By Del Stover
08/02/05–Fueled by the demanding student-reporting requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), schools and state education agencies continue to invest heavily in technology to track test scores and other student records.
That’s sparking some debate about the nation’s K-12 technology spending priorities. Is money spent tracking student test scores and meeting state and federal accountability rules helping students learn? Or is it diverting money from the classroom?
The question has been asked in Kerrville, Texas, where school officials recently spent $22,500 for a data-management system to help disaggregate test results and determine if students are making progress on state exams.
For Superintendent Dan Troxell, attempts to categorize such systems as an administrative or instructional purchase -- or to judge their merits -- are somewhat simplistic. Using data to make decisions on academic interventions for struggling students, he says, is just as valuable to classroom learning as putting a computer in front of a child.
“Some would not categorize [a data-management system] as a direct instructional cost, but to me, it’s a driver of how we’re going to instruct our kids,” he says. “The goal of any technology in education should be to improve student academic performance.”
Timing also may play a role in the current investment in data-management systems, technology experts say. For years, school districts have been investing in computers and Internet access, and it’s a logical “next step” for educators to turn to the expansion and upgrading of data-management systems to help direct resources where needed.
“It’s a cycle, and what we’re seeing in our case is the need to reinvest in our data systems,” says Jim Hirsch, associate superintendent for technology services in Plano, Texas.
Certainly there are signs that school districts are focusing resources on their data-management systems. In Philadelphia, for example, officials expect to spend $10 million upgrading a data-management system that allows teachers to tap extensive student records. The school districts in Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and New York City -- to name just a few -- also are investing heavily in expanding and upgrading such systems.
State spending also has been affected. In a survey conducted for Education Week’s recent report, Technology Counts 2005, 15 states reported that NCLB influenced their decisions “to put in place bigger and better data-collection systems.”
North Carolina, for example, has spent $53 million on a state.wide system that will serve more than 2,200 schools and expects to invest anther $200 million by 2010.
Not everyone sees NCLB as a major force in deciding their spending habits. The Plano school district, for example, had a sophisticated data-management system in place long before the federal law was passed, and Hirsch says school officials have not felt pressured to upgrade data systems to meet new reporting requirements.
“The districts that are in trouble are those that hadn’t invested before NCLB, and now they have to invest heavily [in data management],” he says.
Ironically, while NCLB fuels spending on data-management technology, the Bush Administration this year proposed to eliminate a technology grant program that has been a primary source of federal funding for school technology.
For now, it appears Congress doesn’t agree with that plan. The House Appropriations Committee agreed to restore $300 million to the program in fiscal year 2006, while the Senate Appropriations Committee approved $425 million. A final spending bill won’t be taken up until September.
Administration officials claim federal funds aren’t needed now that most schools have a solid base of technology in place. But technology experts argue the need for federal funding has not diminished. Schools still need help with costly equipment upgrades and professional development for teachers in the use of technology.
“The additional requirements of NCLB stretch local and state funding beyond their capacity,” says Reggie Felton, NSBA’s director of federal relations. In addition, the money Congress provides for technology fails “to meet even the reporting requirements of NCLB.”
Even school districts with a strong technology program continue to face challenges, says Hirsch. His district’s data-management system, for example, can analyze student records and spot problem areas, but more sophisticated work is needed before the system can determine why problems exist -- or how to fix them.
“We can’t analyze the data and say, ‘Look at these variables, modify them, and you’ll get results for these students,’’ he says. “That’s another round of investments that will have to come forward.”
As local school officials struggle to set priorities on future technology purchases, Leslie Conery, deputy CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education, suggests local school boards turn to their long-term vision of what they want to accomplish with their technology.
“The important thing is how well a school district is moving toward a vision or a plan,” she says. “If a district has a long-term plan, and district leaders know how they will use technology to support learning, then they can make it all tie together to meet the requirements of NCLB and focus on the needs of instruction.”