Chaos In The Classroom

While many of today's school districts have created wireless classrooms equipped with sophisticated whiteboards, they continue to grapple with budgetary constraints, IT staffing concerns and the difficulty of integrating disparate systems that are implemented all too frequently without the benefit of long-range planning.

Districts continue to spend most of their IT dollars on hardware, says Todd Kern, senior analyst for K-12 solutions at Eduventures, a Boston-based research firm that specializes in the education sector. In fact, districts last year spent $4.4 billion of their $6.2 billion technology infrastructure budget on computer hardware, he says. Enterprise software and technology services, much of which is provided by local solution providers and integrators, generated about $1.8 billion in revenue last year, Kern says. The bulk of IT spending, representing about $4.4 billion, went toward computer hardware.

"K-12, as an industry, is on the order of $800 billion a year, but the vast majority of that is for buildings and personnel," Kern says.

Far too often, districts purchase equipment without looking at the bigger picture--how schools will actually use the technology, the existing infrastructure, support and maintenance costs, and integrating the new with the old.

"A lot of districts are still in reactive mode," says Dave McIntosh, director of sales at Data Networks, a solution provider that specializes in K-12, higher education, and local and state government. "What a lot of districts want to do is hop right in and implement a system without doing the analysis and design first. They want to see immediate results. We determined that architecting and putting into place a manageable structure is a challenge for school districts. Typically they've evolved and grown in bits and pieces, and nobody took a step back to ask, 'How does this fit together?'"

That can be a costly error, McIntosh says. In fact, one school district customer in Maryland couldn't get the performance it needed out of a new human resources system purchased by the prior IT director. When a new department head entered the picture, he determined the expensive solution did not--and could not--meet the district's needs, he says.

"They're probably going to replace a system that cost about $800,000," McIntosh adds. "A new IT director came in and realized he needs to assess the system before he moves forward."

Another client was considering a $500,000 solution until it tapped Data Networks for an IT assessment service.

"In many cases, the infrastructure and environment they have can't support [the solution] without any upgrades," McIntosh says. "Otherwise, they're going to put the system in place and they're not going to get the performance. We went in and did an assessment on the strength and security of the network."

The need for this type of service is only going to increase, industry executives say. Like their enterprise cousins, school districts are facing a tidal wave of data, all of which must be stored and secured. Likewise, districts must securely store e-mails and instant messages. Taking a one-off approach to IT purchases--never an ideal scenario--will make the challenge overwhelming, executives say.

NEXT: The sad state of centralized information systems.

Most school districts don't have centralized information systems, according to Education Week and the Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) Research Center. Only 28 states and the District of Columbia provide state assessment results to educators through a centralized data system, the May 2006 study--dubbed "Technology Counts 2206: The Information Edge"--found. In addition, 24 states don't give administrators or educators access to students' test scores over time via a Web portal or other IT tool, the report found.

In addition, only 20 states have systems in place that let educators compare their schools with others in their state. And, at a time when teachers' salaries increasingly are being tied to students' test-score improvements, only five states have linkable advanced data systems for both students and teachers that allow them to identify those teachers who have increased student performance over time, the study indicated.

"Right now, educators in 15 states have no more information or analysis than is available to parents and the general public," said Christopher Swanson, director of the EPE Research Center, when the report was published. "States have made significant progress on technology but need to find ways to get more of the most useful information into the hands of educators."

Of course, districts already have a lot of information, much of it very sensitive (think identity, economic data, grades and health). To ensure that this information is protected, the government enacted rules such as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), HIPAA and the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA). Should a district not be in compliance, it could lose federal subsidies through programs such as eRate.

"We have a lot of student and personnel information we can't allow anyone to see," says Lou Nagy, business service systems analyst at Poudre School District in Fort Collins, Colo. "Security's always important. We have thousands of intelligent, curious and inquisitive students on our network."

Students may hack into a site for kicks, as in the case of an individual who illegally got onto the Plum, Pa., School District's Web site in order to boast about his hacking prowess. Or students may attempt to change their grades or access test information. Two California boys got in trouble when they tried to change their failing grades to passing--and inadvertently gave As to all 18,697 students in the Natomas Unified School District as well, according to VH1 News. A year earlier, three Sacramento boys installed keystroke-recording software on a teacher's PC in an effort to change their grades and discipline records, the news show found.

"There are so many threats to data and systems," says Bob Moore, executive director of IT at Blue Valley Unified School District in suburban Kansas City. "We certainly have a lot of sensitive information on students and employees. We want to have a secure system because we can't provide a stable system until we're secure. It's certainly an issue that we keep spending more money on, at least from what I can see over my career of 20-plus years."

Cutting the Cord
Like businesses of all sizes, school districts are adopting wireless technologies at a brisk pace.

"We made our campus wireless," says Ron Smith, administrator of technical services at Highland Park School District in Dallas.

In 2005, 45 percent of public schools with Internet access used wireless connections, compared with 32 percent in 2003, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics in Washington, D.C.

Wireless capabilities further stretch school districts' security and support dollars, making this an attractive offering for solution providers servicing the K-12 sector. Districts also are using broadband. In fact, 97 percent of public schools with Internet access used broadband connections to access the Internet in 2005, the National Center for Educational Statistics recorded. This compares with 80 percent in 2000, the group found.

On the hard-wired side of the spectrum, districts are investing in bandwidth, going up to backbones of 10 gigabits, some executives say.

NEXT: Management issues

Unlike the early days of IT adoption, computers can now be found in most classrooms. In 2005, the ratio of students to instructional computers with Internet access in public schools was 3.8-to-1, compared with a ratio of 4.4-to-1 in 2003 and 12.1-to-1 in 1998, the National Center for Educational Statistics reported.

While this is terrific for students and teachers, it can be a management nightmare for IT directors or their solution provider partners. However, savvy school districts are implementing centralized management solutions internally or turning to their partners to deliver this service. Data Networks, for example, recently began offering a centralized monitoring service to clients, McIntosh says.

As school districts slowly move toward business intelligence and analytics solutions, this centralized approach will be critical, Eduventures' Kern says. "We're slowly going to see greater integration and involvement in these enterprise systems," he says. "It's an exciting and busy time in the K-12 space, but it's very messy."

Even though districts continue to spend the vast majority of their money on hardware, interest in instructional management solutions, student data management and portals are continuing to expand as teachers and administrators look to integrate technology into the curriculum.

Whiteboards have been a huge success, school district IT executives agree. Also, teachers are getting involved in podcasting--so much so, in fact, that Highland Park School District plans to add a separate server to support this activity, Smith says.

"We enjoy new things. Looking at new technologies and making things work together makes it fun," he says. "Interactive whiteboards are invigorating our teachers, and the kids are engaged."

The district, which has already installed whiteboards in all of its junior and senior high schools, is now rolling out this technology to all of the elementary classes, Smith adds.

Where the Money Is
Not surprisingly, money--or a lack thereof--is an ongoing, unending challenge for many districts. Some, such as Blue Valley, are in affluent areas and therefore able to purchase and support many technologies. But others, such as Poudre, are not as fortunate.

"Colorado is generally one of the lowest funded [states] in the country," Nagy says. "We're at the bottom of the bottom, so funding is never there for us. It forces us to be more efficient with the money we do have."

But the number of dollars in a school's IT bank account is not the only fiscal issue.

"Not only are there not enough resource dollars, but the flexibility districts have in allocating [that money] is very restrictive," Kern says. "There are plenty of school districts that get whipsawed by the political environment."

So even districts forward-thinking enough to design a five- or six-year plan can find that funds dry up unexpectedly, he says.

"Out of nowhere, there's either a statewide budget problem where everybody has to reduce costs...or it'll be a 'use it or lose it' situation: Spend the resources on your books by June 30 or they'll go away," Kern says.

Staffing issues generally go hand-in-hand with budget woes. Often underfunded and understaffed, school districts' IT departments can encounter high turnover rates because of less-than-competitive wages and more limited access to ongoing training, industry executives say.

That, of course, can mean opportunities for those solution providers looking to sell into and support this vast market, especially as 88 percent of school districts are small, serving fewer than 5,000 students, according to Kern. In fact, only 2 percent of districts nationwide--New York City, for example--have more than 25,000 students, he notes.

"We want to work with a company that's willing to listen to what our needs are," Moore says. "We always go into something wanting to create a long-term relationship. It's not only are they skilled, but are they a company of integrity?"

NEXT: How the percentage of K-12 schools with Internet access has soared.