Idaho schools lead in
computer technology,
state says
Market researcher calls numbers ‘very, very general’
"We would never use [the information] to say Idaho is a really
technologically advanced state. It may or may not be, but we wouldn’t use it that
way."
Joel Kinzie, spokesman for QED
By TRAVIS PURSER
Express Staff Writer
Citing studies from two national education marketing research firms, the
state Department of Education claims Idaho leads the country in providing computer
technology to students.
Experts, however, doubt the conclusion. They suggest Idaho education
officials confused information designed for marketing with a precise measure of technology
education.
Allison Westfall, media relations officer for the department, states in a
Sept. 20 press release that a Shelton, Conn.-based company, Market Data Retrieval (MDR),
"ranks Idaho in the top 10 states" for school technology. She asserts that
another company, Denver-based Quality Education Data (QED), ranks Idaho "the top
state in its education technology measures."
Both QED and MDR provide mailing lists and market research information to
vendors of educational materials, to the state and federal governments and to the media.
Despite Westfall’s good news, however, QED fails to share her
enthusiasm. The company says information it provides on school technology does not come
from thorough research and can’t be used to compare one state to another.
"We would never use [the information] to say Idaho is a really
technologically advanced state," Joel Kinzie, a spokesman for QED, said in a
telephone interview from his Denver, Colo., office Monday. "It may or may not be, but
we wouldn’t use it that way."
QED’s information was contained in a 60-page marketing brochure
mailed to education agencies.
Idaho has spent heavily in recent years equipping schools with computers.
Each year since 1994, according to the education agency’s press release, the state
legislature has invested $10.4 million in school technology. Additional money has come
from a $28 million J. A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation investment, the release states.
The education department says the state has worked hard to help schools
prepare students for an expanding high-tech job market in Idaho. The information from QED
and MDR shows the state is succeeding, according to Westfall.
"We [are] seeing from these state and national reports that
Idaho’s investment has been efficiently and effectively used," said state
Superintendent of Public Instruction Marilyn Howard in Westfall’s press release.
Kinzie said he’s concerned the education department is
misinterpreting his company’s research information.
He said the information is meant to give his company’s customers a
"general idea" of where a state stands, not to give a definitive ranking of
states.
While Westfall claims that QED "ranks" Idaho as the top state,
the company in fact gives Idaho and all other states a less-hierarchical education
technology "status" of either "high," "medium" or
"low."
QED determines a state’s status based on the number of instructional
computers available and the number of students per computer. That information, Kinzie
said, QED gets from written and verbal surveys his company takes of the nation’s
schools.
To determine a state’s status, QED compiles survey information into a
numerical "technology measure."
Idaho does survey well by QED standards. A table in a QED product catalog
gives only three states a ranking of "high": Idaho, South Dakota and Wyoming.
To rank Idaho first in the nation, Westfall apparently used QED’s
technology measure for the state, which at 4.9 is higher than all the others: Wyoming
comes in at 4.7, South Dakota at 4.1. Some of the states with the lowest "technology
measures" are Connecticut at 1.9 and California at 2.0.
Referring to his colleagues at QED, Kinzie said, "None of us would
ever use that number in the way Ms. Westfall used it in her press release. And we’re
a little concerned about that…. It’s a very, very general number, and a little
inexact."
Kinzie said some states provide more survey information than others to
QED, and that can affect the status schools get. When a state’s schools fail to
respond to surveys, the state’s status can fall, even though its schools might have
numerous new computers. Idaho and Wyoming, he said, have provided "richer data"
in recent years than other states.
Even though the status QED assigns schools is "a little
inexact," Kinzie said, the information is useful to his company’s customers when
combined with other "lifestyle" data, such as measures of a state’s
affluence. Used together, he said, that information can help educational software
companies, for example, decide where to conduct mass mailing advertisement campaigns.
The other company Westfall cited, MDR, uses a method similar to QED’s
to rank "technology sophistication" in states’ schools. Called the Tech
Sophistication Index (TSI), the method uses a number of technology measures to place
schools within five categories from high to low.
In a report published on its Web site, MDR, unlike QED, clearly ranks
states. The report places Idaho among the top 10 states, along with Alaska, Nebraska,
Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Kansas and Iowa.
Schools that are small, rural and have a low percentage of minority
students are likely to rank high in technology sophistication, according to the report.
