 |
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
|
September 2007 Contents
ATTAIN Bill Advances in Education
Appropriations
This past month, House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George
Miller (D-CA) released a draft outline of his No Child Left Behind
(NCLB) reauthorization legislation. This draft incorporates much of the
Achievement Through Technology and Innovation (ATTAIN)
bill, which ISTE and its members as well as several other organizations
helped develop. (Learn more about ATTAIN
here)
"We were thrilled to see ATTAIN
included in the Chairman's NCLB draft, said ISTE CEO, Don Knezek, "and
to see that it closely reflects the priorities of the ISTE
membership."
Bill Retains Key Ed Tech Community
Recommendations
Chairman Miller's NCLB reauthorization draft labels ATTAIN as Title
II, Part F of the new NCLB and retains the key elements of ATTAIN,
including:
- the targeting of funds to professional development and systemic
school reform centered on the use of technology;
- the targeting of competitive grant funding for districts with
schools that are not making adequate yearly progress; and
- the renewed commitment to the goal of all students attaining
technology literacy by the end of the eighth grade.
It also contains ATTAIN's proposal to change EETT from a 50%
competitive and 50% formula grant program to a 60% competitive and 40%
formula grant program.
Some Significant Changes in
Language
Title II, Part F, as conceived in the NCLB draft, does contain some
significant changes to ATTAIN, including the following:
- It does not include a set authorization amount for the program,
whereas ATTAIN sought a $1 billion authorization.
- It restricts funding for state activities and evaluations to 5% of
all funds rather than the 7.5% set forth in ATTAIN.
- It does not establish a LEA minimum allotment of $3000 annually, as
ATTAIN did, but only requires that states provide technical assistance
to LEAs that receive under $3000 annual allotments.
- It does not require states to assess student technology literacy at
least once by the eighth grade, as ATTAIN requires. Instead, the draft
requires states to "carry-out activities to assess the state's progress
towards ensuring that its students are technologically literate by the
eighth grade."
- It requires that states spend 30% of their formula and competitive
grants on professional development and tools. For the formula grants,
this is a reduction from ATTAIN's 40% reservation of funds. For the
competitive grants, this represents a 5% increase.
ISTE and partner organizations CoSN, SETDA, and SIIA, are working
with House and Senate staff to try to incorporate these pieces into
later versions of the NCLB reauthorization bill. In a joint letter to
the House Education and Labor Committee, ISTE and partner organizations
stated that "With these changes, Title II, Part F - the ATTAIN Act - has
the potential to raise student achievement through using technology for
systemic reform efforts and ensuring on-going and sustainable
professional development. We believe that these changes are critical to
meeting the core tenets of the ATTAIN Act and the No Child Left Behind
Act."
Changes Recommended for NCLB Data
Program
These organizations are also engaging with Chairman Miller and
Committee staff on the expanded statewide longitudinal data program
provisions included within the NCLB reauthorization draft. The new
program, intended to replace the current program which operates out of
the Institute for Education Sciences, would provide five-year,
competitive grants to states to "design, develop and implement statewide
longitudinal data systems."
The new program would require these data systems, as a condition of
funding, to include eleven "essential elements," including:
- a unique student identifier;
- basic student demographic, attendance and school lunch data;
- the ability to match student academic assessments from year to
year;
- information on students not tested for NCLB purposes;
- unique, statewide teacher identifiers;
- student-level transcript information;
- student data on participation in and performance on college
admissions and/or placement assessments;
- student data on student entrance and exit from education
systems;
- the ability to link pre-k through grade 12 student data with post
k12 data, including college enrollment, unemployment, child welfare,
juvenile justice and military data;
- statewide data audit systems; and
- various teacher elements.
From the perspective of the Ed Tech community there are two problems
with the proposed new data program: 1) no support for districts to
collect and scrub the data required for the state databases; and 2) no
mandate that states provide sub-grants to districts to conduct data
integrity training and professional development.
In a letter to House Education and Labor Committee leaders, ISTE and
CoSN proposed requiring states to transfer 25% of their state data
program funds to local school districts to conduct data integrity
trainings and professional development in the collection, reporting and
usage of data. ISTE and CoSN also urged the Committee to consider
requiring states to include in their applications for funding a
description of the resources and technical assistance that they will
provide to districts in collecting and delivering the data needed for
the essential elements.
Other Changes to NCLB Reauthorization
Draft
Beyond the ATTAIN and data pieces, Chairman Miller's NCLB
reauthorization draft contained many new and a few controversial changes
to current law.
Not surprisingly, the proposed new Title I does not change overall
proficiency goals in math and reading, still expected to be accomplished
by 2014. However, it does attempt to change proficiency measures and
evolve them beyond NCLB's current high stakes testing model.
Specifically, the House bill would allow states to use growth models
to measure proficiency. These growth models could incorporate up to five
new alternate measures (beyond state testing scores in core curricular
subjects), including:
- growth on state science, history, civics or government, and writing
assessments;
- increases in the percentage of students who move from below basic to
basic and proficient levels;
- increases in students passing end of course exams in college prep
courses;
- increases in college going rates; and
- decreases in drop-out rates.
However, all of these new measures collectively would account for no
more than 15% of the overall adequate yearly progress (AYP) measurement.
Regular state exams would still account for the remaining 85%. This
"multiple measure" proposal has drawn fire from all sides: some groups
and Secretary Spellings claim that it dilutes accountability; some
groups say that multiple measures should account for more than 15% of
the AYP totals; and some agree with multiple measures but suggest that
the wrong measures are being used.
The bill also would move NCLB from more punitive sanctions for
schools failing to meet AYP to assistance, with a special focus and
stricter requirements for "high priority" schools. The bill would define
high priority schools as those where AYP is not met and 50% or more of
students or 50% of two or more school subgroups do not attain
proficiency in reading and math. Secondary schools that do not meet AYP
and have a graduation rate of 60% or less would also be deemed high
priority. Those schools deemed "high priority" would have to close and
could only reopen upon a complete redesign of their instructional
programs and staff, reopen as charter schools, or reopen after
reconstituting school leadership and staff and revisions to instruction
in the subject areas not making AYP.
The Committee is expected to introduce a revised version of the draft
bill and mark it up within the next few weeks. Sources in the Senate
have indicated that the Senate HELP Committee will introduce its version
of a No Child Left Behind bill by early October.
With the end of session only two months away and strong concerns
about the House bill voiced in many quarters, it is becoming
increasingly unlikely that Congress will complete work on NCLB
reauthorization in 2007.
FY07 Ed Tech Funding Levels May Continue
into November
The October 1st beginning of FY08 draws near but Congress has not
made a great deal of progress on completing its FY08 appropriations
work. House and Senate Democrats are working on a temporary FY08
spending bill, known as a continuing resolution (CR), that will likely
last until mid-November. As of this writing, the specifics of the CR are
not yet known. Congressional aides have indicated that it would be a
"clean" CR, likely carrying short-term extensions for programs at FY07
levels, without pet projects for lawmakers, and minus increased funding
for the Iraq war. For education technology, this means that the
Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program would continue to
receive funding at the FY07 level of $272.3 million.
Even if Congress manages to reach agreement on any or all of the FY08
spending bills, the Administration's thus far uncompromising stance on
spending increases remains an issue. President Bush has threatened to
veto any spending bill that exceeds his proposed budget, including many
of the domestic spending bills Democrats have passed. The Labor, HHS and
Education bill, which exceeds the President's budget request by a wide
margin, is viewed as "veto-bait."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has voiced her intention to end this
Congressional session by November 9th. Senate Majority Leader Reid would
evidently like to complete work before Thanksgiving, but has opened the
door to a brief December session, if necessary. Final decisions will not
come until shortly before the September 30th deadline.
Ed Tech Highlighted at Congressional
Hearing
The House Education & Labor Committee convened a full committee
hearing on September 10th to receive input from various education
stakeholders on Chairman Miller's NCLB reauthorization discussion draft.
The committee heard from forty-four witnesses, who covered themes
ranging from the value of teacher quality and good data to the
importance of appropriate assessments and the need to strengthen
curriculum to better prepare U.S. students for the 21st Century global
economy.
The Committee shined a strong spotlight on education technology by
inviting SETDA and ISTE member Frances Bradburn, Director of
Instructional Technology at the North Carolina State Department of
Education, to testify. Bradburn shared her experiences overseeing the
integration of technology into North Carolina schools through the use of
the IMPACT model, a systemic school reform model centered on technology
immersion with an intense focus on collaborative planning. She told the
committee that when you enter an IMPACT school, you quickly experience
that collaborative learning, higher level thinking skills, and student
engagement are pervasive whether students are learning math, science,
reading, or history. She also shared state data that showed that high
need, high poverty schools implementing the IMPACT model evidenced
significant gains in key areas. Specifically, when compared with control
groups not using the IMPACT model, IMPACT using schools experienced
academic achievement gains, increased likelihood of students staying on
grade level, increased college-going rates, and increased teacher
retention.
Bradburn clearly and effectively described how, through the use of
technology, school and teacher leaders drive change and learn from one
another how to utilize data to address the individual needs of each
student. She cited the use of digital cameras, interactive white boards,
and computers that provide students with opportunities to collaborate
and connect to the rich and relevant content that would not always be
readily available to some students. She explained that these students
are experiencing school in a new way that builds those 21st century
skills necessary to succeed. Teachers have become the facilitators of
learning and students have become engaged in their own progress.
In her testimony, Bradburn praised the ATTAIN Act as an integral
ingredient for the effective implementation and use of data systems,
on-line assessments, virtual AP Courses, and on-going and sustainable
professional development. She explained that many states currently use
educational technology to reach these goals and have shown that it helps
meet the primary tenets of No Child Left Behind-to improve student
achievement, certify highly qualified teachers and help close the
achievement gap.
FCC Adopts Ed Tech Community
Recommendations for E-Rate
In late August, the FCC released an order on universal service that
addressed some of the outstanding issues raised in a 2005 Notice of
Proposed Rulemaking on which ISTE and CoSN filed extensive comments.
The big news is that the FCC agreed that the program's performance
should not be measured using education metrics but should be based on
connectivity and bandwidth. Citing ISTE and CoSN's comments numerous
times, the order stated that "the Commission should further measure the
level of connectivity" in the program and "that it would be difficult to
try to determine the impact of E-Rate funds, as opposed to other funds,
on learning."
The order goes on to admit that the FCC does not have "sufficient
data at this time to establish goals for these performance measures" but
that information gleaned from site visits and application forms could
help. The order also indicates that the Commission will work with the
E-rate program's administrator, "to modify the relevant FCC forms or
create additional questions for program participants to determine how
schools and libraries connect to the Internet and their precise levels
of connectivity."
The Commission also took to heart suggestions Ed Tech community
suggestions that E-Rate applicants should not be the only ones assigned
performance measures—the E-Rate administrator's (USAC) performance
in processing applications should also be measured.
Although ISTE and others recommended it, the order did not require
that USAC process all or a high percentage of applications by a date
certain. However, it does require USAC to collect and submit data on the
average processing time and percentage of applications completed by June
1. The order also asks USAC to document the amount of time it takes to
process forms that reimburse service providers (who, in turn, reimburse
providers) for the non-discounted part of the E-Rate service. Finally,
the order requires USAC to determine how many appeals it processes
within 90 days, as recommended by the Ed Tech community.
One last significant policy change announced in this order is the
extension of several requirements previously imposed only on the E-Rate
to all other universal service programs. Specifically, participants in
the other universal service programs will now have to retain documents
for five years, be subject to a five year audits and investigations
period, and be subject to the recovery of erroneously disbursed funds
and debarment from their programs if found guilty of criminal violations
or held civilly liable for actions taken in connection with their
programs.
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
*************************
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
enlaC.tmenl
| September 2007, Washington Notes |
|
