Finding the Funding

A small district gets help from a company founded by former educators.

By Rhea R. Borja

Beaumont, Calif.

Getting to this high-desert town from Los Angeles means driving due east until the glut of big-box stores lining the freeways thins out, then navigating hairpin turns through a stretch of sere, squat hills called the Badlands.

But while the 6,000-student Beaumont Unified School District seems isolated, it has something that many bigger, metropolitan districts lack: an integrated computerized system for producing, analyzing, and storing test scores and other student data.

A system for data management, analysis, and warehousing doesn’t come cheap. It can run in the millions of dollars, and requires upkeep by trained information-technology specialists. Small districts often lack that kind...