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State Schools Chief Jack O'Connell Announces Selection of IBM to Develop Student Achievement Data System |
| Theallineed.com |
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell today announced the selection of IBM's (NYSE: IBM) Global Business Services division to develop the California Department of Education's California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS).
"The selection of a world business leader such as IBM to develop our pupil tracking system is an important step toward building more accurate information to measure student performance over time," said O'Connell. "As we seek to close the achievement gap and educate all students to succeed in the global economy, we must have reliable data to drive decisions and target programs to help all students achieve academically."
"IBM is pleased to have this opportunity to support the state's educators as they help students meet the learning challenges of the global economy," said Michael King, Vice President, IBM Education Industry. "This innovative approach to education will be a leading example of collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and information access that will serve as a model for other state school systems."
CALPADS will collect, maintain, and report statewide information on pupil assessments, enrollment, teacher assignments, and other elements that will be used to track graduation and dropout rates, provide appropriate student services, and better measure student performance over time. CALPADS is also the cornerstone for compliance with the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 that measures increased accountability for student achievement. To fully comply with federal law, CALPADS was needed to track individual student enrollment history and achievement data longitudinally that the current California Basic Educational Data System was not designed to perform.
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As a result, the state legislature passed Senate Bill 1453 in 2002 that authorized the assignment of unique, non-personally identifiable Statewide Student Identifiers, and the development and implementation of CALPADS. Each public school student in kindergarten through grade twelve now has an assigned Statewide Student Identifier number that will be used in CALPADS to track student progress over time. CALPADS will build upon the work that the California School Information Services has done with voluntary school districts and the Statewide Student Identifiers that they have assigned for every K-12 public school student in California. The California Longitudinal Teacher Integrated Data Education System is also on the horizon. Once implemented, this system will monitor teacher assignments to comply with state law and the Highly Qualified Teacher reporting requirements under federal law.
Through a competitive process, the California Department of Education selected IBM, subcontracting partner Microsoft Corp., and business partners Aradyme, Edustructures, ESP Solutions Group, and Stanfield Systems for the contract valued at $15 million over a three-year period. The system under development will enable statewide data collection and confidential management of student level data, and the ability for state educators to track progress over time. This is expected to result in process improvements that will allow districts and the state to focus on a more uniform method of data collection and promote the use of data to support decision-making at the state and local levels.
IBM is currently involved in similar student data projects in Illinois and Ohio. The technology company also is involved in data collection and data-driven decision-making efforts in New York City, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Florida.
The development and testing of the CALPADS is expected to continue through fiscal year 2008-09, and statewide implementation is expected in 2009-10.
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