Home AdvocacyPolicyWashington Notes2004 Mar

• Budget: Senate approves $81.1 billion budget for education that includes increases for Title I and IDEA.
• NCLB: The U.S. Department of Education announced new rules governing the implementation of No Child Left Behind's "highly qualified teachers" requirement.
• Advocacy Day: Nearly 100 ISTE and CoSN members participated in Advocacy Day 2004. Advocates from 32 states and 91 Congressional Districts traveled to the Hill to advocate for federal leadership and investment in education technology.
• Ed Tech Action Network: ISTE's and CoSN's Ed Tech Action Network (ETAN) was formally announced during Advocacy Day.
• E-Rate: New House Commerce Chair announces plans to investigate alternate sources of E-Rate funding.
• New Legislation: Rep. Rush Holt to introduce legislation designed to increase the use of research-based knowledge to enhance student performance by taking knowledge generated from education research and moving it directly into the nation's classrooms.

Budget Update: Congress Considers FY05 Budget

Earlier this month, the Senate approved its version of the FY05 budget, S. Con. Res. 95 by a vote of 51-45, which totals $2.36 trillion. Although Congressional budget resolutions do not have the force of law and, in fact, are often ignored by appropriators, they do serve as blueprints for federal spending to which Congressional leaders aim to adhere. The Senate budget provides $81.1 billion for discretionary funding for the Function 500 account, which includes programs within Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services. The Senate's budget resolution explicitly lays out increases of $1 billion for Title I and IDEA, tracking the President's FY05 budget proposal, but does not identify specific programs to be reduced or eliminated. For instance, the Senate's budget does not mention the fates of the Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology, Community Technology Centers, and Star Schools programs, all of which the Administration proposed to eliminate in its FY05 Budget Proposal. Although, the major education programs may receive the large increases called for in the Senate's budget and the Administration's proposed budget, there are growing expectations that many programs may have their funding reduced or eliminated.

During the debate on the resolution, Senate Democrats offered a number of education amendments to increase education spending. All of these attempts failed on largely party-line votes, including one amendment proposed by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) and Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) that would have fully funded No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in FY05 by closing tax loopholes.

Although, the Senate budget resolution does hew to the Administration's positions on a number of issues and programs, it differs from the Administration significantly on funding and taxes. Specifically, the Senate budget lowers total spending for programs from the Administration's request by more than $9 billion and adopts smaller tax cuts than those requested by the Administration. The reason for these changes springs from concerns expressed by many Senators about the expanding budget deficit, currently estimated at about $500 billion.

The House is expected to complete action on its version of the FY05 budget resolution in the next couple of weeks. The House is considering an FY05 budget of $2.41 trillion, slightly larger than the Senate's version, which would include broader tax cuts than the Senate resolution. Earlier this month, the House Budget Committee attempted to complete action on its budget resolution but was inhibited by the controversy over "pay as you go rules" for mandatory spending increases, which require offsetting tax increases or spending reductions for any tax cuts.

In its outline of the education budget, the House Budget Committee would provide $80.78 billion for the Function 500 account, which is over $200 million less than the Senate allocation. The House Budget Committee resolution does not explicitly mention increases for Title I and IDEA, but includes an expectation that the programs will receive large increases. Once the House completes action on its budget resolution, it will begin conferencing with the Senate. The negotiations on the budget resolution are expected to be contentious due to differences in positions on tax cuts and the lack of funding for discretionary programs, especially education programs.

Meanwhile, House and Senate appropriators have been conducting hearings on FY05 appropriations but have been unable to take any concrete legislative steps pending the completion of the budget resolution process. Once the appropriations process begins, it is highly likely that Congress will again find itself unable to complete its work on all spending bills before October 1, the start of the next fiscal year, because of insufficient domestic funding and the likely attachment to appropriations bills of controversial policy legislation.

NCLB Rules Update

Continuing its efforts to address criticisms from a number of state legislatures and governors on its implementation of the NCLB, on March 15 the U.S. Department of Education released new rules that relax regulations governing the highly qualified teacher provisions of the Act. The Department's announcement follows numerous complaints from state legislatures, especially in Utah, Virginia, and Vermont, that NCLB provisions will cost states significant sums to implement. It also represents the third in a series of NCLB rule relaxation announcements from the Department: the first such announcement eased the Act's accountability provisions for students with disabilities, while the second focused on English language learners.

In this latest announcement, the Department tackled provisions in the Act that require that by the 2005-06 school year all teachers hold at least a bachelor's degree, have full state certification, and have demonstrated competence in the subject areas they teach. Objections to the stringent enforcement of these rules focused on the fact that with the shortage of teachers in rural areas, particularly in the sciences, many teachers are forced to teach courses in a number of different disciplines and cannot become certified as a highly qualified teacher in all of them. In fact, last year's Montana "Teacher of the Year," Joe Runnalls, would not meet the highly qualified teacher standard because, though he has taught different science courses in his thirty year career, he has no formal qualifications in each discipline.

The new rules attempt to remedy this and other similar problems by allowing teachers in eligible rural districts who are already highly qualified in one subject area an additional three years to become highly qualified in a second subject area. Additionally, recognizing the need for science teachers to cover more than one subject area, the Department agreed to permit states to test teacher competency under the heading of "broad field" science or in the individual scientific fields. This would allow Mr. Runnalls to take a single test for science competency rather than multiple tests covering each scientific field. Finally, the Department announced that states would be permitted to expand the current qualification system -- the High, Objective, Uniform State Standard of Evaluation (HOUSSE). Currently, teachers have the option, instead of taking a test or going back to school, to demonstrate subject-matter competency through HOUSSE. In addition, the HOUSSE process takes into account teacher's years of experience, high-quality professional development success, continuing education, and other objective evaluations. The new changes allow teachers to demonstrate subject-matter knowledge through one procedure for all the subjects they teach while maintaining the same high standard for subject-matter mastery.

Despite these latest regulatory changes and the previous rule relaxations, the debate over NCLB implementation is expected to continue.More information about these changes is available at: http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2004/03/03152004.html

Advocacy Day

On March 4th, more than one hundred education technology supporters from across the country participated in the joint ISTE and CoSN Advocacy Day in Washington, DC. Advocacy Day participants, representing 32 states and 91 Congressional districts, met with their Congressional Representatives and Senators to advocate for increased funding for education technology. In addition, participants attended an Advocacy Day Boot-Camp where they learned the nuances of advocacy and received a legislative briefing from Amanda Farris, Professional Staff Member from the House Education and the Workforce Committee. Feedback from Advocacy Day was positive, with many participants reporting productive meetings with their member's education staffers and, in some cases, with the members themselves. Most importantly, some of the Advocacy Day participants were able to arrange for their member of Congress to visit their schools or districts.

Ed Tech Action network Launched

During Advocacy Day, ISTE and CoSN announced a joint initiative, the Ed Tech Action Network (ETAN), that aims to create stronger grassroots support for federal education technology funding and help education technology leaders across the country to become more involved in the political process and be better advocates.

ETAN's Web site, http://www.edtechactionnetwork.org, allows individuals to register for the network and provides a series of policy position papers, legislative tips, advocacy tips, and action alerts. Though the Network is a national initiative, CoSN and ISTE are working with education technology leaders in eight target states -- Alaska, California, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas -- to build a network of education technology advocates. To date, nearly 200 people have signed-up to become ETAN members.

E-Rate Update
The Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), the administrator of the E-Rate program, moved toward wrapping up Funding Year 2003 by announcing that it would fund discounts for internal connections down to the 70% eligible discount rate. USAC's ability to disburse funds this deep into the applicant pool resulted from the infusion of some $420 million in unused E-Rate funds from previous funding years. On March 3, USAC began the task of sending out funding commitment letters to internal connections applicants with between 70% and 85% discount rates. These fortunate recipients will have until September 30, 2005 to receive and install nonrecurring services paid for through these discounts.

Meanwhile, the Federal Communications Commission began receiving on March 11 its first wave of comments on its most recent Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the E-Rate program. Included with the over 30 highly detailed comments filed with the Commission was a set of comments from CoSN and ISTE. In their comments, ISTE and CoSN advanced the following positions:

• The Commission should not lower the top levels of the current discount matrix for internal connections services in order to deter waste, fraud, and abuse. ISTE and CoSN argued that: such a change was premature given the Commission's recent adoption of a rule limiting applicants to receiving internal connections discounts twice every five years, which is aimed at the very same issues; such a change would risk further confusing applicants, thereby deterring program participation; and a lowering of the top level discount rate for internal connections would hit the poorest applicants hardest by doubling or even tripling the amount that they would have to pay for E-Rate eligible services.
• The Commission should not adopt a ceiling on the amount that individual applicants can receive from the program each year. CoSN and ISTE indicated that the new twice every five years rule should be afforded ample time to operate before additional rule changes are made.
• The Commission should eliminate the Form 470 posting process for existing telecommunications services and Internet access services that operate on month-to-month contracts but should allow applicants the option to engage in this process if they would like to do so. Additionally, the Commission should require these contracts to go through the Form 470 posting process at least every three years. These recommendations were based on testimony to the Commission that the Form 470 process yielded few competitive bids and continued to cause many applicants great difficulties.
• The Commission should not bar applicants in the midst of a commitment adjustment dispute arising from a previous funding year from receiving E-Rate discounts until the dispute is resolved. ISTE and CoSN also proposed the establishment of a 2-year statute of limitations (commencing with an applicant's receipt of a funding commitment decision letter) for USAC to discover and seek commitment adjustments from applicants for erroneously disbursed funds.
• The Commission should codify existing rules on applicant record retention but must identify and provide a list to all applicants of those records that must be retained.
• The Commission should require consultants and outside experts to disclose any conflicts of interest and can require paid consultants to register with the Commission. However, the Commission should not mandate that unpaid volunteers, who assist in preparing E-Rate applications, register with the Commission due to the negative effect such an action might have on their willingness to render assistance.
• The Commission should not require applicants to include in their technology plans an analysis of the cost of leasing versus the cost of purchasing a particular service because such an action would be redundant with and even damaging to the competitive bidding process.
• The Commission should move towards establishing a "superpriority" for unconnected applicants by determining which eligible entities remain unconnected and assessing the cost of connecting them. The Commission should consider spreading the effort to achieve 100% connectivity over several years to prevent other needy applicants from gaining access to internal connections funds.

Reply comments in this proceeding are due on April 12.

Over on Capitol Hill, the new Chairman of the House Commerce Committee, Joe Barton (R-TX), is settling into his new office, which was just vacated by Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-LA). However, he wasted no time in announcing his intention to revisit the funding mechanism for the E-Rate program during his tenure. At a press conference held to make public his agenda, Chairman Barton said that while he supports the goals of the program, he is interested in looking into its current funding mechanism, which is the universal service fund. Many observers take his comments to mean that he is supportive of at least investigating the possibility of detaching the E-Rate from the universal service fund and supporting it through revenues from the telephone excise tax, a controversial proposal floated by the U.S. Telephone Association and supported by incoming Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK).

Legislation to Increase Use of Research Based Knowledge to be introduced in House and Senate
Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) will introduce legislation this week, entitled the Knowledge Utilization Act of 2004, designed to increase the use of research-based knowledge to enhance student performance by taking knowledge generated from education research and moving it directly into the nation's classrooms. A companion bill is expected to be introduced in the Senate shortly thereafter.

The legislation represents a response to NCLB Act and the Education Sciences Reform Act (ESRA), both of which position education research, development, dissemination, and technical assistance at the forefront of the education debate but neither of which facilitates the use of such knowledge at the classroom level. The proposed legislation defines knowledge use as dynamic and interactive processes involving research, development, dissemination, technical assistance, and evaluation in which knowledge generated from research is applied to efforts to improve education practice. It attempts to spark knowledge using by creating a grant program to, among other things, provide educators with research-based knowledge use professional development opportunities support the identification and dissemination of research-supported practices, create incentives for states and districts to invest in knowledge utilization and develop a corps of regionally based knowledge education coordinators. Additionally, the act proposes to establish a National Leadership Office for Knowledge Utilization in Education with the U.S. Department of Education, a public/private Knowledge Utilization Partnership and an Interagency Task to promote coordination among federal departments and agencies administering knowledge utilization programs.

Glossary

CTC - Community Technology Centers - This program provides grants to promote the development of model programs that demonstrate the educational effectiveness of technology in urban and rural areas and economically distressed communities. Typically, these programs provide access to computers and other forms of information technology as well as related learning services to adults and children in an educational setting.

Education Technology Block Grant - Through this program, states receive block grant funds to be used by districts for virtually any technology purpose. States distribute half of the money they receive to districts by formula and half by competition. Districts must set aside 25% of all block grant funds for professional development in technology, with a special emphasis on training in the integration of advanced technologies (including emerging technologies) into the curriculum.

Function 500 - During the Budget resolution process, the Senate and House sort Federal government spending into twenty spending categories. The Function 500 category covers federal government spending in the following areas: Education, Training, Employment and Social Services.

pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) - A Budget procedure that ensures that all legislation affecting direct spending or receipts is budget neutral in each fiscal year. Thus, any spending increases must be offset by funding cuts in other areas or tax increases.

Professional Development - Under this program, states receive a formula grant from the Department of Education for professional development, teacher recruitment and retraining. States and districts may use their Title II money to foster technology mastery in teachers and principals and to employ technology to improve teaching and administrative skills. Among other things, grantees may use these funds to encourage and support the training of teachers and administrators to effectively integrate technology into curricula and instruction, including training to improve the ability to collect, manage, and analyze data to improve teaching, decision making, school improvement efforts and accountability.

PT3 - Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology - PT3 provides grants primarily to institutions of higher education train pre-service teachers in how to use technology and effectively integrate it into the curricula.

Star Schools Program - This competitive grant program funds distance learning projects nationwide and focuses on serving small rural and large urban schools. Projects use a variety of distance education technologies, including satellites, cable and the Internet, to develop and deliver various instructional programs such as video field trips.

Title I - Funding for the Title I program in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act represents the largest single investment that the federal government makes in elementary and secondary education. This formula grant program provides funding to schools and districts based on the population of disadvantaged students in order to support programs that improve their academic performance. Technology purchases are often made through Title I funds.