Computer company’s contract expanded
BOISE – The company that won a $16.8 million contract to provide software and support for Idaho’s statewide computerized student information system also will now help put a diploma in the hands of some students.
PLATO Learning Inc. of Bloomington, Minn., has been awarded another contract, worth up to $5 million, to provide public schools with a computer program that will help struggling students pass the state’s mandatory high school graduation test, officials announced Thursday.
Idaho is the first state in the nation to sign a contract with PLATO for a computer-based curriculum spanning kindergarten through 12th grade. Idaho is also the only state that permits teacher certification solely on the basis of passing a computerized test.
The agreement between PLATO and the State Board of Education is financed with federal education improvement money. The state board approved the plan over the objections of State Schools Superintendent Marilyn Howard.
Howard’s chief deputy, Robert West, renewed objections to relying on the computerized study program as the primary means of helping students fill in the knowledge gaps that had prevented them from passing the Idaho Standards Achievement Test, which will be mandatory for graduation next year.
The PLATO system can help, but is not the full solution for remedial education, West said.
“It takes the skills of a teacher, however supplemented by computer-aided instruction, to understand the teaching and learning needs presented by students facing academic difficulties,” West said.
But Teresa Fabricius, the testing coordinator for the Fruitland School District, called the program invaluable. Her district contracted on its own three years ago for the program on a limited basis, and the state deal will provided dramatically expanded access. Forty-three other Idaho school districts are in the same situation.
Because the program is individualized and self-paced, Fabricius said it has not only helped those who have had problems learning in traditional classroom settings but also those gifted students who become bored because they have progressed much more rapidly than the rest of their classmates.
“We have seen students graduate who I don’t believe would have been able to graduate had they not gained access to this program,” Fabricius said.
The Idaho Department of Education in January signed the $16.8 million agreement with PLATO Learning to provide software and support for a new student information management system. The agreement was funded partly with a grant from the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation.
The software will be used for the Idaho Student Information Management System – a system designed in part to help teachers create lesson plans and review students’ disciplinary history, attendance records and grades. Eventually, the network will connect all the schools to provide data for parents, teachers, students, administrators, lawmakers and the public.
A pilot project will start next month, and all Idaho public schools will have the software by the 2006-2007 school year.
A publicly held company since 1992, PLATO Learning posted a $3.2 million loss on $32.3 million in revenue during the February-April quarter this year, the second straight quarterly loss.
It closed up 23 cents a share at $8.74 on the Nasdaq stock exchange on Thursday.