Opening para. “The educational technology spending priorities of the nation's largest school districts appear to be leaning heavily toward technologies that help educators analyze student-achievement data and then adjust their teaching based on what those results show.”

“In the 196,000-student Philadelphia schools, almost $3 million of the $15 million information-technology budget is being spent on classroom-level technology efforts. A new instructional-management system that provides real-time student data that teachers can access from their desktop computers is the centerpiece of the district's plans to help teachers use technology to shape instruction.”

“Houston has a centralized curriculum for instructional technology called CLEAR, an online curriculum package of daily lesson plans and other resources that teachers access through the district's Internet portal. The package also has a link that lets teachers see students' benchmark-testing results and target instruction to students' weaknesses. The district spends about $3 million a year on the CLEAR package of tools.”