From a handful of school districts around Kansas City in the early '90s, BIST has spread until today it is in 52 school districts in at least 5 states--affecting the lives of thousands of students, parents, and teachers throughout the region.   

As of 2007 BIST was in 310 public schools, 3 charter schools and 9 parochial schools.  And they are still growing rapidly.  In the past year from 2006 to 2007 BIST has been adopted by 50 additional schools.  In fact, Ozanam now has a consultant stationed in Lincoln, Nebraska.  Furthermore in 2007 BIST provided 14,420 hours of consultation/training, up 46% from 2006.

Ozanam's operating revenue for 2007 was $9.7 million.  Ozanam is coy about how much revenue BIST brings in and they are equally coy about how much BIST costs their clients.  Based on the advertised minimum adoption fee of $600, the costs of required books and manuals, and the costs of posters and other classroom materials, we estimate that the absolute minimum for a small school to adopt BIST would be $2000 up front.  This does not include continued education and workshops, replacement consumables, hiring of additional BIST staff, etc.  We hope to be able to obtain better cost/price figures.

BIST's rapid growth, especially the marked growth in consultation/training, is due in large part to the fact that BIST has been embraced by state boards of education and is officially sanctioned and promoted.   This means that teachers attending state sponsored seminars and conferences are actually trained by BIST consultants, as in this example of an official state sponsered conference in Missouri.  Millions of tax dollars are spent each year on this program as Ozanam takes the proceeds, expands the program's reach and scope each year, and continues to aggresively marketing BIST to school districts and state boards of education throughout the Midwest.