The convergence of those pressures, some education leaders say, is forcing district leaders to take a closer look at the technology purchases made during the COVID-19 pandemic, when schools used billions of dollars in temporary federal relief funding to buy devices, software platforms, tutoring tools and classroom applications. Now, with that funding gone and public schools facing enrollment declines and rising costs, administrators are being asked to determine which tools are worth sustaining and which may no longer justify their expense.
THE LOSS OF ESSER FUNDING
The scrutiny is less about abandoning technology altogether and more about proving its value, said Marguerite Roza, director of Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab, which studies education finance.
For several years, districts had access to one-time federal relief dollars — Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds — that had to be spent within a specific time frame. Many used those funds for technology purchases because they were easier to scale back than permanent staffing commitments, she explained.
“Districts absolutely have a tight budget year,” Roza said. As districts contend with enrollment declines, rising healthcare costs and the loss of federal relief funding, they are increasingly examining non-personnel expenditures. Technology spending is a natural place to look, she added.
Kelly May-Vollmar, superintendent of California’s Desert Sands Unified School District and board chair-elect of the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), said districts that used temporary funding to launch technology initiatives are now confronting difficult sustainability questions.
“You don’t want to spend one-time money on ongoing things,” she said.
Desert Sands, which serves roughly 26,000 students, had a sustainability plan in place for its 1:1 device initiative before the pandemic. But May-Vollmar said some districts rapidly expanded technology programs during the ESSER era without establishing long-term funding strategies.
“A lot of districts, out of necessity, rolled out a 1:1 program during ESSER using ESSER funds,” she said. “But what they maybe failed to do was create a sustainability plan along with that for after the ESSER funding went away.”
WHAT TECH IS MOST VULNERABLE TO CUTS?
As districts evaluate what stays and what goes, both Roza and May-Vollmar said school leaders are asking tougher questions about return on investment.
Roza said that administrators often don’t even know the value of their tech.
“I think that districts don’t necessarily have strong data on how much the tech is being used, whether or not they’re overlapping things, whether or not teachers like it, don’t like it, whether or not it works as a babysitter, or really accelerates learning, or actually potentially saves on back-office costs,” she said.
Rather than beginning with evidence of impact, districts often start evaluating tech by examining whether products are being used at all, Roza explained. Leaders may look at usage rates, overlapping software purchases, teacher adoption and whether tools appear to produce desired outcomes.
“You hear about districts saying this would be a good time to do a tech audit or some kind of review of everything we do,” she said. “I think that that would be a good thing to do regularly, and not just with technology.”
In the case of Desert Sands, May-Vollmar echoed Roza in saying districts should be reviewing technology spending the same way they assess any other investment.
“We really try to evaluate all of our systems and all of our supports, whether those are tech-related or not, annually to see if we’re getting a return on investment,” she said. “In education, sometimes we’re not great at that. We’re good at adding things, we find gaps and holes, and we add things, but we don’t take things away.”
Not to mention, school boards increasingly want more than vendor promises or usage statistics.
“There should be a measurable outcome that I’m able to see that we’re attributing to that software platform,” she said.
However, Roza emphasized that not all technology is equally vulnerable to cuts, noting that tools that have become deeply embedded in district operations are unlikely to disappear. Systems related to payroll, attendance, security and student tracking remain essential, in addition to curricula that are widely used across schools. She said those are generally safer than niche products with limited adoption.
“Anything that’s getting really wide usage in the district is likely to be protected,” she said, but more vulnerable are supplemental tools that overlap with other products, were never fully implemented or failed to gain traction among educators.
Roza also suggested some technology aimed at younger students or narrowly targeted interventions could face greater scrutiny.
May-Vollmar said categories that districts are unlikely to abandon include accessibility technologies that support students with disabilities.
“For special education students, [accessibility tech], that’s not an add-on,” she said. “That’s essential for their learning.”
SCREEN TIME CONCERNS
The ongoing, broader backlash against screens is also influencing district conversations, though both experts suggested its impact may be more visible in policy discussions than in budget decisions.
Roza stated that parent concerns about technology use are certainly contributing to pressure on districts, but she believes the backlash is primarily affecting how schools think about tech use rather than driving immediate spending cuts.
“Most of the tech-lash, I think, is pushing more toward these policy limitations, not immediate budget impacts,” she said.
According to May-Vollmar, concerns about screen time are legitimate but often oversimplified.
“I’m concerned about how much kids are on screens, so I don’t mind that we’re having the conversation ... I just want to have it in a way that’s not extreme,” she said. “I worry that the general population confuses educational technology with entertainment technology, and they’re two very different things.”
Schools, she argued, have an obligation to ensure technology is used purposefully and in moderation. At Desert Sands, district leaders have become more explicit with educators about expectations for classroom technology use, emphasizing that screens should support specific instructional goals rather than serve as the default mode of learning.
Ultimately, both experts view the current moment as a correction rather than a rejection of educational technology.
During the pandemic, districts were trying to address unprecedented challenges, from learning loss to attendance problems and students with diverse needs. With federal relief funds available, many leaders were willing to experiment, Roza said, but now districts are taking a harder look at what worked.
“I think it’ll be a correction, and we were going to have a correction, even without the tech-lash,” she said.
