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K-12 & Education Email Security Intelligence

U.S. Public Sector DNS & Email Authentication Analysis
MonitorWorkspace
March 2026
51 Jurisdictions • 69,892 Entities
K-12 school districts have the lowest email security gateway adoption (8.2%) of any public-sector entity type — 2.5x lower than higher education (20.4%)
18,476
K-12 Districts
3,246
Higher Ed
46.6%
K-12 Avg DMARC
85.4%
Higher Ed Avg DMARC
8.2%
K-12 Gateway Rate
20.4%
Higher Ed Gateway Rate

Gateway Adoption by Entity Type

Entity TypeWith MXUsing GatewayRate
County2,10854525.9%
Higher Education2,76756420.4%
State Agency1222419.7%
Municipality8,3381,54618.5%
Township1,64630318.4%
Special District2,62734513.1%
K-1212,6071,0338.2%

Texas Education Spotlight

MetricTX K-12TX Higher EdNational K-12
Entities1,24518918,476
Domain Coverage99.7%96.3%86.3%
SPF Adoption87.8%96.6%~77%
DMARC Adoption67.2%91.8%~47%
SPF-DMARC Gap20.6pp4.8pp~30pp
TX K-12 DMARC is +20pp above the national K-12 average

Why this matters for education research:

K-12 districts are prime targets for phishing, ransomware, and business email compromise. DMARC enforcement prevents domain spoofing — yet fewer than half of K-12 districts nationwide have it configured. The data reveals massive state-by-state variation (10.8% to 67.3%), suggesting policy and funding interventions can move the needle.

Top 10 States — K-12 DMARC

StateDomainsSPFDMARC
TX Texas1,22987.8%67.2%
NY New York92486.1%67.3%
WI Wisconsin46188.7%66.4%
OR Oregon20991.9%67.5%
WA Washington25086.8%62.0%
IA Iowa32784.7%61.8%
DC District of Columbia6982.6%62.3%
NJ New Jersey66186.5%61.4%
AK Alaska5483.3%61.1%
CT Connecticut19586.2%61.0%

Bottom 10 States — K-12 DMARC

StateDomainsSPFDMARC
WV West Virginia5242.3%7.7%
SD South Dakota15727.4%10.8%
ND North Dakota20158.7%19.4%
TN Tennessee14472.9%27.8%
DE Delaware4151.2%31.7%
LA Louisiana1662.5%31.2%
OK Oklahoma53575.7%32.9%
GA Georgia17270.3%33.7%
FL Florida1250.0%33.3%
MS Mississippi4477.3%34.1%

Research Collaboration

Joint Research Study
Co-author a peer-reviewed study on K-12 email security adoption across all 50 states. MonitorWorkspace provides the data infrastructure; Texas Tech provides academic rigor and grant access.
Dataset License for Grant Work
Full access to 406,680-domain dataset with annual refresh — ideal as the data backbone for NSF, Dept of Ed, or state-level education technology grants.
Ongoing Policy Partnership
Translate findings into actionable state policy recommendations. MonitorWorkspace can generate custom state-level scorecards for any legislative or agency briefing.
Proposed next step: 30-minute call to explore co-authorship and data access for your next grant cycle.
Contact: monitorworkspace.com/scorecard