This is 2012. America is a country of innovation that continually pushes the edge of technology. Generations of phones, computers and tablets come and go in the blink of an eye. Communication of information continually gets faster, better and more efficient. Almost everything gets faster, better, more efficient.

As a leader in school choice, Arizona is the fertile ground for education innovation. More than any other state over the last two decades, we have put parents in charge of their children’s education. Our students enjoy open enrollment, charter schools, virtual schools, home schooling, dual enrollments, joint technological districts with great career and technical-education paths, and myriad opportunities to mix, match and customize their education.

It is possible to obtain a world-class education in Arizona if you are a diligent consumer of education, do your homework and exercise your best options.

While, for many students, Arizona can be the land of great educational opportunities, the education system, as a whole, is hampered by a major obstacle preventing our students from realizing optimum academic growth, limiting our teachers’ ability to be effective and causing our district and charter schools operational chaos: that obstacle is the Arizona Department of Education’s computer system.

It’s an enormous resource drain on education, siphoning funds out of our classrooms and creating limited value for students. Unfortunately, there is little incentive for legislators to fix it. Government technology systems don’t curry much public support or grab headlines. It is difficult to get voters to rise up and demand a fix to something they are not familiar with or that doesn’t touch them directly. But the Department of Education computer system is truly the silent enemy standing in the way of fixing our education system.

As a taxpayer, you need to know the state’s inadequate investment in technology infrastructure at the Department of Education results in you paying tens of millions of dollars to correct errors and to build and maintain redundant technology systems each year.

For the rest of the article, go to Barrett and Huppenthal: Outdated technology at agency stymies schools