Demand for School Data Overwhelms State’s Low-Tech System

The first-ever ranking of California’s public schools is part of an effort to prepare students for the high-tech 21st century.

But the California Department of Education, the agency responsible for releasing the much-anticipated comparison over the Internet, apparently needs its own computer lessons.

The department’s low-tech Web page, designed to accommodate only about 800 visitors at a time, was quickly overwhelmed Tuesday as thousands of school officials, parents and media outlets throughout the nation’s most populous state attempted to see how their schools stacked up.

By midday, it was clear to state officials that downloading the voluminous statistics had become impossible amid the massive overload, and state schools Supt. Delaine Eastin ordered them to do “whatever it takes” to get a grip on the situation. They took the Web page (https://www.cde.ca.gov/psaa) down.

It was brought back up for a time later in the day, after officials were able to marshal their sole, slow Internet line to send e-mail copies of the rankings to major news outlets.

But it was clearly a black eye for state education officials, who had been planning the release for months and had bragged about their technological sophistication. They vowed to examine their shortcomings and create a far better online distribution system for future releases.

“Our staff have literally been working around the clock in preparation for this,” said department spokesman Doug Stone. “The good news is that the public is deeply interested in this data.”

People hoping to peruse the rankings can simply sign on another day, Stone said. Then he caught himself.

“The expectation was that the public could view all the data on the Web site, and for those who cannot access it, we deeply apologize,” he said. “We’re as frustrated as anyone.”

Some state legislators said they were frustrated as well. “This is ridiculous,” said state Sen. Martha Escutia (D-Whittier).

The digital debacle caused by Tuesday’s release of the Academic Performance Index was not the first time that the department had caused an Internet traffic jam. The posting of results for the Stanford 9 test caused similar congestion problems.

Tech grunts quickly doubled the capacity of the department’s Internet servers Tuesday afternoon, but admitted that they fell woefully short of solving the problem. Some were not happy, saying that they had warned their superiors of the potential problem.

“We got hung out to dry,” one said.

In sending out the data via e-mail to news organizations, state officials displayed their technological clumsiness again by compressing the data with a program that the state had not properly registered with its manufacturer. The makers of the WinZip program, Nico Mak Computing Inc., could not be reached Tuesday for comment.

Though the downloading delay was a problem for many school officials statewide, some shrugged it off as the price of progress.

“One would expect the system to be overloaded,” said Sharon Morgan of the Oak Park school district in Ventura County. “The good news is they care enough to try.”

Times staff writers Dan Morain and Julie Tamaki contributed to this story.