The demand for K-12 school districts to implement technology that drives smarter decision-making for teachers and administrators has never been greater. However, given the demands facing school districts today, technology decisions often make their way to the collective back burner.

A chief technology officer’s (CTO) role centers on aligning technology strategies to an organization’s business objectives, but the position takes on different challenges and importance when it comes to connecting technology strategies to student performance.

Connecting technology to performance

The CTO position in K-12 is becoming more prevalent in the United States. In a 2017 study by the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), 53 percent of technology leaders held senior-level titles (CTO, CIO, district technology director), as opposed to 43 percent in 2012.

CTOs are imperative to K-12 school systems as they have experience to strategically implement mission-critical technology for administrators, students, and teachers.

Data-driven decision-making is a challenge in education due to the lack of experienced professionals to guide the transition to and implementation of analytics tools. In fact, 70 percent of schools and districts don’t measure or can’t report on key performance metrics for things like talent-management activities.

CTOs can lead the way in transitioning K-12 schools from legacy, often manual, processes to new, more efficient digital tools that benefit educators, administrators, and students.