Collecting data that will follow a student for a LIFETIME
(costly, intrusive, threatens our freedoms and is funded
by several levels of the government)
Washington State is participating in implementation of a national labor training and supply system. The education module of this system is School-to-Work, which requires that public schools be restructured into human resources development centers accommodating all ages. Every component of public education must be changed to meet business needs. This change process is known as Education Reform.
In order for this "lifelong learning" job training system to work, it is necessary to provide consistent curriculum content delivery, assessment, tracking, and data access throughout the public school system. The most efficient way to achieve consistency is via computers. Thus, the emphasis on "technology–driven" curriculum for distributed learning. Efforts are in process at state, national, and international levels to set standards for the data infrastructure.
WASHINGTON
Washington is in partnership with other states to implement "Virtual Education Space (VES)"
http://www.ves.mass.edu/nsportal.html.
Basically, VES is the computer infrastructure for statewide curriculum resources, assessment and student tracking. The Washington version of VES is "WAVES". With the advent of this system, individual student records are up for grabs to any employer or agency who is allowed access.
A description of Washington's plans for WAVE can also be found at OSPI Presentations: http://www.k12.wa.us/Files/Presentations/presentations.asp. This is a Powerpoint presentation which can be viewed on-line or downloaded.
WAVES is a project of the Office of the Supt. of Public Instruction (OSPI), and is scheduled to be implemented on a pilot basis in fall of 2001 in 10 school districts across the state. Supt. Bergeson has requested $13 million from the Legislature for the 2001-03 biennium to fully-fund implementation of the WAVES project.
- "Data Providers" are school districts, OSPI, Educational Service
Districts (ESD), and Washington School Information Processing Cooperative (WSIPC).
- "Database Applications" to be accessed are student information,
instructional, financial, and personnel.
- "Data Users" are schools, legislature, media, government (including federal), researchers, and the public.
NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL
Agencies from around the world are coordinating the IEEE standards for distributed
learning and the data infrastructure for employee training and job placement.
IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc.(IMS) http://www.imsproject.org is a international organization with members from educational, commercial, and government organizations, including Microsoft and the U.S. Dept. of Labor Employment and Training Administration.
IMS is developing and promoting open specifications for facilitating online distributed learning activities such as locating and using educational content, tracking learner progress, reporting learner performance, and exchanging student records between administrative systems.
In 1997, IMS came into existence as a project within the National Learning Infrastructure Initiative of EDUCAUSE. "We initiated the IMS Cooperative to encourage the coherence of pockets of progress into a systemic global learning infrastructure."
The mother lode of international School-to-Work database information is located at the website of the Aviation Industry CBT Committee (AICC), or at this site by selecting "Related Activities/Websites."
The selection, "IMS PROJECT" will take you to the IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc. Note that the US Dept. of Defense and the US Dept. of Labor are big players.
Check out "IEEE P1484 – Learning Technology Standards Committee (LTSC)". You will notice some familiar School-to-Work terms such as "life-long learning". Parents are considered "stakeholders." The following excerpt is from the topic "Quality Based Technology System for Life-Long Learning".
"Purpose of Proposed Project:
This Recommended Practice will help the following stakeholders in the following ways:
a. It will help students, employees, and other types of learners improve their learning performance, whether they are part of institutional learning or in a self-directed mode. It will provide structural guidance for learners to assume primary responsibility for their own learning progress. It will help PREPARE K-12 LEARNERS FOR THE POST-SECONDARY WORLD OF WORK/continuous education. It will provide them with a minimum and enhanced levels of technological capabilities (e.g. computer access, Internet access, learner-centered records, etc.) and data interoperability needed to optimally utilize technology and exchange information for purposes of life-long learning.
b. It will enable learners TO PROVIDE PROOF, IN A DIGITAL FORMAT, OF THEIR TRACK RECORD IN LIFE-LONG LEARNING TO PROSPECTIVE EMPLOYERS or follow-on schools.
c. Employers and schools will be able to ASSESS (through use of technology) an applicant's potential for continued life-long learning, based on his or her documented system and past performance."
It continues.........
--Written by educational reseacher Terry Olive.