Home AdvocacyPolicyWashington Notes2006 July

July 2006 Contents

• Major ISTE Advocacy Events and Activity in July
• Senate Funds EETT at $272M, Reframes as Competitiveness Issue
• ISTE CEO Press Statement
• Other Key Programs Funded by Senate Action
• A First Step toward Full Approval of Funds
• E-Rate Bill Stalls in Senate
• FCC Assesses VoIP to Support E-Rate
• ISTE's Position on E–Rate and Universal Service
• Join the Ed Tech Action Network!

Major ISTE Advocacy Events and Activity in July

ISTE’s National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) hosted the first ever Education Technology Action Network (ETAN) booth in July. With a prominent location in the main pavilion, the ETAN booth was seen by nearly 12,000 registered attendees, who were encourage to send e-mail letters to their congressional delegation. Attendees were eager to make their voices heard, lining up to do their part to save the Enhancing Education Through Technology Program (EETT). Altogether, the ETAN booth generated 2,000 letters during the 3-day conference.

“The timing couldn’t have been more effective,” says Hilary Goldmann, ISTE’s director of government affairs. “The Senate began working on its education funding bill just a week after the close of NECC, and these letters played an important role in the outcome of the Senate action.”

ISTE played a key role in another high profile advocacy event just after the close of NECC. As co-chairs of the National Coalition for Technology in Education and Training’s Mission Critical Campaign (MCC), ISTE and the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), hosted a media event at the U.S. Capitol on July 12. ISTE CEO Don Knezek and SIIA President Ken Wasch spoke on behalf of education technology funding and delivered a petition signed by 7,000 educators and other stakeholders to Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) and Representatives Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) and Ron Kind (D-WI).

Also delivering powerful messages from the field were educators Nina Hansen, Immediate Past President of ISTE’s affiliate, the Connecticut Educational Computing Association, and Mary Jane Mielke, a district technology coordinator from Michigan and member of ISTE’s affiliate the Michigan Association of Computer Users in Learning. The clear message was that EETT funding is critical for U.S. competitiveness in a global economy and for schools to meet NCLB mandates. More about this event here.

Later in July—and with about 8,000 letters of support for EETT in hand—ISTE’s Director of Government Affairs Hilary Goldmann made an additional round of lobbying visits to key Senate staff. These Hill staffers were keenly aware of EETT, says Goldmann, and have been “hearing from back home” about the program. “The letters work well,” she says, “and reinforce ISTE’s message about the critical importance and value of the EETT program.”

top

Senate Funds EETT at $272M, Reframes as Competitiveness Issue

In mid-July, Senate appropriators approved the FY07 Labor, HHS and Education Appropriations bill, agreeing to provide $272 million in funding for EETT, the same amount it received last year. This decision represents a major win for EETT, which the Administration had proposed to eliminate entirely in its FY07 Budget Proposal and the House Appropriations Committee had zeroed-out in its version of the same bill.

Moreover, the Senate bill includes EETT in its “competitiveness package,” indicating that the Senate views the program as a crucial component in the overall Competitiveness Initiative.

top

ISTE CEO Press Statement

“ISTE applauds the Senate subcommittee for recognizing EETT’s direct connection to our nation’s competitiveness and funding it at $272 million,” said ISTE CEO Don Knezek in a statement released to the press July 19.

“As we have stated all along, EETT is uniquely positioned to help ensure that America’s students achieve academically and possess the requisite skills to compete successfully in the global economy. While we understand the financial constraints that led the Subcommittee to support level funding the program, ISTE will continue to seek the restoration of funding for EETT to its FY 05 funding level and will continue the battle to turn back the House action to eliminate the program.”

top

Other Key Programs Funded by Senate Action

Other technology programs also fared better in the Senate version of this legislation. The Statewide Longitudinal Data program received $38 million, a 50+% increase over last year’s final figure and a $3 million increase over what the House Appropriations Committee approved.

The Star Schools program, a distance-learning program that both the Administration and the House sought to eliminate, also received $10 million in the Senate’s bill.

top

A First Step toward Full Approval of Funds

While encouraging for EETT’s supporters, this action by Senate appropriators is only a first step. Neither the House nor Senate have scheduled time to debate and pass their respective bills. And even when they do approve their respective versions, a House and Senate Conference Committee must meet to negotiate the differences between the two appropriation bills, emerging ultimately with a compromise bill that each chamber must pass and the President sign.

With few legislative days remaining for Congress, and great dissatisfaction among Democrats and some Republicans—including Labor, HHS and Education Subcommittee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA)—over low funding levels for social programs, final action on this bill may not occur until November.

Compromise Will Be Difficult

Serious hurdles remain. Chief among these are the tight spending caps Congress has to work with in reaching a compromise funding bill.

As shown in the chart below, EETT received no funding in the House version but level funding in the Senate version. The House Appropriations Committee provided Title V, Innovative programs, with a $51 million increase over last year and increased Math and Science Partnerships funding by more than $40 million; the Senate eliminated all funding for Title V and provided the Math and Science Partnerships program with only a $13 million increase. Both House and Senate appropriators agreed that the Teacher Quality block grant should sustain some reduction this year, but the House cut far deeper, removing 10% of its funds, whereas the Senate cut less than 5% of its funds over last year. Finally, even Title I funding, which had received steady increases over the past 5 years, received only level funding in the House and Senate versions of this bill. All of these differences must be rectified in conference, likely leading to a program vs. program battle in the upcoming conference.

top

E-Rate Bill Stalls in Senate

Since the Senate Commerce Committee approved S. 2686, a bill to overhaul telecommunications law including the E-Rate, the bill’s progress has stalled. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK) has indicated that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), who controls floor time in the Senate, will not allow any bills onto the Senate floor without an assurance that the sponsor has 60 votes to end debate and prevent filibusters. Senator Frist must be cautious about floor time because few legislative days remain in this session and those that do will be occupied with debate on FY07 appropriations bills. According to all reports, Senator Stevens is working hard to secure the 60 votes necessary to move S.2686 to the floor but admits that he’s still short of that figure. At this point, the Senate will not consider S. 2686 until at least September.

The bill contains a number of key E-Rate provisions supported by ISTE, including:

• Permanently exempting universal service and the E-Rate from the Anti Deficiency Act (ADA)—an arcane accounting standards that, when applied to the E-Rate in 2004, caused the program to shutdown for three months.
• Establishing a system to sanction applicants and providers who knowingly and repeatedly violate program rules.
• Establishing performance measures that would measure applicant progress towards connectivity goals.

The House bill contains no E-Rate provisions and, even if S.2686 were to pass the Senate, the Senate’s E-Rate language would have to survive a House-Senate Conference.

top

FCC Assesses VoIP to Support E–Rate

As the Senate’s efforts on a telecommunications overhaul ground to a halt, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was forced to increase the amount of money wireless providers pay into the universal service fund (which supports the E-Rate). Also, for the first time ever, the FCC assessed universal service fees on Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers in order to shore up the fund.

The Commission took this action because the universal service fund, which is funded through a fee assessed on the interstate and international fees of telephone companies, has endured steady erosion in its revenue base as a result of declining profits in the long distance industry. This revenue decline has put pressure on the fund because, at the same time, the overall fund has grown by 50% between 2000 and 2005. E-Rate funds have been subsidizing rural telecommunications companies so they can provide affordable service to rural consumers. Without a permanent fix by Congress or the Commission, the stability of the E-Rate and all of universal service could be jeopardized.

In its Order of June 27, the Commission announced that it would raise the assessment on wireless providers for universal service from 28.5% of overall revenues to 37.1% and that it would establish a universal service fee for VoIP providers of 64.9% of revenues.

However, it is difficult to know with certainty whether individual wireless and VoIP calls are actually interstate calls. So the FCC estimates the percentage of interstate revenues from both industries in order to assess universal service fees on those industries. The Commission explained that it had increased the fees on these industries because wireless and VoIP revenues and subscriber levels have exploded in the past five years. According to the Order, wireless provider revenues grew from $70 billion in 2000 to $122 billion in 2004 and subscriber levels grew from 101 million to 181 million during that same time. Wireless subscribers today number approximately 208 million. The Order also notes that VoIP subscriptions have been steadily trending upwards, standing at 4.2 million as of the end of 2005.

On July 24th, the FCC announced that initial comments on the latest version of the Eligible Services list must be submitted to the Commission by August 4th, with reply comments due on August 14th. Go to the following URL to see the proposed FY07 Eligible Services list: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC–06–109A1.pdf.

 top

Join the Ed Tech Action Network!

If educational technology issues are important to you, then please join the 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
*************************
The following message is posted as a service of ISTE,
the International Society for Technology in Education.
This message may not be reposted without this header.
Copyright © 2006 ISTE