As CIO for the Cleveland Municipal School District,
Peter Robertson developed a data warehouse, launched an
online report card system, and managed a 75 percent
reduction in IT support costs while keeping service levels
high. Now on leave to pursue a doctorate at Teachers
College, Columbia University, we got him to pause long
enough to share some war stories.
Q: Many K–12 districts are beginning
more and more to resemble their corporate
counterparts in terms of automation.
At the same time, studies have
questioned the value of computers in the
classroom. What do you see as the role
of IT in the school?
A: IT has multiple roles, but the one
that we’re really grappling with is making
sure that our IT investments are improving
efficiency in the organization. Particularly
in the 20 percent to 30 percent of
the organization that has nothing directly
to do with the classroom, technology
should be doing precisely the same
things it does in the corporate sector,
namely, providing 2 percent to 3 percent
productivity gains year in and year
out. IT should free up resources, not
consume them, so we can focus on the
other, more important role of technology,
which is to improve the effectiveness of
the teaching and learning process.
The fact that we have not yet seen
substantial gains in educational effectiveness
through technology precisely
mirrors the problem that business has
had. For 20 years, businesses invested
in technology with minimal obvious
benefit. As Larry Cuban has pointed out,
it’s really hard to get classroom processes
redesigned to take advantage of technology.
It’s not going to be easy, but
I’m convinced that it can happen; it’s
happening in some places, and that
needs to remain the priority of technology
in schools.
Q: From your experience, would you
say K–12 IT operations are generally
efficiently run? If not, what are the
biggest areas where you can see room
to work more effectively?
A: Let me start by saying that I’m not
an expert in this area, but my general
sense is that K–12 IT is not particularly
effectively run. There are a number of
very difficult challenges, and the biggest
one involves the recruiting, ongoing
development, and retention of highquality
people. IT people are knowledge
workers, and knowledge workers play
by different rules than more scrutinized
work employees. Teachers are knowledge
workers, too, but they lock themselves
into one particular industry, while IT
staff can go wherever the job is and are
very mobile. K–12 IT workers need to
be motivated differently—not only with
a different salary schedule, but also by
making a heavy investment in ongoing
professional development. Much of the
problem that schools have in this area
has to do with good people whose skills
are generations old. In IT, whether K–12
or elsewhere, you have to keep the skill
sets current.
In Cleveland, I got lucky. The Y2K
boom was over, the tech bubble burst,
and for a while I could pick up IT
workers cheap. This past spring, however,
I lost a lot of good people, many of
whom could get 50 percent better pay
elsewhere. They weren’t necessarily
out looking for better pay, but they got
frustrated with our inability to promise
security and professional growth in a
time of crisis. We can’t offer top dollar,
but we at least need to find ways to let
knowledge workers keep their skills
sharp and their careers growing, or they
will not stay.
The answer to this, at least for
larger school districts, is to build a farm
system: have a very skilled group of
managers, a well-documented set of
work processes, and bring in less-expensive
workers who can cut their teeth on
the excellent technical challenges and
opportunities in the K–12 environment.
Many will leave in a few years, and
that’s fine, as long as there’s good
management in place to allow for effective
transitions.
For more of Peter Robertson’s thoughts,
including his perspectives on open
source and wireless, read the expanded
version of this interview at www.techlearning.com/schoolcio.
