EB81208 What Could Have Been

Some of you remember that once Arizona was the most advanced State for eLearningi adoption. The School Facilities Board (SFB) chaired by Steve Rich was charged to implement Governor Jan Hull’s “Students First” legislationi. They initially specified how all Arizona school facilities would be brought up to standards and new schools would be built. The persistent advocates at that time some how got the words, equipment and technology into the Students First bill.

By the early 2000’s every school was hard wired for 100 mps to the desktop. Multi-media computers were built up to one for eight students, a good start. Every instructional space had fiber. The switches, repeaters and caching equipment were state of the art. For extremely remote areas satellite systems were installed. The post project documentation was thorough recording every aspect of the installation. There was also a period of state funded maintenance. The sign off was by the principal, Qwest the vendor, a state inspector from SFB, a third party project manager, the district superintendent, and Philip Geiger the Executive Director of the SFB. As far as I know, this magnificent hardware and wiring is still operating and in place to serve students.

Cox Communications with vendors Ensych for data and systems and (I believe) Learning Station for digital curriculum in Tempe were funded to provide learning resources into the schools. This one time investment came out to $7 per student. 

At that time we had the only state with wired schools, 8:1 computers and a statewide delivery system for email and an application service provider for 1 million clients. The ASP was the largest one if it’s kind to date.

As disruptive innovation advocates we made the bad mistake. Remember the “persistence” part of the mantra? We took our eye off the K-12 prize for a few years and focused on creating an eLearning industry cluster. By the time we got back to K-12 in 2005 the Cox system and maintenance was gone. Computer ratio at 8:1, which should have been approaching 3:1 was a challenge for each district to maintain at the current level. The massive transformationi and increase of teacher eLearning education and professional development had not taken place. The data system may be brought up to data a full decade late. Books still dominate because both the pathway into classroom and teacher ability to use digital curriculum effectively is lacking.

The only really bright spot is our legislative created 14 virtual schools, the district efforts to slowly upgrade their eLearning systems, and the emerging use of online learning by our traditional middle and high schools.

And maybe that is as it should be.