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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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May 2007 Contents
FY08 Budget and Appropriations Processes Move Along
On May 17th, the House and Senate adopted the budget resolution, which sets
overall federal spending at $2.9 trillion for the coming fiscal year. The resolution
passed on a party line vote of 214-209 in the House, with 13 Democrats defecting,
and 52-40 in the Senate, with Republican Senators Snowe and Collins of Maine
voting in favor of the resolution. The compromise resolution provides a $21
billion increase in domestic spending, with education and related programs receiving
$9.5 billion over the President's request in his FY08 budget proposal. Title
I and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) are expected to
see significant increases in funding levels. The Enhancing Education Through
Technology (EETT) program may also see anywhere from level funding to an increase
in FY08.
House Appropriators have already begun marking up individual spending bills
and a House floor vote on the Labor-HHS-Education bill, which includes funding
for EETT, is expected sometime in June. In the Senate, Appropriations Committee
Chairman Byrd (D-WV) has set a goal of having all appropriations bills passed
by the August congressional recess. To meet this goal, a Senate committee mark-up
for the Labor-HHS-Education bill is expected at the end of June.
Potential Challenges to Education Funding
The votes on the budget resolution came at the end of partisan debate that
foreshadows potential challenges Democrats are likely to face in passing individual
domestic spending bills, such as the Labor-HHS-Education bill. Despite the fact
that the FY08 Congressional Budget Resolution assumes that Congress will fully
fund the President's defense and homeland security requests, the Administration
has already threatened to veto appropriations measures in other areas, including
education, that provide funding that exceed what the Administration has proposed.
The Labor-HHS-Education bill is likely to be the major contention point between
Congressional Democrats and the White House, as that represents the largest
increase in discretionary spending over the president's proposal.
ISTE Helps Write Revamp of EETT
On May 23rd, U.S. Representatives Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), Ruben Hinojosa
(D-TX), Judy Biggert (R-IL) and Ron Kind (D-WI) introduced the Achievement Through
Technology and Innovation (ATTAIN) Act. This bipartisan legislation is designed
to make improvements to the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program
as part of the overall reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).
The content of the ATTAIN bill draws heavily on input from a coalition of education
technology organizations and stakeholders, including ISTE, the Consortium for
School Networking (CoSN), the Software & Information Industry Association
(SIIA), and the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA).
The bill has already been endorsed by the National Education Association, the
American Federation of Teachers, the National School Boards Association, the
American Association of School Administrators and the National Council of La
Raza.
New Act Focuses on Prof Dev, Innovation
Specifically, the ATTAIN Act seeks to revamp EETT (Title II-D of NCLB) by focusing
funds on professional development and systemic reform programs with strong technology
components, prioritizing funding to schools in need of improvement, and requiring
states to assess whether students have attained technological literacy by the
eighth grade. ATTAIN grants would be funded through the following two key programs:
- ATTAIN formula allocations, which would comprise 60% of the program (10%
higher than EETT's current 50% formula level), would have a strong focus on
teacher and administrator professional development, as recent studies have
indicated the importance of ongoing and sustainable professional development
opportunities for all educators. ATTAIN would increase the amount that districts
must set aside for technology professional development from 25% (as EETT requires
currently) to 40%.
- ATTAIN competitive grant awards, which would make up 40% of the program,
would provide support for research-based and innovative systemic school reforms
that use technology to redesign curriculum and instruction, provide ongoing
professional development, and administer formative assessments to individualize
instruction. Schools failing to make adequate yearly progress towards core-curricular
proficiency, particularly those with a large percentage of Learning English
Proficiency and special needs subgroups, would receive priority in the awarding
of ATTAIN competitive grants.
The bill also addresses head-on a few major shortcomings about the current
EETT program. First, it establishes a minimum annual formula grant allocation
of $3,000, thereby ameliorating some of the concerns expressed by applicants
that, under EETT, they were receiving formula allocations of insufficient size
to operate any type of technology program. Second, the ATTAIN Act puts some
teeth into NCLB's requirement that students be technologically literate by the
eighth grade by requiring states to assess technology literacy once before eighth
grade, including through embedding assessment items in other state tests and
performance-based assessments portfolios. Technological literacy assessments
would not count towards adequate yearly progress measures but would provide,
for the first time, baseline measurements of student technology literacy.
In her comments on the bill, Rep. Roybal-Allard focused on how important education
technology is to the academic and employment futures of the nation's students:
"When schools are properly equipped to meet the technology needs of students
and when they have properly trained teachers, students are engaged, eager to
learn, and are ultimately better prepared to meet the challenges of the 21st
Century."
"We are ecstatic that this well-crafted refinement of EETT is beginning
to move," said Don Knezek, ISTE CEO. "Teachers are our nation's most
valuable resources and absolutely crucial to whether education technology implementations
succeed. The ATTAIN Act's focus on technology professional development will
help ensure that our investments in school hardware, software and infrastructure
are leveraged for the benefit of our nation's students."
Companion legislation to ATTAIN is expected to be introduced in the Senate
in the coming weeks. Education technology advocates are working to ensure that
ATTAIN becomes part of the larger NCLB reauthorization bills that House Education
and Labor Committee Chairman Miller (D-CA) and Senate HELP Committee Chairman
Kennedy (D-MA) introduce in the next few months. The outlook for passage of
overall NCLB reform remains uncertain.
E-Rate Update
Although out of power, House Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Joe
Barton (R-TX) - the Committee's former chairman - still has it in for the E-Rate.
In May, Rep. Barton joined Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY) in urging the Government
Accountability Office to investigate the E-Rate program. Citing their past leadership
roles in oversight of the program, Representatives Barton and Whitfield urged
GAO "to take fresh look at the special trajectory of the E-Rate program."
The E-Rate also arose in a separate context in May, with the release of FCC
Chairman Kevin Martin's written responses to House Telecommunications and the
Internet Subcommittee Chairman' Ed Markey's (D-MA) questions about a variety
of universal service issues. In response to a question about the application
of the Anti Deficiency Act (ADA) to the E-Rate program, which caused the program
to shut down for three months in August 2004, Chairman Martin stated: "The
Commission is committed to ensuring that funding for all current universal service
programs, including the schools and libraries program, remains current and that
the fund meets its commitments while also remaining ADA compliant. At this time,
the Commission staff estimates that the universal system can continue to operate
as it does today without triggering an Antideficiency Act violation."
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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