Education creates opportunities. It can help you build a career in your desired field and can help you reach your dreams. However, not everyone has equal access to education. Some students are more privileged than others, but school districts are working hard to address this. Take, for example, Carmen Rahm, Chief Information Officer of Seattle Public Schools (SPS) since 2014. Rahm, who entered the academic field in 2001, works with members of the underserved community to lay out a plan to provide information technology for students and to enable them to reach their goals.

 

THE STATE OF SEATTLE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

When I asked Rahm about his thoughts on the state of Seattle Public Schools compared to other school districts in Washington, he said that “from a lot of districts that I’ve seen around the Puget Sound Area, we’re behind the curve, and that’s not the fault of anybody. Between funding cuts, competing needs, and enrollment growth, it’s hard to stay current.” Rahm also mentioned that this situation isn’t exclusive to Seattle. Across the country, most major cities are facing the same challenges—such as funding and providing equity across their districts.

In the past couple of years, however, the Seattle Public School district has made significant progress. According to Rahm, the school board set three major goals for this year.

• First is to improve systems across the district. Just recently, the district invested a new learning management system where students and teachers can collaborate on projects online.
• Second, to close the opportunity gap focused primarily for African-American males.
• And third, establish community partnerships.

Rahm works with district stakeholders to identify and to assess how technology can be integrated into achieving these goals.

 

EQUITY AND TECHNOLOGY

“Equity is one of the biggest challenges that we face.” Carmen Rahm

All students should have the same opportunities. Managing limited funds to do this is a challenge. Rahn’s goal is to provide equity, and not equality to give every student what he or she needs to succeed.

“My goal is not to give each little boy a box; my goal is to see that the three boys can each see over the fence.”

How does he do it?

“To prepare the district for standardized testing, we had to equip schools with more computers. We didn’t have enough money to equip all schools with an equal number of new computers, so we decided to focus on the schools with the most need for new equipment. At first, this didn’t always make us popular with some schools because there were needs across the district. Some areas just had older equipment that wasn’t suited for taking online assessments. A handful of schools didn’t receive any new computers, but they realized that other schools had greater needs and were willing to adapt.   

“When I first started the job two years, I talked a lot about equality. It wasn’t until one principal invited me to his school and showed me how under equipped it was and said, ‘Carmen, you talk a lot about equality. But there’s a difference between equality and equity.’ And he educated me on how it’s not my job to treat each school with equality because schools start at different places. Some schools have parents who raise a lot more private funds than other schools. That creates inequalities that must be addressed to assure that each student is provided the same opportunities. That’s equity.”

Access to technology is critical in providing equity in K-12 education to prepare students for the workforce. The leaders and consumers of tomorrow will be using technology, therefore, today; we need to establish partnerships to help our students become tech literate.

Rahm believes that technology across districts should be standardized to support both teachers and students, should they move from one school to another. Providing the same systems would help eliminate any lag in learning or major adjustments for the users.   

We live in a critical time where we have the opportunity to provide equity for all students and to prepare them for their future. As a grandfather, Rahm wants his children and grandchildren to understand the power of education has in shaping their future. We have to do something about providing equity for students, and people like Carmen Rahm are making it happen.