IT Reform at the Department of Education

At the Department of Education, the IT reform process is helping us in significant ways to promote student achievement and prepare for global competitiveness. Tracking student progress and achievement throughout the nation is essential to our ability to know how effectively our education systems are preparing children and adults for global competition.
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Grants Consortia Leadership

In support of the Department of Education’s role as a Grants Management Line of Business Consortia Lead, the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) is implementing the final phase of its state-of-the-art grants management system, G5. Key innovative features include an electronic suite to process applications, enable remote peer reviews, process performance reports, and allow grantees to request funds and manage accounts online. Future enhancements include electronic folder and electronic signature. Building upon its success in grants management over the last 20 years, OCIO is poised to deliver a robust, scalable, and high-performance system that satisfies the expanded requirements of users and future consortium partners.

Enterprise Architecture-focused Capital Planning

OCIO has begun merging the contract support acquisitions, aligning schedules, and blending employee skill sets to integrate the enterprise architecture and capital planning processes at the Department. Recommendations from the Enterprise Architecture Advisory Committee inform the agency’s Planning and Investment Review Working Group’s deliberations on investment opportunities. In addition, segment modernization plans are used to determine the Department’s needs and investment gaps in support of the select phase process.

Information Assurance Enhancement Project

The information assurance enhancement project will centralize management of cyber security situational awareness at the Department. While execution of this program to counter cyber threats will continue to be decentralized, OCIO is developing a profile of the enterprise from an information systems security and privacy perspective and a strategy for coordinated deployment of tool sets, mitigation of risks, and remediation response.

Dr. Danny Harris is a 20+ year information technology and financial management veteran of the U.S. Department of Education.

Dr. Harris became the Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the Department on October 1, 2008. As the CIO, he acquires and maintains all of the Department’s mission-critical information system resources. Specific responsibilities include managing the Department’s Information Assurance program, developing policy for the protection and control of information; defining and managing capital planning and investment management processes to ensure their successful implementation and integration with the Department budget, acquisition, and planning processes; promoting the effective and efficient design and operation of major Departmental information resource management processes; deploying and maintaining all enterprise-wide information technology; managing the agency’s participation and implementation of Federal CIO Council Initiatives and coordinating Council activities throughout the Department; and coordinating all eGovernment initiatives and providing status reports to the Office of Management and Budget.

Prior to becoming the CIO, Dr. Harris served as the Deputy Chief Financial Officer (CFO). He oversaw financial management, internal control and audit resolution, financial systems, contracts and procurement, and grants policy issues.

Before becoming Deputy CFO, Dr. Harris served as Director, Financial Systems Operations in the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, U.S. Department of Education since September 1998. He managed the Department’s multi-million dollar integrated Federal Financial Management Platform called Education’s Central Automated Processing Systems (EDCAPS).

Dr. Harris began his career at the Department as a computer analyst. He since moved on to the Secretary’s Office working as a Policy Analyst, coordinating IT and other activities for the Secretary and Deputy Secretary surrounding education policy issues.

Dr. Harris holds a BA in Communications from North Carolina A&T State University, and an MA and PhD in Organizational Management from Howard University.

Capital Planning

The Department of Education’s IT portfolio is similar to that of many agencies in a number of ways: the number of major investments is dwarfed by the number of non-majors. The dollar value of non-majors is significant and must be considered and managed as part of the overall IT strategy. One dominant sub-portfolio accounts for 50%-80% of the entire portfolio. Because of these similarities in structure, the Department’s success in transforming its capital planning practices can be beneficial to other Federal agencies.

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