The global K12 education market, led by the North American region, is set to grow by 17.7% through 2031—from $103.5 billion in 2021—with artificial intelligence providing yet more opportunities for new revenue, according to this spring’s Research Dive report. But decreases in government funding could be a drag on growth, say the analysts who also broke the K12 market into several subsegments:

• Type: Public and private
• Region: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and LAMEA (Latin America, Middle East and Africa)
• Application: High school, middle school, pre-primary school and primary school
• Spend analysis: Hardware and software
• Deployment mode: Cloud and on-premise

While the private K12 sector was slightly bigger in 2021, the global public schools market will grow faster through 2031 as administrators work to further personalize instruction, particularly via online programs staffed by certified teachers. “However, the public school system has significant obstacles, such as a lack of proper infrastructure, insufficient budget, a staff deficit, and limited facilities,” the report warns.

The North American market is predicted to be the most lucrative, due to “massive spending” on edtech while high school will be the most dominant sub-segment by 2031. Growth in the latter will again be driven by technology spending aimed at increasing the quality of instruction.

Software will be more profitable than hardware by 2031 as schools rely more heavily than ever on applications that manage student information, help teachers prepare instruction, facilitate student collaboration, and simplify administrative operations. Finally, when it comes to deployment, cloud computing will show the strongest growth as schools look to minimize data storage costs and boost access and mobility.

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The homework helpline could have been more efficient but teachers on a phoneline could not be expected to provide support in all subject areas, yet that is exactly what was expected of them. They were answering questions about everything from third-grade math to AP physics and all points in between.

After spending a year using an online tutoring system that was phased out fairly quickly, we switched over to using FEV Tutor’s live 1:1 personalized online tutoring program, which I learned about at the National Association of Federal Education Program Administrators conference. I went to their table, talked to them, and told them what we were looking for—namely on-demand tutoring and homework help.

We initially started with homework help. In 2021, we expanded our use of the tutoring program to include small group work (three students to one tutor), with teachers scheduling sessions for the students during the school day. From there, our use of online tutoring grew rapidly. The platform also proved invaluable during the pandemic when students needed more than just a single pass in a Zoom class to absorb and retain the course material.

4 reasons online tutoring works for us

Here are four reasons we have used this approach and how it has helped our district, teachers, and students succeed:

1. Promote equity across the district. We must understand that not everyone has access to a support structure—a parent, tutor, or other individuals—after school hours. That is where our online tutoring program steps in and provides the necessary support to drive student gains at any time of the day, at no additional cost to the families. As a parent myself, I know that private tutoring costs around $25 to $30 per hour. From an equity standpoint, I wanted something our students would not have to pay for and could use regardless of family income.

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2. Cater to the needs of specific schools. Our district’s academic success coach, the dedicated rep from our tutoring partner, has met with the individual schools and developed various tutoring plans for them. For example, some schools use online tutoring during math class every week and have a set of skills they work on with those students that are aligned with our curriculum.

3. Provide specialized support for specific subgroups. We just rolled out a tutoring program for incoming students for whom Spanish is their first language. The “newcomer program” is designed for students who are matriculating into the district’s system. There are currently eight students in this tutoring program, which incorporates online math tutoring for 90 minutes every Tuesday morning. The program is going very well.

4. Give teachers support. Teachers have a lot on their plates right now for various reasons, so anything we can do to support them is valuable. It is a lot to ask teachers to stay after school to tutor students, no matter how much compensation you offer them.

Students still need that support when they are working on homework at night or to close math gaps. Live, online tutoring can add tremendous value that’s so important to student achievement. Moreover, most teachers love the program because any support they can have in their classrooms is always welcome.

Making things happen

This school year, our usage of the tutoring platform has increased by 75%—totaling more than 300 students engaged in over 500 sessions weekly. Both teachers and students appreciate the in-school and after-hours support that the platform provides.

Having a reliable, effective online tutoring partner in place helps us cater to a wide range of student needs and capabilities during the day and after school. For example, many of our high school students have jobs and start their homework at 9 or 10 p.m. Having a trained tutor to offer personalized, on-demand learning support at that time of night is a bonus.

We have individualized the platform for each school, which in turn allows teachers to create individualized tutoring plans and share that with parents. So, if a teacher wants to make sure a student gets math support every Tuesday and Thursday from 6 to 7:30 p.m., based on information from parents, we can make that happen. Because in the end, we want to help students to get the academic help they need, at home or school, at any time of the day.

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The biggest driver of the online tutoring market will be students—particularly in high school—who are seeking to build skills to pass STEM exams and qualify for the ever-expanding job opportunities in STEM fields, which are growing faster than other industries.

Another factor is students’ reliance on mobile devices that support more personalized learning. Students are not only absorbing content on tablets, smartphones and smartwatches but they are also using the devices to view lectures and receive alerts and updates, among other educational activities. Vendors are accordingly prioritizing the development of mobile content that gives students easy access to e-learning materials, Technavio reports.

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A third source of online tutoring market expansion is the steady growth of gamification in online tutoring and assessments, the firm adds.

The fastest-growing segment of the market is “structured tutoring,” which comprises classes or sessions that are planned and scheduled for a certain number of hours, with a guaranteed tutor. Vendors are enticing students and families with free trial periods before subscribing to services that can cost as much as $50 per week or $40 to $120 per month.

The overall global education technology market for hardware and software was valued at $123.4 billion in 2022 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 13.6% from 2023 to 2030, according to Grand View Research.

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These staffing shortages could jeopardize the quality of education students receive at a time when students are still recovering from learning losses due to the pandemic. If students don’t have a qualified teacher, they’re likely to fall even further behind in their learning.

There are many factors contributing to this problem. For instance, educators are feeling overwhelmed by the stress of the pandemic and the demands it has placed on them professionally. Nearly three-quarters of teachers say they’re experiencing job-related stress, 59% say they’re burned out and up to a third might leave their job by the end of the year.

But job-related stress only tells part of the story. Teachers have been chronically underpaid for decades, and many also feel grossly underappreciated. As state lawmakers place limits on what teachers can and can’t say in their classrooms, teachers have bristled at what they view as interference in their jobs.

Resolving teacher shortages ultimately will require more than just quick-fix solutions. States and school systems will need to adopt large-scale changes that address improved working conditions for teachers, better pay and respect, and a stronger focus on employee wellness. However, K-12 leaders also need immediate solutions to make sure students are receiving a high-quality education. A proven online education provider can help fill short-term teaching vacancies and ensure continuity of instruction.

Online instruction offers experience

A provider of supplemental online instruction can offer certified, experienced, and highly trained teachers at a moment’s notice, to teach students in a wide variety of academic disciplines.

The advantage of this approach is that students benefit from having a qualified course instructor, instead of a substitute teacher who might lack the necessary subject matter and pedagogical expertise to engage students in learning deeply about the content.

Some K12 leaders might be hesitant to call on a supplemental online learning provider to help address the teacher shortage crisis after the shift to remote learning in spring 2020 produced mixed results. Yet, emergency remote learning—which is what schools experienced early on during the pandemic—shouldn’t be confused with online learning that is intentionally designed using best instructional practices and delivered by certified teachers trained through an experienced online education provider.

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High-quality online learning puts students at the center of the learning process. Students learn and apply key skills through authentic, hands-on projects. Courses are built within a learning management system such as Brightspace by D2L, and take full advantage of proven online tools for learning. Teachers direct students to curated readings, lessons, and interactive activities, and focus their time on building student engagement and providing one-on-one and group feedback and support. When delivered well, online instruction has been proven to be highly effective.

Other solutions shortchange our students

An Education Week report highlights five ways that states and school systems are trying to fill teacher vacancies this year. They include dropping requirements for bachelor’s degrees, easing certification requirements, and hiring professionals from other fields. Online education can also help, by centralizing teaching resources and distributing those resources to the schools that need them.

Research has established that teachers are the most important school-related factor in a student’s success. As the nonprofit RAND Corporation observes, teachers are estimated to have up to three times the effect of any other school-related factor on student achievement—including services, facilities, and even school leadership.

Having an effective teacher matters. Students shouldn’t be penalized because their schools are having a hard time finding and retaining qualified teaching staff. They deserve high-quality instruction that will deepen their content knowledge and advance their skills.

Ensuring that each student has an experienced and certified teacher for every subject is a question of equity. Teachers that provide online course delivery find that they have the best of both worlds: engagement with the students they enjoy, and the flexibility of remote work on their own schedule. Online teaching is a way to utilize valuable, experienced teachers who have retired from classroom teaching, but still want to be connected to education. A proven supplemental online learning provider can help solve the teaching resource challenge and keep learning moving forward.

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In fact, teacher appreciation improved during the emotionally, politically and academically tumultuous COVID years. More than half of students (52%) said they now have more appreciation for their teachers due to their experiences during the pandemic, according to the latest survey by ACT, the standardized testing company.

Another 42% reported developing a greater appreciation for their education as a whole. “What is striking is seeing from students firsthand how educators in schools across this country continued to do their best to provide a high-quality education despite the many unprecedented challenges of the 2020-21 school year,” ACT CEO Janet Godwin said. “These students saw how we already have the most dedicated teachers in the world.”

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A majority of students also gained confidence in using digital and online tools, and more than six in 10 said the pandemic forced them to become more independent and self-reliant.

“Although most students experienced challenges and obstacles in different aspects of learning,” said Joyce Z. Schnieders, an ACT research scientist. “When students looked back at their experiences during the first year of the pandemic … students learned to rely more on themselves and try to fulfill their responsibilities in learning after the pandemic started.”

ACT’s survey, however, also shows that students are aware of how the pandemic disrupted their lives both in and out of school. An overwhelming majority said that they have missed out on some grade-level knowledge and skills over the last few years. Many also said they became less motivated to learn, were less involved in extracurricular activities, and struggled to maintain relationships with friends.

Students who would have been first-generation college-goers were the most impacted, experiencing greater rates of financial hardships, food and housing insecurity, and mental health disorders, ACT also found. The organization recommends that administrators work more closely with these students to help them find scholarship and career development opportunities while also offering access to mental health care.

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“Only teachers—only human beings—know the students, and what works and what doesn’t work,” says Betty Chandy, the director for online learning at Catalyst, the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education’s center for education innovation. “Artificial intelligence and ChatGPT are going to be tools to empower teachers to meet students’ needs more efficiently and effectively.”

The AI getting the most attention right now is, of course, ChatGPT, which, because it can read, understand in context, and respond in human-like ways, is intensifying fears of plagiarism, cheating, and misinformation. Chandy points out that educators of the past had the same concerns about the use of the internet and Google in classrooms.

“Education is the process of getting there,” Chandy says.”For teachers whose focus is on the learning process and supporting their students to learn and improve, for them it’s less of a concern that students will plug something into ChatGPT and turn it in for a grade.”

AI’s ability to write essays and complete other tasks should inspire teachers to further shift their focus away from rote instruction and move toward multi-disciplinary, project-based learning assignments that help students develop higher-level skills. Students will be even more engaged (and less likely to use technology to cheat) when projects allow them to find solutions to issues they find meaningful and in ways that improve their communities, Shandy explains.

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AI should also elevate teachers’ ability to differentiate and personalize instruction by crunching data and recommending assignments targeted to each student’s ability. “I do not see a future in which any kind of technology replaces the teachers,” Chandy says. “I think these technologies have the capacity to be great teachers’ assistants.”

Ideas for using school AI

Chandy has five guidelines for how teachers can bring AI into their classrooms:

1. Use ChatGPT as a starting point. ChatGPT-generated essays can sometimes be superficial, boring, and redundant. Teachers could have their classes generate ChatGPT essays and then guide students in improving the texts with deeper analysis.
2. Ask ChatGPT to generate articles on topics at each student’s reading level. Teachers can ask ChatGPT to “translate” news articles into a second- or sixth-grade reading level to provide the same content for students at varied reading levels.
3. Ask ChatGPT to suggest activities. AI can generate entire lesson plans if teachers provide the standards and grade level. Teachers can also have the AI produce lessons with games or other activities built into them.
4. Focus on the process instead of the final product. Using tools like Google docs that track the development and evolution of students’ work can ensure they are not copying and pasting from ChatGPT.
5. Provide project-based learning scenarios. Projects focused on local and authentic contexts will discourage students from reporting to  ChatGPT. They might use AI to inform their work—just like they use the web now—but well-developed projects require them to think through ideas and extrapolate to their own contexts.

“Schools can now move away from an instructional pedagogy to a constructionist pedagogy where teachers and students are making things together,” Chandy adds. “I’m very excited about the possibilities of what this technology can do.”

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School resources are strained. The American School Counselor Association claimed per their latest report that for every school counselor there is 408 students he or she is responsible for, on a national average. The American School Counselor Association recommends a 250-to-1 ratio.

With significant jumps in incidents that involve harmful student behaviors, coupled with a substantial shortage in school counselors, it is no wonder that 83% of K12 parents, educators, and administrators are worried about student mental health and violence in their schools.

“You cannot ignore the fact that students are struggling with depression. There are school shootings on what seems a biweekly basis. And there are oftentimes signs of these things,” says Jack Bostian, tech director at Almont Community Schools in Michigan. “If you can take steps to protect your kids, it’s worth every single penny.”

As students increasingly prioritize interfacing with the internet to learn and socialize, digital safety solutions services are becoming administrators’ new line of defense.

At least three different companies that specialize in online student safety attended the Future of Education and Technology Conference in New Orleans this past January. Among them were Netsweeper, Lightspeed Systems, and GoGuardian.

“What are kids doing online?” asks Ryan Keag, director of safety sales at Lightspeed Systems, at FETC 2023. “Realistically, kids are much more comfortable communicating and existing in an online world than they are talking face to face. So what kind of communication and collaboration are they having with their friends? What are they searching for online? This helps us paint a much more accurate picture of the struggles these kids have and the kind of help they need.”

Schools already have CIPA-mandated firewalls that filter out dangerous websites in broad strokes, but these digital safety solutions use data-driven machine learning algorithms to categorize billions of websites, which gives administrators the ability to customize content filters to a granular level, granting them control to update keywords and content to look out for that suggest risky online behavior.

And while content filtering can shield students from harmful content out in the ether of the internet, these services also provide monitoring solutions that can detect harmful student behavior in real-time, allowing administrators to react to a threat of suicide the moment it is searched on a browser, communicated via email or document, or even picked up on a chat forum. Netsweeper has onGuard, LightSpeed Systems has Alert, and GoGuardian has Beacon, which Jack Bostian, a tech director in Michigan’s Almont community schools, believes is the best solution out there by far.

“If the district came to me tomorrow and told me the budget is cut and we’re getting rid of GoGuardian to save money, I would say ‘OK, here is my resignation,'” he said. “I’ve already sold GoGuardian to two different schools.”

Before Tracy Clements became the student safety subject matter expert for GoGuardian, she was a director of school counseling in a district that had a “major suicide problem.” In fact, she says, their suicide rates were 30 times the national average. She was skeptical of an online solution because she didn’t believe she was “techy” enough. When she finally relented to using the product, it only took three weeks for her to realize it’s use when GoGuardian Beacon flagged a student’s web browser actively planning a suicide.

“I couldn’t reach her parents, so I just drove to her house, and when I knocked on the door she remembered me from school, and I said, ‘Do you know why I’m here?’ and she just started crying and said, ‘I was about to kill myself,'” Clements remembers. “She was literally on the cusp of killing herself, and I wouldn’t have known, and I wouldn’t have been able to intervene if it weren’t for Beacon. I’m a believer.”

For Bostian’s district, GoGuardian alerted him and his team last year of over 400 instances involving mental health crises – whether it be active suicide planning, ideation, self-harm, requesting help and support, suicide research – and instances involving guns and bombs, violent acts, and bullying.

Aside from this service’s ability to react to a major crisis, Clements believes that the strongest attribute of this service is its ability to detect troubling student behavior “higher upstream,” that is, before it gets to such a drastic level.

“Prevention is so much less costly than intervention,” she notes.

There are still those who are fearful of the implications of a student monitoring service, citing Big Brother, for example.

Emily Spadafore, public relations manager for GoGuardian cited that around every other student in the public education system has been touched by a GoGuardian product.

“We understand the criticisms, but we are open to having those conversations and are happy to answer any questions anyone has around specific privacy or data policies,” said Spadafore.

Still, nearly 90% of K12 parents believe school technology should be implemented in the classroom, and they are equally supportive of their school system using online educational technology to help detect signs of a student considering harming themselves or harming others.

And for Bostian, he sees the technology as a no-brainer.

“It’s required in this day and age for kids.”

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Beyond simply wanting the flexibility to earn college credits from home, students feel that online programs meet their personal needs better than traditional face-to-face instruction, especially at the height of the pandemic. And according to newly released data from U.S. News, there are several universities that rank among the best for providing students with top-notch online programs.

These are 2023’s “Best Online Programs“:

Bachelor’s programs

1. University of Florida
2. (Tied for 2nd) Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University-Worldwide (FL)
3. (Tied for 2nd) University of Illinois-Chicago

Master’s programs

MBA

1. (Tied for first) Indiana University-Bloomington (Kelley)

2. (Tied for first) University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler)

3. University of Southern California (Marshall)

Business, non-MBA

1. Indiana University-Bloomington (Kelley)
2. (Tied for 2nd) Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper) (PA)
3. (Tied for 2nd) University of Southern California (Marshall)

Computer Information Technology

1. Columbia University
2. Johns Hopkins University (Whiting) (MD)
3. Virginia Tech

Criminal Justice/Criminology

1. University of California-Irvine
2. University of Massachusetts-Lowell
3. Sam Houston State University (TX)

Education

1. (Tied for 1st) Clemson University (Moore) (SC)
2. (Tied for 1st) University of Florida
3. University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign

Engineering

1. University of California-Los Angeles (Samueli)
2. Purdue University-West Lafayette (IN)
3. Pennsylvania State University-World Campus

Nursing

1. University of South Carolina
2. (Tied for 2nd) Duke University
3. (Tied for 2nd) Ohio State University
4. (Tied for 2nd) University of Alabama

“Most of the undergraduate programs in the Best Online Programs rankings are degree completion programs, meaning the vast majority of their students already have some college credit,” according to Principal Data Analyst Eric Brooks. “The methodology is developed with those students in mind, setting these rankings apart from those that are focused on recent high school graduates pursuing higher education for the first time.”

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Learning loss can be a polarizing phrase, but the loss I observe most within the school walls is that loss of agency, both student and teacher agency, where leadership, autonomy, resilience, and flexibility are prioritized. Agency can be viewed as the intersection and application of three domains of digital learning: Wellness, competency, and creativity.

Wellness describes who students are and will become through a digital citizenship and social-emotional lens. Competency describes what digital skills and behaviors students acquire to become empowered learners. Creativity describes how students acquire knowledge and demonstrate learning through integrated technology.

Educators, schools, and districts working to advance digital learning at scale can classify their products, practices, goals and objectives within these three domains. To begin building a branched framework, there are components within each of the domains of digital learning that leaders can identify as areas for focus, goals, or growth rather than trying to elevate all aspects of digital learning at once. These areas of focus can be categorized to help school teams or leaders identify lanes in which to work toward change.

1. Wellness

Wellness is more complex and comprehensive than outdated concepts of digital citizenship. In fact, digital citizenship is often viewed within a narrow framework of internet safety and behavior. Wellness builds upon and expands digital citizenship while including families, society, social-emotional learning and mental health in a more holistic view of digital literacy.

Schools looking to broaden their scope of wellness support for their learning community can begin by expanding from a limited digital citizenship perspective to incorporate technology that supports social-emotional learning and engages families and communities.

2. Competency

This domain spans skills learners acquire and opportunities we provide to measure capacity and growth. Competency in digital learning addresses a student’s ability to accomplish tasks and apply authentic skills across content areas, rather than navigating a scope and sequence of operational tasks.

Maintaining instructional focus on student processes rather than products, the competency domain addresses capacity-building, skill-development, and digital literacy as priorities for effective digital learning.

3. Creativity

In order to empower a generation of content creators, we need to prioritize digital design and creativity as critical classroom competencies. We need to update what it means for students to publish work through digital media, blogs, podcasts, and presentations. It is more important than ever to re-engage all learners with effective tech integration, continuing the shift from content consumption to content creation.

Future-ready learners require options and opportunities to ignite higher-order thinking. Creativity and flexibility promote engaged and empowered learning, and collaborative problem-solving. Creativity requires an approach and an educator who believes that innovation and student voice and choice through authentic digital literacy is an essential classroom competency.

How domains of digital learning lighten the load

When it comes to professional learning, it can be too much to expect classroom teachers to manage the necessary work of rebuilding students’ connection to school and learning while reclaiming their own. Teachers have identified this past year as their hardest yet, leaving little room for professional growth beyond essentials.

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Conceptualizing digital learning across domains can lighten the load. Isolating digital wellness, competency, or creativity reduces the cognitive load on educators and shifts the expectation toward more targeted capacity-building. Here are three critical questions to consider:

• Wellness: Who is having the conversations about digital learning in your classrooms?
• Competency: Where are the barriers to capacity-building, skill development and digital literacy?
• Creativity: What do your educators need to increase opportunities for student creativity?

Considering these three domains of digital learning allows administrators to focus assessment on ways in which teachers engage students with technology. Let’s move past ideas for entry-level tech integration. Let’s broaden our interpretation of digital learning to a more meaningful understanding that addresses student wellness, competency, and creativity.

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When I came on board as the school’s new academic coach, we were using a well-regarded online program that helped expand our Advanced Placement (AP) class offerings. The number of students using our online provider has been growing year after year. We have a conference with the students to set expectations and we use that time to talk about time management, priorities and deadlines.

Here are five key ways that online learning helps us expand our students’ educational horizons:

1. Allows students to work ahead. Online learning students get the opportunity to advance when they’ve already moved beyond foundational coursework. This allows us to offer differentiated learning across various skill sets and abilities. If a new 8th-grade student has already mastered Algebra 1—typically taught in 8th grade—we can put them into an online geometry class instead. It helps students who are ahead, whereas in the past they may have lost six months of learning.

2. Makes good use of elective learning time. Our school designates a specific period for students to work on the virtual courses. Instead of taking an elective that we offer, students do their online elective in a classroom devoted to that work. The class is 60 to 90 minutes in length, depending on the day of the week.

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3. Boosts transcripts. Our IB program is extremely challenging, and some students choose to follow it when they become juniors and seniors. Our online provider gave us an additional option for them that really boosts their transcripts.

4. Gives students the chance to explore non-traditional coursework. One of our students took both biochemistry and biotechnology just based on sheer interest—something that she may not have been able to do using standard course offerings. Another student took personal finance and health, while another used the opportunity to learn more about the human body and health. In some cases, the online coursework directly supports a student’s career aspirations. For example, one senior student who planned on attending theater school in the U.K. took online courses in film, literature, and screenwriting.

5. Prepares us to seamlessly continue during global crises. When the global pandemic emerged, our school already had the infrastructure in place to support remote learning. Our students who were enrolled in online courses didn’t miss a beat, nor did they have to wait for a teacher to intervene and get them up to speed on how to do their coursework online. We never stopped. We were fortunate in that all of our students had laptops. Even during the pandemic, they were always being taught.

Why it’s a no brainer

The process of setting students up for success with online learning is pretty straightforward at our school: we share the course catalog with them and then I share those picks with their guidance counselor and academic coordinator. If the selections fulfill the credits that the students need—and about eight out of 10 times they do—the student is free to take those online courses.

I then monitor student progress in the online courses, check that they aren’t missing any assignments and check in with them periodically. Our students do extremely well and, overall, I think the lowest grade was a 92%. Students love it and it’s a great opportunity for schools that just can’t offer certain subjects. I don’t see why you wouldn’t want the students to have all these extra options that you might not be able to give to them yourself.

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