Posted on: Thursday, May 5, 2005

Schools moving toward data-collection system

By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer

As the national focus on technology in schools shifts from computers in the classrooms to tracking student achievement under the No Child Left Behind Act, Hawai'i, like other states, is working to stay abreast.

In a survey conducted for Technology Counts, Education Week magazine's annual look at technology in education, 15 states reported that the Bush administration's 3-year-old No Child Left Behind Act has nudged them toward building bigger and more comprehensive data-collection systems.

That approach is a switch from the years of the Clinton administration, Education Weekly reported, when technology in education was seen as a new educational frontier for students and less as a means of data collection and accountability.

"I think this is a nationwide trend — and not just in education," Rod Moriyama, the state Department of Education's assistant superintendent for technology, said of the move toward accountability. "We are looking more and more at data and data-driven decision-making."

Moriyama said the DOE is moving toward a statewide tracking system that will give teachers instant access to a student's past academic performance, attendance history, test scores and demographic data.

"They'll have that information at their fingertips," he said. "As we get the system in place, we'll develop longitudinal data — they'll be able to see how that student did all the way back to kindergarten."

Hawai'i is spending $13.5 million a year on information technology for the Department of Education, and that isn't enough, Moriyama said.

"We need double what we have currently," he said. "We need $28 million a year. We're spending $75 per student and it should be $151 per student.

"In some school districts they're spending over $300 per student. But — the Legislature has been trying to help us as much as they can, I know."

Although ethicists in earlier decades questioned whether continuing to rely on early impressions of a student's performance might create a self-fulfilling prophecy, Moriyama said that with higher demands for accountability, a more precise and long-term system of data collection for each student is necessary.

"We have to be able to see which approaches were tried so we can decide which approaches to use," he said. "It's the belief that every child can learn. What are you doing to bring him up to his potential?

"This can really change the face of education," he said, "and that is what is so exciting."

He anticipates the new data-collection system will be in schools throughout the state in five years.

Education Weekly rated Hawai'i at about mid-level compared to other states for student access to technology, but also noted that the state is among the leaders in virtual and cyber charter schools.

Those programs, which do not require students to meet in a classroom, were developed to allow Neighbor Island students exposure to a greater variety of courses.

Reach Karen Blakeman at 535-2430 or kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.