February 2013 - PESC

FEB RUA RY 2 013
Th e STANDARD NEWS A ND C OM M ENTA RY ON T EC HNOL OGY & STA NDA RDS IN EDUCA T ION
addressed and successfully resolved. But in the
end, with a common mission and fair and
equititable return on investment, collaborating
together each sector or community of interest
(ATM’s, Credit Cards, Mortgages and Inter-State
Toll Booths) collaborated to not only benefit
themselves and their respective partners but laid
out a solid long-lasting infrastructure that enabled
numerous additional products and services.
Each sector of community of interest is also
governed openly and transparently by the
respective stakeholders within that sector or
community of interest.
So what I’ve learned is two fold: we must first ask
What does it take to be interoperable?
The Education industry is highly complex and its
number of stakeholders connected and the
different ways these stakeholders are connected is
equally complex and intricate.
Some might argue that Education is interoperable,
that it is in fact working. It might not be working
well or efficiently and might be costing us more
than we can bare, oh and we aren’t always happy
with the quality of data we can produce, but hey
it’s working. I beg to differ.
My first answer to the original question is this: We
are getting there, yes much slower than anyone of
us wants, but we are in fact getting there. The
level of awareness about systems, technology &
standards has never been higher than right now.
The political will is correspondingly high as well.
The U.S. Department of Education is helping pave
the way with funding for states and state systems
and by coordinating standards development work.
Yes there are still enormous challenges before us
specifically around the transitions (elementary to
secondary, secondary to postsecondary,
secondary/postsecondary to labor/workforce) and
we are learning how to ensure that as we build for
the future that we are building with a common
mission in mind.
My second answer is this: technical
interoperability can only take us so far. The
technology is sitting there waiting for us to tell it
what to do. If our policies and messages are not
aligned, how can we expect our systems and ddata
to be aligned? We must focus equally on the
business side of interoperability as well.
What do I mean by this? Each state, each system,
each network seems to be subject to different laws
and regulations, have different vendors and
suppliers and pricing structures, and have varying
market factors influencing them. We must focus
on aligning our businesses as much as we focus on
aligning our data. This requires that we all adopt a
common mission for the greater common good.
PESC and its members propose that the greater
common good is student achievement.
What about funding you might ask? Wouldn’t a
huge amount of funding solve our interoperable
problems. Yes funding is definitely required, but
again funding alone is not the answer.
Continued strong leadership, agreement on
outcomes and goals and a strategic vision, along
with open communications and a true willingness
to collaborate will eventually get us there.
As the stakeholders in education, it’s up to us. It’s
an overwhelming challenge to overcome. But year
after year, we continue to bring sectors and regions
together.
10 PESC UNLOC K ING T HE P OW ER OF DATA