESSA.
According to a news release shared today, the ed-tech company Instructure and nonprofit InnovateEDU drew anonymized usage data from the educational content-tracking system LearnPlatform’s browser integration between August and December 2025 to find the most frequently used tools in K-12 education.
Researchers then judged these tools’ alignment with research standards in certifications in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the federal legislation dictating schools spend federal dollars on evidence-based learning interventions and providing frameworks to judge tools against. For example, an intervention earns a Tier I grade if a well-designed study of at least 350 participants finds statistically significant positive evidence and no strong negative evidence.
The study also compared data compliance, interoperability, accessibility and usability with standards outlined in certifications from organizations like ISTE, Digital Promise, 1EdTech and the World Wide Web Consortium. According to the report, alignment is growing more important as technology evolves.
“As states and districts embrace the potential of AI, we have a unique opportunity to set a new, higher standard for educational technology,” InnovateEDU CEO Erin Mote said in a public statement.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
While young people’s time interacting with technology is increasing year over year, according to the report, not all screen time has the same impact. Digital learning experiences governed by teachers and tailored to instructional goals are “fundamentally different” from consumer platforms used passively or as a distraction.
Tools built for education are more likely than consumer ones to have demonstrated a positive learning impact, to the extent that 40 percent had evidence aligned with ESSA, compared with just 2 percent of consumer technologies used in schools.
Within that 40 percent, however, there is variability. Just 2 percent of studied tools met Level I, the highest possible standard of ESSA evidence. Another 5 percent met Level II, 14 percent met Level III and 19 percent met Level IV. While Level IV is the lowest, it is designed to encourage innovation. To achieve a Level IV rating, an ed-tech tool does not need to demonstrate results, but a well-defined research effort must be planned or in progress. That means only 21 percent of the 150 common ed-tech tools examined by Instructure and InnovateEDU had definitely demonstrated positive results to ESSA sufficient for more than a Level IV rating.
Beyond meeting learning goals, ed-tech tools were also more likely to meet privacy and interoperability standards.
On the whole, 33 percent of ed-tech tools had at least one data-compliance certification, and 30 percent had at least one interoperability certification. That number for consumer tools was much lower: No more than 6 percent held a certification in either.
Accessibility certifications were more common, with 70 percent of most-used classroom technologies meeting Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, beating out general consumer technologies’ 50 percent alignment.
CHANGING HOW SCHOOLS CHOOSE
According to the report, schools are increasingly relying on standards like ESSA to evaluate tools as they formalize their procurement processes. School districts face pressure to select tools wisely, and the report suggests eight questions for leaders to consider before implementing a new one:
- What outcome is this technology intended to improve?
- What evidence or rationale supports that claim?
- What is the cost in attention/time, and why is it worth it?
- What student data is collected, and what safeguards does the district have?
- How will this fit into our ecosystem and workflows?
- Does this product have a documented [Voluntary Product Accessibility Template]?
- Do teachers and learners find the product accessible and easy to use?
- What reporting will we get, and what decisions will it enable?
The report suggested that school and district leaders use these questions to help find the best tools for their purposes.
“The conversation is shifting from what a tool can do to whether it measurably improves learning outcomes,” Melissa Loble, chief academic officer at Instructure, said in a public statement. “For districts, evidence aligned to ESSA, strong student privacy protections and seamless interoperability are no longer differentiators. They are baseline requirements for building a safe and effective learning ecosystem.”
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