Business as usual does not work when the environment changes. The delegation of technological prowess to an operational office made sense when the IT staff was ''simply [a] back-office number-cruncher''. Since then, advances have brought technology into every sphere of a district's operations, communications and analysis. In today's climate, technology belongs in the boardroom. Getting one or more school board members with technological expertise brings enviable advantages.
A tech-savvy school board member can bridge the gap separating the language and culture of other board members from the world of technology. Many school board members come from the world of business, which has different cultural codes than the world of technology. When IBM pitted its Watson supercomputer against a human chess champion, the New York Times played on the contrasting cultures, running a farcical fashion-focused analysis of the chess champ in the same room as IBM executives.
What the two communities notice and prioritize differs as much as their dress codes. Business-dominated school boards tend to think in their native language; they shape strategies and notice costs and returns. Concluding an extensive study in the corporate world (for which more information is available), Deloitte determined that boards need to master a second language, one rooted in digital themes. Boards, they found, often ignore altogether how to decide when a new technology initiative is needed - or when to pull the plug on failed technology. After all, technological projects are expensive and complex, and sometimes they fail.
A board member versed in technology can lead the board in thinking strategically about technological investments. Since technology now infuses all facets of education, such enterprise-side concerns call for board attention. Convinced of that conclusion, the Aon consulting company now recommends that all clients bring technology from its silo into the boardroom. A study in the Harvard Business Review concurs that ''[a] lack of board oversight for IT activities is dangerous; it puts the firm at risk in the same way that failing to audit its books would. The question is no longer whether the board should be involved in IT decision; the question is 'How?''' As with firms, so with school districts: The ISIS hijacking of over 300 schools' websites illustrates the danger they face.
When boards think strategically about their massive investments in technology, they will ask questions that their tech-savvy members can help them answer:
- What are the redundancy, age, robustness and risk of obsolescence in the current system?
- Are the components in our complex array of systems (enrollment management, personnel, accounting, say) interoperable?
- What weaknesses limit our system?
- What defenses are mitigating that risk?
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