In 2002, President George Bush signed the No Child Left Behind
Act. This historic education law set aggressive achievement goals
for every student in the country. It holds states and public
schools accountable for their academic performance. This law also
mandates rigorous testing and reporting and threatens
underperforming schools with reorganization or takeover.
Today, three years after its enactment, many states credit NCLB
for significant student gains. However, despite positive trends,
data show that many challenges remain; African American, Hispanic
and Native American students continue to score measurably lower
than their White counterparts. The US Department of Education’s
2004 National Education Technology Plan describes many ways that
technology is helping to address these shortcomings. But, it also
sites the existence of a legacy of silo-based organizations within
state and local education. These islands of information are host to
redundancies, inefficiencies and financial restraints, all of which
constrain student achievement. K12 organizations must reduce the
impact of these silo structures, align their shared assets,
processes and objectives to address inefficiencies and better
allocate resources to achieving educational excellence.
IBM’s Point of View on K12 education is that fundamental
transformation within education structures is critical in
addressing these constraints. By changing the way educators work,
interact, administer and instruct, the enterprise can transform to
more effectively guide students’ success. IBM’s On Demand Workplace
empowers this transformation, by leveraging new collaboration,
communication and data sharing tools to reduce the impact of
organizational constraints, ease and facilitate critical K12
processes and deliver on the promise of No Child Left Behind by
improving student outcomes.