“Everyone else is doing it” doesn’t cut it.

North Carolina’s Students Deserve Better than Istation

Chelsea M. Bartel, PhD

School Psychologist, NC Licensed Psychologist (LP)

As I’ve said before, if something in here doesn’t sound quite right to you, let me know! I’ve done my best at every turn to present only facts I can back up with citations.

Istation likes to highlight the reach of its products, as any for-profit company probably should do. But we’ll want to be careful about adopting a critical screening tool just because the company peddling it says “everyone else is using it.”

You can find a list of states and their use of Istation, which appears to be outdated, here. When I say it’s outdated, I mostly mean that Istation is including states on that list that have historically been awarded contracts (sometimes free of charge). One cannot assume that all 22 states (plus DC) on Istation’s list are currently using Istation.

1. Kansas (because it’s always #1 in my heart)

  • Kansas gets free access for 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 school years, as far as I can tell, in exchange for Kansas schools participating in FHSU’s research study. This model will be familiar when we get to Florida.

  • November 2016 minutes from the Kansas Board of Education include a brief update on FHSU’s research on Istation: “Board members expressed concern about the limited information provided to help evaluate success of the program.” Following this discussion, “Mr. Willard requested that an evaluation report on Istation and the Reading for Success Program be provided more than once a year.”

  • The next time it came up in a State Board of Ed meeting was, wait for it… No, really, I mean wait for it, because it was over a year later.

In December 2017, State Board of Ed minutes read “FHSU representatives reported on growth scores, survey results and aggregate data by geographic locale. Board members had several questions and comments about disseminating survey information, plans for engaging schools not currently participating, working with the service centers and consistency of program use. Additional data was requested for average daily use by month.”

  • Again, over one year later, in July 2018, the “Future Agenda Items” list includes, “Relook at Istation data for implementing Reading for Success program (Mrs. Busch).”

  • In September 2018, “Ossa Fisher, Chief Operating Officer with Istation, provided a contract summary report spanning data from the past three academic years. Istation provides a digital curriculum and real time data to support students’ literacy instruction in grades PreK-8. The overview included information on enrollment, usage and performance metrics that monitor student growth. Representatives from three schools utilizing Istation’s curriculum and assessment programs shared testimonials about their experiences. The three schools were Lincoln Elementary in Parsons; Meadowlark Elementary in Liberal; and Waverly Elementary School in Waverly. Ms. Fisher answered questions throughout the presentation.”

  • There are no documented discussions about Istation in State Board of Ed. meetings since September 2018.

I’m working on getting in touch with some FHSU researchers to see whether we can get a sneak preview of any emerging research trends/efficacy results for Istation. Of course, we’ll still have the issue in NC wherein we’re only buying the assessment (ISIP-ER) and not the intervention/instruction component Istation always points to when discussing their excellence.

2. Texas

Oh, Texas, I must tell you that I’ve never visited a state so well-branded. I was in Texas with my daughter in December, and the hotel had a Texas-shaped rooftop pool. Basically every food you eat is shaped like Texas. There are Texas-shaped floor tiles and sinks and margarita glasses and pillows and popsicles and… I mean, really. You have your state marketing game on lock.

So, Istation is headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Dallas is also home of Southern Methodist University (SMU), where Istation’s CEO Richard “Dick” Collins went to school. His ties to SMU run deep, and it’s wise to approach any and all research on Istation coming out of SMU with extra caution (especially given some claims from a former Istation employee alleging Dick Collins might have made generous donations to SMU in exchange for “favorable” Istation research).

  • In March 2016, Istation announced a partnership with Texas SUCCESS, which would provide Istation Reading to all students in grades 3-5 at no charge. The press release mentions the following:

Istation was previously awarded a three-year contract with the TEA and was available via Texas SUCCESS during the 2013-2015 school years. Research conducted within the state shows that Istation improves overall reading growth. The research shows that students who use Istation Reading demonstrate greater gains in overall reading ability than their peers who do not use Istation. Additionally, students who use Istation Home exhibit greater growth than students who exclusively use Istation at school.

        Ooooh, a study showing Istation contributes to gains in reading scores? Well, a press

release about the study at least. But wait, it was conducted by SMU… and it used ISIP

scores as pre- and post-test scores to show that students who spent more time on

Istation did better on ISIP. There are so many problems with this research design that

the results can’t possibly support the conclusion that Istation causes improved reading

skills. Upon further inspection, it appears the press release refers to this “research study”

conducted by Chalie Patarapichayatham, who works for and at Istation (but hides this

fact behind an affiliation with SMU to make it appear as though her research is

independent of her employer).

Aaaaaand, of course, any true efficacy studies are about  the instructional piece of Istation, which is NOT what NC has purchased. (There is some  confusion, because when you buy ISIP-ER you do get access to “Thousands of lesson plans, automated tools, and flexible resources help educators customize instruction and support diverse teaching approaches, including small- and whole-group learning.” But as far as I can tell, these resources have not been research-validated. Just because they’re compiled by Istation and sold doesn’t mean we have any evidence that they’re effective.)

                

  • In September 2017, Istation announced that they would provide ISIP-ER for grades 3-5 at no charge.

In a July 2019 discussion I had with a parent and researcher in Texas, it was reported that many districts have abandoned their work with Istation in favor of different reading assessment tools, as their contracts with Istation have expired. However, this information has not been independently verified.

3. Arkansas

  • In August 2017, Istation announced that it would provide ISIP-ER to K-2 students free of charge.

  • However, the Arkansas Department of Education noted that no schools are required to use Istation:

“beginning in the 2017-2018 school year, each district will be able to select the assessment that best meets the needs of their K-2 students. School districts will be allowed to choose from a list of state approved assessments for their K-2 students. The three K-2 assessments are:  Istation - ISIP, NWEA - Map for Growth, Renaissance – Star”

Arkansas came on my radar when it was mentioned by Tara Galloway, NCDPI’s Director of K-3 Literacy, in the State Board of Education’s July 2019 meeting. Her statements suggested to me that North Carolina is modeling our legally-required dyslexia screening after Arkansas, which also legally requires students to be assessed for Dyslexia. At first, I was frustrated by her suggesting that we’re just going to copy what Arkansas does in NC without any evidence that what Arkansas does is effective.

I WAS WRONG ON THAT ONE!

Turns out Arkansas has some amazingly comprehensive and enviable policies surrounding the screening, assessment, identification, and remediation of reading skills. And their advanced approach to dyslexia came about because of intense parent advocacy. If Tara could convince the powers that be in NC to copy Arkansas’s Dyslexia Resource Guide and all related policies, oh DANG would I be excited!

But, more to the point, let’s see how Arkansas actually uses Istation.

        Beginning the fall of 2017, Arkansas public schools will use Istation, NWEA, or

Renaissance STAR as their K-2 assessment to meet the requirements of Act 930 of

2017. The purpose of the K-2 assessment is to provide data pertaining to a student’s

performance levels in reading and mathematics, not to meet the requirements of

A.C.A. § 6-41-603.

If the screener under subdivision (a)(1) of the law shows that a student is at risk, or at some risk then a level I dyslexia screener shall be administered (Ark. Code Ann. § 6-41-603). The level I dyslexia screener is described in Section V of the guide.

The only ISIP subtests that can be used as part of an initial screener for dyslexia in Arkansas are as follows: Phonemic Awareness, Letter Knowledge, Spelling. Educators in Arkansas must use other tools to assess: Alphabet Knowledge, Decoding Skills, and Rapid Naming.

Seems to me that Tara Galloway and Mark Johnson are being disingenuous when they suggest we’re satisfying North Carolina’s mandated dyslexia screening law by using ISIP-ER because Arkansas also has a dyslexia screening law and they use Istation too. Um yeah, but they give educators the option of using other tools and they CLEARLY recognize that ISIP-ER on its own simply cannot be an effective dyslexia screening tool because due to the nature of its design it does not adequately measure alphabet knowledge, decoding, and Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN), a huge predictor of later reading difficulties.

Also, received the following, unsolicited, from a teacher in Arkansas who’s been using Istation for 2+ years:

        Istation is a double-edged sword here. We PM Tier 2 and 3 students 2X monthly! Seems

like all we do is test!

Of course, the company's big selling point is how "fun" the "video game format" is for

kids - like our kids need more screen time!? I have found that the assessments are really

only valid and useful if there are teachers constantly monitoring the testing environment.

So 2 times monthly I've become a high paid test monitor…

We've had to supplement it with other assessments since it does not include all the areas needed to satisfy our dyslexia law.

Classroom teachers have mixed feelings. Of course, it's so much easier to just plop several kids on a computer instead of planning and implementing a Tier 2 intervention lesson. I'll have to say most of the lessons are targeted and seem to be helpful for some of our kids. But, again, once something is not novel anymore, many kids just tune out and become "happy clickers".

        

4. Florida

  • In November 2015, Istation announced findings from a University of Central Florida (UCF) study purportedly demonstrating the Istation instruction program’s efficacy. This research report reminds me of what I’ve seen so far from FHSU (Kansas) in that yes, students who take ISIP-ER *and* engage with the Istation computerized instruction tend to show improvements in their ISIP-ER scores as the academic year progresses, and their improvements outpace those of students not using Istation. However, big red flag here, because this same pattern would be expected with any assessment tool and we can’t say it’s not just due to practice effects. There are reasons we do randomized studies when we want to evaluate the efficacy of programs, and so far Istation doesn’t have any randomized, controlled studies. Other analyses of Istation conducted by UCF have the same huge limitations.

  

  • In November 2016, Istation announced that ISIP-ER is an approved alternate assessment for third grade promotion. Students who pass ISIP-ER at the 50th percentile or higher qualify for promotion.

  • Istation is not mandated to be used in FL, but some schools/districts have decided to pay for it following the expiration of their free usage at the end of the 2016-2017 academic year. Brevard County paid $274,005 for Istation reading and math for the 2017-2018 academic year.

  • It appears there hasn’t been much public pushback in FL regarding Istation, though this advocate-run Accountabaloney blog post from November 2016 includes a telling tidbit:

Last Winter, I alerted you to the dangers of Competency Based education or CBE, where computer algorithms, rather than teachers, control a child’s promotion along a mandated, established education path. Over the past 6 months, Florida has handed 3rd grade promotion decisions over to more and more CBE programs, like iStation and iReady, and teachers’ input has been practically removed from this important decision. In Monroe, the competency based iStation is now listed as part of the Core Curriculum for Math and Reading in k-5. The continued expansion of CBE will simultaneously destroy the teaching profession and enrich corporate investors. This is a win-win for Ed reform and it is the goal.

5. Virginia

  • In January 2018, Istation announced a partnership with the Virginia Department of Education to offer ISIP assessment through November 2019.

  • In July 2018, Istation reported “that a study conducted by a Southern Methodist University professor shows that Istation assessments can reliably predict student performance on the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) English Reading tests.”

                Red flag alert! That SMU professor works for and at Istation. 

  • On their website, Istation notes that Istation is mandated for use in VA’s Turnaround Schools. I tried to verify this, but Virginia’s dept. of education website is full of 404 errors and other such nonsense, and I ran out of patience.

6. Massachusetts

  • In June 2019, Istation announced ISIP-ER as “an approved vendor to provide early literacy screening assessment tools to kindergarten through 2nd-grade students and educators for the 2019-2020 academic year!”

I tried searching the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education website, but found no mention of Istation or ISIP. I can’t find any news reports or contract documents online regarding exactly how Massachusetts plans to use Istation. Perhaps it’s just one of many assessment tools on a list of approved vendors?

7. New Mexico

        “Istation [...] is $1.3 million less expensive, costing a total of $600,000, and the

computerized format is expected to save teachers time.”

  • In July 2016, the Albuquerque Journal reported that Albuquerque Public Schools “administrators and board members are up in arms about a new reading assessment they say the Public Education Department sprung on districts with practically no notice.” Some other quotes from this article might feel pretty freaking familiar to those of you reading from North Cackalacky:

        

                “Board member Barbara Petersen questioned whether Istation has been

thoroughly reviewed for validity, adding that she is unsure a computer test is a         good way to measure literacy.”

You and me both, Barbara Petersen, you and me both.

“The process was started way too late,” she told the board’s policy and instruction committee last week. “The decision should have been made by January, so we had a semester to do all of this.”

“APS board president Dave Peercy didn’t mince words about the timing, calling it ‘disrespectful to teachers.’”

  • Problems continued and complaints mounted over the summer (2016) throughout New Mexico. Again, from the Albuquerque Journal’s article in August 2016:

“But Albuquerque Teachers Federation President Ellen Bernstein thinks the

deadline extension is a small accommodation in a system of inappropriate

mandated testing.‘I’m not going to give the PED any credit for extending a window when they imposed and implemented an assessment without input that teachers did not choose, that is not even a valid, researched assessment,’she said.”

“PED informed superintendents about the new test in mid-July after a selection committee recommended Istation based on a review of competitive bids. It is $1.3 million less expensive than its predecessor, costing a total of $600,000, and the computerized format is expected to save time.”

        “Trina Raper, executive director of curriculum and professional development for

Santa Fe Public Schools, said [...] ‘Does [Istation] work? I don’t know. Is it better

 than having people listen to your child read? I don’t think so.’

School board member Linda Trujillo said the New Mexico School Boards

Association sent the Public Education Department a letter of complaint that

expressed ‘extreme displeasure with the timing of this action along with an

apparent lack of collaboration with teachers and administration in making this

Decision. I wish there was a way for us to say, ‘No,we’re not going to implement

This,’”

You and me both, Linda Trujillo, you and me both.

Per guidance provided by the Educator Quality Division in January 2016, only DIBELS/IDEL is to be used for the early grades, as it is the only approved statewide assessment for grades K–2. DIBELS Next is now being replaced by Istation, which will serve as the state’s only approved statewide assessment for grades K–2. This assessment will be the only assessment approved for purposes of NMTEACH during the coming years.All district and charter schools will be required to use Istation for benchmarking three times a year for all students in grades K–3. These schools will also be required to use Istation for progress monitoring between benchmark windows for students at risk of not reading on grade level by the end of the school year at Istation Tier 2 and Tier 3 levels.

  • Istation has a blog post about NM’s adoption of Istation and how it compares to DIBELS, noting that DIBELS was better for assessing Oral Reading Fluency and including this nugget, which makes me roll my eyes so hard it hurts.

“She admits that teachers struggled at first with motivating students to engage with the assessment each month. Students were used to being assessed by sitting individually with a teacher. The beauty of Istation is you don’t have to sit one-to-one to assess a student,” Hunton said. “We started talking with our students about motivation and introduced goal setting and how that impacted overall growth in Istation. It brought up conversations about appropriate growth for our teachers, which we hadn’t focused on in years past. It was a good shift for our campuses to move towards a growth mindset instead of a proficiency mindset.”

8. Idaho

“Sen. Dean Mortimer, R-Idaho Falls, led the pushback against the test rollout. The Senate Education Committee chairman proposed a $100,000 line item — one-time money to continue the test pilot.

Mortimer told his JFAC colleagues that he has had a change of heart about the statewide pilot. After spending the past few weeks talking with reading specialists and school personnel, Mortimer says the state should not rely “solely” on the online test that is now being piloted in more than 50 schools statewide.

“We have a long ways to go to understand what’s going on with K-3 literacy,” he said. “We can do better.”

It looks like what happened in Idaho is that people were concerned about Istation, but then Istation said they’d give it to everyone for free, and so the state used it in 2018-2019.

  • However, this news report states the cost of the 2018-2019 statewide pilot is around 90k, and another report notes that the state spent $450k to roll it out statewide.

9. Alabama

  • Istation claims it’s “Approved as a supplemental program for school improvement by the Alabama Department of Education”

  • In May 2018, District Administration reported positively on the program:

        Implemented in Hoover City in the fall of 2015, it is used in Response to

Intervention (RTI) for students in grades 1 through 5 in the district’s four Title I

Schools. “After we started using Istation, we began a practice we call ‘monitoring

students out,’ ” explains Debra Walker Smith, director of federal programs and

testing for the district. “Students were going back into the general education

classroom and were being successful, so we were able to serve additional

students—more than we ever had in the past.”

Furthermore, there was evidence that Title 1 students using Istation (remember,

 this is the assessment AND the instruction piece) did make impressive gains in

Lexile scores at least in first and second grade (3-5 gains were pretty much

average expected growth).

  • In October 2018, Istation reported that Alabama used the monthly ISIP assessments and the computerized instruction piece

  • It’s curious that Alabama seems to like Istation, but does not include it in their Dyslexia Resource Guide where they lay out all state laws and policies surrounding the screening, assessment, and support for students with dyslexia. Perhaps they understand Istation’s product enough to realize it’s not a great tool to use as a universal dyslexia screener, but its instructional component can still be useful for some students.

10. Colorado

  • In March 2016, Istation announced “that the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) in conjunction with the Colorado READ Act has named Istation an approved intervention program. This news follows the previous approval of Istation as an approved supplemental program.”

  • Currently, Colorado’s page on Istation’s site states: “The Colorado Department of Education has selected Istation as one of two approved vendors to support the Early Literacy Assessment Tool (ELAT) project.”

11. Georgia

  • In September 2015, Istation announced “Georgia’s Board of Education released its 2015 Recommended Learning Resources List for public school systems, and the list includes two of Istation’s digital learning programs. The list provides schools with a variety of learning resources for subject area instruction. Istation Reading is recommended for use for ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) classes. Istation Español is recommended for use for Foreign/Modern Language classes.”

  • Istation gets pretty good press in Georgia. It’s tough to find anything negative! You can even watch this rap, in which third graders sing about how much they love Istation.

12. Illinois

  • Not much major press on Illinois, but on their “State Specifics” page, Istation notes that Istation is “Listed in Chicago Public Schools' education technology catalog”

  • In July 2015, Istation announced “The interactive catalog will serve as a one-stop shop for Chicago school leaders to learn about 74 district-approved vendors, including Istation.”

  • It does appear that some schools are using Istation, at least in the Chicago area. According to Chicago Public Schools’ (CPS) website, the district allocated $13,891.00 to Istation during FY2019.

13. Louisiana

  • According to Istation, they are “Listed in the Clearinghouse of Supplemental and Intervention Products by the Louisiana Board of Education” and they are a “State-approved vendor” in Louisiana

  • Not much press in LA, though I did find a Baton Rouge teacher’s Go Fund Me request to gather enough funds to provide a tablet for her students so that they could access Istation.

14. Michigan

  • In April 2019, Istation announced they were “approved as both an initial assessment and extensive assessment vendor for the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) for the 2019-2020 academic year.”

15. Mississippi

  • According to the Mississippi Department of Education, it’s up to individual districts to select which of the approved tools to use for universal screening. They just have to ensure that the tools they select satisfy the specific domains needing to be assessed.

16. Montana

  • Certainly, some Montana schools are using Istation. A June 2018 blog post from Istation touts its success at Lodge Grass Elementary School. (These results are also highlighted in a copy of the Big Horn County News, hosted on Istation’s website.) In what might feel telling for North Carolina readers, here’s how things went down at Lodge Grass:

                Lodge Grass started using Istation’s reading assessment and soon learned that

using the instruction with the assessment could accelerate results. The school

added the instructional piece during the second semester of the 2016-2017

school year, continued using it during the 2017-2018 school year, and saw

reading ability improve across grade levels.

“I felt it was unfair to assess students in a program without training them in it as

well,” Ferguson said. “To truly see results, we need to use the curriculum that

goes along with the assessment.”

And, indeed, you’ve got students whose reading scores on the ISIP assessment are improving… as we’d expect to see with any halfway decent program. But are those skills generalizing? Can we prove causation? No. Not with these data, we can’t.

17. New York

  • In New York, Istation is “Approved by the New York State Instructional Technology Contract Consortium (NYSITCC) as Supplemental Support for Reading Instruction State approved vendor”
  • In 2015, students at Brilla College Prep reported Istation as “the best app on earth,” and it appears they were still using it and happy with it as recently as 2018.

18. Ohio

  • In May 2019, Istation announced that they are an approved assessment vendor in Ohio.

19. Oklahoma

  • In June 2017, Istation announced “The Oklahoma State Board of Education has approved Istation, a national leader in educational technology, as a reading screener for kindergarten through third grade.”

20. South Carolina

  • During the 2014-2015 year, Istation was “Awarded state-funding contract for South Carolina Success Program for unlimited access for students in grades pre-K through 8 in school and at home at no cost to districts.”

I can’t find anything else on what’s up with Istation in South Cackalacky. I’m running out of steam, ya’ll. Passing the torch!

21. Tennessee

  • Istation notes that it’s an “Approved vendor for Race to the Top” and a “State-approved vendor” in Tennessee.

(Aside: HEY ISTATION PEOPLE READING THIS! Do something awesome! Go to DonorsChoose and search “istation.” I did it just now and found 43 projects with the Istation tag, all of them needing less than $1,000. Why don’t you hop on over there and fund those projects? You can count it as tax-deductible, right? And it’ll help your PR game.)

22. Utah

“Utah passed legislation in 2012 to supplement students classroom learning with additional reading support in the form of computer-based adaptive reading programs.

[. . .] To participate, LEAs (districts and charter schools) submitted applications to the USBE for the use of specific reading software programs prior to the start of each school year. Seven vendors provided software and training to schools through the EISP in 2016- 2017. The seven vendors were (in alphabetical order): Imagine Learning, Istation, Pearson (“SuccessMaker”), Lexia Reading Core5® (Core5), MyOn, Reading Plus and

Waterford. These software programs were used in 388 schools and by 86,723 students. Core5 was the most frequently used program (157 schools, 40,000 plus students), while Istation was used by the fewest schools (7 schools; 889 students).”

In order to have an “effect on literacy” Istation recommended a dosage schedule of a minimum of 28 using Istation 60 minutes/week. But, students couldn’t usually get that much time: “Istation, MyOn, and ReadingPlus were the vendors with the fewest students to meet both categories of the dosage recommendations (average weekly use and total weeks).” Indeed, only 28% of students averaged 60 minutes per week, and only 31% got the minimum 28 weeks of use.

And then we come to the Troubling Tables, as I affectionately call them, where Utah’s evaluation committee compares hours of program use on end-of-year summative test results. Just know going into these next two tables that “NS” means NOT SIGNIFICANT.

“Tables 13-14 reveal that for every additional hour of use, the end-of-year composite score increased by an average of .38 – 1.32 points in kindergarten for five of six programs, and .43 -.77 points in first grade for four of five programs.”

Guess which program was the odd one out in those “five of six” and “four of five” counts. Yep, it was MyON. LOL JUST KIDDING IT WAS TOTALLY ISTATION. But wait, what if it got better in second and third grade? Take a look:

Basically, the report said that Utah schools using Istation need to be better about implementing it as prescribed (i.e., at least 60 minutes per week for at least 28 weeks). They didn’t discuss possible barriers to implementation or issues with the product itself contributing to treatment fidelity concerns. Interesting.

23. DC

We’ve made it! Boy am I grateful Istation doesn’t have 44 states on this list[1]. So, in DC, Istation is “Approved as interim assessment provider for Race to the Top by the Office of the State Superintendent,” and it’s an “Approved vendor.”

Nothing spicy came up on page 1 and I don’t have the energy for google excavation tonight, so we’ll leave it at that for now. But keep on reading if you’d like some other random things I came across during this adventure in researching.

***

This 2017 interview with Richard “Dick” Collins (Istation CEO) makes me feel super uncomfortable. .check this out, when he was explaining some of the animation and Istation characters:

“But what we can do is we can help kids learn how to read and how to do math in a way that they can be successful in life and not just be a burger-flipper.”

“Calvin Cool is an African-American poet and he teaches writing. And this guy’s cool and easy and his course is Writing Rules. He talks about creative writing. We have another character, Dr. Amelia Chameleon, who is a beautiful female 24-year-old Indiana Jones. And she teaches life science.”

Mentions that assessment takes 20 minutes and should be given 10 times/year.

“It works, I can prove it. It’s easy to use, and it’s cheap.”

***

Maryland -> THIS IS SPICY!

In 2017, The Baltimore Post detailed a possible “pay to play” where superintendents were pitched products by vendors at conferences. An organization called the Educational Research and Development Institute (ERDI) charged companies thousands of dollars in order to arrange meetings with superintendents who could make major purchasing decisions. For those of you reading from North Cackalacky, CMS is on the list! Some quotes:

 “In effect, ERDI was passing money from vendors to the superintendents who were supposedly engaged in an arms-length transaction about what to buy for their school districts. One of those vendors was Istation, a Texas company that sells education software.  The contract, which Istation had with ERDI, shows that the vendor paid $23,000 for a “silver” plan that allowed the company to meet with 10 superintendents of its choosing.”

“However, Istation’s internal emails show the company saw the meetings as an opportunity to sell to superintendents. In an August 2015 email from Istation’s director of sales to employees from the company’s communications, marketing and strategic planning departments, the director mulled the different options. Istation could “co-sponsor a dinner where we get to talk about our mission and what we do to the entire group of Sups OR… we could be part of ERDI sessions I and II.” The latter choice meant “we would be able to pitch 10 SUPs our message instead of 5.”In either case, the sales director noted enthusiastically, “it would be AWESOME to have Marketing there in addition to the reps.”

***

In a 2017 study published in the Journal of Information Technology Education: Research, the authors from Old Dominion (VA) investigated the relationship between Istation usage and scores on an end-of-grade type summative assessment (STAR). Some quotes:

“As this study did not address causal relationships or experimental design we recognize that due to extraneous factors such as individual teacher lesson plans for whole and small group reading as discussed in the qualitative data, varying proportions of Tier 1, 2, and 3 students in each of the three classes, and parental or tutoring support, IStation usage alone may not be the direct cause of the increase in STAR scores.

We believe that it is more likely that STAR Test score improvements were the result of effective teacher instruction beyond the scope of what IStation envisioned.

Students’ engagement in daily reading activities within the classroom as well as at home could have also contributed to this STAR test score increase.

This result once again echoes that various other interventions provided by teachers or other school resources might have been a greater contributor to the increase of standardized test scores (Bugbee, 2011; Marin, 2015).

Additionally, our findings concur with Marin’s study (2015) that teachers were unable to maximize IStation’s benefits due to a lack of proper training they received. It appears that this same feeling of lack of substantial teacher training affected two of the three teacher participants in this study implementing the IStation reading intervention lessons in their own classroom.

[1] We’ve got the “44 states” reference in 2015 from multiple sources, but it seems to have dropped?