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ISTE Washington Notes News of U.S. educational technology policy and legislation, posted as a service of ISTE, the International Society for Technology in Education. Copyright © 2006 ISTE Guide to Acronyms used in Washington Notes

February 2006 Contents

• Administration Zeros Out Ed Tech for FY07, ISTE Responds
• Other Major Education Programs Cut or Eliminated
• Second Try on High School Reform
• Competitiveness Initiative in Several Parts
• Congress Skeptical of Budget
• E-Rate Update
• ADA Exemption Ramping Up Again
• Overhauling Universal Service
• Burns' NetUSA Bill
• PACE Act Based on NAS Report
• Join us at the 2006 Washington Advocacy Event
• Join the Ed Tech Action Network!

Administration Zeros Out Ed Tech for FY07, ISTE Responds

The Bush Administration released its FY07 budget request on February 7. The request cuts total funding for education programs by more than $2 billion. It cuts education technology programs by more than $290 million alone.

The proposed budget does request funds for a few new programs as well, including the President's American Competitiveness Initiative, High School Reform, and a national voucher program. But to pay for these new initiatives, the Administration's budget eliminates 42 current federal education programs. Three Ed Tech programs are among the 42 zeroed out: Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT), Star Schools and Ready to Teach.

The budget proposal's most significant cut deletes all $272.3 million in funding for the Title II, Part D, EETT program. Appropriations bills for FY05 and FY06 had already reduced EETT program funding from nearly $700 million to $272.3 million.

The Administration's rationale for eliminating the EETT program from its FY07 budget largely restates language in its FY06 proposal:

Schools today offer a greater level of technology infrastructure than just a few years ago, and there is no longer a significant need for a State formula grant program targeted specifically on (and limited to) the effective integration of technology into schools and classrooms. Districts seeking funds to integrate technology into teaching and learning can use other Federal program funds such as Improving Teacher Quality State Grants and Title I Grants to Local Educational Agencies.

http://www.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget07/summary/edlite-section3.html#edtech

ISTE's issued a statement on the budget February 7. "We are deeply disappointed that the Administration has chosen, once again, to eliminate federal funding for education technology," said ISTE CEO Don Knezek. "Understanding and using technology are critical components of all students' academic careers and, most certainly, barometers of their future employment prospects. Given the President's emphasis in the State of the Union on the importance of developing math and science skills in America's students in order to keep America competitive globally, we do not see how eliminating federal education technology funding advances his global competitiveness agenda or helps our students."

Other Major Education Programs Cut or Eliminated

Overall, the Administration's budget proposal is particularly austere for education, with most major programs slated for level funding at best, deep cuts or elimination at the worst. Even programs the President had historically championed-such as Title I Grants to States for disadvantaged students and Reading First, his signature literacy program-would receive no increases.

Besides EETT, several other major programs would lose all or most of their funding under this proposed budget.
* The Vocational and Technical Education program, funded at more than $1.3 billion last year, would be eliminated.
* The Safe and Drug Free Schools program, which focuses on drug, violence and hate crime prevention as well as mental health services, would lose 62% or $346.5 million.
* The GEAR-UP and TRIO programs, both designed to help disadvantaged students pursue higher education, would be slashed. GEAR-UP would lose all $303 million of its budget and TRIO would be cut 55% or $448 million.
One small bright spot for education technology: the proposed budget would nearly double funding for Statewide Data Systems Program.

Second Try on High School Reform

The goal of these cuts is twofold:
o to keep domestic discretionary program funding at low-levels in order to allow for growth in the budgets of the Homeland Security and Defense Department budgets, each of which would see net 5% increases over last year; and
o to make room for the President's High School Reform and American Competitiveness initiatives.

The Administration's budget seeks $1.475 billion for the High School Reform Initiative, which would focus largely on expanding reading and math assessments to two additional grade levels in high school and on providing targeted interventions for students at risk of failing state academic standards.

The President proposed this same initiative last year but Congress refused to fund it, deciding instead to provide continuation funding to most of the programs the Administration proposed to eliminate last year.

Competitiveness Initiative in Several Parts

The Administration seeks $412 for its American Competitiveness Initiative, which addresses a growing concern that America's students are falling behind their peers abroad in math and science skills, which in turn threatens America's ability to compete in the global economy. The budget proposes several separate programs designed to improve teaching and learning in math and science.

The main components of this package are:

1. the establishment of a National Math Panel to evaluate the effectiveness of methods of teaching math, with the ultimate goal of getting all students ready to take and pass algebra;
2. the initiation of two math programs: Math Now for Elementary School Students, which "would promote promising, research-based practices in mathematics instruction and prepare students for more rigorous math course work in middle and high school," and Math Now for Middle School Students, which "would diagnose students' deficiencies in math proficiency and provide intensive and systematic instruction to enable them to take and pass algebra";
3. the expansion of the AP/International Baccalaureate program to train an additional 70,000 teachers to teach advanced courses in math and science and to increase the number of students taking and passing AP and International Baccalaureate exams;
4. the creation of an Adjunct Teacher Corps to encourage 30,000 qualified math and science professionals to become adjunct high school teachers by 2015; and
5. an evaluation of all federal science, technology, engineering and math programs to determine their effectiveness in raising achievement in math and science.

Congress Skeptical of Budget

Congressional responses to the Administration's budget have been skeptical. On the Republican side, Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, HHS and Education Appropriations, stated that the president's budget proposal was going to require substantial modification. "It is scandalous to provide insufficient funding for our nation's two greatest capital investments: health and education," Mr. Specter said.

Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), the Ranking Member on the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, supported the need for education technology funding, stating: "In his past two budgets, (the President) called for absurd reductions for math and science programs at the National Science Foundation. Last year he eliminated funding to support technology in the classroom. Unfortunately, his administration continues to be the administration of broken promises and nowhere is that truer than in education where his No Child Left Behind Act has been starved for funds since he signed it into law in 2002."

Based on these and other reactions , it seems likely that the Administration's proposals face a rocky road in both the FY07 budget and appropriations processes.

Here is a list of key programs and their proposed funding levels:

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E-Rate Update

The E-Rate program faces many persistent challenges. In the short term, Congress will have to look again for a solution to funding interruptions invoked by the Anti-Deficiency Act. The E-Rate program was virtually suspended between August and November, 2004 because of new accounting standards that, in turn, invoked the Anti-Deficiency Act (ADA).

A key provision of the ADA bars the federal government from obligating federal funds without adequate cash-on-hand to cover those obligations. This triggered the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) to stop mailing out E-Rate funding letters because the FCC determined that the letters constituted obligations for which insufficient money had been collected from telecommunications carriers over the course of the year.

Last year and the year before, this crisis was resolved temporarily by Congress' passage and the Administration's enactment of separate pieces of legislation that exempted E-Rate and all of universal service from that Anti Deficiency Act provision for 12 months.

Without further Congressional action, the E-Rate program will encounter the same funding problem when the exemption expires at the end of 2006.

ADA Exemption Ramping Up Again

Efforts to permanently exempt E-Rate and all of universal service from the ADA are ramping up again. Permanent exemption legislation in the Senate (S. 241), introduced by Senator Snowe (R-ME), has 46 cosponsors, including Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Committee Ranking Member Daniel Inouye (D-HI).

Companion legislation in the House (HR. 2533), introduced by Representatives Barbara Cubin (R-WY) and Charles Gonzalez (D-TX), has garnered more than 100 cosponsors.

However, Capitol Hill sources indicate that House Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-TX), a major detractor of the program, has vowed to block any further exemptions for E-Rate pending the completion of legislation to overhaul its funding mechanism, universal service.

Overhauling Universal Service

Many observers don't expect Congress to complete comprehensive legislation overhauling the universal service program this year. The issues are too wide-ranging and complex for Congress' limited session in 2006. The most difficult issue is how to ensure solvency of the universal service fund as its revenue base-fees assessed on interstate and international telephone calls-steadily declines with the emergence of Internet Protocol and wireless telephones.

In the House, no major pieces of universal service legislation have been introduced yet but Chairman Barton is expected to include in his Committee's legislation language intended to reform the E-Rate. On the Senate side, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) has introduced the Digital Age Communications Act of 2005 which would eliminate the E-Rate within three years of enactment and drastically cut overall universal service.

Burns' NetUSA Bill

A major piece of legislation introduced recently in the Senate is Senator Conrad Burns' (R-MT) NetUSA Bill, which contains a number of provisions related to the E-Rate. This bill would establish a permanent ADA exemption for E-Rate and all of universal service. Additionally, it would require that the FCC, in consultation with the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), establish "appropriate enforcement actions, including imposition of sanctions on applicants and vendors who repeatedly and knowingly violate (significant) program rules…"

This language represents the first serious effort by a legislator to address waste, fraud and abuse issues through legislation. To date, only FCC rulemakings and Congressional hearings and reports have grappled with this issue. The bill does not address the type of sanctions that could be imposed, the type of rule violations that would trigger sanctions, or whether due process rights would apply for those sanctioned. But it does generally track language that ISTE has advanced in FCC filings.

The bill would also appoint USAC as the permanent administrator of the program but with stricter oversight by the FCC. Currently, USAC has no actual contract with the FCC, something for which a 2005 Government Accountability Office report criticized the FCC. In the FCC's recent rulemaking, the Commission sought public comment on this very issue. Under the Burns bill, the FCC would engage USAC either through a contract or a memorandum of understanding that defines USAC's administrative structure and processes.

Aside from the issues of sanctions and USAC's role, the bill also addresses a number of other issues from the 2005 GAO report. Specifically, the bill would require the FCC, in consultation with USAC, to:

• Ensure the integrity and accountability of the E-Rate
• Identify appropriate fiscal controls and accountability standards that apply to E-Rate
• Create performance goals and measurements that determine "how efficiently and cost-effectively" E-Rate funds are spent

Meanwhile, the FCC continues to wade through responses filed to its 2005 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on universal service and the E-Rate. This NPRM contained a proposal to change the E-Rate into a formula grant program, a proposal that ISTE rejected in its comments. An order on the issues raised in the NPRM could be forthcoming at any time.

PACE Act Based on NAS Report

On January 25th, Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Pete Domenici (R-NM), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) introduced the Protecting America's Competitive Edge (PACE) Act. This package of three bills aims to keep America ahead of the curve in science and technology.

The bills emerge from and attempt to implement twenty recommendations contained in an October 2005 report by the National Academy of Sciences entitled "Rising Above the Gathering Storm." The report warns that the scientific and technological building blocks critical to our economic leadership are eroding while other countries gather strength. The report provides four basic recommendations that focus on actions in K-12 education, research, higher education, and economic policy.

Specifically, the PACE Act would authorize increased funding for science and engineering research, scholarships for future math and science teachers, and higher education scholarships and fellowships for future scientists. Additionally, it would double the research and development tax credit to encourage innovation and create a tax credit to encourage employers to invest in employees' education.

Although the PACE Act is ostensibly focused on Science, Technology, Education and Math (STEM) initiatives, it contains little language on technology generally and no provisions on education technology specifically.

Join us at the 2006 Washington Advocacy Event

On March 7th and 8th, leaders in technology and learning will converge on Capitol Hill to advocate for continued federal leadership and investment in education technology. Washington Advocacy Day 2006, a joint venture of ISTE, the Consortium for School Networking, and the Software, Information and Internet Association will bring together upwards of 150 advocates for training and meetings with legislators on Capitol Hill. Held in conjunction with the CoSN K-12 School Networking Conference, the Washington Advocacy Event begins with an Advocacy Boot Camp on March 7th, leads to a full-scale policy briefing on the morning of March 8th, and concludes with scheduled visits with lawmakers during the afternoon of March 8th.

Come and make your voice heard on Capitol Hill! Please contact Juliana Jones at jjones@jbernsteinstrategy.com to take part in Washington Advocacy Day 2006. Click here to learn more: http://www.k12schoolnetworking.org/advocacy/index.cfm

Join the Ed Tech Action Network

If educational technology issues are important to you, then please join the ISTE and CoSN Ed Tech Action Network at http://www.EdTechActionNetwork.org. This online advocacy tool will allow you to easily send important messages to your Representative and Senators, learn more about timely education technology issues, and receive tips for communicating with elected officials. Your voice is critical for impacting the decisions of policy-makers.

From the Washington, D.C.
Office of Bernstein Strategy Group
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The following message is posted as a service of ISTE,
the International Society for Technology in Education.
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Copyright © 2006 ISTE