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Help Stop Federal Filtering
Mandate
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We urgently need your help to remove the filtering and monitoring
mandate from
the Labor, Health, Human Services and Education Appropriations bill.
The Labor HHS conference committee included mandatory filtering and
monitoring
language in the Labor, Health, Human Services and Education
Appropriations bill,
which would require the following:
Education institutions receiving Title III technology funds for the
purchase
of computers or to pay costs associated with Internet access
must install
and use technology to block or filter access to child pornography or
material
that is harmful to minors or obscene. Education institutions that do
not comply
will lose their Title III funding.
Schools and libraries receiving E-Rate funds must select and use
technology
that blocks access by minors to obscenity, child pornography, and
“any
other material that the school or library determines to be
inappropriate for
minors.”
Schools and libraries receiving E-Rate funds must monitor online
activities
of minors by either supervisory or technological means.
Schools and libraries must implement use policies that address
Internet access
to matter inappropriate for minors; in addition, they must hold at
least one
public community meeting on the plan. (This is true for independent
schools
too.)
To persuade U.S. Congress and the Administration to remove the
filtering mandate,
we need examples of current Internet access policies and practices at
risk of
being overturned if the language in the Appropriations bill becomes
the law.
We need stories from schools and school districts that describe how
you deal
with student access to “inappropriate material,” whether
through technological
means, acceptable use policies, or a combination of methods. The
stories need
to describe your decision-making process and the effects that a broad
federal
mandate would have on your school or school district.
If you can help, PLEASE send us the following information about your
school
or school district and its Internet use policies and practices:
Description of Current Policy, including how it was developed:
- Description of your school or district’s Internet use
plan.
- Participants in the Internet use decision-making process (e.g.,
school board
members, teachers, parents, and students)
- Did you hold a public hearing and/or accept parental input?
- Has your plan been successful?
Expenses Associated with Your Current Plan:
- If your school uses filtering or other technological methods, what
is the
total cost of operation? Include one-time and ongoing costs for the
filtering
service and costs for training teachers and/or other professional
staff.
- Were other costs associated with the filtering, such as updating
your local
area network (LAN) or the computers?
- If your school does not use filtering, please estimate the cost
for complying
with this mandate.
- Do you monitor students’ Internet usage? If yes, do you
monitor physically
or through the network? What is the total cost associated with
monitoring?
- If you do not currently monitor, please estimate the cost to
comply with
this mandate, either monitoring physically or by using a monitoring
tool installed
on your LAN.
Impact of New Federal Filtering & Monitoring Mandates on Your
Plan:
- What changes would you have to make to become compliant with a
federal mandate
requiring filtering on all Internet-accessible computers?
- What changes would you have to make to monitor all student
Internet use?
- In your estimation, how expensive would it be to comply with these
mandates?
- Do you think these mandates are as effective or educationally
valuable as
your current plan? If not, why not?
Contact Information
We also need to know if we can use your name and/or the name of your
school
or school district when using this information. If you need us to
describe your
school/district in less specifically identifiable terms (e.g., a
suburban school
district in southern California), please let us know how to describe
it.
ACTION NEEDED
Congress and the Administration are scheduled to begin negotiations
very
soon on the final bill. We have to support those who are seeking
to eliminate
this mandate with concrete information and examples from the field.
Please send
the information to Jee Hang Lee in ISTE’s Washington, DC, office,
jhlee@lharris.com,
or fax it to 202.478.6171. The information will then be circulated to
U.S. Congressional
offices and the Administration.
Prepared by Leslie Harris, Jee Hang Lee, and Ghani Raines
On behalf of the International Society for Technology in
Education.
© ISTE, 2000
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