SB1512 Rational and Committee Dynamic

eb0304SB1512Rational.doc

SB1512 eLearning digital (curriculum) institute; data warehouse will be at its most critical hearing next week:

Committee on K-12 Education

9:00 am Wednesday, March 29^th, 2006.

Members: Mr. Allen J; Mrs. Kirkpatrick; Mr. Stump; Mrs. Barto; Mr. Lujan; Mr. Nichols, Vice-Chairman; Mr. Farnsworth; Mr. O'Halleran; Mr. Anderson, Chairman; Ms. Garcia M

Bills to be heard:

SB1040 school districts; minor boundary changes (Waring)

SB1272 education technology committee (Huppenthal) (held from last session)

SB1382 AIMS test; dropout prevention (Hellon, Bee, Downing, et al)

SB1512 e-learning centered school system(now: e-learning digital (curriculum) institute; data warehouse) (Bennett, Bee, Hale, et al)

SCR1031 public programs; citizens (Martin, Blendu, Boone, et al)

You know the drill:

http://alistrack.azleg.gov/rts/login.asp to weigh in with your vote.

http://alistrack.azleg.gov/alistrack.asp to register on ALIS if needed.

There have been a number of discussions about the three parts of SB1512. The “what” is presented in the bill. I thought I would explore the context of the bill and “why” of each element.

CONTEXT

The eSATS systems design resulted in a three year build out of the K-12 eLearning intellectual infrastructure and piloted eLearning Centered Schools followed by full 1:1 eLearning build out for every Arizona student over the next seven years. SB1512 has the three most critical elements for year one of the build out.

WHY

15-1650 Digital Curriculum Institute

The eSATS systems design team focused on the teacher-student for the center of it’s design. The most critical eLearning decisions to be made by the teacher and district for the student are:

What is the most effective digital curriculum for the course segment?

Should legacy curriculum of books-lecture-worksheets be used or is digital curriculum the better choice?

Book adoptions are for the whole student body for 5 to 7 years. Digital curriculum is rapidly evolving. Digital curriculum is making gains each year in cost, effectiveness, access, formative assessment and filling the gaps not covered within the 100+ K-12 courses of instruction. The school districts and teachers need state level practitioner services that will be provided by the university based Digital Curriculum Institute to make their decisions on digital curriculum deployment.

After digital curriculum decisions are in made, then the rest of the system can be specified and implemented: teacher education and professional development; computers-connectivity-instructional systems; technical support; and the instructional assessment with data driven decision support system.

SB1272 Education technology committee (within ADE) is complementary. SB1272 will provide eLearning data from within Arizona K-12 school, collected and analyzed by ADE. This will data will be critical for the DCI to create and deliver its services as DCI studies the world of digital curriculum outside of Arizona K-12 districts.

Also: The digital curriculum institute needs the Integrated Instruction and Data System Warehouse to deliver its services and support its research.

15-1044 Integrated Instruction and Data System Warehouse

Rally Cry: “You cannot manage what you cannot measure!”

The data driven decision support system needs to serve the classroom, school districts, Arizona Department of Education and our reporting to the federal government. Much work has taken place to build this system at both ADE and within the districts. The development was started to minimize paper reporting of standard data. The system is evolving to address increasingly sophisticated needs to support instruction, formative (student) and summative (governance) assessments, and research/decision support needs.

As a founding president of an Arizona software company in 1982 whose bank asset-liability decision support software is being used by the top London and New York banks I can tell you that the task is difficult, takes time, requires skilled experts and must be adequately funded. An IBM study on ten states showed that the five with State centric K-12 systems were investing $5 million a year at the state level. The others that had a District – State collaborative system were spending $1 to $2 million at the state level.

I had a chance to speak with the new Chief Information Officer at ADE. She said the magic system design word – extensibility. This means that what ADE is building now can be extended in capability, connectivity and scope into the future.

With the skilled consultant on board and design document approved for Phase I ADE must be supported with adequate funding starting in July 2006 and not lose another critical year. The Government Information and Telecommunications Agency (GITA) has a over-site team to review the following Phases and work with ADE to knit together the system to required standards. The major districts are working on forming a coalition to develop the data collection, oversight, interfaces, change management and roadmap that they need to become a working partner with ADE.

The appropriation will proved adequate funding to support development at the State level for the next year. During this time significant progress can be made in developing the roadmap and district part of the system. At $2 per student, it is a good start on the invested to provide much better decisions on how to spend the $96 Billion over the next ten years as Arizona grows from 1 million to 1.3 million students.

To repeat: “You cannot manage what you cannot measure!”

15-1650.01 Arizona eLearning Task Force

Advocates with influence and expert power are a critical for the start of an innovation process. But at as the innovation takes off the reins must be shared with governance having legitimate power. The eLearning Task Force will knit together the critical State level entities and provide guidance and legitimate support for the ten year long-haul required for effective eLearning rollout.