Audit Report on the Department of Education’s Implementation of High Speed Internet Connectivity in New York City Public Middle Schools

Executive Summary

We audited the New York City (the City) Department of Education’s (DOE’s) implementation of high speed internet connectivity in public middle schools to determine whether it was on schedule and meeting its intended goals.  DOE provides primary and secondary education to over one million students from pre-kindergarten through grade 12 in over 1,800 schools in 32 school districts and employs approximately 75,000 teachers.  As of May 2016, 503 of DOE’s schools were reported to be providing educational services to middle school students (students in 6th through 8th grades).  As its principal mission, DOE prepares students to meet grade-level standards in reading, writing and math, and prepares high school students to pass Regents exams and to meet graduation requirements.

According to DOE, it began to upgrade the broadband technology in the schools in 2007.  At that time, the agency commenced the process of installing fiber optic cabling, connections, and network components required to support higher data rates.  DOE’s goal was to provide high speed internet connectivity and install wireless technology in all of the City’s public schools and thereby deliver improved connectivity and performance, enhanced access, capacity, and security.

Audit Findings and Conclusions

Our audit found that every New York City public middle school had fiber optic connections to support high speed internet.  However, we also found that during its broadband upgrade initiative, DOE failed to put adequate controls and oversight in place to ensure that the system-wide upgrade was completed properly, within budget, with appropriate documentation, and with adequate managerial oversight.  DOE lacked documentation of the execution and cost of the broadband upgrade.  During the audit, DOE represented that it did not have any project plans, implementation schedules, and progress reports to document the steps taken, rate of progress and total cost of the upgrade initiative from its inception in 2007 through its completion in 2016.  Without such records, we are unable to determine whether DOE’s implementation of high speed internet connectivity for middle schools was completed on schedule and within budget.

In addition to these findings, we conducted a User Satisfaction Survey.  In response to that survey, 33 percent of the responding middle school Principals and staff reported that they were not satisfied with the current internet service, 45 percent stated that the speed of the internet service in the middle schools did not meet their instructional needs, and 25 percent responded that the internet service availability in their schools was inadequate.

Audit Recommendations

To address these issues, we made nine recommendations, including that DOE should:

• Maintain a project governance structure for information technology (IT) projects and ensure that its Enterprise Project Management Office (EPMO) follows proper project management standards and methodologies for all current and future IT projects.
• Maintain a system for archiving standard project documents and artifacts.
• Develop a formal records retention policy and schedule that ensures the future availability of necessary records for as long as they are needed.
• Develop and maintain written Network Operations Center (NOC) policies and procedures for assigning and adjusting school bandwidth.
• Ensure that the users’ concerns identified in the User Satisfaction Survey and comments that we provided to DOE are appropriately addressed and that the annual survey sent to Principals includes questions concerning user satisfaction with high speed internet connectivity.
• As part of the bandwidth utilization process, consider whether low utilization might be caused by users’ experiencing delays, slowness, and unreliability of their schools’ high speed internet connectivity. The criteria for a bandwidth upgrade should also take into account school staff input and not rely solely on bandwidth utilization reports.
• Proactively partner with schools to offer technology reviews to ensure that DOE staff better understand their requirements, offer appropriate technical solutions, estimate proper bandwidth provisioning, and ensure that schools have adequate technology available to accomplish their instructional goals.
• Ensure that school Principals and their designated Single Points of Contact (SPOCs) are aware of how to effectively request a bandwidth upgrade, and what the criteria are for receiving one.
• Provide additional resources to DOE’s technology divisions to improve communication, strengthen the quality of customer service, and increase customer satisfaction.

Agency Response

In its written audit response, DOE summarized its efforts and the progress it has made to meet the “demand for bandwidth [that] continues to exceed supply.”  DOE additionally claimed that it has already implemented most of the audit recommendations “before the audit.”  However, DOE’s response fails to address the hundreds of millions of dollars it spent for the broadband upgrade without having adequate controls in place to ensure that the upgrade was completed properly, on time, adequately documented, and within budget.  DOE explained its failure to produce requested basic documentation such as project plans, implementation schedules, and progress reports by contending that “there was no overarching ‘initiative for middle schools’.  Rather a series of activities, underwritten by various funding sources, was undertaken separately over time to address bandwidth needs for all DOE schools, not middle schools in isolation.”  However, this response does not address one of the audit’s central findings – that DOE failed to appropriately plan, monitor, document, and manage its broadband initiative.  Had it done so, it would have been able to produce the basic project data requested by the auditors, whether or not the upgrade was organized by building or by school.  Indeed, DOE’s response highlights the fact that when it undertook the initiative to bring high speed connectivity to all DOE schools, it did not have a comprehensive plan, uniform minimum controls, standards for documentation, or central oversight.

DOE further noted that its Division of Instructional and Information Technology (DIIT) “has created a dedicated Enterprise Project Management Office (EPMO), which includes an IT Governance Officer.”  Under the new structure, EMPO “Portfolio Managers, are charged with ensuring that projects follow new, standards-based policies and procedures and maintaining a records system for archiving standard project documents.”  While we noted in the audit report that the EPMO was established to create central oversight of IT projects, we also noted that the EPMO was never given oversight of the middle school broadband upgrades.  As a result, there was never central planning and oversight of the broadband upgrade initiative, and DOE had no assurance that acceptable methodologies were utilized in the upgrades, that the implementations were properly documented, or that relevant documents were retained in accordance with appropriate document retention policies.

Finally, rather than pledging to follow-up on the concerns raised by DOE staff in the audit’s User Satisfaction Survey, DOE rejects the notion that its communication with staff could be improved.  Rather, it contends, with no proof or logical reasoning, that “school-based respondents were confused by the phrasing of the auditors’ User Satisfaction Survey question about bandwidth upgrades.”  We find DOE’s response to be unpersuasive.  We remind DOE that the auditors submitted the User Satisfaction Survey to DOE’s Deputy Auditor General prior to its distribution for review and approval and the Deputy Auditor General specifically approved its contents after making a few modifications.  In addition, the User Satisfaction Survey was sent to all New York City public middle school Principals and SPOCs, the individuals who are responsible for the day-to-day information technology activities in the schools and are exactly the people who would have the knowledge of what is working and what is not working in the schools.  Thus, we find DOE’s contention that the Principals and SPOCs were confused by the survey implausible and we urge DOE to seriously consider and respond to the information provided by its own staff in response to the survey.