A news report from the Times-Tribune in Corbin, “W’burg school board approves new tax rate” discusses more than local tax data.

According to a presentation at recent Williamsburg Independent Schools Board of Education meeting, the Kentucky Department of Education is experiencing significant problems with its “Continuous Instructional Improvement Technology System,” or CIITS. Statewide problems center on data loss somewhere up in the Internet “Cloud.” Local school staff members spend time inputting unidentified data and it then disappears.

As a consequence, CIITS, which is supposed to help all Kentucky teachers improve instruction with easy access to education standards and videos showing ways to effectively teach them, has uneven teacher participation. Statewide, only 25,000 of the 45,000 teachers in Kentucky are using CIITS, and in the Williamsburg system only 8 of the 28 teachers are using this program.

I don’t know what data is getting lost (could this be about individual students or sensitive data on individual teachers?), but the relatively low participation rate and apparent growing dissatisfaction indicates something needs to change with what needs to be a solid and reliable instructional support program that does not leak data.