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The Transformation of State Monitoring Systems in Germany and the US: Relating the Datafication and Digitalization of Education to the Global Education Industry

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Researching the Global Education Industry

Abstract

In this chapter, I examine the expanding datafication and digitalization of education, focusing on the transformation of monitoring systems in state-level school administration. This transformation is an important, yet underexplored, facet of the Education Technology (EdTech) market, related more broadly to the rise of the Global Education Industry (GEI). It has altered and introduced new roles for state, business, private, and philanthropic actors assembled around technology discourses and rationales that not only reframe educational monitoring practices but also the daily practices of school, student, and teacher data administration. These, as a result of increased standardization and interoperability, have become simultaneously more centralized, as well as more disaggregated and personalized.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    As an example, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (related to the Microsoft corporation) recently announced a new collaborate investment in EdTech (total US$12 million) together with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (related to the Facebook corporation), which was given to the venture philanthropy organization New Profit (http://www.newprofit.org) as an intermediary investor, which then gave investments (US$1 million each) plus “extensive management advising” to seven organizations “working to promote personalized learning through education technology” (Herold, 2017). However, before launching the new program, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative had already given money to institutions such as the College Board (a non-profit, which in the US is, e.g., administering the Scholastic Aptitude Test, SAT), or to networks of state and district leaders that engaged in EdTech reforming. Different from a non-profit, “the organizational structure [of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative] allows for direct investment in for-profit companies and political lobbying and donations, as well as philanthropic giving. It also limits the extent to which the group is legally required to publicly report on its activities” (Herold, 2017).

  2. 2.

    Building on Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier (2013, p. 78), “datafication” stands for the quantification of things, while “digitalization” refers to the conversion of analog information into a binary computer code.

  3. 3.

    These insights are related to an ongoing project, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG, project number HA 7367/2-1), which seeks to improve the understanding of digital-era governance and the role of data management in education within the federal contexts of Germany and the US. The project includes analyses of (1) policy material, such as monitoring regulations, resolutions or digitalization/datafication programs (ongoing), (2) the actors and institutions involved in performance data management at national and state level (ongoing), (3) the performance data infrastructures and their modes of operation in three selected states per country (scheduled for 2018), and (4) interviews with national- and state-level policy actors, technicians, administrators, and data system companies (scheduled for 2018).

  4. 4.

    Organizations include the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and one example of a vendor can be found at www.oecd.org/education-industry-summit

  5. 5.

    This chapter also uses the term “state” to refer to the German Laender.

  6. 6.

    For a more detailed description of the CCSS, PARCC, and Smarter Balanced, see Hartong (2016b).

  7. 7.

    InBloom was a nation-wide acting non-profit “[…] that offered a data warehouse solution designed to help public schools embrace the promise of personalized learning by helping teachers integrate seamlessly the number of applications they use in their day-to-day teaching” (Horn, 2014), and which had received over US$100 million from the Gates and Carnegie Foundations. Building on Bulger, McCormick, and Pitcan (2017), p. 2), InBloom ideal typically represented the pent-up clash between Silicon valley style software solutions, which the exploding EdTech market had triggered, and more cautious datafication approaches of state and school districts as well as the wider public.

  8. 8.

    The DQC, for example, decided to work with ed-fi and promoting their standards to vendors and state actors.

  9. 9.

    For example, the SETDA promotes business partnerships as a “unique opportunity for meaningful engagement with State Members throughout the year including significant participation in multiple networking events.” These include “joint developments of reports and case studies” and “tailored promotions” (www.setda.org/partners/private-sector). Similar to SETDA, the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), an association for school system technology leaders, offers different sponsorship packages ranging from platinum to bronze, and funds sponsor sessions and leadership initiatives (these sessions and initiatives currently cost $5000 and $12,000, respectively). Even though CoSN claims its initiatives are vendor neutral, it offers sponsors the opportunity to participate in the advisory panel, so that they can participate in “helping to shape direction and focus by identifying best practices, tools, resources, webinars, presentations, and case studies” (CoSN, 2017, p. 8).

  10. 10.

    It seems important to note that only the Minimal Catalogue was obligatory for the states, while the Core Data Set, which was including individual data, was passed as a recommendation to the states.

  11. 11.

    This, however, may change in the future.

  12. 12.

    See, for example, the provider ISB AG/the edoo.sys system, which is currently used in Rhineland-Palatinate, Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg, for example, www.svp-rlp.de/projektinformationen/hintergrund.html; or ascaion/the product Edunite, www.ascaion.com/download/20140509_Leistungsbeschreibung_edunite.pdf

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  1. Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Helmut-Schmidt-University Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Sigrid Hartong

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  1. Institute of Education, University of Münster, Münster, Germany

    Marcelo Parreira do Amaral

  2. Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Gita Steiner-Khamsi

  3. Theory and History of Education, Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Christiane Thompson

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Hartong, S. (2019). The Transformation of State Monitoring Systems in Germany and the US: Relating the Datafication and Digitalization of Education to the Global Education Industry. In: Parreira do Amaral, M., Steiner-Khamsi, G., Thompson, C. (eds) Researching the Global Education Industry. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04236-3_8

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