September 2000 Picture a school district with a warehouse of data, including teachers grades, free and reduced-price lunch participants, and overdue library book listings, drawn from various systems. Think about various companies independently seeking this information from staff, parents and students, and forming different warehouses of data out somewhere in an uncontrollable e-world. It makes no sense. It s inefficient and risky.
American schools are in a dot-com revolution.
But some parents and educators are concerned that companies are moving so fast to secure their own financial success that it could result in the wrong home-school connection choice for young students. It represents a wonderfully exciting vehicle for improving education and education services. However, it won t just happen by itself. We don t need to build thousands of information warehouses made up of disjointed, incomplete school information that has limited value for managing schools and improving instruction. School leaders need to take the initiative to define policies and strategies that will lead to business partnerships that revolve around the districts and the schools needs.