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The parental access is a really small piece depending on where you are. The larger the district the more important it is from what I've seen. The district my wi

by ktsmith 16y ago

The parental access is a really small piece depending on where you are. The larger the district the more important it is from what I've seen. The district my wife teaches in just moved over to Infinite Campus and it has very little to do with the parental access features and everything to do with the data retention and security issues, federal accountability, and all the tracking features. It's horrible software but it checks all of the boxes on the bean counters and mid level managers check lists at the district and state offices. In addition to adding the new software it's been mandated that every teacher use it and all other grade book software has been banned. Even if what learnboost is producing is the most amazing thing in the world these teachers can't use it. The existing system is such a pain in the ass there is also the added issue of no teacher wanting to do double data entry. Any company that wants to break the stranglehold these companies have in the space is going to have to come in with a complete solution at a lower cost. Most of the software will also be required to run within the existing infrastructure or be dropped in, so forget about running on one of the various cloud infrastructures.

dhimes 16y ago
Interesting. and all the tracking features What do they track? The kids' progress through the grades?
- ktsmith 16y ago
  Well, tracking the kids through the grades is already done via cumulative files. Those contain grades, scores on standardized tests, records of disciplinary action, records of social services issues and that type of thing. All of that is being digitized now. In addition to all of that things like attendance are tracked with finer granularity as it's directly related to school funding. Then there's things like what period of time was the student on the free and reduced lunch program. How many meals did they receive during that time. That all gets tracked, again, for federal funding purposes. I'd have to pull out the Infinite Campus manual to get the details on some of the other things that are tracked, but I was quite surprised at all of it when I first saw it. Unfortunately in addition to their primary role as education, teachers are being asked to do more and more paper pushing and handling other duties pushed on them by politicians. Some of the data they keep track of is useful. For example, it's very difficult to get kids into the special ed program these days. You have to put kids through various phases of testing, and each phase requires a different amount of time between them or different benchmarks for evaluation. Some of these systems can keep track of that so as a child moves through the grades each teacher can pick up where the last left off. Sometimes it can take a couple of years for a child to start receiving special education services which is unfortunate because at that point they are even further behind where they should be. This is the direct result of parents not wanting their kids singled out or alienated by being labeled special education. So in that case the tracking is probably a good thing since there are definitive records of what steps have been completed.

by ktsmith 16y ago

dhimes 16y ago

Interesting. and all the tracking features What do they track? The kids' progress through the grades?

ktsmith 16y ago
Well, tracking the kids through the grades is already done via cumulative files. Those contain grades, scores on standardized tests, records of disciplinary action, records of social services issues and that type of thing. All of that is being digitized now. In addition to all of that things like attendance are tracked with finer granularity as it's directly related to school funding. Then there's things like what period of time was the student on the free and reduced lunch program. How many meals did they receive during that time. That all gets tracked, again, for federal funding purposes. I'd have to pull out the Infinite Campus manual to get the details on some of the other things that are tracked, but I was quite surprised at all of it when I first saw it. Unfortunately in addition to their primary role as education, teachers are being asked to do more and more paper pushing and handling other duties pushed on them by politicians. Some of the data they keep track of is useful. For example, it's very difficult to get kids into the special ed program these days. You have to put kids through various phases of testing, and each phase requires a different amount of time between them or different benchmarks for evaluation. Some of these systems can keep track of that so as a child moves through the grades each teacher can pick up where the last left off. Sometimes it can take a couple of years for a child to start receiving special education services which is unfortunate because at that point they are even further behind where they should be. This is the direct result of parents not wanting their kids singled out or alienated by being labeled special education. So in that case the tracking is probably a good thing since there are definitive records of what steps have been completed.