I was lucky to be talking with the fabulous Bob Swiggum, the Georgia Department of Education’s chief information officer, in our offices today, and he brought up a point that I have tried to express here before: Data systems are useless if they’re not useful. It seems like an over-simplification I know, but hearing a…
This post originally appeared on the Tennessee College Access and Success Network blog. I had two career choices when I was a teenager. I either wanted to be a ninja assassin spy of the James Bond type or play first base for the Chicago Cubs. Obviously, these were not very realistic and attainable goals for…
Not long ago I visited a prominent bakery in my home county. Like most people who do not work in that type of environment, I expected to find a workplace filled with manual labor, such as workers lifting bags of flour. Instead, I witnessed a highly automated system of making the foods, with workers programming…
December 2011 is my last month as a Director of Schools. I have been in this role for 5 years and have had some of the proudest moments of my life as leader for the Putnam County School System. I have watched our system be recognized for instituting an on-line school; a strategic pay plan…
When I was in first grade, I spent a lot of time waiting around. After completing addition and subtraction problems or reading passages to myself, I waited for the teacher to finish helping other students before she turned her attention back to me and the rest of the class. Eventually, I realized that if my…