Project Unicorn's fifth annual State of the Sector Report, released today, offers an in-depth analysis of data infrastructure in K-12 school systems.
BROOKLYN, N.Y., Oct. 16, 2025 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Project Unicorn, powered by InnovateEDU, today released its fifth annual State of the Sector report, providing an in-depth analysis of the current state of interoperability and privacy best practice implementation in the K-12 education sector. This report offers the most comprehensive set of insights into data infrastructure and utilization, drawn from a national sample of school districts.
This report, based on the results of the School System Data Survey (SSDS), is designed to help the K-12 education community, including policymakers and industry, better understand current school system capabilities for leveraging education data. The SSDS is administered annually by Project Unicorn to track data interoperability and privacy trends across the field, with the findings reported in the State of the Sector report and featuring data from hundreds of Local Education Agencies and regional Education Service Agencies. It represents an unprecedented collaboration among 17 national education organizations working to address data interoperability in K-12 education. This collaboration has yielded significant growth in the adoption and inclusion of interoperability in procurement requirements for education technology, with a 1650% growth in their inclusion since the project's start.
"The 2025 NAEP scores, combined with the clear decline in workforce readiness, are a flashing red light for our education system. We are at a critical juncture where abstract data is no longer enough," said Erin Mote, CEO of InnovateEDU. "The single most important step we can take is to securely and clearly place actionable information about student outcomes directly into the hands of our educators and families. They are on the front lines every day, and they need real-time insights, not just lagging indicators, to address learning gaps and prepare every student for a successful future."
Key findings from the 2025 report include:
- Recovery from Pandemic Disruptions: School systems show signs of recovery from the pandemic's impact, with a renewed focus on long-term infrastructure and data use, despite lingering challenges like chronic absenteeism and educator burnout.
- Governance Remains the Primary Challenge: Consistent across the last five years, governance was identified as the most significant area of need, with persistent lags in documentation, defined governing bodies, and project management processes.
- Data Teams Correlate with Higher Scores: The presence of a dedicated district data team strongly correlates with higher maturity scores across all domains, reinforcing its status as a key predictor of effective interoperability and privacy practices.
- Persistent Resource Gaps: Significant resource gaps persist across district types. Larger urban districts consistently outscore their smaller rural peers, highlighting the potential of regional collaboratives to bridge these disparities.
- Funding and Sustainability Concerns: Following the end of ESSER relief funding, schools face increased pressure to sustain modernization efforts. While data-driven decision-making is a high priority, capacity and funding limitations hinder implementation.
- Link Between Procurement and Privacy: A clear connection exists between structured procurement processes and the inclusion of interoperability and data privacy requirements, though the overall percentage of districts with a formal vetting process remains low.
- Positive Signs of Maturity: Despite ongoing challenges, the report identifies positive signs of maturity. Modest year-over-year improvements suggest that once foundational data systems are established, growth continues even in constrained environments.
"The work toward interoperable, secure, and readily available data to make informed decisions in K-12 education is neither quick nor easy," said Chantell Manahan, the Director of Technology at MSD of Steuben County. "Through our partnership with Project Unicorn and the insights of our peers in the State of the Sector report, that work is just a bit easier. The report gives us a clear picture of the interoperability landscape and our place in it, and it also provides a framework for planning future efforts."
To read the 2025 State of the Sector Report, and reports from years past, visit https://www.projectunicorn.org/state-of-the-sector
About Project Unicorn
Project Unicorn is an initiative to enhance data interoperability within K-12 education, powered by InnovateEDU. We aim to create a community of innovators who make the broader case for secure interoperability by determining shared priorities, working in partnership with school systems and vendors, and advancing policy to support defensible and resilient data ecosystems in the K-12 sector.
Media Contact:
Christian Claus
InnovateEDU
[email protected]
Media Contact
Christian Claus, InnovateEDU, 1 516-713-8400, [email protected], https://www.innovateedunyc.org/
SOURCE InnovateEDU
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