During the first quarter of 2014, purchases of instructional materials were down by 4 percent compared with the same period of 2013, according to the Association of American Publishers.
Jay Diskey, the executive director of the AAP’s PreK-12 Learning Group, said that after an upturn last year, the association had hoped early 2014 would see brisk business, with districts buying materials to implement the common-core standards.
But states and districts have been reluctant to make major investments in those materials, in part because of the constraints of the recent recession and in part because of uncertainty about whether and how the new standards will roll out.