The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) has released its 2025 Driving K-12 Innovation Report, which highlights the challenges, trends, and tools impacted education innovation in 2025.
The report was developed by CoSN’s Driving K-12 Innovation Advisory Board, which is made up of more than 130 global educators, technologists, changemakers, and industry partners. For the latest report, the advisory board selected the three most important hurdles, accelerators and tech enablers for 2025.
“The 2025 Driving K-12 Innovation Report urges education leaders to take a holistic approach to the challenges schools face, crafting solutions uniquely tailored with their needs,” said Keith Krueger, CEO at CoSN. “The report isn’t a blueprint for one-size-fits-all answers – it’s a catalyst for meaningful dialogue. We hope it inspires leaders to reflect, collaborate and take bold steps to create learning environments where every student and educator can thrive.”
Hurdles
- Attracting and Retaining Educators and IT Professionals: Hiring and keeping school staff is a significant problem for school systems; many educators are experiencing low financial compensation and social and emotional burnout, causing them to leave the field.
- Evolution of Teaching and Learning: The evolution of teaching and learning is driven by the need to prepare students for a dynamic and interconnected world. As society and technology continue to evolve, education must also adapt to ensure relevance and effectiveness.
- Digital Equity: Digital equity includes three interrelated components: digital foundations (including digital literacy), conditions for learning, and meaningful learning opportunities.
Accelerators
- Learner Agency: Learner agency is all about students as active choice-makers in their education. CoSN said this trend is about reconceptualizing their role from that of “student” to that of “learner.” Combined with a strong learning environment, students with agency could transform from order-takers to innovators, experience a state of “flow” in their learning experiences, and learn far more authentically.
- Building the Human Capacity of Leaders: Strengthening the professional community of schools and providing opportunities for educators and all K-12 professionals to learn and master new skills can open the door to innovative practices that can enhance student experiences.
- Changing Attitudes Toward Demonstrating Learning: CoSN said there is increasing discussion around assessing, documenting, communicating, and assigning value to student learning. The report noted that memorization, cultural biases, and limited real-world applications are a handful of reasons why traditional testing may not be an effective means of assessment and may not accurately reflect a student’s true understanding of a subject.
Tech Enablers
- Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI): In an era defined by rapid technological advancements, Gen AI has emerged as a transformative force in education. As school systems worldwide explore the benefits and challenges of this technology, they are working hard to meet the urgent need for safe, effective and responsible use of Gen AI.
- Analytics and Adaptive Technologies: These are digital technologies, often powered by AI, that collect and use data related to teaching and learning.
- Untethered Broadband and Connectivity: Ubiquitous broadband Internet and the underlying technologies that enable robust connected learning without requiring devices to be physically connected (via cables, for example). These technologies enable mobility and learning anytime, anywhere.
