Big-District Priorities

The nation's largest school systems are putting more money into technologies that analyze student-achievement data.

The educational technology spending priorities of the nation’s largest school districts appear to be leaning heavily toward technologies that help educators analyze student-achievement data and then adjust their teaching based on what those results show.

At the same time, big districts are using a mix of financial resources to maintain—and, in some cases, increase—the amount of money they are devoting to educational technology in general. But some officials in those districts say President Bush’s proposed cuts in federal aid for educational technology could derail future spending.

In the 1.1 million-student New York City public schools, the nation’s largest school system, leaders are spending about $300 million on instructional technology for the 2004-05 school year, out of an overall district budget of $13 billion. A centralized information-technology office oversees those efforts, but more than 1,000 schools in 10 district regions also have the freedom to shape their own programs and tap aid from city coffers, state and...