Even though California, home to Silicon Valley, has historically spent more per student than Arkansas on elementary and secondary education, Arkansas outperforms California in technology access and use in its K-12 schools. What might account for this and what can the two states learn from one another? TICAL cadre members from each of the two states discussed that question at the Leadership 3.0 Symposium last week. They were:
- Harry Dickens, Director of Technology, Texarkana School District
- Phoebe Bailey, Teacher Center Coordinator, Southwest Arkansas Education Co-operative
- Butch Owens, Director of Student Support, Murrieta Unified School District
- Bob Price, Superintendent, Empire School District.
It was my honor to moderate the discussion. Here are notes I took during the lively exchange.
- The states are very different in size. The entire K-12 enrollment in Arkansas is 450,000 students, considerably less than Los Angeles Unified School District, California’s largest district.
- Every certificated employee in Arkansas must have six hours of professional development in technology every year. Even retired teachers must have this training to keep their credentials active! On the other hand, California requires technology-related professional development only for principals of low-performing schools.
- Arkansas has 15 regional centers (“co-ops”) that provide professional development and other technology support for the state’s districtis; there are 11 California Technology Assistance Projects providing the same service to the entire state of California.
- Both states have a statewide high-speed network, but their use and implementation is very different. In California, the network extends to each county office of education, but varies greatly from that point on. Arkansas provides a T-1 connection to every district and co-op. Both states use their statewide network for various kinds of professional development.
- California has no student standards for technology; Arkansas adopted the ISTE NETS for Students. Both states have additional technology standards embedded in curriculum.
- Arkansas has a single student information system, housed at the state level. In California there is no statewide system in place yet and great variation around the state. Lots of information is collected in many different places, but not integrated.