IBM wins New York City student database deal

IBM Corp. won a five-year, $80 million contract from the New York City Education Department to deploy a reporting system that will provide information on students' performance and progress.

Under the contract, IBM of Armonk, N.Y., will provide the software, hardware, consulting and technology services to implement the Achievement Reporting and Innovation System, or ARIS.

The system not only will store information about student performance for educators and parents, but also facilitate the sharing of information about innovations among the city's schools.

Through the system, educators and parents will be able to access and review achievement data from standardized exams as well as from periodic assessments administered at the school level. The information is intended to help teachers identify effective practices and improve and tailor instruction in response to specific student need during the course of the school year.

"This innovative approach to education will be a leading example of collaboration, knowledge-sharing and information access that will serve as a model for other school systems," Marianne Cooper, IBM's Public Sector vice president, said in a statement announcing the award.

The company expects to have ARIS available to principals and teachers by September. Parents will receive reports generated by the system beginning in fall 2007 and will have online access to the system by September 2008.

IBM Corp., which has about 366,000 employees and had annual sales of $91.4 billion in 2006, ranks No. 17 on Washington Technology's 2006 Top 100 list of the largest federal IT contractors.