The U.S. institutional market for education software and digital content/resources in grades pre-K to 12 in 2011 was $7.76 billion, the Software Information & Industry Association says.
The association’s second annual survey, 2011 U.S. Education Technology Industry Market: PreK-12, which was released in December 2012, estimates that the market grew 3.5 percent from the 2009-10 market of $7.5 billion.
The survey breaks down the market into three key sectors. The largest sector, instructional support, accounted for 38 percent of the market.
“Within this segment, testing and assessment was the largest category,” the report’s executive summary states.
The second sector, content, accounted for 36 percent; reading and language arts, followed by mathematics were the largest categories in this sector. The third sector, platforms and administrative tools, accounted for 26 percent.
The executive summary notes that U.S. education funding was significantly boosted in 2010-11 by the federal stimulus package. Although much of that funding was used to avoid staff reductions, the summary states, “many districts used the flexibility [that the stimulus funds provided] to not only push forward with key technology initiatives that might otherwise have been delayed, but also accelerate them sometimes with this one-time funding stream.”
