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July 17, 2006
Information, pleaseIn these days where privacy is at a premium, Jefferson County Schools in Louisville, Ky. is sharing student data. CNN.com reports that the school system has taken an unique approach to data-sharing that allows for students to get extra help at private afterschool programs not run by the school district.
According to the article, "The thinking goes like this: If schools and afterschools share a mission of helping students succeed, why not share school data about who these kids are and what they need?"
And so far, it seems to be working and may even turn into a national model for other districts and states. Parents control whether or not the information is shared, and overall the program has been successful. Although the evidence so far is anecdotal, the schools in the district have seen a rise in attendance among students participating in the program and the future looks promising.
In the Louisville partnership, technology has made sharing data much easlier. No longer do afterschool workers have to bug parents to drop off their kids' report cards.
Now each child is tracked by KidTrax, an ID system developed by the nFocus software company. It connects to the school system though a separate software program.When students show up at an afterschool facility, they swipe their bar-coded ID cards through a reader, much like a credit-card scanner. The ID cards look like a driver's license, and they light up computer screens with data about the students.
Afterschools can find out whether their students' families receive food stamps, or whether the student can swim, has applied for college scholarships or got into trouble for rowdiness.
Posted July 17, 2006 2:12 PM | Students
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Comments(1)
Posted by: E.G. on July 18, 2006 10:37 AM
Speaking of after-school participation, there is a new poll out from Junior Achievement that shows that 2/3rds of kids participate in after-school programs at their schools, with less than one-in-ten participating in more traditional after-school settings, such as an after-school center...
http://www.ja.org/about/about_newsitem.asp?StoryID=355
...If this is a trend, it seems to me that the kind of data-sharing that is going on might not be needed in the future.
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