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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 © 2007 ISTE
Guide to Acronyms
used in Washington Notes
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July 2007 Contents
House Passes Bipartisan Appropriations Bill
In July the House of Representatives passed its version of the FY08
Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill,
which includes level funding for the Enhancing Education Through
Technology program (EETT). However, with the Senate still to act and a
Presidential veto likely, the House's action may only bring education
funding a step closer to a probable train wreck.
As passed, the House bill contains $152 billion in discretionary
spending. Approximately $62 billion of that is slated for the U.S.
Department of Education. The bill represents an increase of $5.5 billion
in discretionary spending over FY 2007 and is about $6 billion more than
President Bush had requested. If enacted, education programs under the
No Child Left Behind law would see an 8.6 percent increase above this
year, about double the increase called for in Bush's proposed budget.
That includes the largest ever increase, 14.7 percent, for Title I
assistance to low-income children. Under the bill, Pell Grants for about
5.5 million college students would be boosted by 14.1 percent, enough to
raise the maximum grant to $4,700. The final bill also upholds the
Appropriations Committee's decision to cut $600 million from the
troubled Reading First program.
The bill enjoyed substantial bipartisan support. On the floor,
Representative Jim Walsh (R-NY), the ranking Republican on the relevant
appropriations committee, praised the bipartisan nature of the
negotiations on the bill and was satisfied with the final product.
"[T]his bill addresses many of the most critical issues confronting our
nation-our families' health care, our children's education, our
retirement security and our own workplace protection and job training
needs," Walsh said. "If I were chairman, and I had this allocation, I'm
not sure I would have written the bill a whole lot differently." The
bill ultimately passed on a final margin of 276-140, with many
Republicans supporting it.
President Threatens Veto
President Bush, however, did not greet the bill's bipartisan passage
warmly. He re-affirmed an earlier threat to veto any appropriations bill
with higher spending levels than his own FY08 budget, saying that the
Labor, HHS and Education Appropriations bill contains an "irresponsible
and excessive level of spending." In a Statement of Administration
Policy released on July 17, the president also took issue with
Congress's cuts to the Reading First program.
If the House and the Senate ultimately approve a final appropriations
measure that still exceeds the Administration's spending levels and the
President carries through with his threats to veto it, overriding the
veto may prove difficult. The final vote margin for the House bill was
276-140, 14 votes short of the two-thirds required to override a
presidential veto. Minority Leader Boehner (R-OH) expressed confidence
that in the end, House Republicans could sustain a veto: "We have other
members who, while they may have voted 'yes' here, will vote to sustain
a veto. I'm not worried about it."
This likely veto scenario would present House and Senate Democrats
with some difficult choices. One option would be to craft a giant
omnibus bill that contains all of the unpassed or vetoed appropriations
bills, of which there could be many, and try to ram it through. Another
option would be to refuse to pass any spending bills or temporary
funding measures and shut down the government, something that a
Republican-controlled Congress did during President Clinton's first
term. A major deterrent to that brinksmanship strategy, outside of the
havoc wreaked by shutting down various federal programs, is the
uncertainty over who would be blamed by the public - the President or
Congress. Last time, the public blamed Congress.
ATTAIN Bill Introduced in Senate by Bipartisan
Coalition
Just before the Senate adjourned for its August recess, the Ed Tech
community received some welcome news from the Senate: Senators Bingaman
(D-NM), Burr (R-NC), and Murray (D-WA) introduced the Achievement
Through Technology and Innovation (ATTAIN) Act on August 4.
"This is great news for kids and for teachers," said ISTE CEO, Don
Knezek. "They need modern skills and tools to flourish -- just like the
rest of us and the nation as a whole. That's why we're so pleased to see
the ATTAIN bill move forward in a bipartisan way through the House and
now the Senate. It's a systematic and sensible approach to improving
teaching and learning for this century."
Like its companion in the House (HR 2449), the Senate legislation
would:
- revamp the formula and competitive grant programs in the current
Enhancing Education Through Technology Program (EETT) to focus,
respectively, on professional development system redesign
initiatives;
- prioritize funding to schools in need of improvement; and
- require states to assess whether students have attained
technological literacy by the eighth grade.
Unlike the House version, the Senate bill proposes a National Center
for Achievement Through Technology. The proposed Center would conduct
research on education technology implementations and disseminate best
practices.
ISTE and its members played key roles in developing both Senate and
House versions of ATTAIN. Several other groups of education stakeholders
also contributed significantly to the legislation, including the
Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), Software & Information
Industry Association (SIIA), and the State Educational Technology
Directors Association (SETDA). These groups applauded the Senate
introduction roundly
Comparing ATTAIN and EETT
The Senate version of the ATTAIN Act would update the existing EETT
program by:
- Increasing the share of state-to-local funding distributed by
formula from 50% to 60% and adding a minimum grant size in order to
assure that more school districts receive allocations of sufficient size
to permit them to operate significant education technology
programs.
- Strengthening the program's emphasis on teacher quality and
technology skills by raising the portion of formula-grants set aside for
professional development from 25% to 40%, while emphasizing the
importance of timely and ongoing training.
- Channeling the 40% of funds allocated for competitive grants,
previously unrestricted, to schools and districts for systemic school
reform built around the use of technology to redesign curriculum,
instruction, assessment and data use.
- More closely aligning the program with NCLB's core mission by giving
priority in competitive grant awards to schools identified as in need of
improvement, including those with a large percentage of Limited English
Proficient students and students with disabilities, as well as by
focusing formula grants on students and subjects where proficiency is
most lacking.
- Renewing NCLB's commitment to ensuring that students are
technologically literate by the eighth grade through requiring states to
assess student knowledge and skills, including through embedding
assessment items in other state tests and performance-based assessments
portfolios.
- Establishing a National Center for Achievement Through
Technology.
Next Steps for ATTAIN
The bipartisan group of Senate co-sponsors (Bingaman, Burr, and
Murray) represents an extremely strong coalition. They can help pass
ATTAIN and, ultimately, fund it. All three senators sit on the Health
Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, which is responsible for
NCLB reauthorization. Senator Murray also sits on the Appropriations
Subcommittee for Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related
Agencies, putting the program in good position to receive adequate
appropriations levels.
ISTE and its partner organizations will work on gathering additional
cosponsors. The central goal here, as with the House version, is to
incorporate ATTAIN into legislation reauthorizing NCLB. However, the
fate and timing of a full reauthorization of NCLB remain murky at this
point.
New Bill Requires Education for Internet
Safety
Ten days after the Senate Commerce Committee heard testimony from
experts, including the current Miss America, Committee leaders -
including Senators Stevens (R-AK), Inouye (D-HI), Hutchinson (R-TX),
Nelson (D-FL), Pryor (D-AR) and Rockefeller (D-WV) - introduced
legislation designed to promote Internet safety and increase penalties
for online child pornography.
Most significantly, the new bill, called the "Protecting Children in
the 21st Century Act" (S. 1965), requires that schools receiving E-Rate
dollars certify that they are "educating minors about appropriate online
behavior, including interacting with other individuals on social
networking websites and in chat rooms and cyberbullying awareness and
response."
The new language is intended to replace the extremely controversial
provisions of the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA) legislation,
which would have required all E-Rate recipients to block access to
social networking sites and chat rooms, as defined by the Federal
Communications Commission.
The new legislation would not require blocking of such sites nor
would it involve the FCC in attempting to define social networking sites
or chat rooms. All that it would require is that schools "educate"
students in appropriate online behavior related to social networking
sites, chat rooms and cyberbullying and include in their Internet Use
Policies that they are doing so. The bill does not specifically call for
schools to develop and operate Internet safety courses but schools could
do so in order to fulfill the "education" requirement of this bill.
Safety Bill Sponsors Hear from Ed Tech
Community, Miss America
Over the past six months, the lead sponsor of S. 1965, Senator Ted
Stevens, worked closely with representatives of the education and
education technology communities to fashion the E-Rate provision.
Senator Stevens decided to rewrite the existing DOPA language, which he
had introduced in January as the starting point for conversation, after
hearing arguments from the community that the DOPA approach would be
onerous for schools and encroach on local school authority.
Senator Stevens and his fellow Committee members were also influenced
in preparing this legislation by testimony at the July 24th Commerce
Committee hearing where virtually all of the witnesses declared that
education was the best way to keep children safe online.
Lauren Nelson, Miss America 2007, testified about her personal online
experiences, which included participating in an America's Most Wanted
sting, and recommended mandatory online safety education for all
children, delivered through existing computer science classes.
Lan Neugent, Virginia's Assistant Superintendent for Technology and
Human Resources, agreed wholeheartedly with Ms. Nelson on the importance
of education, but stated that: "Internet safety cannot be covered in a
single lesson or unit or by using a single program or
resource…(it) must be integrated into the curriculum as part of a
teacher's daily practice." Mr. Neugent also cited several other elements
that must be in place for Internet safety programs to operate
effectively: technical assistance; professional development for
teachers; and implementation monitoring.
The Senate Commerce Committee is expected to mark up this bill in
September. There is no companion legislation as of yet in the House,
with the exception of the original Deleting Online Predators Act
legislation, which Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) reintroduced earlier this
year.
New Data Bills Include Central Repository,
Professional Development
The final week before the August recess also saw the introduction of
legislation on longitudinal data systems in both the House and Senate.
Representatives Rush Holt (D-NJ) and Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) introduced
new legislation, the Measuring and Evaluating Trends for Reliability,
Integrity, and Continued Success Act (METRICS). The bill would authorize
$150 million in formula grants to states for the development and
implementation of statewide longitudinal data systems. It includes a
set-aside of up to $2 million to support states in developing these
systems, disseminating best practices, and providing a central
repository for education and school safety related data.
The bill includes strong language on professional development, which
makes training teachers on collecting, reporting and using data
allowable uses of funds, but has no funding specifically allocated to
support it. The bill leaves it entirely to the state's discretion to use
any of the money it receives from this program for professional
development.
Also in August, Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Hillary Clinton
(D-NY), and Bernie Sanders (D-VT) introduced the Senate version of the
Longitudinal Data Systems Bill, S.2014. Their version of this
legislation would provide for two separate funding streams; 1) $100
million in competitive grants for states for the development and
implementation of statewide longitudinal data systems; and 2) $100
million in formula grants to states for alignment, professional
development, and other efforts to improve the use of data. The
legislation also authorizes funding to support a state education data
center and state educational data coordinators to improve data
collection, reporting, and compliance processes. Like the House version,
though, states would not have to provide districts with direct funding
to carry out professional development activities associated with data
usage.
E-Rate Update
In July, the Federal Communications Commission issued a request to
comment on the latest draft version of the E-Rate's eligible service
list. The major proposed changes to the list are as follows:
- The draft proposes to treat Centrex service as basic telephone
service for purposes of the schools and libraries program with the
intention of eliminating the requirement that applicants file a
technology plan for Centrex service.
- The draft clarifies that the basic conduit access to the Internet
for the purpose of accessing distance learning and video conferencing is
eligible for funding in the Internet access category but distance
learning and video conferencing tools are not eligible for funding.
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.
This message may not be reposted without this header.
Copyright © 2007 ISTE
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