ptimal Announces Alliance to Develop K-12 Education Technology Solutions

Optimal Announces Alliance to Develop K-12 Education Technology Solutions

Irving, TX - May 15, 2004 - Optimal Solutions Integration, Inc., a leading IT services firm to large government agencies and Fortune 1000 companies, today announced an alliance with ESP Solutions Group, the leading consulting firm to local, state, and federal education agencies in the area of data-driven decision making.

Data-driven decision making, also known as D3M, is a widespread movement in K-12 education toward using quality data to gauge the effectiveness of education programs, such as identifying areas of opportunity or areas of low performance. By using D3M technologies, local school districts and state education agencies can greatly increase student achievement, save money, and improve operational efficiency.

"The K-12 environment has embraced D3M as an overall philosophy and a goal. However, our customer research tells us that large school districts do not feel that the currently available student information systems meet their needs or budgets. This alliance will change all that,"commented Sam Sliman, executive vice president for Optimal Solutions Integration.

The Optimal-ESP alliance marries ESP’s extraordinary insight into K-12 education technology systems and processes with Optimal’s experience in deploying enterprise technology for governmental agencies such as NASA and the Department of Defense. Optimal also has done large-scale work for the State of Washington and City of Washington, DC. No stranger to large-scale education technology projects, ESP Solutions Group has led the strategic planning for new statewide student information systems for 15 different state education agencies and serves as a primary adviser to the U.S. Department of Education’s Chief Information Officer.

The first product to be built from this alliance will be a new Student Information System (SIS) based on the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) specification. This new SIS will be particularly tuned to the needs of large urban school districts that typically have much different software and implementation needs than small or medium sized districts. The alliance has worked extensively with a large urban school district that ranks as one of the ten largest school districts in the United States, as measured by the National Center for Education Statistics.

"The SIS is a central and critical ingredient for achieving D3M in a large school district,"added Sliman."Without good student data, it is very difficult for administrators to have confidence in their decisions."

"We continue to see that the SIS products on the market today leave urban school districts with three bad options. Districts have to decide if they want to use obsolete software built before the Internet age, a closed system that requires a significant amount of expensive customizing, or break their budget on high-priced solutions that were not designed to meet their specialized needs,"said Dr. Glynn Ligon of ESP Solutions Group."Until now, there has not been a legitimate new SIS product introduced in the last fifteen years that has married state-of-the-art technology with a dedication to large urban school districts."

Ligon added,"This is a perfect alliance in every sense of the word. We share the same commitment to quality workmanship and customer satisfaction, but we each bring different experiences to this alliance. Optimal is major league custom application development operation and, combined with ESP’s knowledge of the K-12 landscape, we believe there is tremendous potential here."

About Optimal Solutions Integration, Inc.

Optimal Solutions Integration, Inc. is an enterprise technology consulting firm based in Irving, TX. Optimal Solutions Integration works with organizations in North America, Europe, Latin America and the Asia/Pacific region to extract maximum value from their investments in enterprise technology. Through its proven Global Trust™ hybrid model that incorporates expert onsite and secure offshore consulting capabilities, Optimal Solutions Integration features best-of-breed skills while containing the costs associated with the design, deployment, and support of enterprise technology platforms. For more information about Optimal Solutions Integration, visit www.optimalsol.com.

About ESP Solutions Group

ESP Solutions Group provides its education agency clients with extraordinary insight into K-12 data systems and psychometrics. Its team is comprised of industry experts who pioneered the concept of "data-driven decision-making" in the 1980’s and now help optimize the management of our clients’ education organizations.

EPS personnel have advised all 52 state education agencies as well as the U.S. Department of Education on the practice of K-12 school data management. The firm’s management team is regarded as leading experts in understanding the data and technology implications of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), Performance Based Data Management Initiative (PBDMI), and the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF). For more information, visit http://www.espsolutionsgroup.com or phone (512) 458-8364 x107.

Contact Information:
Sam Sliman
202-872-5077
sam.sliman@optimalsol.com