Each member also knows that opportunities for greater efficiencies and lower costs are not realized by the mere application of technology. Until recently, the capabilities of information technology were limited. This often inspired program managers to start their analysis of current operations with a review of available technology. The consequence was that technology was not only driving change, but also constraining it. Today, the power, variety, and flexibility of technology makes it a tool to help implement almost any approach to making a system more effective.
Information technology provides an alternate, effective method for helping students learn.
However, we must first decide that we are focused on learning, not teaching, and we must decide what we want our students to learn. Technology makes information collection, processing, transmission, and access more efficient for government agencies. Technology provides an increasing number of competitive systems for the electronic delivery of information, education, entertainment and services when and where they are needed. However, the benefits of direct competition can only flow to consumers if government at the federal and state levels removes existing regulatory constraints. If our thinking is constrained by focusing on specific technology and processes rather than desired results, by a belief that certain problems can only be solved by government, and by the notion that consumers can only be protected by government imposing restraints on competition, then many of the benefits that information technology has brought to California's most successful companies will not reach government, its customers, or its taxpayers.