TECHNOLOGY
budget.
For years, the district had been considering overhauling
its technology and moving toward a 1-to-1, student-to-device strategy, but those plans had not taken off, recalled
Michael Martinez, its director of educational technology.
But worries that the district lacked a sufficient number
of computing devices or reliable Internet connectivity to
give the common-core tests online became a “primary
mover” in Toledo officials’ decision to begin making those
technology upgrades, he said. The urgency of the school
system’s needs became clear, Mr. Martinez recalled, when
he explained to district leaders that they would have to
convert multiple academic classrooms into computer labs
to accommodate common-core exams.
As a result, the district last year contracted with a company to improve wireless technology by replacing switches, establishing wireless hubs, and making other renovations. It is also buying about 3,000 computing devices for
students, as it moves toward a 1-to-1 project.
By ramping up Internet speed and adding devices, the
district will also create more instructional opportunities
for teachers and students, Mr. Martinez predicted.
Planning for the common core “opened the doors,” he
added, and “allowed [the technology project] to happen.
Right place, right time.”
Another major purchase in the Toledo district, the
replacement of a K-8 English/language arts curriculum
for about $3.4 million, was strongly influenced by Ohio’s
adoption of the common standards, said Bob Mendenhall,
the school system’s curriculum director.
The district had reviewed its math materials and
concluded that they could be aligned to the common core
without a major purchase, Mr. Mendenhall said, but its
language arts resources were outdated. The common core
“accelerated our replacement plan,” he said.
Additionally, in order to prepare teachers for that
shift in curriculum, the district has spent about $350,000
on professional development, including the creation of
“curriculum maps” to help educators understand the
standards—though those costs are covered by federal
funds Ohio received through winning the Race to the Top
competition.
The common core’s impact on the district’s spending on
assessment, meanwhile, has been more nuanced.
Toledo officials needed a K-8 assessment system
that could prepare students for common-core test content—and ready them for the overall experience of taking
computer-based exams, said Mr. Beard, the district’s
data manager. But they also needed a system that could
churn out results that could be used for Ohio’s statewide
teacher-evaluation system and that also could help school
officials identify struggling readers in grades K-2 and meet
a state mandate that pupils read on grade level by the end
of grade 3.
20 essentials | summer 2014
Ultimately, Toledo wound up purchasing the STAR
assessment system for its local needs, produced by Renaissance Learning, of Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., at a cost of
$240,000 during the 2012-13 academic year and $137,000
this year.
Overall, the purchase of the STAR system reflected
“very much a conscious desire to purchase something
aligned to the common core,” Mr. Beard said.
Refresh’ the Curriculum
In the Baltimore County, Md., school system, officials
are only now delving into what the common core means
for spending, said Richard L. Gay, the purchasing manager
for the 108,000-student system. The common core typically isn’t the trigger for any single purchase, but instead
acts as a “framework” that is shaping spending across the
board, Mr. Gay said.
For instance, the district recently agreed to buy a $5
million elementary curriculum for language arts to replace
outdated materials, and the new materials will have to
be common-core-aligned. Over the next four years, the
district, which has a general-fund budget of about $1.4
billion, plans to spend about $200 million on a 1-to-1
computing program. In planning for that project, district
officials found that they needed to overhaul their wireless systems—which in turn will help with common-core
online testing.
Preparing for the common core “is not something we’re
going to be able to take care of overnight,” Mr. Gay said.
“Dollars are tight,” he added, and “we’ve been flatlined
taking care of what we have.”
As districts weigh spending decisions, some states are
making purchases that they believe will help them. In New
Mexico, for instance, state officials in 2012 issued a request
for proposals to provide professional development to help
prepare teachers in English/language arts, math, and other
subjects for the common core. They received 13 responses from bidders and selected two of them—Knowledge
Delivery Systems and Solution Tree—which are receiving
a combined $1.4 million a year to train teachers across the
state on the standards.
District participation in the professional development
is voluntary. About 80 percent of the state’s school systems
are taking part, said Leighann Lenti, the deputy secretary
for policy and programs at the state education department.
Ms. Lenti said it was possible the state could have spent
the same amount of money on professional development
as one of the regular investments it makes in training, even
if it hadn’t adopted the common core in 2010—though the
standards clearly influenced the state to act when it did.
“We put a lot of time and energy into supporting our
teachers,” Ms. Lenti said. “When you refresh your standards, you need to refresh your curriculum, and you
refresh your support for teachers.”