Major Study on Software Stirs Debate

On whole, school products found to yield no net gains.

A long-awaited federal study of reading and math software that was released last week found no significant differences in standardized-test scores between students who used the technology in their classrooms and those who used other methods.

Representatives of the educational software industry immediately took issue with aspects of the $10 million study of 15 commercial software products, arguing that its findings did not mean that classroom technology had no academic payoff.

Still, Phoebe H. Cottingham, the U.S. Department of Education administrator whose office commissioned the study, said in an interview that the report should be used as “one input into people’s decision about how much, and where,...