No Child Left Behind (NCLB), a federal law to improve public education, has been criticized for only measuring student performance at a single point in time, rather than for the duration of a child's academic career. But that problem may be changing. For perhaps the first time in history, technology has the potential to not only enhance student learning, but also create a comprehensive framework for measuring and assessing student performance at the district, state and ultimately national level.

The Brookings Institution, one of NCLB's critics, applauded a 2005 effort by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to start a pilot program that measures annual growth in student achievement -- what they learn from one year to the next. At the same time, however, the think tank emphasized that this holistic approach is only possible if states have the data resources for this type of measurement model.

As a result, the law's data requirements have spurred state departments of education to implement more sophisticated and complex information systems. Pressure from all government levels to generate public school data has, in turn, heightened expectations of technology offices to provide infrastructure for data management. While some states have responded well to the business and technology side of NCLB compliance, other states are farther behind on the learning curve.


New Era of Accountability
After President Bush signed NCLB into law on Jan. 8, 2002, the acronym became a loaded household name known for its mandates on students, teachers, school districts and state departments of education. The law requires that states make public the names of those schools that aren't making the grade. Districts and states must collect, categorize and analyze attendance data, test scores, teacher qualifications and other school information. Those schools that do not demonstrate adequate yearly progress (AYP) according to various NCLB measures cast a negative shadow on their stakeholders and are at risk of state takeover.

NCLB serves as a measure of school performance and method for improvement. It requires intensive and nuanced data collection and reporting. In the four years since the 670-page law passed, states have been working feverishly to adhere by 2014 to the myriad requirements outlined in the ED's Road Map for State Implementation, focusing particularly on student assessment, disaggregation of data and proficiency.

The pressure to collect and assess student achievement data is high. If states don't implement an annual measurement system, the federal government can remove some of the $66 billion in funds or grant money it spends on K-12 education annually. While this is just a fraction of the more than $450 billion states and local governments spend, it's enough to force states to overhaul data collection and analysis.

Education data, if properly organized, aggregated and presented, can provide federal, state and local entities with a wealth of information for research and evaluation. This scenario is fast becoming the goal for state departments of education. To optimize data management, educators need the help of technology and business experts.

"Data collection and reporting requirements mandated by NCLB, in the past, were not a required component of any IT department's strategy," said Michael Droe, chief technology officer of Hacienda La Puente Unified School District in California. "As a requirement for every district to meet AYP, all subgroups must meet AYP as well. This requires data collection and reporting instruments that would not otherwise be available except through the use of technology."

The volume of information produced from these assessments and the ability to align these results with state assessments and standards to make "just-in-time instructional decisions" would not be possible without technology and rich data management tools, such as data warehouses and longitudinal systems that match each student's achievement records over time from pre-kindergarten through state college or university, Droe said. The ED is encouraging a move toward