K-12 School Spending:Two-Thirds of Software License Purchases Go Unused

Glimpse K12,released today the results of a new study evaluating spending at 275 K-12 schools across the U.S.
Glimpse K12 analyzed $2B in school spending across the schools and determined that the most underutilized resource and biggest source of wasted spending was educational software (67 percent), followed by professional development (48 percent) and printed materials (28 percent).
Glimpse tracked 200K curriculum software licenses purchased by 275 schools during the 2017-2018 school year. The company used its eROI platform to measure how many of the software licenses were actually being used by teachers and students. Glimpse K12 found on average that 67 percent of software licenses were going unused, though in some cases the number was as high as 90 percent. This translated to approximately $2M in wasted spending across all 275 schools during the academic year.
Looking at education expenditures through an ROI lens in the context of student outcomes, Glimpse K12’s analysis highlighted:
-- Technology is by far the most underutilized resource. An underutilized resource means a school purchased the technology and is not utilizing it fully. It does not imply that there should be more use of technology in general. -- Given the fact that the education technology software space alone totals $8.4 billion dollars, this means that over $5.6 billion dollars may be wasted each year.
“At Glimpse we have found that nearly 90 percent of districts we work with that do not have clearly defined ROI goals suffer from severe underutilization of technology resources,” said Adam Pearson, Co-Founder of Glimpse K12. “Underutilization/Non-utilization is the number one culprit that drives up education costs and weighs on student success. When these activities are not fully utilized, two unfortunate things occur. First, money is wasted. Second, and most importantly, student achievement suffers.”