Down to Business: Taking Cues from the Corporate World Can Mean Money Saved and Efficiency Gained

Across the country, public and private school districts alike are hiring CIOs and IT managers with volumes of experience in the business world. The thinking behind this trend is simple: Hire someone from the private sector and he or she will run the district's IT like a business. For the big-city district of Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the midsize city district of Denver Public Schools (DPS), and the rural district of Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS), the move has paid huge dividends, both on and off the ledger sheet. This article presents the stories of the organizer, the consultant, and the turnaround artist.