THE SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGE -...

THE SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGETAKING EDTECH TO THE NEXT LEVEL[ ]

BENTON BOOK 2.19.03 04°22°2003 12°20p FREEDOM01 Juyong Lee:BENTON UPDATE:

BENTON FOUNDATION

The mission of the Benton Foundation is to articulate a public interest visionfor the digital age and to demonstrate the value of communications for solvingsocial problems.

EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT CENTER

For more than four decades the Education Development Center, Inc.(EDC)has been bridging the worlds of research, policy and practice. EDC’s work isfocused in multiple areas including early child development, K-12 education,health promotion, workforce preparation, community development, learningtechnologies, literacy, institutional reform and social justice.

Since 1980, EDC’s Center for Children and Technology (CCT) has been at theforefront of educational technology research and development. CCT seeks tofoster learning and improve teaching through the development and thoughtfulimplementation of new technologies in a wide range of educational settings.

President, EDC: Janet WhitlaVice President EDC and Director, CCT: Margaret HoneyAssociate Director, CCT: Ellen MandinachAssociate Director, CCT: Cornelia BrunnerAssistant Director, CCT: Katie McMillan CulpBoard of Directors: Alonzo L. Plough, Chair, Charles Benton, EdwinCampbell, Beatriz Chu Clewell, Hans Decker, Larry Irving, Pat Mora, BradleyPalmer, Linda Roberts, Deborah Wadsworth, Laura Walker, Janet Whitla, Gail T. P. Wickes, Deborah C. P. Wolfe

© 2003 Benton Foundation

Design: Freedom By Design

ISBN 1-930615-05-1

www.benton.org

www.edc.org

Board of Directors:Charles Benton, ChairmanShelley BentonWorth Bruntjen, Treasurer Elizabeth DaleyTerry GoddardHenry M. Rivera, General CounselHarold A. RichmanTerry Tinson SaarioWoodward Wickham

Trustees: Charles BentonMarjorie C. BentonLeonard Schrager

Staff:Rachel AndersonAndy CarvinNorris DickardMassimo GigliRoshani KothariMichael LitzKaren MenichelliKristi Plahn-GjersvoldRosemarie PooleAlison RaphaelElissa ShapiroAndrea L. TaylorAnthony G. Wilhelm


Benton Foundation

Education Development Center, Inc.Center for Children and Technology

Edited by Norris Dickard

[ ]THE SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGETAKING EDTECH TO THE NEXT LEVEL


This work was made possible by a generousgrant from the Joyce Foundation (www.joycefdn.org) under the leadership of PresidentEllen S. Alberding. The Joyce Foundationsupports efforts to strengthen policies thatimprove the quality of life in the Great Lakesregion.

The Benton Foundation and the EducationDevelopment Center’s Center for Childrenand Technology would like to express itsgratitude to the following people and organ-izations for their contributions to this report:

Peter Mich, of the Joyce Foundation, for hissupport, timely suggestions, and help insecuring Joyce to host our Chicago funderroundtable. To the Markle Foundation, andCarole Wacey in particular, for hosting ourNew York funder roundtable. To those indi-viduals who took time out of their busyschedules to attend these discussions onthe sustainability challenge and for offeringtheir insights into the issue: Jon Bernstein,Donelle Blubaugh, Gene Broderson, PeterCamp, Tom Carroll, Sara Fitzgerald, AnnLee Flynn, Kathleen Fulton, Thomas Hardy,Susan Nogan, Stuart Ott, Kristen VanHook, Bindu Batchu, Kristin Ciesemier,

Reginald Jones, Steve Kozlowski, PeggyMueller, Robert W. Nelson, Mark Rigdon,Cynthia S. Woods, Connie Gersick, SherryKing, Steve Kohn, A. Rick Love, Jr., AudreyPoritzky, Marilyn Reznick, Ron Thorpe,Robin Willner. A special thanks goes toRon Thorpe for more fully articulating hisviews in an article that is published here.

CCT wishes to acknowledge the contribu-tions of everyone who participated in itsinterviews and site visits: Bob Nelson andhis colleagues at Milwaukee Public Schools,Elaine Williams and her colleagues atChicago Public Schools, and Frank DeTardoand his colleagues at the Cleveland PublicSchools; Ken Matheson, Deena Zarlin andKathy Wylie in Mendocino, Calif.; RobinWilner, IBM; Elizabeth Stock, Computersfor Youth; and Mark Schlaeger, Tapped In.

Finally, thanks to Andy Carvin, JuleeNewberger, Carol Schookhoff for their edi-torial assistance and the staff of Bulletproof– Anne Davison in particular. Juyong Leeand Carole Goodman of Freedom byDesign supervised the excellent graphicdesign.

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THE SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGE: TAKING EDTECH TO THE NEXT LEVEL

Acknowledgements

Executive Summary

I. Introduction: The Challenge of Taking Edtech to the Next LevelNorris Dickard, Margaret Honey and Anthony Wilhelm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

II. Edtech 2002: Budget Challenges, Policy Shifts and Digital OpportunitiesNorris Dickard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

III. Back to the Future: Total Cost of Ownership and Other Edtech Sustainability ModelsSara Fitzgerald . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

IV. Toward A Sustainability Framework: Lessons from the Literature and the FieldJulie Thompson Keane, Andrew Gersick, Constance Kim and Margaret Honey . 27

V. Getting the Center to Hold: A Funder’s Perspective Ronald Thorpe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

VI. Edtech in Indian Country Kade Twist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Appendices

A. No Child Left Behind Act, Edtech Provisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

B. What Is Your School District’s Total Cost of Ownership Type? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

TABLE OF CONTENTS


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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In the last decade, the federal, state, and local governments have invested over $40billion to put computers in schools and connect classrooms to the Internet.

Results are positive related to hardware and connectivity. The percentage of schoolsconnected to the Internet rose from 35 percent in 1994 to 99 percent in 2001. Thestudent to Internet connected computer ratio has improved dramatically in an evenshorter time frame, going from 12 students per computer in 1998 to five to one in2001. Many students who do not have computer and Internet access at home atleast have some access at school. However, there are indications that many schoolsare not using this new infrastructure to maximum advantage.

The National Governors Association and the National Association of State BudgetOfficers released a report in November 2002 saying states face the most dire fiscalemergency since World War II, concluding many have exhausted budget cuts andrainy-day funds and that the most difficult cuts lie ahead. Already some states arecutting educational technology (edtech) funds. Technology fatigue may also be hit-ting state and local policymakers just as they are given new authority (under the NoChild Left Behind Act) to transfer federal edtech funds to other uses.

A number of critical actions are needed to sustain our school technology infrastruc-ture and to take it to the next level. The “top 10” list includes:

1. Accelerate teacher professional development

2. “Professionalize” technical support

3. Implement authentic edtech assessments

4. Create a national digital trust for content development

5. Ensure all Americans have 21st century skills

6. Make it a national priority to bridge the home and community digital divides

7. Focus on the emerging broadband divide

8. Increase funding for the federal edtech block grant

9. Share what works

10. Continue edtech funding research

There are a number of emerging models that states and local districts can follow toget the most from, and sustain, their instructional technology infrastructure. TheConsortium for School Networking’s “Total Cost of Ownership” model is one.Based on case studies in districts that are on the cutting edge of using instructional

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technology, this report also introduces a framework, or critical factors, for success-ful technology integration that are the building blocks of sustainable educationaltechnology programs. Among the critical factors: leadership, effective management,infrastructure, professional development, and a broad coalition of stakeholders.

The findings in The Sustainability Challenge were based on research, fieldwork in threeMidwestern cities, and a series of grantmaker roundtables held in New York,Chicago and Washington, D.C. The project was supported with a generous grantfrom the Joyce Foundation of Chicago and is the third in a series focusing on the E-Rate and other edtech investments.

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Since 1990, the nation has invested over$40 billion to bring computers, educationalsoftware, and Internet connections toAmerica’s schools. Whether success ismeasured by the percentage of classroomswith a multimedia computer, test scoreimprovements or the digital literacy oftomorrow’s workforce, administrators, poli-cymakers and parents hope this unprece-dented investment in information technolo-gy (IT) will vastly improve the productivity ofthe educational enterprise.

A September 2002 report of the NationalCenter for Education Statistics highlightedthe rapid pace of change in schools as aresult of this massive infusion of capital.The percentage of schools connected tothe Internet increased from 35 percent in1994 to 99 percent in 2001. The student toInternet connected computer ratio hasimproved dramatically in an even shortertime frame, going from 12 students percomputer in 1998 to 5 to 1 in 2001.Likewise, there has been a significant rise inteachers using computers and networks forplanning and instruction.

A Nation Online, released in early 2002 by theU.S. Department of Commerce, showedthat American children who lack access tocomputers and the Internet at home arerelying on wired schools and libraries foraccess. For example, thanks to these publicaccess facilities, nearly 90 percent of allschool-aged children (aged 5-17) use com-puters and 59 percent used the Internet —making American children the most con-nected in the world. Just over 80 percent ofchildren (aged 10-17) in the lowest incomecategory were using computers at school,little different from the 89 percent of chil-dren from households in the highest incomecategory.

Hispanic and Black children, who have muchlower computer use rates at home,approach the overall computer use rates ofWhites and Asian American/Pacific Islanderchildren largely because of public access:84 percent for Hispanic children, 89 percentfor Black children, 94 percent forAsian/Pacific Islander children, and 95 percent for White children. However, a farhigher percentage of Hispanic (39 percent)

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: THE CHALLENGE OF TAKING

EDTECH TO THE NEXT LEVEL

BY NORRIS DICKARD, MARGARET HONEY AND ANTHONY WILHELM

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and Black (45 percent) children rely solelyon public access facilities to use computersthan White children (15 percent).

Despite this good news, students say moreneeds to be done to ensure we get a fullreturn on the nation’s IT investment inschools. According to a 2002 Pew Internet& American Life study, The Digital Disconnect:The widening gap between Internet-savvy studentsand their schools, students said it was impera-tive to connect classrooms and not justschools, ensure that all students mastercomputer literacy skills, and train teachers tocreate assignments that take advantage ofInternet resources they found on their own.

Similarly, technology coordinators indicatedin a National School Boards Foundation sur-vey that schools are not taking full advan-tage of technology as a tool to improveteaching and learning. The report “Are wethere yet?” concluded: “It is not enough toinstall computers and wire classrooms forInternet access, although there is still plen-ty of work to do in this regard. Today, thefocus needs to expand to how schools areusing technology.”

A focus on effective classroom use is ham-pered by the current economic climate andthe changing role of the federal governmentrelated to educational technology. Thesechanges have resulted in school IT invest-ments coming under greater scrutiny thanever — with a heightened focus on measur-

able results. The years 2001 and 2002 sawthe stock market tumble and with it state,local and federal budget revenue. Fiercebudget battles in state capitols resulted inedtech in some cases moved to theexpendable column, joining the ranks of artand music programs that are seen as a lux-ury for flush times.

As is explained in Chapter 2, it is possiblethat state and local administrators may usethe new transfer authority of the No ChildLeft Behind Act (NCLB) and begin to pullback from fully implementing and fundingedtech programs, believing them to be inef-fective or arguing that the funding would bebetter spent elsewhere.

We come to these conclusions from yearsof joint Benton Foundation and Center forChildren and Technology work in the edtechfield and policy arena. Most recently, inJanuary 2002, we published in GreatExpectations: Leveraging America’s Investment inEducation Technology, an outline of the findingsfrom an 18-month, Joyce Foundation fund-ed project. We provided a snapshot of thestate of educational technology and outlinedneeded steps to ensure that our nationaledtech investments were maximized.These included recommendations forimprovements to the E-Rate (i.e. the educa-tion rate, or the Federal CommunicationsCommission’s $2.25 billion a year intelecommunication’s discounts to schoolsand libraries), new strategies and modelsfor assessing students’ technology-basedwork, and a state and local framework for assessing and improving edtech imple-mentation.

Even as we completed the “GreatExpectations” project in fall 2001 we beganto suspect that “technology fatigue” wasbeginning to hit some policymakers at pre-cisely the time when we needed more andsmarter investments in edtech, not less.We began a follow-up project to investigate.

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This current publication summarizes the les-sons learned during 2002 in a subsequentJoyce Foundation funded effort. TheBenton Foundation and the Center forChildren and Technology collaborative proj-ect had two central goals: (1) to assess thecurrent thinking on sustainability and outlaysfor edtech investments by using as nationalcase studies the cities of Chicago,Cleveland and Milwaukee and (2) to high-light critical issues and models related tosustaining good educational technologypractice. We defined sustainability asstrategies for maintaining and nourishingeffective programs over time.

In Chapter 2, Norris Dickard discusses thecurrent fiscal crisis in states, the impact onedtech and the potential effect of NCLB onedtech expenditures. He then examinesseveral federal and state policies, proposedand enacted, that are meant to ensurehome technology access for all studentsand serve as the catalyst for a golden age ofdigital content creation. In Chapter 3, SaraFitzgerald raises the emerging issue of tech-nical support and refreshment cycles, high-lights several state approaches to bench-marking in this area, and introduces theConsortium for School Networking’s TotalCost of Ownership model.

In Chapter 4, the team from the Center forChildren and Technology provides anoverview of their sustainability framework,using as a context their field work in variousU.S. cities and review of the relevant litera-ture. In Chapter 4, Ron Thorpe writes fromthe perspective of a non-governmentalgrantmaker about sustaining programs,offering important insights that will be help-ful to the field. Kade Twist, in Chapter 6,highlights the particular challenges that face schools in Indian Country as they seek to ensure digital opportunities for all theirstudents.

From work on our project we contend that it is imperative for schools to leverage the large edtech investments they havemade to date, to maintain the infrastructurethey have in place and be strategic aboutupgrading and supporting networks in thefuture. If local schools do not develop thetalents of staff, if they do not rethink howedtech can be more effective in fulfillingtheir core missions and, if they do not pro-vide technical support and incentives fortrained professionals to stay, then this firstwave of edtech investments will have beenbadly made.

Even as the nation focuses on improve-ments in how schools use and maintain theirinstructional technology infrastructure, apressing and related issue is home accessfor all students. The students interviewed in the Pew studies expressed a serious concern about the digital divide, or the lackof home access to computers and theInternet of their less fortunate peers. As inother surveys, the tech-savvy students whowere surveyed indicated that most of theircomputer work and learning took place athome. These students realized their lessfortunate and connected peers were at adistinct disadvantage.

While recent data demonstrate that accessto computers and the Internet are clearlyincreasing for all demographic groups and,as previously noted, disadvantaged childrenare benefiting from their access at schools,a closer examination of the census dataused for A Nation Online reveals worryinghome disparities — disparities teachers wit-ness everyday. Almost half of Americansstill do not have Internet access at home.Only 25 percent of America's pooresthouseholds are online, compared withapproximately 80 percent of homes earningover $75,000.

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Only 33 percent of children living in house-holds in the lowest income category usecomputers at home compared to 95 percentof youth in the highest income category,according to a joint Annie E. CaseyFoundation/Benton Foundation report,“Connecting Kids to Technology:Challenges and Opportunities.” Even moretroubling is the fact that the gap betweenthese groups has expanded in recent years.Similar disparities can be found among stu-dent populations: Hispanics (32 percent)and African Americans (40 percent) lagbehind Whites (60 percent) in Internetaccess at home, suggesting serious ethnicand racial divides. We assert that, in the21st century, sending some students tohomes without a computing device —whether it be a computer, handheld device,or the like — and an Internet connectionwould be like, in the 20th century, sendingsome students home, depending on theirhousehold income or the educational levelof their parents, without their textbooks —and then expecting them to do as well in theclassroom.

The publication 2020 Visions: TransformingEducation and Training Through AdvancedTechnologies, released in September 2002 byU.S. Secretary of Commerce Evans and Secretary of Education Paige, high-lights what an exciting future we might expect with new innovations in instructionaltechnology looming on the horizon. Thegolden age of digital learning may be aroundthe corner if we do not short-circuit theprocess now.

Based on our recent and past work in thisarena, we declare these 10 critical nextsteps must be taken if we are truly to meetthe sustainability challenge and take educa-tional technology to the next level:

1. Accelerate teacher professional development

The No Child Left Behind Act mandatesthat states and local communities spenda set percentage of their funding onteacher professional development. Ifdone correctly, this added focus onprofessional development can help us

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accelerate the training of teachers andimprove their ability to use powerful newtechnologies. We also must finish thejob already begun of revamping ourcolleges of education, so that newteachers replacing the large cohort ofretiring educators enter our schoolswith cutting-edge skills.

2. “Professionalize” technical support

One of the most neglected areas inschool technology has been the supportgiven to teachers, network administra-tion and system design. Many largeschool districts have, like industry,created and filled the position of ChiefInformation Officer. Smaller districtshave outsourced their work in this area.Others have relied on already burdenedteachers or students. Technical supportshould be given the professional statusit deserves.

3. Implement authentic edtech assessments

In an era in which results are paramount,policymakers at the state and local levelmust be careful not to pull the plug ontheir edtech investments because theysee little short-term gain in student testscores. Assessments must be tied tothe specific goals for which technologyis used, such as reading improvementor technology literacy, and treated as animportant, but not the sole, variable inthe learning equation.

4. Create a national digital trust forcontent development

To truly transform education and trainingthrough advanced and emergingtechnologies we believe that the federalgovernment must serve as a significantcatalyst for digital content creation.Private industry cannot go it alone. One

of the most promising proposals toachieve this goal is the call for thecreation of a Digital OpportunityInvestment Trust (DO IT), discussed inthe next chapter. With the E-Ratecovering telecommunication andnetworking equipment discounts andthe NCLB technology block grantcovering computer upgrades, softwarepurchases and teacher training, DO ITwould provide the missing link in federalinvestment.

5. Ensure all Americans have 21stCentury Skills

NCLB states that one goal of thefederal investment in the edtech arenais “to assist every student in crossingthe digital divide by ensuring that everystudent is technologically literate by thetime the student finishes the eighthgrade, regardless of the student’s race,ethnicity, gender, family income,geographic location, or disability.” TheU.S. Department of Education is inves-tigating what this means and is taking anexpansive view of the term literacy. Animportant component of leaving no childbehind in the digital age is ensuring theirparents are fully engaged in their educa-tion. To accomplish this, we mustensure no parents are left behind in thedark age of illiteracy and that they haveample opportunity to develop 21stCentury Skills.

6. Make it a national priority to bridgethe home and community digitaldivides

Technology can play a key role in ensur-ing all Americans, K-12 students andadults, have 21st Century Skills. Twoyears ago, e-Learning: Putting a World-ClassEducation at the Fingertips of All Children,TheNational Educational Technology Plan calledfor ensuring equal information technolo-

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gy access not just in schools, but inhomes and communities as well. A fewstates and local school districts havetaken up the charge, and other policyproposals have been presented toachieve this goal. As a start, we mustset a national goal of ensuring everychild on the reduced and free lunchprogram has home access to a comput-ing device and the Internet.

7. Focus on the emerging broadband divide

The digital learning content of the futurewill require greater bandwidth. A newbroadband divide is emerging with thepotential that some Americans will berelegated to second-class, informationage citizenship. Federal policymakersmust focus on policies to ensure allAmericans, especially those in rural andinner city areas, have access to widelyavailable and affordable broadbandconnections.

8. Increase funding for the federaledtech block grant

To meet the sustainability challengesoutlined above states and schooldistricts will need additional resources.Therefore, we advocate an increase inthe NCLB edtech block grant to $1billion, beginning in fiscal year 2004. Infiscal year 2001, U.S. Department ofEducation funding for the eight edtechprograms authorized under Title III of theElementary and Secondary EducationAct rose to an all-time high of $872million. This was a 5,700 percentincrease from the $23 million appropri-ated in 1993. President Bush’s FY 2003budget request for these programs,consolidated in a block grant in the NoChild Left Behind Act (NCLB), was$723 million — a sharp decrease indedicated funds for this purpose.

9. Share what works

In this age of accountability, states andlocal government will be looking forguidance on effective educationaltechnology solutions. Through the U.S.Department of Education’s new WhatWorks Clearinghouse, research efforts,and other governmental and corporatedemonstrations, a concerted effortmust be made to assist them. As e-Learning advocated, “we should: initiatea systematic agenda of research andevaluation on technology applicationsfor teaching and learning; encouragestate and local evaluations of technolo-gy programs; and support the dissemi-nation and use of research-basedinformation…” NCLB contains suchprovisions.

10. Continue edtech funding research

From our work on this project, webelieve it remains an open question howand whether schools will nourish theiredtech efforts in coming years. Whilethe federal government’s share ofoverall education spending is relativelysmall, about 7 percent, its share ofedtech funding is substantial, encom-passing about 35 percent of all funding.This 35 percent is magnified when oneconsiders that most federal edtechinvestments and the E-Rate are directedat high-poverty schools. Since thefederal government launched schoolson the e-learning path, it is imperative totrack funding at the state and districtlevel to see how the edtech sustainabil-ity challenge is being, or not being, met.

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In late 2002, leaders involved in implement-ing technology solutions to improve teach-ing and learning were faced with a bleakbudget picture and changing policy climate.Educational technology (edtech) expendi-tures that were part of budget lines cameunder greater scrutiny than ever — withresults expected sooner rather than later. Atthe same time, state and local innovationsand new federal policy proposals reflectedexciting opportunities to ensure that no chil-dren in the U.S. would be left behind in theinformation age.

BUDGET WOESMany states that benefited from the eco-nomic boom of the late-1990s sufferedsharp revenue declines in the recent reces-sion. In Virginia, where the suburbs of thenation’s capital helped spawn the dot-comindustry and witnessed the subsequentbust, state revenue growth plunged to itslowest level in 40 years. In fall 2002,announcing even tougher austerity meas-ures to come, Virginia Senate FinanceCommittee Chairman John Chichestercommented, “Quite frankly, I want every cit-izen of Virginia to understand that our backis against a financial wall. It's not their fault,it's not our fault – but we're all in it together.”He could have been speaking for the nation.

State budgets were expected to remaindepressed through fiscal 2003, according toThe Fiscal Survey of States, a report releasedby the National Governors Association andNational Association of State BudgetOfficers in spring 2002. According to thereport, the economic downturn caused a$40 to $50 billion budget shortfall in over 40states. Despite the fact that some statesexempt education from budget cuts, 39states were forced to reduce their enacted

budgets by $15 billion. To plug their budgetgaps, 26 states used across-the-boardcuts, 22 tapped rainy day funds and 10 reor-ganized programs. At least 11 states had tocall special legislative sessions. In an articlein Education Week, educational technologyexperts reported that technology programsappeared to be among the first targets ofthe budget knife. “Governors are dealingwith unprecedented fiscal pressure,”announced NGA Executive DirectorRaymond C. Scheppach.

These trends were verified in one of thestates where the Benton Foundation andthe Center for Children and Technology(CCT) conducted casework: Illinois. Edtechfunding was slashed in the state FY 2003budget — receiving one of the greatest hitsin terms of budget line items within theIllinois State Board of Education (ISBE)budget. School districts felt the biggestpinch in 2002 with direct state edtechgrants to districts reduced by over $15 mil-lion to less than half of previous levels of$28 million. The budget for online resourcesfor school districts was also reduced byover one-third. By most accounts, projec-tions for the Illinois FY 2004 budget lookbleak as well.

“Illinois policymakers are playing guessinggames with serious consequences,” saidBindu Batchu, author of a report on tech-nology in Illinois classrooms released by the Metropolitan Planning Council andNetwork 21, a coalition for school reform.“These cuts will make implementing anyvision set forth in the state's forthcomingeducation technology plan very difficult asmuch of the federal edtech money for Illinoisclassrooms hinges on matching statefunds.” Network 21, in a unique state lob-bying effort, mobilized and voiced opposi-tion to the cuts through careful policy analy-sis, highlighting disparities in Illinois stateper pupil spending and outlined a vision forwhy edtech matters.

CHAPTER 2 EDTECH 2002: BUDGET CHALLENGES,

POLICY SHIFTS AND DIGITAL OPPORTUNITIES

BY NORRIS DICKARD

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State and local innovation, as well as thebudget crisis many states face, will all beaffected by a redefined relationship to thefederal government, which has been a sig-nificant catalyst for helping bring schoolsinto the digital age.

FEDERAL POLICY CHANGES: NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACTThe new Enhancing Education ThroughTechnology Program was passed as part ofthe No Child Left Behind Act of 2001(NCLB), a reauthorization of the Elementaryand Secondary Education Act. It containsnew provisions in how federal edtech fund-ing gets spent. One stated new goal of thelegislation is to assist every student inAmerica in crossing the digital divide andbecoming fully technology literate by theeighth grade.

In proposing NCLB, the Bush administra-tion’s goal for edtech was to consolidate allof the separate grant programs createdunder the Clinton administration (with prior-ities such as community technology centercreation, promotion of innovative projects,and support for distant education learningprograms) into a new state block grant pro-gram. All of the savings from the programcuts were to be rolled into a revampedTechnology Literacy Challenge Fund, theexisting state block grant, and delivered byformula to the districts.

As was discussed in the Benton Foundationand CCT’s previous report Great Expectations:Leveraging America’s Investment in EducationalTechnology, the original plan even called foreliminating the $2.25 billion-per-year E-Rate

— telecommunications discounts to schoolsfrom the Universal Service Fund, under thedirection of the Federal CommunicationsCommission — and requesting appropria-tions for the $2.25 billion under a newedtech “super” block grant.

In attempting to sell the proposal in 2001,the administration touted its advantages toschool districts: more money, less hassle inapplying and more discretion in using thefunds. Critics decried a lack of “federalleadership” – in terms of a dedicated pool offunds for programs addressing national pri-orities, like community technology centerdevelopment – and in the case of the E-Rate, the near certain loss of a substantialproportion of its support if congressionalappropriations were required. In the end,the U.S. Senate pushed back, protectedthe E-Rate and reached a grand compro-mise on NCLB, which was passed inJanuary 2002 and included the EnhancingEducation Through Technology Program.

This program included an edtech block grantbut, because of Senate pressure, main-tained Ready to Learn Television as well asthe Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to UseTechnology and Community TechnologyCenters programs (CTC). Under NCLB,states must distribute 95 percent of theiredtech block grant funds to local school dis-tricts. Fifty percent must be distributed viaformula and 50 percent via competitivegrants – yet another compromise forgedbetween Congress and the administration.

Five percent of the funding allocated tostate agencies in the block grant may beused for “leadership activities” that allowthem to provide districts with technicalassistance, establish public-private technol-ogy acquisition initiatives to assist high-need districts, assist districts in providingprofessional development services, ensurespecial needs students gain access to tech-nology, develop performance measure-

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ments to determine the effectiveness ofedtech in helping students meet high aca-demic standards, and collaborate with otherstates to develop and make available dis-tance learning curricula.

Additionally, districts must now use 25 per-cent of their funds for professional develop-ment in technology, with special attentiongiven to the integration of advanced tech-nologies into classroom curricula. The movecomes as a result of calls in many studiesincluding the Benton Foundation’s 1997Learning Connection: Schools in the InformationAge, which warned that America’s invest-ment in edtech would be at risk if we neg-lected the training of teachers.

Two percent of NCLB funds will be reservedby the U.S. Department of Education to create a new national technology plan, provide technical assistance and conduct alongitudinal study on the effectiveness ofusing edtech to increase student academicachievement.

One of the most pronounced NCLBchanges is in the ability state and local gov-ernments will have to transfer fundsbetween certain funding blocks. Any districtthat has not been identified as in need ofimprovement now has the ability to transferup to 50 percent of its formula allocationunder the Teacher Quality State Grants,Educational Technology State Grants,Innovative Programs or Safe and Drug-FreeSchools programs to supplement its alloca-tion under any of the programs listed above.Thus, in states and districts where leadersfeel edtech is not delivering a return oninvestment, half of those funds can betransferred elsewhere. Likewise, whereedtech is seen as central to improvementsin teaching and learning, “new” resourcesare available – at the expense of other pro-grams, of course.

NCLB also requires states to test every stu-dent in grades three through eight annuallyin the “basics,” i.e. reading and math. Thisis a significant shift from the multi-year cyclecurrently used. One result could be theaccelerated use of information technologyfor assessment and data analysis that couldprovide information for needed changes atthe classroom or school level. There are anumber of innovative products and experi-ments already underway. This year, Idahobecame the first state to switch to comput-erized “smart tests” that adapt to the test-taker and provide rapid feedback on neededareas of improvement. A study by the RandCorporation concluded: “Computer-basedtesting offers the opportunity to developnew types of questions, especially thosethat can assess complex problem-solvingskills by requiring examinees to generatetheir own answers.”

Released in early 2002, President Bush’sFY 2003 budget proposed funding the stateedtech block grant at the same $700 millionlevel as FY 2002 — a significant reduction infunding dedicated to educational technologyin FY 2001 at the end of the Clinton admin-istration. The overall requested one percentincrease for the entire department was thesmallest since FY 1995. Bush administra-tion officials went on the defensive with aprominent series of graphs displayed on theEducation Department website showinghow past increases in funding had notresulted in student performance improve-ments.

Among those edtech programs the presi-dent deemed narrowly focused or ineffec-tive and therefore slated for termination inFY 2003 are the Preparing Tomorrow’sTeachers to Use Technology Program($62.5 million in FY 2002), CommunityTechnology Centers Program ($32.5 millionin FY 2002) and the Star Schools DistanceEducation Program ($27.5 million in FY


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2002). John Bailey, director of the Office ofEducational Technology at the U.S.Department of Education, has defended theoverall edtech and individual grant programcuts in various speeches, interviews andarticles, arguing that most of the activitieswere allowable under the state block grantand NCLB had provisions sprinkled in othertitles allowing for technology purchases tomeet specific learning goals such as improv-ing reading.

THE DIGITAL DIVIDE ANDNATIONAL POLICYThe administration’s call to eliminate in FY2003 two critical digital opportunity pro-grams generated a significant backlash. InMay 2002, on the steps of the U.S. Capitol,Senators Max Cleland and BarbaraMikulski, with the support of SenatorOlympia J. Snowe, joined representativesof over 100 organizations to launch theDigital Empowerment Campaign (www.digi-talempowerment.org), a nationwide grass-roots effort to preserve and strengthen the U.S. Department of Commerce'sTechnology Opportunities Program (TOP)and the U.S. Department of Education’sCommunity Technology Centers Program.

The CTC program provides matching grantsthat leverage state, local and corporateresources to create and improve technolo-gy access and training facilities — a placewhere unplugged Americans can go to getplugged in. The TOP program providematching grants for innovative projects thatuse technology to solve social problems,improve communities and increase accessto advanced telecommunication’s services.

The administration’s proposed cuts werebolstered by a marked change in adminis-tration rhetoric. In February 2002, the U.S.Department of Commerce released A NationOnline, the latest in a series of studies previ-ously known as Falling Through the Net, oncomputer and Internet use in America. Theseries was formerly a national benchmarkfor measuring the digital divide between

those who have access to modern telecom-munications tools and services and thosewho do not. The implied message of ANation Online was that the digital divide wasno longer a major concern — a position sim-ply not supported by the report's own sta-tistics. For example, almost half ofAmerican households do not have accessto the Internet. Higher-income Americansare more than three times as likely to beonline as those with lower incomes. Whitesand Asians are six times more likely to usethe Internet than Blacks or Hispanics. And75 percent of lower-income Americans donot have Internet access.

To counter this report, the BentonFoundation and the Leadership Conferenceon Civil Rights Education Fund publishedBringing a Nation Online: The Importance ofFederal Leadership. Released in summer2002, the report re-examines the govern-ment’s own statistics and fully articulateswhy the digital divide is still a problem ofnational significance. The report also out-lined why the two programs slated for elimination — the TOP and CTC — areimportant national tools in bridging the digi-tal divide.

U.S. Department of Education officialsresponded that states and local districtshave the option of spending their blockgrant funds, or transferring monies fromother sources, if providing access to stu-dents in their communities or homes is agoal. In particular, they have pointed to the Maine model as an example of what ispossible.

Governor Angus King of Maine gainedheadlines in 2002 with a proposal to ensuretechnology access for all students in hisstate. He spearheaded the controversialeffort culminating in a four-year, $37 millioncontract with Apple Computer to provide —as a start — wireless iBook laptops to all middle school students and teachers inMaine.


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A similar federal policy proposal — at leastin its focus of ensuring home access for allstudents – involved tax credits. In the after-math of September 11, U.S. SenatorsGeorge Allen and Barbara Boxer requestedthat President Bush support their EducationOpportunity Tax Credit as part of the eco-nomic stimulus plan. Their bill, S. 488,would give parents a refundable $1,000-per-child tax credit – capped at $2,000 per fam-ily — that could be used for educationexpenses such as computers, printers,peripherals and educational software.

The senators, representing states with asubstantial information technology sector,stated the proposal would stimulate theeconomy and help bridge the digital divide.“This proposal increases access to com-puters and the Internet in the home forhouseholds of all incomes, and consumersreap the tangible, and intangible, benefits ofbuying a major durable good,” they wrote.

Both models are worthy of consideration.Admittedly, tax credits have had a dubioushistory and when tailored poorly, they helponly those who did not need the financialassistance in the first place. An article crit-ical of tax credits by William Gale of theBrookings Institution was aptly titled “SocialPolicy in Bad Disguise.” However, the fea-sibility of a targeted and refundable taxcredit to those who research shows aremost cut off from digital opportunities –such as the families of children receivingfree and reduce price lunches – should bestudied. Providing laptops to every studentin a state is cost-prohibitive but, with newlow-cost computing devices coming on themarket, states should explore this and otherstrategies to ensure home access.

Local community technology centers, suchas the Washington, D.C.’s Calvary BilingualMulticultural Learning Center and theirDigital Community Project, have also set upprograms where parents and childrenreceive computer literacy training and thencan purchase a new computer through aspecially insured loan program at a localbank (www.cbmlc.org). They receive oneyear’s free Internet access and subsequentyears at a reduced rate. Home technicalsupport is provided by youth volunteers andspecial classes on various software pro-grams are offered at the center.

POLICY INNOVATION: THEDIGITAL OPPORTUNITYINVESTMENT TRUSTAnother set of innovative policy proposalsinvolves the complex world of spectrum pol-icy. During 2002, a group led by formerNBC news chief Larry Grossman and for-mer Federal Communications Commissionchairman Newt Minow called for the cre-ation of a Digital Opportunity InvestmentTrust (DO IT). Their Digital Promise Initiative(www.digitalpromise.org) calls for the cre-ation of a trust that would be financed byrevenue from the auction of publicly ownedairwaves, with an estimated value of over$20 billion.

Grossman and Minow propose that DO ITprovide grants to fund the development ofnew learning software and tools to makethe best use of Internet connections to


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America’s schools. DO IT would also fundthe digitizing of select material in America’smuseums, libraries and universities. In2002, legislation was introduced in both theU.S. Senate and House of Representativesto establish the fund. Senators ChristopherDodd and Jim Jeffords co-sponsored theDigital Opportunity Investment Trust Act,which would provide 50 percent of the rev-enues from the spectrum auctions to sup-port the DO IT fund. Rep. Edward Markeyintroduced a similar bill in the House.

The DO IT legislation is modeled after a19th century proposal passed during theCivil War. The Land-Grant Colleges Act of1862 stipulated that money from the sale ofpublic land be used to create land-grant col-leges and universities so that everyone —not just the elite — could benefit from high-er education. DO IT proponents argue thatthe 21st century equivalent of land is the air-waves — or more accurately, the electro-magnetic spectrum — and they want toensure the public interest is served from itsuse. U.S. Commerce Secretary Evans andEducation Secretary Paige, intrigued bythese ideas, commissioned papers on whateducation and training would look like in thefuture. The papers were compiled in a publication, 2020 Visions: Transforming Educationand Training through Advanced Technologies.

CONCLUSIONWith private sector investments in technol-ogy programs waning because of the reces-sion and with state budgets under thebiggest crunch in years, the need for smart,public-private partnerships to accelerate digi-tal opportunity is more important than ever.With the devolution of power to the state andlocal leaders, leadership and innovation atthat level will drive change and provide newmodels. Federal policy proposals currentlyunder consideration offer a glimpse of excit-ing opportunities, if implemented, to ensurethat no American children will be left behindin the information age.

Norris Dickard is director of public policy at theBenton Foundation.


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Education policymakers are commentingthat education technology has finally“arrived.” As evidence, they point to theprovisions of the No Child Left Behind Act(NCLB).

Although the Bush administration’s signa-ture education legislation retains a dedicat-ed edtech block grant program, woventhroughout the law are references to tech-nology that would allow it to be used forbroader academic goals. Technology, thelaw’s proponents argue, is no longer viewedas an end unto itself, but, rather, is viewedas an important educational tool that, when used effectively, can promote studentlearning.

But has the average American school dis-trict made that leap? Do school leadersview technology as “the thing we did whenwe had money?” Or do they understandthat, like the addition of a new school bus ora new classroom, every additional net-worked computer will require more dollarsto be spent on support, maintenance, staffdevelopment and a number of other relatedcosts if it is going to be used effectively?

School technology leaders may well haverecognized that hardware costs were simplythe first budgetary challenge their schoolswould face when it came to implementingtechnology solutions to approve teachingand learning. But many have failed to planfor an ongoing, consistent funding streamfor technology support, relying instead onone-time infusions of money, whether in theform of E-Rate discounts on infrastructurepurchases, successful bond campaigns,dedicated federal funding programs to putcomputers in classrooms, or special corpo-rate and non-profit support, all of whichwere widely available during economicboom times.

All of the activities associated with theongoing “care and feeding” of computers

and networks are what the business worldcalls the “Total Cost of Ownership,” orTCO. Now, more than ever before, schoolleaders are being challenged to provide net-worked resources in cost-efficient waysthat are tied to their own needs and goals –and to monitor how well those approachesare working.

At its core, NCLB arguably looks at K-12education from a business-like perspective.In the end, schools will be judged by thequality of their products and be heldaccountable. Customers, namely parents,will be encouraged to “shop elsewhere” ifthey aren’t satisfied with the “service” theirchildren are receiving.

Whether or not one agrees with thisapproach, it’s clear the new law will presentsome tough decisions for school leaders onwhere to put their scarce dollars.

The business world began wrestling withhow best to manage TCO in the mid-1980s,as companies started to move from a main-frame computer environment to distributedcomputing on the desktop of every employ-ee. There was no avoiding the fact thatcomputers would continue to require sup-port and generate new costs. But by makingthe right decisions when they deployed anetwork, businesses learned they couldsave money in the long term, or that thestrategic advantage they gained would morethan justify the cost of their technologyinvestments.

One challenge for school leaders whounderstand that technology must continueto be supported adequately is that there are relatively few metrics on what “suffi-cient” means — other than “more money.”Projections of the costs of wiring thenation’s schools that were made in the mid-1990s came at a time when many schoolsaspired simply to build a single computerlab, or “become connected to the Internet.”

CHAPTER 3 BACK TO THE FUTURE: TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP

AND OTHER EDTECH SUSTAINABILITY MODELS

BY SARA FITZERALD

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Since then, not only has classroom Internetconnectivity become nearly ubiquitous, butschools are testing a wide range of newapproaches including centralized networkmanagement, wireless networks, thin-clientcomputing, student laptop programs andthe use of other low-cost devices such aspersonal digital assistants.

In 1999, the Consortium for SchoolNetworking’s (CoSN) “Taking TCO to theClassroom” initiative began with the goal ofhelping school leaders understand therange of costs for which they should budg-et when they implement technology, andsome “best practices” that could be followed to try to control those costs.

Surveys conducted by education marketingcompanies have consistently found thatschools devoted the lion’s share of theirtechnology budgets to hardware, whether itwas infrastructure or desktop computers,and substantially less to categories, such astech support and professional development,that should increase as computer penetra-tion in the classroom grows. For example,Quality Education Data reported in its pro-jection of edtech spending for the 2000-01school year that schools anticipated spending 56 percent of their budgets onhardware and networks, but only 4 percenton staff development and 8 percent on“service/support.” Market Data Research,in a 2001 review, reported that districtsspent 67 percent on hardware, comparedwith 14 percent on staff development — stillwell short of the 30 percent figure that theU.S. Department of Education began advo-cating in the late 1990s.

Ongoing, adequate tech support is one ofthe biggest challenges for school districts.Supporters of the No Child Left Behind Actenvision a future in which schools will beable to continually assess how their stu-dents are performing, make adjustmentswhere necessary, and rapidly report their

results, not only to state and federal policy-makers, but also to parents. However, noneof that data-driven decision-making will bepossible if a network is not adequately supported and maintained — in short, madereliable.

Moreover, as policy makers at all levelsstress the need for teachers to learn how tointegrate technology into the classroom,one real impediment may be teacher time.Seventy-eight percent of teachers in a 2001NetDay survey said their biggest obstacleto using the Internet in their classroom was“a lack of time.” If a teacher makes theeffort to adapt a lesson plan to the onlineenvironment, only to find that the network is“down” that day, why wouldn’t she go backto relying on more traditional approaches?

In the past few years, more and more stateshave begun adopting technology inventorysurveys, which can help districts monitorthe progress they are making comparedwith their local peers. (Some states are nowusing these same surveys to determinewhich districts are technology “have-nots”for purposes of awarding competitive tech-nology grants under the No Child LeftBehind Act.)

A rule-of-thumb in the business world hasbeen that one tech support person is nec-essary to support 50 to 75 computers. In

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the K-12 environment, this ratio has beenmuch higher, which is one reason tech sup-port personnel often suffer from a high levelof burnout. However, there is no single rightanswer because the level of tech supportthat is necessary depends on a number ofinterrelated factors.

In 2000, a Michigan project attempted tomodify an industry formula for calculatingadequate tech support to the realities of theK-12 world including the fact that multiplepeople might use a computer over thecourse of a day. The Michigan TechnologyTraining Resource (http://techguide.merit.edu) instructed school leaders to determinewhether their district was “low-tech” or“high-tech.” A school that set out to be atechnology-rich institution had differentneeds than a district in which technologyplayed a more subordinate role. In additionto the actual numbers of users, computers,peripherals and operating systems in play,factors such as the age of buildings, thesize of the district, the range of technolo-gies and software packages that had to besupported and outsourcing arrangements, ifany, would help determine what level of sup-port was a reasonable goal.

Technology leaders in Ohio, using a 2000survey that found there were 3,384 full-timetechnical support staff in the state’s schools(both paid and unpaid), concluded that thestate had a tech support ratio of about oneperson for every 148 computers. Using theMichigan formula, it estimated Ohio wouldneed to add 3,153 positions to provide what would be considered adequate techsupport.

In 2000, the state of Massachusetts deter-mined the average district had 1.5 personsto provide network technology support. Itset as a goal that districts should, by 2003,provide one full-time tech support personfor every 100 to 200 computers. When thestate investigated a year later, however, the

trend line had moved in the opposite direc-tion. Statewide, the tech support ratio hadgrown from one support person for every358 computers to one for every 439.Twenty-six percent of the districts said theyhad met the benchmark, but 40 percentreported their ratio fell between 1:200 and1:500 computers, and another 24 percentreported it was worse than 1:500. Anothersix percent said they had no tech supportpersonnel.

State leaders speculated in an accompany-ing report that it was likely that districts hadbeen adding computers without increasingthe size of their tech support staff. Theyalso surmised that districts may have actu-ally been doing a more accurate job ofreporting their numbers, or had begunimplementing other strategies for managingtech support — other than simply adding tothe headcount. These might include makinguse of outsourced support, help desks,posting answers for frequent user problemsto a school website, or making greater useof students.

Massachusetts Tech SupportBenchmark(2000)One FTE for every 100 to 200 computers by 2003

What did districts report a year later?STANDARD

Met benchmark of at least 1FTE for every 200 computers

1 FTE for every 200-500 computers

1 FTE for every 500 or morecomputers

No Tech Support personnel

No data available

% OF DISTRICTS

26%

40%

24%

6%

4%


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Many schools appear to be taking the latterstep. A 2002 survey sponsored by theNational School Boards Foundation foundthat more than half of the schools it sur-veyed relied on students to provide at leastsome of their tech support. The survey,which weighted its sample toward the coun-try’s largest districts, found that 43 percentof districts said they let students trou-bleshoot hardware, software and networkproblems; 39 percent used them to set upequipment and wiring; and 36 percent reliedon them for network maintenance. Althoughtechnology-savvy students can help fill thetech-support gap and develop valued jobskills at the same time, districts must makesure that sensitive student records and per-sonnel data are not jeopardized through thisapproach.

No matter which strategy a district choos-es, it’s critical to establish benchmarks sothat school leaders can evaluate whethernew approaches produce the intendedresults. For instance, when tech support isneglected, the burden of trouble-shootingcolleagues’ problems often falls on theshoulders of tech-savvy teachers. While aschool district may conclude that it is “con-

trolling” tech support costs, in reality it issimply reducing the productivity of its teach-ers — at a time when they face even morepressures to produce academic “results.”By defining standards for response times,for instance, the technology staff can setusers’ expectations and make adjustments,if necessary, when the standards are notbeing met.

In a 2001 statewide survey, for instance,California found that just under half of itsschools reported that it took two to fivedays to get hardware repaired and two tofive days to get support for technologyproblems. However, 11 percent of districtsreported that it took a month to get hard-ware repaired and 4 percent said it took amonth before tech support could respond.Clearly, districts at that extreme are not getting the return they probably should ontheir investment. And as the state ofMassachusetts noted in a report, echoingthe words of one of its district technologyleaders, schools can hardly brag aboutachieving a computer ratio of one computerto every five students if the computers areonly up and running 80 percent of the time.

Closely tied to adequate tech support isadequate professional development, a termthat can mean different things to differentpeople. Solid staff training usually leads tolower tech support requirements as com-puter users become better equipped tosolve their own simple problems. Althoughmuch attention has been focused in recentyears on training teachers in how to integrate technology into the classroom,districts need to make sure their technologystaff receive adequate training in networkingand technology advancements, as well.Technology directors must also find time to keep abreast of new networking productsand strategies if they are going to be able to provide good advice to school policymakers.

Relying on Students for Tech SupportTASKS

Troubleshooting problems

Setting up equipment and wiring

Technical maintenance

Assist teachers

Install and maintain software

Network management

Other

Total, Any tast

% OF DISTRICTSUSING STUDENTS

43%

39%

36%

5%

4%

4%

4%

54%

SOURCE: “Are We There Yet,” NationalSchool Boards Foundation, GrunwaldAssociates survey, June 2002


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The requirement that school districts use atleast 25 percent of the funds they receiveunder the new federal “EnhancingEducation Through Technology” block grantin the No Child Left Behind Act certainly willhelp to direct spending toward this impor-tant goal. Nationwide, that could representat least $166 million in additional federalsupport if schools don’t transfer the fundsto other programs as they are allowed to dounder the law. But in these times of increas-ingly scarce education dollars, it’s importantfor districts not to simply spend staff devel-opment dollars but to spend them well.

While some teachers undoubtedly are stillnovices when it comes to using technology,the NetDay survey found that nine of out 10teachers reported they were “comfortablewith computers.” And it’s noteworthy that67 percent said that while they thought theInternet was a helpful, useful resource, ithad not changed the way they taught.Districts must develop strategies thatdemonstrate to teachers the value of newclassroom approaches, that model what thisnew kind of teaching looks like and that helpveteran teachers find the time to retool oldlesson plans. A variety of staff developmentapproaches may be necessary includingones that take advantage of online instruc-tion, whether during or outside of the class-room day.

In another example of some of the interest-ing state benchmarking efforts that havebeen taking place, Massachusetts set as agoal that every district should have a half-time person to provide curricular support forevery 30 to 60 teachers, depending on howmuch progress it had already made. A yearlater, it found that 20 percent of its districtshad met the benchmark, but that in 25 per-cent of districts, the ratio was one half-timeperson for more than 100 teachers, and 16percent of districts provided no curriculumsupport of any kind.

A challenge that looms for many school dis-tricts a few years down the road is identify-ing the resources necessary to replace theircurrent inventory of computers when theyare at the end of their life cycle. Over thepast few years, schools have been installingdesktop computers at such a rate that theratio of students to instructional computerswith Internet access has improved from12.1 to 1 in 1998 to 5.4 to 1 in 2001,according to a National Center forEducational Statistics study released inSeptember 2002. At some point, thosecomputers are going to need to bereplaced. Businesses are generally nowreplacing their computers every three years,and laptop computers every two. Forward-thinking districts appear to be aiming for afive-year refresh cycle, but many districtsare not planning at all. Thin-client approach-es, in which applications run on centralservers rather than desktops, have enabledsome districts to keep older machines inuseful service for a longer period of time,but these approaches require additionalattention be paid to network operations.

Developing a regular refresh cycle andkeeping computers standardized on a morelimited range of models should help keeptech support and staff development costslower, as staffs are required to master fewermodels and programs and keep fewer partsin inventory. Although computer donationprograms have helped many districtsacquire usable desktop equipment, technol-ogy directors have come to recognize thevalue of developing a formal policy on theminimum standards for the computers thedistrict is willing to accept. This helpsensure that well-meaning local businessesand community members will not simplytransfer their own computer disposal prob-lems onto the shoulders of school technolo-gy leaders. New environmental regulationson the proper disposal of used computermonitors, which are considered a hazardouswaste, mean school leaders may have topay more attention to this in the future.


There are no easy answers to these chal-lenges, particularly those that come down tomoney. Significantly, the language of NCLBrequires that states, as part of their newtechnology plans, explain their “long-termstrategies for financing technology” toensure that all students, teachers and class-rooms will have access to technology. Thelegislation specifies the technology blockgrant funds can be used for “implementingperformance measurement systems todetermine the effectiveness of educationtechnology programs funded with thismoney.” Although policy-makers are clearlyinterested in measuring the extent to whichtechnology has a positive impact on aca-demic performance, the language under-scores the importance of developing bench-marks to help measure the effectiveness ofexpenditures in all parts of the technologybudget.

The good news is that the tools available toschool districts are improving. The CoSNTCO project is about to move into a newphase as it works with Gartner Consulting todevelop case studies, and ultimately a web-based tool, to help school leaders betterunderstand how the business-world princi-ples of TCO play out in the K-12 environ-ment (www.classroomtco.org).

Other organizations have developed com-plementary tools. The International Societyfor Technology in Education developed a“Technology Support Index” to help schoolleaders assess whether they were support-ing their networks in the most cost-effectiveway. This matrix highlights “best practices,”and flags those that will require an invest-ment of dollars (http://tsi.iste.org/). In addi-tion, the Institute for the Advancement ofEmerging Technologies in Education hasworked with several contributors includingAEL and Integrated Technology EducationGroup to create its own TCO calculator tool(available, online at www.iaete.org/ tco/).

With vision and leadership, education policymakers will be able to steer schools into the21st century with the technologies theyimplement. But it remains to be seenwhether their budgets will follow suit.

Sara Fitzgerald is vice president of communicationsat Funds For Learning, LLC, and project director ofthe Consortium for School Networking’s “TakingTCO to the Classroom” initiative.

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For many years, educators, funders and thepublic have looked to technology to revolu-tionize education. The nation’s K-12 schoolsplunged headlong into the information age,investing heavily in infrastructure, oftenwithout developing detailed plans for howtechnology would support larger curriculargoals, how teachers would be trained tointegrate technology, or how technologytools would be maintained and upgraded.The necessity of putting technology intoschools was widely accepted; How it shouldbe integrated was an open question.

Recent changes in the financial and politicalclimate have resulted in a questioning of the value of educational technology. Is tech-nology having a real impact on our schools?Policymakers and the public want to know ifthe investments of the past — not to men-tion continuing investments — are justified.

The justification for edtech, as for all educa-tional reforms, lies in its capacity to improvestudent learning. We know that educationaltechnologies present some unique opportu-nities to do just that. Networking technolo-gies offer schools access to unprecedentedamounts of information and students andteachers can communicate with peers andcolleagues in ways that would otherwise beimpossible. Multimedia tools allow studentsto express more complex ideas in moresophisticated ways. Research has clearlyshown that, under the right conditions,opportunities created by technologyenhance the learning experience(President’s Committee of Advisors onScience and Technology Panel, 1997;Becker & Riel, 2000). At the same time,however, planning for the effective use oftechnology entails thinking about a multi-tude of things differently, and districts facenew challenges in designing professionaldevelopment programs, rethinking budgetsand reworking curriculum.

Merely purchasing technology resourceshas not — and could not have — changedthe character of education. Instead, lookingat the national landscape, we see individualdistricts where technology investmentshave been paired with other key elements,like strong district leadership, a definededucational vision with technology servingthat vision and thoughtful professionaldevelopment, to yield observable effects onstudent learning. We also see many dis-tricts that have not brought together allthese elements; in these districts, theeffects of technology investments are hardto locate. Based on this view of the statusquo, we believe the basic question to askabout educational technology is not “Cantechnology improve student learning?” Wealready know that technology can helpimprove student learning. Instead, we mustask, “What conditions need to be in place inschools and districts for technologies toimprove student learning?” And, “How candistricts create effective technology pro-grams that are sustainable, and be main-tained and nourished over time?”

In search of answers to these questions, wefirst conducted preliminary interviews withindividuals in the for-profit and private tech-nology sectors. We then interviewed keystakeholders in three cities pursuing signifi-cant implementation of edtech with varyingdegrees of success: Milwaukee, Chicagoand Cleveland. Finally, we convened region-al roundtables in New York, Chicago andWashington, D.C., with individuals in thefoundation, corporate and governmentalsectors who are currently supporting edu-cational technology projects. While con-ducting this field research, we alsoreviewed the existing research — our ownand others’ — on the successes and fail-ures of edtech in the past 15 years, lookingfor the keystones of successful integrationefforts. Finally, we revisited the findingsfrom our 1996 National Study Tour, in whichwe identified school districts that were

CHAPTER 4 TOWARD A SUSTAINABILITY FRAMEWORK: LESSONS

FROM THE LITERATURE AND THE FIELD

BY JULIE THOMPSON KEANE, ANDREW GERSICK, CONSTANCE KIM AND MARGARET HONEY

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using technology in innovative ways. Welooked back at some of the districts fromthat study to see how they have sustainedtheir efforts to the present day.

We also stepped outside the field of edtechresearch and looked at other fields for accu-mulated wisdom about enacting successfulorganizational change. The integration oftechnology into education was, after all,supposed to be a change — and a changefor the better. Scholars of organizationaland systemic change have identified manybuilding blocks necessary to effect organi-zational change (Kimberly & Quinn, 1984;Nadler & Tushman, 1989; Ledford,Morhman, et al., 1989). The principles out-lined in this body of literature match up withresearchers’ observations of how schoolsand school districts behave (Morrisson,1998; Hawkins, Spielvogel, & Panush,1996). Schools and districts are organiza-tions, and despite all their particular quirks,they share the same basic organizationalneeds for strong leadership, a guiding orga-nizational vision and healthy structures thatenable its members to enact that vision. Soorganizational theory holds some answersfor education.

In this chapter, we present the results of our research as a basic “framework” for successful technology integration. Theframework outlines what we believe to bethe building blocks of sustainable edtechprograms. Certain factors must be in placefor a school or district to create a “cultureof innovation” — an environment that nour-ishes positive change over the long haulincluding the kind of technology integrationthat can lastingly improve student learning.These factors are each essential to achiev-ing sustained, significant change in anyorganization. We also suggest indicators ofachieving sustainable change that include:institutionalization, a culture of innovationand evidence of effective use of technology.

LEADERSHIPComplex human systems — includingschools — cannot reform themselves with-out guidance from an effective leader.Significant organizational change must besupported in every relevant aspect of thesystem (Nadler & Tushman, 1989) and onlya strong leader can ensure all the ramifica-tions of change are coordinated throughoutthe organization.

In business, this pervasive change canmean changing hiring practices, incentives,professional development, grounds for promotion and evaluations of worker performance to reflect the new way thatworkers are being asked to perform theirjobs. Without all of these elements in place,employees will not change their practices.There is no reason to change approaches toa task if promotion, training and evaluationare based on the old standards. Indeed, theold standards will push workers back to theold ways of doing things (Gersick, 1991).

This principle from the organizational litera-ture bears significant implications for anykind of education reform, and illuminateswhy so many education-reform effortsflounder. If a district asks its teachers totake a new approach to teaching with tech-nology, the entire system must support thisnew approach and teachers must under-stand the new vision. Teachers designingnew kinds of technology-related lessonsneed new ways to assess student work thatare sensitive to the new skills students willbe learning. Their schools need profession-al development programs that train teachersto integrate new technology tools properly.And both schools and districts need toreward teachers for using technology effec-tively. Unless all concerned parties have theresources to understand and use informa-tion on student technology use, efforts tochange the way students learn with technol-ogy will necessarily falter.


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In short, making a significant change in edu-cation around technology requires a con-certed, coordinated effort at every level ofthe education system. A clear demonstra-tion of this principle can be found in the cur-rent discourse on accountability and itsimplications for edtech. After a period ofenthusiastic spending on technology infra-structure during the mid- to late 90s, dis-tricts and states now find themselves underincreasing pressure to demonstrate theimpact of technology spending on studentlearning. What students gain through goodtechnology use are skills such as criticalthinking, independent research skills andthe ability to communicate complex ideas,and to collaborate with others (Becker,2000). Yet the only tools districts have toillustrate students’ performance are stan-dardized tests that are not designed tomeasure these kinds of skills. This situationis a classic example of a system embarkingon a change and then undermining it withmeasures that demand the old status quo.Without alternative sources of informationand relevant assessments of student attain-ment related to edtech, policymakers can-not assess its value.

Districts that set out to change the way theyeducate students with technology — tomake a significant change — need effectiveleaders to guide that change and make itcomprehensive throughout the organization.

LEADERSHIP FOR SIGNIFICANTCHANGE IN EDTECHEffective leaders employ a defined set ofskills. Accomplishing significant changegenerally requires different kinds of leadersat different stages and levels of an organi-zation. Few individuals embody all the quali-ties identified as indispensable to a suc-cessful change process. Yet groups of lead-ers, each contributing particular skills to acollaborative effort, can effectively leadschools and districts through significantchanges. To do so, school and district lead-

ers need to be aware of the skills and prac-tices they must strive for if they are to turntechnology integration from a superficialadd-on to an element of a significant,embedded change.

Leaders who successfully mobilize peopleto action, who provide the vision and moti-vation for change are often called “bornleaders” — charismatic figures able toinspire others to action by some rare andineffable quality. Yet all kinds of school lead-ers can learn and practice the strategiesthat catalyze successful change (Nadler &Tushman, 1989). In the context of organiza-tional research, leadership has long beenunderstood as encompassing an identifiableand replicable set of practices (Berlew,1974; House, 1977; Bass, 1985).

To catalyze significant change, leadersmust:

■ articulate and communicate a clear andinspiring vision of what that change willentail, and where the organization willbe once the change is completed;

■ embody the vision in his or her ownactions; and

■ provide support and understanding tomembers of the organization as theywork to enact the called-for change.

ARTICULATING AND COMMUNICATING THE VISION In Milwaukee, Wis., where edtech has beenpart of a successful district-wide mobiliza-tion towards school improvement,Superintendent Spence Korté articulatedthe simple but clear message thatMilwaukee Public Schools (MPS) shouldhave “[e]very student performing at orabove grade level in reading, writing andmathematics.” The goal was not unique —countless school districts have also settheir sights on such student performance asa key goal. What was conspicuous was that


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Korté emphatically stated and re-stated thisgoal and called on every segment of theschool system to aim its efforts toward thesame vision of district improvement.Colleagues cited Korté’s ability to articulatea clear direction for the district as key to hiseffectiveness. Bob Nelson, MPS’s directorof technology, believes that Korté was aneffective leader because he knew how to“boil things down to basics. If you can’t boilit down, it’s not worth it,” Nelson said.

In Union City, N.J., in a district oftenacclaimed as a national model for schoolreform and technology integration,Superintendent Tom Highton and ExecutiveDirector for Academic Programs FredCarrigg defined technology as one tool in aconcerted effort to promote literacy. In fiveyears (1989–94), Union City went frombeing the state’s second worst-performingschool district to scoring up to 20 percent-age points higher than urban counterpartson the state’s eighth-grade readiness test.And the improvements have continued tothis day. Again, the message was simple.As Carrigg put it, “The priority was literacy— you can’t do everything at once. It wasbetter to do something concrete that wouldmake a real difference.” Technology, there-fore, was pursued not as a haphazard accu-mulation of resources, but as a directedeffort at improving student literacy.

EMBODYING THE VISION CCT researchers visited two middleschools in Salem, Ore., (Martin, Gersick,Nudell, McMillan Culp, 2002), both pursuingtechnology integration. At “Carroll” MiddleSchool (not the school’s real name), theteaching staff and technology coordinatorreported the principal’s support for theirefforts was inconsistent — budgeting, pro-fessional development and infrastructureimprovements were all handled haphazardly,and teachers were uncertain about whatthey were supposed to do with technology.At “Jefferson” Middle School (again notthe school’s real name), teachers and the

technology coordinator said their principalwas behind them. Indeed, the principal her-self stated that technology integration wasan important goal for the school. “We’vejust done things here that have requiredpeople to get up to speed,” she said. Eachteacher we spoke to echoed the view thattechnology at Jefferson was a tool for help-ing students create sophisticated projectwork.

A dramatic example of the different visionsembodied by the principals of these twoschools could be seen in the kind of hard-ware each had on his or her desk. Whileinterviewing the technology coordinator atCarroll MS, we noticed she was installingsoftware on three computers that werenewer and more powerful than those in theschool’s computer lab. These, she told us,were destined for the principal’s office.Jefferson’s principal, on the other hand,proudly told us that she had one of the old-est computers in the school on her desk.She made sure that newer computers wentto teachers and the computer lab. Though itmay seem like a small gesture, teachers atJefferson felt that the principal expressedher priorities through her actions.

SUPPORTING THE MEMBERS OFTHE ORGANIZATION In Mendocino, Calif., the Mendocino UnifiedSchool District was a success in pioneeringtechnology integration at the time of CCT’sNational Study Tour of districts using tech-nology in exemplary ways. At that time, we noted the pivotal importance ofSuperintendent Ken Matheson, who, wewrote:

was seen as the instructional leader,not as a remote administrator. He wrotemost of the grants and fostered the cli-mate that encouraged experimentationwith high standards. People told us thatthey gave up more lucrative or higherstatus positions elsewhere to comework with Ken.


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Matheson served as district superintendentfor 10 years — well beyond the averagetenure for superintendents in most districts.In taking on the visible role of “instructionalleader,” Matheson exemplified the leaderwho embodies the organizational vision. Inso doing, he drew talented people to him ina way we commonly associate with charis-matic leadership figures. But his charismawas not based in any mysterious quality.Matheson simply made clear to everyonewithin the organization that he was person-ally invested in the vision he had articulatedfor the district. Further, he supported thosehe drew in. Matheson retired in 1999, butMendocino retained a healthy, growingtechnology integration program, thanks inpart to the support Matheson provided toothers in the district, allowing them to takeownership of a change effort that outlivedhis departure. When we interviewedMatheson in 2002, he recounted his role infacilitating Mendocino’s reforms:

I was not the prime mover in the sensethat my technology skills, even now, arefairly limited. My form of leadership is togive power to others and to encouragethem and empower them to be asstrong as possible, so [much of theleadership for technology integration]came from the teachers and from oth-ers in the district…. I worked with mystaff when I was HS principal and withthe Board when I was superintendent,to let them know what teachers andadministrators were accomplishing andto get their support — to remove obsta-cles so that teachers and administra-tors would be able to do the things theywanted to do with technology.

MANAGING THROUGH THESENIOR TEAMWhen an organization seeks to change, thevisionary leader who catalyzes changeneeds managers who can institute thechange. One person alone cannot accom-plish all the leadership and managerial tasks

required to successfully effect significantchange. If change depends on one person,what happens when that person leaves?Further, a single individual may be able toimpel the motivation for change, but cannotpossibly administer all or even most of thestructures necessary to enable that change(Kotter, 1998). There need to be coalitionsof powerful members supporting thechange. This “senior team” of managerscreates the structures that clarify the newexpectations to be placed on employees.They also administer those structures andthe reward systems that accompany them(Lawler and Rhode, 1976).

The power of the senior team managersarises from various sources — reputation,position, relationships, expertise, etc.Though this group is primarily managerial,its members often must provide elementsof charismatic leadership as well.Structurally, these leaders administer themechanisms by which change is achievedyet they must also be seen as embodyingthe changes to be enacted. After all, whyshould a teacher believe their school or dis-trict is changing its approach to education ifthey see their vice principal or departmentchair behaving in the old ways? (Kotter,1998; Morrison, 1998)

In the districts we studied that successfullyintegrated technology into a larger educa-tional reform or revitalization effort, thetechnology directors were members of asenior team working closely with the super-intendent to achieve change. Whatevertheir official title, the individuals responsiblefor building technological infrastructures,administering professional development anddesigning technology-related curriculum inthese districts were invested with consider-able authority in their own right, while at thesame time dedicated to pursuing the centralvision outlined by the superintendentthrough technology integration.


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In Milwaukee, Director of Technology BobNelson is the “edtech manager.” While thesuperintendent provides the district’s edu-cational vision, Nelson operationalizesMilwaukee’s vision of technology reform.His department has instituted an online“Curriculum Design Assistant” to helpteachers in the district design lessonsaligned with district and state standards andto share those lessons with other teachers.The technology department of MilwaukeePublic Schools has created a tech-supportcall center that provides advice and assis-tance on an as-needed basis to teachers.Nelson formed a National Advisory Board ofleaders from academia and national busi-ness leaders based in Milwaukee to counselthe district on the goals it should be settingfor students and the techniques it could bor-row from the business world to train andsupport its staff.

Because Milwaukee Public Schools is adecentralized district, with principals holdingthe power to make staffing and curriculardecisions, Nelson and Korté could not unilaterally impose their technology pro-gram decisions on the district’s schools.Instead, Nelson had to entice principals tojoin his own senior team – to becomeinvested in the district’s vision of technolo-gy reform and interested in forwarding thatreform in their own schools. That the dis-trict’s technology policies became widelyinstitutionalized in schools is testimony tothe success of Nelson’s efforts. The visionembodied by Korté and enacted by Nelsonspread down the chain of command to principals and beyond.

In Colorado's Boulder Valley SchoolDistrict, recognized as a technology leaderin CCT’s 1996 National Study Tour, mem-bers of the instructional technology andadministrative technology departmentsformed an internal “computer cabinet.” Thisgroup shared leadership responsibilities intechnology integration, and ensured collab-

oration between those who were thinkingabout technology as a tool for classroomlearning and those concerned with usingtechnology to streamline the district’sadministrative infrastructure. The cabinetgradually dissolved when collaborationbetween these two departments becameroutine.

Last year, Chicago Public Schools (CPS)changed leadership at all levels in the dis-trict including the superintendent, chief edu-cation officer and director of technology. Ina new effort to distribute leadership respon-sibilities for technology integration and toalign the use of technology with the dis-trict’s broad goals for school improvement,CPS restructured their technology depart-ment. The district dismantled theDepartment of Learning Technologies, divid-ing its responsibilities into the existingdepartments of Curriculum and Instructionand Professional Development. Director ofTechnology Elaine Williams and schoolboard member Claire Munani now head asenior team, dubbed the E-Brigade, madeup of key leaders from the district includingthe chief academic officer and the heads of the departments of ProfessionalDevelopment and Curriculum andInstruction. The group has developed astrategic technology plan for the district andassigned key district people responsibilityfor different elements of technology integra-tion. Chicago is now pursuing the same kindof inter-departmental collaboration thatmade Boulder Valley a success, but on aneven broader scale. Though it is too early topredict the results of this restructuring,Chicago is clearly pursuing a team-manage-ment approach to technology.

INFRASTRUCTURE As technology becomes integrated into thedaily functioning of the district, the impor-tance of infrastructure — technical mainte-nance, financial planning and humanresources — cannot be overestimated.


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Chapter 3 of this publication provides moredetailed information on this topic. As notedby the districts we interviewed as well asthe current edtech literature, infrastructuresthat are somewhat flexible can accommo-date potential changes and improvements ina district’s vision more easily than rigidones.

PLANNING FOR ANINFRASTRUCTURE THAT SERVESTHE DISTRICT’S LARGER VISION

Districts with whom we spoke talked aboutthe infrastructure planning process as con-suming great amounts of time, humanresources and money, particularly if districtslook upon their infrastructure as a way tohelp integrate technology into teaching andlearning. Incorporated into a district’s overallvision, infrastructure and technology canbecome and — with flexibility, remain —supportive to the practice of teaching andlearning (West Ed, 2002).

Technology directors we interviewed keptthe following questions in mind as theydesigned district infrastructure: What kindsof approaches to using technology will fur-ther our larger learning goals? What aresome indicators of progress toward thisend? How will technology help the districtmanage diverse administrative data andsimplify the process of accessing data?(Hoffman, 2002)

In Mendocino Unified School District, forexample, teachers and administrators madeall software and hardware decisions basedon the district’s vision of technology’s purpose. As former Superintendent KenMatheson stated,

I can’t remember a time when we didn’thave the belief that technology was justa tool – that it wasn’t the thing we weretrying to teach. We did not believe inthe reading programs that were oncomputers and other rote stuff that was

there. We purposely did not purchasethose and never did believe that wasthe useful aspect of computers. We feltthat this was a tool for us, not a toolthat would dictate what we were sup-posed to do.

The Milwaukee Public Schools TechnologyDepartment made the superintendent’svision — “Every student performing at orabove grade level in reading, writing andmathematics” — the message to match andmaintain. MPS assembled the MilwaukeePartnership Academy, a collaborative of keylocal leaders from the business and univer-sity communities, the school district and theteacher's union, to create a learning agen-da for MPS as well as the community. Oneresult was a technology program with twomain goals: to connect and create a com-munity of learners through curriculum inno-vation, and to support teachers in order toboth induct and retain them in the district.With this focus for the department, MPSand the Milwaukee Partnership Academywere able to ensure that its infrastructureenabled future possibilities for learning, andthat they could develop systems for inte-grated management, student data manage-ment and professional development.

In addition to broad goals for the technologydepartment, there are many detailed decisions to be made regarding a widerange of programmatic, technical and sup-port considerations such as district Internetpolicies, standardized network architecture,ongoing professional development andbudget concerns (Glennan & Melmed,1996; Hoffman, 2002; Lathrop, 2002).Current literature about the building andsustaining of infrastructure has noted that itis most convenient and efficient to addressthese goals during the planning process(Lathrop, 2002).


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ONGOING PLANNINGSince all decisions cannot be made at theoutset, technology directors with whom wespoke found the most realistic way to man-age infrastructure concerns is to revisit andrevise their technology plan on an ongoingbasis (Sivin-Kachala & Bialo, 2000). Suchongoing planning is conducive to continualmaintenance, support and replacement ofcomputer equipment (Glennan & Melmed,1996). Research in the edtech field sup-ports the tech directors’ observations:Schools that allocate time and otherresources to the continual maintenance andplanning for technology are more successfulat planning how best to use technology toimprove instruction (West Ed, 2002).

Mendocino attributed part of its success inintegrating technology to its planningprocess — a process that eventually ledthis small rural district to develop its ownInternet service provider. Matheson said:

Long-range planning was essential forus. We had a five-year plan that we keptupdating. The technology committeemet at least monthly. We had a coordi-nated approach to what we did at theschools — our maintenance would beeasier if we all had the same equip-ment…. We really never had funds todo any of this and the thing that allowedus to do it was developing our ownInternet access business and the profitsof that business went to the district toget bandwidth. It was pretty amazingand otherwise we wouldn’t have beenable to do it. That took a lot of courageon the part of the board to do that andnow [the Internet business] servesabout four to five thousand people.

BUDGETINGThe single challenge shared by all threeschool districts we visited in the course ofthe current study is the challenge of fund-ing. In Chapter 3, Sara Fitzgerald discussesthe issue of sustainable financing for edtech

programs using the Total Cost ofOwnership model. Equally relevant, howev-er, is our finding during this research withthe Chicago, Cleveland and MilwaukeePublic Schools that all three districts withwhom we spoke said they would not be ableto maintain their current technology infra-structures without E-Rate funding.

The Chicago Public Schools, a decentral-ized district, was unable to centralize theirapplication process for E-Rate funding. Asdescribed by Elaine Williams, the chief tech-nology officer, “The biggest obstacle tosuccessful wiring was that the individualschools put in their own funding requestsand were overseeing their own work…” Asa result, CPS is now still scrambling to fin-ish the basic wiring in some schools, whilejuggling maintenance needs in others.Furthermore, beyond the basic issue ofschools still needing to get wired, suchduplication of efforts and non-standardiza-tion of technology ends up being costly anddifficult to sustain, for both technical andinstructional supports.

Milwaukee Public Schools, another decen-tralized district, was able to centralize theentire district’s applications for E-Rate fund-ing and was thus able to build a networkwith sufficient bandwidth to support a grow-ing population of 50,000 users — who usethe network at a rate of 11 million hits perday — with few concerns regarding thecapacity of its infrastructure. However,although MPS is fully wired, maintenance isan issue. It would be impossible for MPS tomaintain its current technology programwithout E-Rate funding.

Cleveland Public Schools also focuses E-Rate spending on maintenance. FrankDeTardo, executive director of instructionaltechnology, science and mathematics edu-cation, says, “[I]f there is no E-Rate moneyfor Year Five, Cleveland will be scramblingto keep that network up. Maintenance is


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entirely dependent on E-Rate money.”Recognizing the need to create stability intechnology funding, Cleveland is in theprocess of trying to allocate some generalfund dollars for maintenance: “It has to bepart of the cost of doing business.”

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENTRecent studies have refocused attention onthe essential contribution of professionaldevelopment to the success of technologyprograms in schools. The Year 2000Research Report on the Effectiveness ofTechnology in Schools, (Sivin-Kachala &Bialo, 2000), an examination of over 300studies of technology uses, found teachertraining to be the most significant factorinfluencing the effective use of edtech toimprove student achievement (West Ed,2002; Sivin-Kachala & Bialo, 2000).Technology has been found to have littleeffect if teachers are not appropriatelytrained to use it (West Ed, 2002;President’s Committee of Advisors onScience and Technology Panel, 1997;Office of Technology Assessment, 1995;Coley, Cradler, & Engel, 1997; Silverstein,Frechtling, & Miyoaka, 2000; Sandholtz,2001). Since professional development isso critical, then, what are some key ideas toconsider when creating a professionaldevelopment program?

PROGRAM OBJECTIVESProfessional development around technolo-gy generally takes the form of training tohelp teachers acquire the basic technicalskills needed to utilize technology tools, ortraining to help teachers integrate technolo-gy into their classroom practice (Johnston &Toms Barker, 2002). Technology directorswith whom we’ve spoken are in agreementthat both technical and pedagogical integra-tion skills are necessary to deploy technolo-gy to further students’ learning, but differentdirectors do choose various forms for theirprofessional development programs.

What we have learned from our own andothers’ research is that training aroundbasic skills need not focus on basic skills.Current edtech research indicates thatmany teachers who have participated intraining that concentrates on basic skillsfind it too limited to be helpful (Hawkins,Spielvogel, & Panush, 1996; NationalCenter for Education Statistics, 1999;President’s Committee of Advisors onScience and Technology Panel, 1997;Office of Technology Assessment, 1995).For example, the Rhode Island Teachersand Technology Initiative (RITTI), sponsoredby the Rhode Island Foundation, began withthe goal of helping teachers become morecomfortable with technology. Althoughsome programs might interpret such a goalas targeting basic skills, the initiative viewedteachers as a critical catalyst for enablinginnovative reform and therefore focused onhelping them develop curricula, collegial andprofessional connections, as well as per-sonal and professional productivity(Henríquez & Riconscente, 1998). With thisfocus on teacher professional developmentbeyond basic skills, RITTI made an impacton teachers’ attitudes, behaviors and rela-tionships that has been sustained beyondthe duration of the initiative. In Chapter 5,Ron Thorpe discusses at greater length theidea of sustainability as “the residue of seri-ous learning.”

We also find that professional development,like all other programs in the district, is mosteffective when it is congruent with theschool vision (Hawkins, Spielvogel, &Panush, 1996; Martin, Gersick, Nudell,McMillan Culp, 2002; West Ed, 2002). TheCleveland Technology Department, forexample, sees technology as an integralpiece of teaching and learning, and believesthat professional development is the meansto help educators learn and think about, aswell as integrate, technology into theirteaching. “That’s sustainability — wheneveryone expects technology to be part of


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lessons.” But helping educators see thepotential for technology integration is some-times difficult, in Cleveland’s experience,because technology, according to some ofthe more traditional educators’ perspec-tives in Cleveland, is separate and distinctfrom standard teaching curriculum.

INSTRUCTION Technology directors who feel they havebeen relatively successful integrating tech-nology into the classroom have told us thatthe most important staff-development fea-tures helping teachers in this endeavorinclude opportunities for exploration, reflec-tion and collaboration in authentic learningtasks and hands-on learning (Sandholtz,Ringstaff, & Dwyer, 1997; Sandholtz, 2001).Teachers develop technology skills mosteffectively through lessons that enablethem to integrate technology into a piece oftheir own curriculum — a piece of work inwhich they feel invested (Martin, Gersick,Nudell, McMillan Culp, 2002; President’sCommittee of Advisors on Science andTechnology Panel, 1997).

Deena Zarlin, a former Mendocino teacherwho now works with the district to developtechnology-rich community service projectsas part of the North Coast Rural ChallengeNetwork, agrees with these findings. “Thefirst step is that [teachers] have to havetime to play, themselves, to get a comfortlevel with the technology themselves. Theyhave to see reasons, personally, why tech-nology is useful.”

PROGRAM STRUCTUREEdtech literature emphasizes the impor-tance of providing ongoing support whenhelping teachers use technology to enhancestudent learning. Professional development,structured as “a planned, comprehensiveand systemic program of goals-driven activ-ities that promote productive change in indi-viduals and school structures,” fosters andsupports behavioral and attitudinal changes

(Bellanca, 1995). This kind of professionaldevelopment requires more than one or twodays of in-service training (President’sCommittee of Advisors on Science andTechnology Panel, 1997). Students ofteachers with more than 10 hours of trainingin edtech have been found to significantlyoutperform students of teachers with five orfewer hours (West Ed, 2002; Sivin-Kachala& Bialo, 2000).

Making professional development availablefor teachers when it is most relevant andcritical to their teaching was a priority forseveral of the technology developers withwhom we spoke. Mark Schlager, developerof the educational online community TappedIn, finds technology to be particularly effec-tive in “creating a critical mass of what youneed to support teachers at any givenmoment.” The districts where we have seenrelatively successful integration of technolo-gy into curriculum acknowledged andaddressed both the amount of time teach-ers need to understand and integrate tech-nology into their teaching, as well as theamount of ongoing support – both technicaland pedagogical — teachers need for suc-cessful integration (Hawkins, Spielvogel, &Panush, 1996).

Mendocino, a small district with a high com-mitment to quality technology use, providesongoing professional development in theform of one-on-one support. Said KenMatheson:

We have people that can follow the pro-fessional development up in the class-room. For example, with the Internet,we were one of the first schools thatgot online, and we did it districtwide.We were working with teachers in avery intense way and we were able tofree up one teacher to do large in-serv-ices, but then that person also workedwith them in their classrooms….Internet became a very natural part ofhow we operate in our schools. We said


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that we will go the extra mile to helpteachers — go into their classrooms,go to their homes — and you can’t stopdoing that. It’s not easy to keep thatgoing with the economy getting worse,so you have to have the leadershipthat’s willing to find the funds to keepthat going.

Though few districts are small enough orfocused enough to make house calls, dis-tricts may be able to find ways to makeongoing professional development respondto teachers’ needs as they arise.Fortunately, technology not only createsprofessional development needs; it also hasthe capacity to address them. Tapped In, anonline professional development supportstructure on which multiple organizationscan share knowledge, is designed to helpincrease the capacity of organizations toprovide ongoing professional development.Similarly, Milwaukee Public Schools isdeveloping a “professional support portal”to help MPS’s professional developmentprogram address the district’s high rate ofteacher turnover. It is a scaleable projectthat addresses the entire system and alignsto the needs, as well as the vision, of thedistrict. Like Tapped In, it utilizes technologyto bring colleagues together and enablethem to share ideas and mentor each otheras only technology can.

BUILDING A COALITION OFSTAKEHOLDERSEducation has multiple stakeholders includ-ing school boards, teachers and administra-tors, unions, local parent groups, corporateand other community interests, not to men-tion state and federal government involve-ment. This very complicated political land-scape is what school and district adminis-trators must navigate to meet the needs oftheir various constituents. Supporters oftechnology integration must find avenues tocommunicate the motives and results ofsuch an effort to stakeholders. This meansfirst gathering credible evidence of the

effects of technology on student learning. Italso means articulating the arguments fortechnology’s value to the overall enterpriseof education.

The success of organizational change ismeasured not only by goal attainment butalso by the perceptions of the constituency.“It’s not enough to attain your goals; theconstituencies of the organization have toactually agree that the organization is deliv-ering value” (Foundation Center, 2002).This has been a challenge for many schooldistricts because in many ways it's a publicrelations issue. As Bob Nelson asked,“How do you tell the story about how tech-nology impacts learning and make it stick?”

BUILDING PARTNERSHIPSSchool districts have long understood theneed to develop partnerships in order tosustain their work. Milwaukee PublicSchools uses partnerships, created for dif-ferent initiatives, to develop new ideas andbuild support for their agenda for schoolreform and technology. Bob Nelson workedclosely with business leaders to buildMPS’s data management system based onbest practices from industry. Collaboratingwith the business community gave Nelsonaccess to industry wisdom; it also lent theweight of business-world credibility toNelson’s reform efforts. “Having membersof the business community standing behindme allowed me to ward off detractors,”Nelson explained. More recently, MPSestablished a Partnership Academy thatincludes key leaders from the University ofWisconsin, local business and the schoolboard, and has been instrumental in sup-porting MPS reforms. MPS also convenedits National Advisory Board of academicresearchers, policymakers and businessleaders to guide the district on effectivepedagogical practices, education policy andinnovative uses of technology. Bob Nelsondescribed this relationship as symbiotic:“We can be a test bed for national people tolook for effective practice and MPS benefits


from the experimentation. What we gainfrom them is guidance for every step.”

STUDENTS AS STAKEHOLDERSAND ADVOCATESStudents are the school system’s mostimportant stakeholders, yet they typicallyhave little say in how schools work. Even so,students can be advocates for technology,through their parents and the work they doin their community. The Mendocino schooldistrict is a good example of a communitythat has been influenced by the input of itsstudents. “Our local board and our commu-nity don’t need to be convinced [of technol-ogy’s value], because they talk to their kids,who come home and [tell them] aboutwhat’s going on in school,” Ken Mathesonexplained. Mendocino residents also seethe value of technology in student work thatdirectly impacts the community:

Kids are involved with the communitythrough projects and usually these proj-ects involve developing an end productthat is important to the community. Forexample oral histories are big projects inthe schools. [Students produce] CDsfor that and go through the whole print-ing process as well. They developed aproduct for the oral history and then hada community gathering to disseminateit. And sales of that product will help payfor the next project.

UNDERSTANDING THE POLITICALENVIRONMENTSchool districts constantly must attend toand reevaluate the political context in whichthey operate. Prior to the passage of thefederal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legisla-tion, most funds for edtech were distributedat the federal level. These funds are nowbeing given as block grants to the states,which are now responsible for their distribu-tion. Many state legislators need time andguidance in this policy area, which is oftenquite new to them. NCLB also allows stateeducation policymakers to shift money to

other programs — an extremely temptingoption as state budgets shrink. It is there-fore essential for school districts to advo-cate for their programs at the state level. “Ihave built new relationships and found alliesat the State Department of PublicInstruction,” Bob Nelson said. “My commu-nication and coordination with the state hasincreased significantly since the passage ofNCLB.”

As was noted in chapter 2, in Illinois, edtechprograms have been cut more than othereducation initiatives because legislatorshave not been convinced these programsare necessary to Illinois’ educational goals.Bindu Batchu from the MetropolitanPlanning Council (a nonprofit, nonpartisangroup of business and civic leaders servingthe Chicago area, promoting the public inter-est through urban planning and policy devel-opment) pointed out, “Since 1998 there hasbeen no increase in funding. Districts couldnot make a case for it statewide. We took abig hit to education technology — 28 per-cent was cut to the funding — highest per-centage cut in the Illinois education budget.A big chunk of that was direct funding toschool districts; now it could be as much asa 50 percent cut.”

The council’s report, Education Technology:Developing an Education Technology Agenda forIllinois, enumerates the needs for education-al technology funding and how importantthese programs are for the Illinois publiceducation system (Batchu, 2002). Groupslike the Metropolitan Council are importantin advocating to (and educating) state gov-ernments and other stakeholders about theimportance of edtech programs and theirfundamental role in school reform. However,school districts will also have to assume thisactive role in order to persuade state andlocal legislators about the necessity ofedtech funding.

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ASSESSMENT FOR CONTINUOUSIMPROVEMENTTo develop a comprehensive and effectivetechnology program that serves the overalleducational vision of the district requiresnew ideas and experimentation. Severalschool districts with successful technologyprograms designed smaller projects or test-beds that enabled them to learn and revise,providing them with the opportunity to judgethe merit of their investments before imple-menting larger initiatives. By developingstructures to receive this timely feedback,the district develops a mindset that technol-ogy isn’t just about implementation butabout continuous improvement.

The organizational literature refers to thesestructures as learning systems (Light,1998). This is distinguished from the learn-ing organization (Marquardt, 1996; Senge,1990), which refers to the organization as awhole including the leadership, internal man-agement systems, etc. A learning systemsets up formal and informal structures thatallow the organization to learn and ultimate-ly inform organizational decision-making.Both Milwaukee and Chicago have estab-lished mechanisms to receive ongoing feed-back in order to refine and improve existingprofessional development programs, andcreated testbed programs to experimentwith new models for professional develop-ment.

Milwaukee: Focus Groups

One strategy we learned about inMilwaukee is the use of regular focusgroups with teachers and administrators.This gives district coordinators the opportu-nity to ask important questions: “Are wegetting this right? Is this program making adifference?” Focus groups are conducted atthe beginning of any initiative; as BobNelson explained, they involve “a lot of lis-tening and getting thoughts on pieces [ofthe program] that are created.” This givesthe district ongoing formative feedback,

allowing the district to assess which pro-grams are worth keeping and which are nolonger serving a purpose. According toNelson, the result of this process is that“[The district] is behaving like a serviceorganization” — a learning community iscreated between the district, school admin-istrators and teachers. This is particularlyimportant: As teachers become more expe-rienced technology users, they will needadditional, more nuanced, professionaldevelopment opportunities.

Focus groups were also conducted whenthe district and Marquette Universityreceived a federal TLCF grant that allowedMPS teachers to take online universityclasses. They created what Nelsondescribed as “special learning groups.”These consisted of teachers from acrossdifferent schools and grade levels broughttogether to discuss how the program couldbetter address the ongoing professionaldevelopment of the participating classroomteachers.

Chicago: Greene Technology TrainingCenter (GTTC)

Region Four of the Chicago Public Schoolsestablished a technology training center(TTC) at the Nathanael Greene ElementarySchool during the 1999–2000 school year,in collaboration with the Center for Childrenand Technology and with funding from theJoyce Foundation. The goal of this projectwas to offer teachers in Region Four anopportunity to observe, collaborate andlearn from other teachers with some experi-ence in using technology in their class-rooms. Although CPS teachers have manyexisting opportunities to attend workshopsto help them develop needed technologicalskills, the bigger challenge facing teachersis discovering how to translate those skillsinto the classroom. This program was anenormous success within Region Four: over25 schools sent teachers to the centerthroughout the 2000–2001 and 2001–2002


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school years. Plans are now in place toestablish TTCs throughout the district,though this has been delayed due to theappointment of a new superintendent and achange of key management personnel atthe district level. Establishing the program inone school allowed the district to experi-ment with a new model for professionaldevelopment before attempting large-scaleimplementation.

INDICATORS FORSUSTAINABILITYIn the previous section we outlined thebuilding blocks that districts need to have inplace to fully take advantage of the oppor-tunities technology provides for education.But, some key questions remain.

How will districts know they have developeda sustainable edtech program? What does asustainable program look like? What evi-dence should a school district collect toshow that its investments in technologyhave paid off? What does the district needto communicate both internally and exter-nally to prove that its investments should bemaintained as a core investment, necessaryfor the functioning of the school overall? Toachieve the ultimate goals of improving stu-dent achievement and teacher performanceand quality, school districts must do theimportant work of defining success.

Informed by our current and previous work,as well as literature in the field, we foundthree indicators of effectively integratedtechnology in a district. They include thedevelopment of a culture of innovation,institutionalization of edtech, and gatheringand communicating evidence of effectiveuse of technology.

DEVELOPING A CULTURE OF INNOVATION The relevant organizational literature ongovernment and nonprofit organizationscontends large bureaucracies are hostile to

innovation (Holdaway, Newberry, Hickson, &Heron, 1975). This literature does notexclude the possibility of innovative cul-tures, but implies that innovation more fre-quently arises from a single innovator’s sin-gular performance. While our observationssupport the idea that strong leaders cat-alyze change, the best leaders quickly dis-tribute responsibilities for enacting thatchange to members at all levels of theorganization. In our prior and currentresearch, however, we found that schooldistricts with sustainable technology pro-grams have created a culture of innovation.These schools tend to have the unique com-bination of very effective leadership andstrong management. Thus, the shift in dis-trict culture may begin with a single innova-tor – and a single innovation – but it spreadsthroughout the district so that innovationoccurs at all levels of the system. This isdue in large part to an attitude, embodied bythe leader and management team, thatembraces creative, strategic thinking andthus encourages new or revised approach-es to the same tasks.

These districts and schools create environ-ments in which teachers, students andadministrators feel comfortable experiment-ing (Light, McDermott & Honey, 2002;Hawkins, Spielvogel, & Panush, 1996).Union City teachers, for example, havedeveloped an approach to technology inno-vation that puts students at the center ofthe teaching and learning process. In otherwords, they have reexamined the traditionalrole of teachers imparting knowledge upontheir students; instead, they experimentedand ultimately had success with giving stu-dents room to explore the ways in whichtechnologies can be used to further the dis-trict’s teaching and learning goals. Thus,students work with teachers to developweb-based instructional materials and presentations (www.union-city.k12.nj.us/school/ehs/rtc03/index.html) and createtechnology resources that support innova-


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tive programs such as the district collegeinitiative known as Road to College.

Students work during the summers with avariety of community-based organizations tobuild websites or update and modify theseorganizations’ existing resources. Studentsalso participate in a teen tech program thattroubleshoots technology problems andprovides ongoing maintenance andupgrades to computer equipment. Havinglearned that students, when given the roomto explore technology, continue to experi-ment and build upon their existing knowl-edge, teachers now often turn to their students for help in using and learning abouttechnology.

During our 10 years of researching in UnionCity we found that one innovation – such asthe above-mentioned change in curriculum –can ultimately lead to change and innovationin many areas of teaching and learning. ForUnion City, re-thinking its curriculuminevitably caused a re-examination of pro-fessional development. But in order for therevised professional development to beeffective, individuals in the district had to beopen to change. Thus, the work of buildinga culture of innovation began with this singlechange. Once that culture was established,Union City had the capacity to realize newopportunities that could be applied to anyarea of teaching and learning. Bob Nelsonof Milwaukee described this process well: “The unanticipated result [of a successful program] is a change in institu-tional culture.”

During our discussions, both funders anddistrict technology leaders agreed thateffective use of technology has the poten-tial to be one step — or perhaps even thefirst step — in the process of creating a cul-ture of innovation. In order for technology toeven have the potential to be such a step,teachers need to feel they have sufficientautonomy to learn about it and implement it

in their own way. An example of fosteringsuch autonomy happened in MilwaukeePublic Schools. Milwaukee holds technolo-gy fairs for hundreds of local teachers toshowcase technology projects they con-ducted in their classrooms. The fair demon-strates and recognizes teachers’ pursuits oftheir own small technology innovations, andthus reflects the district vision for technolo-gy integration by individual classrooms. Inaddition, it also demonstrates their ability toaffect vision rather than just accept it fromdistrict administrators. These teachers, inother words, are not only asked to innovate,but their innovations are also taken seriously.

In Mendocino, former superintendent KenMatheson prioritized the creation of an envi-ronment where teachers and administratorscould experiment. “I had to get the obsta-cles out of the way so they’d be free toexperiment. We met with parents to letthem know what we were doing, met withthe board to let them know what we weredoing, facilitating the whole process.”Ultimately, Matheson found that teachersbecame the real drivers of innovation.“They knew they could take the risks, theyknew they could try things and experiment— that was encouraged. They were theirprojects. They became the experts andwere able to teach each other.”

This ability to create a critical mass of inno-vators within the district remains a key com-ponent for sustainability in Mendocino. Asmall district that often lacks sufficient stateand federal funds to support its initiatives, itis forced to seek outside funding for theircore technology programs — and reliesheavily upon its teachers to help in doing so.According to Mendocino TechnologyCoordinator Deena Zarlin, “[There is] justthe entrepreneurial spirit of teachers to goafter grants or new programs — a climate ofinnovation that is supported. So you canhave an idea and go after it. We supportthem in pursuing it.”


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INSTITUTIONALIZATIONInstitutionalization means that a change hasbecome pervasively routine. When technol-ogy programs are institutionalized, they area given — like textbooks, chairs and desks— that no longer have to be justified to thestakeholders. It is understood both withinthe district and in the community thatedtech programs should be sustainedbecause they are an important part of theiroverall educational vision.

One key ingredient necessary for institu-tionalization, structural change, is that tech-nology becomes embedded in all depart-ments in the district. In the last year, forexample, Chicago dismantled its LearningTechnologies (LT) department and placed itsprograms into existing departments such asCurriculum and Instruction and ProfessionalDevelopment. This was done because LTwas considered a separate, distinct depart-ment — and therefore less critical to thedistrict vision — than other departments inthe district. Many technology projects wereperceived as an add-on to the district’s coreeducational programs, undermining LT'sabilities. “I wanted technology to be embed-ded in everything we did,” explainedDirector of Technology Elaine Williams. “Ifound that we had the Learning Technologyunit that was doing something but thenCurriculum and Instruction was doing some-thing, others were doing something — and Iwanted to send the message that technolo-gy was fundamental to everything we do, sothat’s why the people working in LT are nowworking in all these other departments.”

Cleveland Public Schools underwent similarrestructuring. According to Frank DeTardo,“One of the simple things we did was bringinstructional tech under the academic offi-cer’s department and create involvementwith curricular areas. We also convened [ameeting] to include technology pieces intothe math, science and language arts stan-dards.” Now that Chicago and Clevelandhave restructured their programs, only time,

resources and energy are needed to makethe restructuring become truly integrated.

For the Mendocino school district, edtechhas been effectively institutionalized: It ispart of their core educational program andpart of their “routine.” According to DeenaZarlin, “We don’t feel pressure [to justify orcut technology programs] because it’s justso much a part of what we do that nobodywould think to look at that one piece andask why. We’re not using technology for itsown sake, we’re utilizing technology to writereports, research, create projects —nobody would say how does the pen impactthe report?”

Evidence of institutionalization in Mendocinothrough personnel was articulated by KenMatheson, “Several key players thatbelieve have fortunately stayed in the dis-trict. [However] if they leave, it’ll continueon, because it’s so ingrained in what we do.As far as administration is concerned,there’s been a 100 percent turnover since Ileft in 1999 and the commitment to usingtechnology in that way is still there.”

Although the integration of technology inteaching and learning in the schools is obvi-ously critical, it might also be bolstered sig-nificantly if funders begin to integrate tech-nology in their own programs. From our dis-cussions with funders, we learned thatmany foundations consider edtech as sepa-rate from their larger school reform agendaand therefore either fund it as a separate program, or don’t fund it at all. For example,a program officer from the ChicagoCommunity Trust lamented that the trusthas not seen the importance of embeddingtechnology into its three education priori-ties: literacy, professional development andinnovative change in school organization.She, as well as many other foundation rep-resentatives, believes “technology is theunderlying infrastructure that needs to bepart of those efforts for school change.”


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Integrating edtech into funding programsmay be a critical element of changing theway schools envision projects that involvetechnology. Doing so would encourageschools to integrate technology into theirprograms at their outset, rather than addingit on as an afterthought. Another roundtableparticipant voiced her agreement: “The keypiece to sustainability is how we define edu-cation technology and the paradigm we’reusing. We need to talk about school reformas the main issue. If we keep speaking onlyabout educational technology, we’re goingto keep being questioned.”

GATHERING ANDCOMMUNICATING EVIDENCE OFEFFECTIVE USE OF TECHNOLOGYTechnology tools can improve student acqui-sition of basic skills (Mann, Shakeshaft,Becker, & Kottkamp, 1999). They can sup-port student understanding of complex prob-lems as well as promote higher-order think-ing skills and problem-solving abilities.Additionally, technology is being used notonly in the classroom, but is revolutionizingthe way school districts do business, fromfinancial management to student data col-lection and sharing.

Districts must articulate how importantmaintaining and sustaining technology infra-structure is to their work, and must also beable to show evidence of effective use oftechnology to multiple audiences. Scores onnorm-based tests, which may be importantto policymakers, cannot measure the effecttechnology had upon students’ knowledge.Many educators feel that technology pro-vides the opportunity to make studentsmore active learners, a benefit of technolo-gy that is not measurable through standard-ized tests (Hienecke, Blasi, Milman &Washington, 1999). Thus, the MendocinoSchool District, which values the impacttechnology has had upon its curriculum,shows its strong commitment to technologyand a progressive curriculum by using multi-

ple measures for assessment, going beyondstandardized test scores.

The district also forbids test scores fromdetermining the design of its edtech pro-gram. As Ken Matheson explained, “Wetake the position that the kids involved inproject-based learning — their scores willeventually do better. The tests test such asmall amount of what the kids need to knowand do. The parents intuitively know that, soit hasn’t lessened our ability to do PBL [proj-ect-based learning] or use technology.” Hecontinued:

The things that happen with technologyand project-based learning are so farbeyond what the standards cover —their use of information from differentsources to create other, new informa-tion, developing products that they canshow to an audience wider than theirclassroom — the standards don’t evencome close to addressing that. So youhave to be able to overcome that and bewilling to take a stand, both personallyand as a district and to say, “We can dobetter than that, and our kids can dobetter than that — and we want our kidsto learn the important stuff.”

How effectively districts and schools com-municate their vision and goals for edtech —and then support this vision with evidence ofachieving the goals — will determine thesustainability of educational technology.Communicating this information, however, isa difficult enterprise. Education systems arecomplex, and isolating technology as onevariable that affects student learning isalmost impossible. The challenge for schooldistricts, policymakers and researchers is togive evidence of effective technology usewhile reflecting the complexity of the schoolsystem.

This challenge is only heightened by the lackof adequate generalizable assessments inplace to capture student learning around


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technology that is integrated into project-based curriculum. Business and nationaleducation policy groups (NCREL, CEOForum, AOL Time Warner Foundation,Bertlesmann) are calling for new assess-ments that focus on the 21st century litera-cies students need to be productive citizensin the Information Age. Creating and imple-menting these assessments is an essentialstep in providing school districts with thetools they need to represent what their stu-dents are learning and also to sustain theiredtech programs.

CONCLUSIONIn a climate of smaller state and local budg-ets, less federal support and increasedskepticism about technology’s impact, edu-cators need to know how their schools anddistricts can capitalize on technology’spromise to improve teaching and learning.We hope this framework provides someguidance to school and district leaderswishing to catalyze and institutionalize suc-cessful education reform with technology.The building blocks outlined in our frame-work can help educators think strategicallyabout where to direct their resources to cre-ate environments that will support and sus-tain effective edtech programs.

Andy Gersick is Senior Research Assistant, Centerfor Children and Technology

Constance Kim is Research Associate, Center forChildren and Technology

Julie Thompson Keane is Associate Project Director,Center for Children and Technology

Margaret Honey is Director, Center for Childrenand Technology

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Why do some things take root and growwhile others barely break the surface? Howlong does something have to be aroundbefore we can declare that it’s here to stay?What has to happen in order to transform anoasis of change into an entire landscape?These questions frame the dynamic peoplerefer to as sustainability. And it would behard to find a dynamic that is more elusive,tantalizing, full of promise and frustrating,especially in public education where wehave national expectations, state responsi-bility and a local approach to getting the jobdone. With so many masters, so manydemands and so much history and tradition,how can new ideas get to the center of thisenterprise we call school? And how canthey stay there?

Nowhere is the concept of sustainabilitymore challenging than in the area of com-puters and information technology wherecosts are so high. The initial investment inthe equipment is great, the ongoing costs ofupgrades and replacements are great, andso too are the costs of training. In a systemthat is accustomed to purchasing items withat least a decade of shelf life and little or noprofessional development components, theshock goes beyond the sticker price.

Justifying these costs is another challenge.Unlike previous technological innovationsthat were designed simply to help teachersdo faster or more easily the work they hadbeen doing previously (e.g. overhead pro-jectors, copying machines, VCRs, calcula-tors), this technology actually allows teach-ers to imagine the work itself differently.Consequently, adopting this technologyrequires not only an understanding of howthe equipment works, it asks teachers torethink their basic relationship to the who,what, why and how of teaching and learning.That frontier remains largely unexplored.PowerPoint presentations and drill-and-killremediation don’t begin to justify the capitaland human investment the technologyrequires.

RETHINKING OUR BASICRESPONSE TO THE SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGEIn the most basic sense, when people usethe word “sustainability,” they are referringto the capacity to keep some programgoing, which we typically understand as anadditive process. If a school budget is X,and a new program designed to improve lit-eracy, for example, costs Y, then the sus-tainability challenge requires revenue tocover the new budget that is now X+Y. Ifthat is our only vision of sustainability, how-ever, we are dooming most new ideas to thedustbin. No organization can afford to keepadding programs and finding ever-increasingamounts of money to keep everything afloat.

Yet that hope fuels most innovation. Mywork in foundations and schools hasallowed me to observe and even contributeto the benignly naïve way people approachsustainability. I have read hundreds of pro-posals, and I can’t remember a single onethat didn’t promise that it would result inwork that would be sustained. Most ofthese innovations have a brief and valiantlife but seldom live beyond the hearts andminds of a few zealots who believed in themin the first place.

There is no question that sustainability is aworthy goal, but maybe our vision — theone that starts with the notion that changeoccurs through the addition of new ideasand becomes a permanent fixture whenthere is an expansion of resources — is justtoo incomplete.

TWO WAYS OF THINKING ABOUTSUSTAINABILITY I would like to suggest two approaches tosustainability, which could help schools andfunders. The first looks at sustainability inthe traditional sense — building a new pro-gram that becomes embedded in the life ofa school or district — but asks for a moredeliberate effort to plan for the future of thatprogram beyond the term of the grant that

CHAPTER 5 GETTING THE CENTER TO HOLD:

A FUNDER’S PERSPECTIVE

BY RONALD THORPE

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launches it. The second requires an under-standing that goes deeper than the basicstructure of a new program and the serviceit is designed to deliver. It acknowledgesthat not all things need to be or should besustained, and directs the parties involvedto look for those essences that stay in aschool culture after the program has gone.

Both approaches begin with a “given,”namely that the amount of money availableto cover the annual operating expenses forschools is not going to change much. Ofcourse, an increase in financial support foreducation would be wonderful, but I preferto start with the premise that such increas-es will not be there in the foreseeablefuture.

THE TRADITIONAL VIEW OFSUSTAINABILITY IN SCHOOLSIdeas about change often begin with a per-son or group of people within a school whobuild a program that promises to be the cat-alyst for the change. A proposal is writtendescribing the program’s potential and howmuch it will cost, and that proposal is sentoff to one or more sources of new funds. Bytheir nature, funders — whether govern-mental agencies, private foundations, cor-porations, or even individuals — want tohelp new things get launched. Except in rareinstances, even the most generous andpatient funders will not stay with a programforever.

Knowing that continuing funding is unlikely,the grant seeker presents a plan for how theprogram will be sustained once the grantperiod is completed. These plans generallytake one of two forms. The first is little morethan a description of how other grants willbe secured, which only begs the question ofsustainability. The second is usually theheartfelt hope that the institution will incor-porate the costs into its operating budget.

It is actually within that second response,where the only real possibility for this typeof sustainability exists, but the eventuality ofit requires more deliberate planning thantypically occurs. Basically, in order for a newprogram to become a line item in the currentoperating budget, it will have to replacesomething else. From a rational point ofview, given that the human and financialresources of a school are relatively finite,such an assumption makes sense andought to win the day. But from a politicalpoint of view, taking away anything within aschool is problematic because so much ofthe culture is win-lose: If you win someresources, I’m going to lose someresources. And there is no question that theforces assembled on the side of protectingthe current distribution of resources almostalways defeat the bright-eyed folk trying tochange that balance. Knowing such obsta-cles exist, most innovators try to maintainthe current conditions and simply add thenew idea to the mix. Such plans seldomwork. An add-on is an add-on and too easi-ly dismissed or too easily relegated to thesingle classroom where the innovativeteacher works overtime and in completeisolation from the rest of the system.

Given such a gloomy scenario, where is thepossibility for change in the system? Theanswer lies in understanding growth not as“getting bigger” but as “getting better.”The viability of any new program should beassessed initially not only according to whatit will add to the system but according towhat it will replace. Such an assessmentshould include an analysis of the operatingdollars currently being spent on the programor pieces of programs that will be no longernecessary if the new program works. Thereneeds to be a commitment from everyoneinvolved in the old program that those fundswill be shifted to the new program if thatprogram succeeds. If the old funds do notquite close the gap, then another layer ofcommitment needs to be secured, but the


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bottom line is that the money must be foundwithin the current operating budget and notsimply hoped for from additional grants. Therole of the grant, then, is R&D, venture cap-ital, the money that is put out there in orderto test the validity of the new idea. Theschool or district should not be expected toput up that kind of money — that is the pre-ferred role of foundations, corporations andin some cases the government — but allparties should insist on seeing the wholecalculus before anything gets started.

The following illustrates this point. In anurban district, certain school leaders areconvinced that getting teachers to developweb-based curriculum and instruction willhelp improve student achievement becauseof the different ways students can beengaged in their learning, but there is nomoney in the current budget to cover thecosts of training and equipment. The leadersin the district work out a plan including thecosts, for introducing this new pedagogy ona “pilot” basis. The next step is to analyzethe current budget with the goal of findingthose line items that would be no longernecessary, or at least less necessary, if thenew plan succeeds. In this case, the plan-ners identify the costs of textbooks, teacherguides and work books, all of which can berelegated to secondary resources if theweb-based teaching becomes primary.Although the money saved is not enough tocover the up-front costs of training, equip-ment and development, it does cover about80 percent of the ongoing costs of mainte-nance, replacement and training. With thatinformation in hand, the leaders have astrong argument to take to funding sources.

An important part of this analysis is theestablishment of a timeline and the bench-marks that will be used to assess howclosely the reality of the program matchesthe initial promises, and also a model fortaking the pilot to scale districtwide. If thepilot meets its goals, there is already a plan

in place for where the sustaining financialresources will be found. If it falls short, thedesigners will have to decide whether fur-ther development will improve the situationor whether the original idea simply was notas sound as they thought. Whatever theresult, the work is informed by a level ofintelligent intentionality that respects boththe need for constant improvement inschools and the limited resources that areavailable.

Even under such rational conditions, thepolitical dynamics within the school environ-ment do not go away. Those who believetheir livelihood is dependent on maintainingthe status quo will find plenty of ways tomake sure the plan does not succeed. Butthose variables need to be factored into theplanning process.

One additional word about the relationshipbetween grantor and grantee around theseissues. I have no idea where the magic num-ber “3” came from, but there is no reasonto believe anything of real consequence,especially in matters related to organization-al culture, can be accomplished in the nor-mal funding cycle of three years. I suspectdecisions regarding the right term of invest-ment should be made ad hoc based on whatpeople are trying to accomplish.

A LESS TRADITIONALEXPLORATION OFSUSTAINABILITYA second and less traditional approach tothinking about sustainability looks beyondthe program itself to understand whatengagement in that program does to humanbehavior and the basic relationships thatdefine an organization’s culture. Such aframework of understanding is similar towhat Ted Sizer identifies as “habits of mind”or “the residue of serious learning.” Sizerasks the education community to under-stand its work beyond the standard contentof curriculum — the facts and figures — in


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order to ensure students develop habitsthat will serve them through a life that holdschallenges and opportunities barely imag-ined. These habits, he maintains, are thethings people reach for when they have for-gotten the date of the Boston Tea Party or no longer remember the conjugation of irregular French verbs. Powerful learningexperiences reach into the roots of people’sdeeply held belief systems, test them, andeither strengthen those beliefs or alterthem.

An example. A foundation made a grant of$6 million to provide laptop computers andtraining to 2,500 public school teachers inone state – 25 percent of that state’s K-12teaching force. The goal was to get moreteachers skilled at using computers andinformation technology. The project tookthree years and was created because itappeared too many computers were sittingidle in the schools simply because teachersdid not know what to do with them. Whilethere was the hope some entity would be soimpressed with the results that it wouldcover the costs of at least the training, if notthe computers, for the remaining 75 percentof the teachers, the foundation was contentfrom the beginning not to demand such acommitment. When the initiative ended —or at least when the grant was spent —there were continuing efforts to keep themomentum going, but not in a way thatwould lead to 100 percent coverage.

From a traditional perspective of sustain-ability, an assessment of the foundation’sinvestment might not look too good. Allteachers still are not using computers intheir instruction of students, and there is nostatewide plan to ensure such a thing.

But from another perspective, the conclu-sion is different. The initiative led to a shiftin the basic culture and expectations of acritical mass of teachers, not only in theiruse of computers, but in their attitude

toward professional development, teachingand learning. Teachers report they arechoosing to stay in teaching beyond thepoint when they can retire simply becausethey are now so reengaged with studentsand their own learning. Teachers are moreconnected to each other, more apt to seekout leadership roles. They report seekingmore professional development opportuni-ties than they have in the past, being moreinvolved in creating their own curriculum,being more likely to make major changes inthe basic way they teach, typically shiftingmore responsibility to the student. The pro-gram the foundation created is not beingsustained, but the impact of the program isbeing sustained and expanded through thechanged expectations and behaviors of indi-vidual educators.

There are two other aspects of sustainabili-ty that need to be considered. First, nobodyhas put an actual date stamp on the lengthof time something must exist before wedeclare it sustained. Do we mean fiveyears? Ten years? Fifty years? The questionitself points out the flaw in the thinkingbecause, of course, there is no answer.Second, imagine the stultifying atmosphereof a school if it were defined entirely by pro-grams created by previous generations. Itseems healthy that each new wave ofteachers and students would want to rein-vent their school, to put their personal markon the place. If the only thing they have timeand resources for is shouldering the cre-ations of the past, we condemn the institu-tion of schooling to a dreary fate.

I offer one final example of how sustainabil-ity can be misunderstood. A distinguishedformer leader of a secondary school oncetold me that 10 years after he left theschool, only one of the many programs hestarted was still in existence. His toneimplied a degree of failure. Yet, taking amore objective look, the school has contin-ued to grow in vital ways, has built on the

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new expectations it has developed for itself,and apparently is well equipped to tackle thechallenges it has faced in subsequent years.On every measure, the school is a robustlearning community meeting the needs of anew generation of students. So, should thefunders of all those now defunct programsfeel their money was poorly invested?Clearly there was some important essencethat carried on, some institutional “habits ofmind” that transcended the programs andlodged in the soul of the place. In real ways,those programs were the means by whichthe faculty and students came to under-stand and operationalize their broad systemof beliefs about the purpose and possibilityof their school and to alter them as time andconditions changed.

It is appropriate that we put a high-poweredlens on issues related to sustainability. Inthe process of doing that, however, weneed to know as much as possible about

the subtleties and texture of what we meanby sustainability and what it is we are hop-ing to sustain. We need to address sustain-ability in a more technical and precise way,but we also need to stretch the canvas ofour understanding so we capture all of itspossibilities. If the center of education is tohold, it must be able to accommodate aconstant examination of what it now con-tains and how new ideas can replace oldideas. Working together, funders andschools and other organizations can usethis exploration to everyone’s advantageand especially to the advantage of the chil-dren to whom the entire enterprise is dedi-cated. For their sake, we need to sustainour interest in sustainability.

Ronald Thorpe is senior fellow at the Rhode IslandFoundation. He is a former teacher, district admin-istrator and the editor of “The First Year asPrincipal.”

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The schools of Indian Country, like so manyschools across rural America, are in themidst of a critical transition period regardingeducation technology.

Setting appropriate spending priorities thatwill allow schools to build the capacity tosustain their technology investments hasproven to be a challenging task. For schoolsin Native American communities, fundingpriorities that place an emphasis on hard-ware purchases rather than professionaldevelopment and capacity building haveadversely affected school-level efforts tosustain technology investments. This prob-lem has been further complicated by recentfederal and state budget cuts, putting moreresponsibility on school principals and dis-trict superintendents to secure funding fromthe private sector. Unfortunately, the major-ity of rural school districts in Indian Countrydo not have the operating capacity andexpertise to develop complex collaborativepartnerships or secure broad-based fundingfrom non-governmental sources.

In this chapter I will examine the educationtechnology challenges faced in IndianCountry and, in particular, profile successfulprograms within the Cherokee Nation inNortheast Oklahoma, as well as withinBureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) fundedschools in Arizona, Maine, Michigan andNew Mexico. As will be seen, intermediaryorganizations have played a role in develop-ing the edtech capacity of the schools and school systems in each of these com-munities.

AN OVERVIEW OF SCHOOLADMINISTRATION IN INDIANCOUNTRYIt is important to note there is a critical dif-ference between public schools operatingwithin tribal jurisdictions and BIA-fundedschools operating on tribal lands. Thesetypes of schools are very different in termsof how they are administered and funded,

as well as how they access tools andresources for capacity building and profes-sional development.

The most important distinction is that publicschools, even if they are on tribal lands andserve a substantial Native American studentpopulation, are not necessarily tribally con-trolled schools, but may be under the direc-tion of a larger county or town school sys-tem. Such public schools do not receive BIAfunding, nor are they subject to tribal over-sight or support – although tribes often doprovide financial assistance to these publicschools. Public schools with significantAmerican Indian enrollments do benefit fromfederal funding intended to provide supportfor the special needs of these Indian stu-dents, such as Impact Aid and Johnson-O’Malley programs. However, publicschools within the jurisdiction of theCherokee Nation, for example, are fundedand administered in much the same way aspublic schools in Oklahoma City. In thisrespect, they are largely dependent uponthe state to act as an intermediary for fund-ing, technology, capacity building and pro-fessional development.

BIA-funded schools, like public schools,serve all residents of their respective com-munities — Indian and non-Indian alike —however, they are subject to tribal oversightand in most cases, direct tribal administra-tion and management. BIA-funded schoolsare largely dependent upon the BIA Officeof Indian Education Programs (OIEP) to actas an intermediary for funding, technology,capacity building and professional develop-ment. OIEP provides educational servicesand funding to 185 schools and dormitorieson 63 reservations located in 23 states. Ofthese schools, 122 are operated by tribesand local school boards through grants orcontracts with the BIA. All schools are oper-ated in accordance with the BIA’s policy oflocal control and the federal government’spolicy of Indian self-determination.

CHAPTER 6 EDTECH IN INDIAN COUNTRY

BY KADE TWIST

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CHALLENGES TO SUSTAININGEDTECH PROGRAMSIndian Country schools face similar chal-lenges, whether they are public schoolsoperating within the jurisdiction of IndianNations, or BIA-funded schools.

In general, these schools have small enroll-ments and limited internal resources. Theyare located in rural and isolated areas whereinformation and communications technolo-gies are not widespread — nor are theyalways embraced as beneficial.

Schools in these communities face particu-lar challenges when it comes to acquiringand sustaining edtech investments:

■ Broadband Connectivity: Sparselypopulated, rural communities makebroadband telecommunications servicesprohibitively expensive. Such high-speed connections are often unavailablewithout intense local planning effortsand substantial private and publicinvestment.

■ Equipment and Software: The high costof purchasing, upgrading and maintain-ing needed hardware and software notcovered by E-Rate discounts canadversely affect the implementation ofmany edtech activities.

■ Staff: Poor and isolated, rural communi-ties are unable to match salaries offeredin urban and suburban areas. As aresult, they have difficulty in attractingand retaining skilled teachers andnetwork administrators. Geographicisolation also limits access to technologytraining opportunities — and it is oftennot of the highest quality even whenavailable.

■ Operating Capacity: State and federalfunding sources support Internetconnectivity and hardware purchases,and to a lesser extent, softwarepurchases and teacher training; butthese funding sources fail to provideschool administrators with adequateresources for capacity building andtechnical assistance.

■ Corporate Partnerships: The lack of acorporate presence in these isolatedcommunities makes it difficult to buildprivate sector partnerships. Buildingpartnerships with technology corpora-tions is often difficult because of region-al limitations placed upon thephilanthropic activity of many corpora-tions. Furthermore, building partner-ships requires expertise, resources,individual initiative and creative leader-ship — a combination that is oftenlacking in rural schools.

■ Funding: The vast majority of schools inIndian Country do not operate theiredtech programs from budget lineitems; they are also located in commu-nities with small tax bases. Instead, theyoperate their programs through a patch-work of one-time monies as theybecome available. School systems intribal areas often have limited ability towrite effective grant proposals forprivate funding or develop partnershipswith outside entities. The lack of localtax revenue and state funding makes itdifficult for these schools to providematching funds for various grantprograms.

■ Culture: There have been a host ofchallenges regarding the cultural appro-priateness of information technologiesand their usefulness for tribal members.These technologies were initially identi-fied as foreign agents of assimilation


rather than useful educational oreconomic tools. However, tribal leadershave eased concerns by educatingcommunities about the cultural preser-vation, economic development andeducational opportunities informationtechnologies afford.

Many schools and districts in Indian Countryhave overcome these limitations throughthe work of intermediary organizationsincluding BIA and state governmentactivism, and through active pursuit of federal grants. The following cases illustratehow.

OKLAHOMA: THE CHEROKEENATIONWith over 200,000 tribal members, theCherokee Nation is the second largestIndian tribe in the United States. Almost70,000 Cherokees reside in the 7,000square mile area of the Cherokee Nation.As a federally recognized Indian tribe, theNation has the sovereign right to exercisecontrol over the management and develop-ment of its tribal assets, which include66,000 acres of land and 96 miles of theArkansas River bed. For this report, schooladministrators were interviewed in fourCherokee Nation schools — theDahlonegah, Watts, Rocky Mountain andKenwood schools, all located in Oklahoma'sAdair and Delaware Counties.

Adair and Delaware are two of 14 countieslocated within the jurisdictional boundariesof the Cherokee Nation. Both counties arehome to some of the most traditional com-munities within the Cherokee Nation —communities where Cherokee is a first lan-guage. Like other areas of Indian Country,cultural conservatism is a prized and pro-tected attribute. However, both counties arealso home to isolated and impoverishedcommunities. Aside from the occasionalchicken processing plants and other agricul-

tural industries, there is limited economicactivity.

In conversations with local school adminis-trators, there was unanimous consentregarding the importance of technology andits relationship to the future success of theirstudents. There was also agreement thatsustaining edtech investments was amongtheir top priorities. However, school admin-istrators expressed frustration in theirefforts to do so. For instance, none of theirschools have line item technology budgets.Instead, they take money from a variety of other budget sources, which puts a strain on meeting these other needs.Administrators also cited lack of time,resources and in-house expertise for strate-gic planning, grant writing and brokeringpartnerships.

In spite of the difficulties, each of theseschools has managed to provide and main-tain T-1 Internet connectivity, as well as lowstudents-to-computer ratios (roughly 4-1).Their capacity to integrate technology intoclassrooms and communities has beenimproved by state leadership and federalgrants, but core capacity building needsrequired for sustaining technology invest-ments are not being met.

ONENET The schools of the Cherokee Nation havebenefited from OneNet, an exemplarymodel of a state-led effort addressing theconnectivity needs of small rural schools(www.onenet.net/index.htm). OneNetserves as Oklahoma’s broadband telecom-munications network for public schools, aswell as other educational, governmental andhealth care institutions.

OneNet is a state-led partnership oftelecommunications companies, equipmentmanufacturers and service providers thatleverages state resources to negotiatereduced service rates. Rather than building

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out an expensive public network, OneNetutilizes a number of existing private commu-nications networks. The result is a savingsof millions of dollars, as well as the rapiddeployment of a high-capacity telecommuni-cations infrastructure to rural portions of thestate.

Through OneNet, schools in Adair andDelaware Counties were able to accesshigh-speed T-1 connectivity for $400 permonth. Without the support of OneNet,such broadband access would have beenunlikely or cost-prohibitive — between$1,500 and $2,500 per month — given thesize and budgets of these schools.

21ST CENTURY COMMUNITYLEARNING CENTERS PROGRAMFor many Cherokee communities, K-12schools are the first community institutionsto receive technology infrastructure. Theybecome a focus for community technologyaccess and future technology deployment.As a result, communities utilize schools asspringboards for community-wide technol-ogy deployment.

In an attempt to meet this challenge, localschools have begun to tap into the U.S.Department of Education’s 21st CenturyCommunity Learning Centers initiative. Thisprogram, begun in the Clinton administra-tion, provides before- and after-schoolopportunities for students to receive tutor-ing help and other benefits. However, theprogram also offers significant opportunitiesfor educational development and computerliteracy training to the parents of participat-ing students. It provides schools with theresources they need to open their comput-er labs to adults on specific evenings orweekends. As a result, the schools becomemore fully integrated into the fabric of thecommunity. This allows adults withouthousehold IT access to engage in a struc-tured learning environment that is tailored tomeet their specific needs.

OKLAHOMA TEACHERTELEMENTORS & ITT LABCLASSESLocal school administrators identified thelack of technology expertise among teach-ers as one of the key barriers to effectivelyintegrating technology into the classroom.To assist them, the Oklahoma Departmentof Education offers programs to improve thetechnology competency of teachers at nocost to school districts. The focus of eachprogram is to maximize the integration oftechnology into curriculum.

The Oklahoma Teacher TelementorsProgram provides peer-to-peer mentoringand technology training for teachers(www.sde.state.ok.us/home/defaultie.html).The program features over 30 mentorteachers with significant technology expert-ise, who provide one-on-one training tai-lored to the needs of teachers with limitedtechnology skills. The mentor teachers arestrategically located throughout the state,making them accessible to educators inremote schools in person, as well as byphone and e-mail.

However, the program is underutilized atlocal schools. One of the main reasons isthat each mentor is only available for 72hours. Once they have provided 72 hours oftraining, mentors are only available at a costof $80 per hour. The limited number of men-tors available in northeastern Oklahomamakes scheduling free telementor trainingsessions a challenging task for localschools. The overtime fees also place a hid-den financial burden upon schools.

In comparison to the Telementors program,the ITT Lab Classes are teacher trainingworkshops designed to build technologycompetency among teachers in three incre-mental stages. The first stage provides anintroduction to components of the Internetand basic Internet use. The second stageprovides strategies for using the Internet inthe classroom with content specific

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resources. Finally, teachers learn webdesign and basic networking. The classesare available to all teachers within the statethroughout the year.

However, local school administrators inter-viewed for this report have expressed dis-satisfaction with the way ITT Lab Classesare provided, because they fail to take intoconsideration the remedial computer train-ing needs of teachers. The introductorycourses are beyond the grasp of mostteachers. They often return from such train-ing classes with a higher level of frustrationtowards computers than they initially hadand are incapable of sharing newly acquiredskills with other staff. To make mattersworse, lab classes are only offered inOklahoma City, which makes it difficult forschools that happen to be a three-hour drive away.

UNMET NEEDS Cherokee Nation schools have had difficul-ty utilizing relevant teacher training andtechnical assistance services provided bythe state of Oklahoma. Clearly, the stateneeds to make a concerted effort to raiseawareness of its training and technicalassistance services among these schools.But more importantly, it needs to design andimplement scalable programs that fit theneeds of all schools, whether they are urbanor rural. The current one-size-fits-allapproach places severe burdens upon smallrural schools — burdens that are detrimen-tal over time.

Furthermore, these schools receive no sup-port from the state of Oklahoma for keyareas such as technology planning, adminis-trative funding support, or administrative-level professional development and training.As a result, administrators don’t have thebudgets to hire development officers andgrant writers, nor do they possess themeans to attain the skills they need tosecure funding from outside sources. One

of the most cost-effective remedies to thisproblem can be realized through regionalconsortiums that enable schools to lever-age limited resources to build their adminis-trative capacities collectively. Unfortunately,the state of Oklahoma has yet to make thisa reality.

BIA/OIEP SERVICES IN ARIZONA,MAINE, MICHIGAN AND NEW MEXICOThe BIA Office of Indian EducationPrograms (OIEP) provides educational serv-ices in Native American communities repre-senting approximately 50,000 studentsamong 238 different tribes. Their schoolsare small, with 60 percent of them enrolling250 or fewer students. Because the majori-ty of them are primary schools, most of theirstudents continue their education at a pub-lic high school.

Originally, OIEP served more as a vehicle forimplementing federal assimilation policies.In recent years, OIEP has taken an activerole in raising the education standards of itsschools. Since 1996, through its AccessNative America initiative, OIEP has becomethe main driving force for deployingtelecommunications infrastructure andimplementing edtech programs throughoutIndian Country. In five years, the initiativewired all 185 BIA-funded K-12 schools withInternet connectivity ranging from basic dial-up to broadband. OIEP, remarkably,achieved this task without a line item budg-et. Much like the public schools of theCherokee Nation, OIEP has to be very cre-ative in juggling its budget to fund technolo-gy, especially since their schools havereceived minimal E-Rate support. Therefore,much of OIEP’s success — and the successof their individual schools — relied on anumber of partnerships among the private,public and philanthropic sectors.

To learn more about edtech activities withinBIA-funded schools, administrators were

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interviewed at Indian Island School of thePenobscot Indian Nation in Maine; GilaCrossing Community School of the GilaRiver Indian Community in Arizona;Hannahville Indian School of the HannahvilleIndian Community in Michigan; and LagunaMiddle School of the Laguna Nation Puebloin New Mexico.

MEETING THE CHALLENGESSimilar to schools within the CherokeeNation, the BIA-funded school administra-tors unanimously stressed the importanceof technology and its relationship to thefuture success of their students. Likewise,there was unanimous consent that sustain-ing edtech investments was a priority.However, they did not express the samelevel of frustration regarding their attemptsto do so. These administrators are notstruggling as intensely to climb the technol-ogy learning curve, largely because theyhave been able to collaborate with otherschools and outside partners to addresstheir needs.

OIEP’s training and professional develop-ment programs have instituted collaborativeprocesses for addressing technical assis-tance, teacher training, professional devel-opment and capacity building needs. Themost important result of these processes isthat the schools now have a better under-standing of how to build and maintain effec-tive, mutually beneficial partnerships.

ACCESS NATIVE AMERICAThe Access Native America initiative exem-plifies how OIEP is capable of acting as anintermediary on behalf of BIA-fundedschools by leveraging resources and pur-chasing power to provide services thatwould otherwise be unavailable (www.oiep.bia.edu). The initiative was chartered by theU.S. Secretary of the Interior to ensure thatschools funded by the BIA met formerPresident Clinton’s challenge to wire everyclassroom in America by the year 2000. The

project forged a number of key partnershipswith the U.S. Geological Survey, which pro-vided engineering and networking expertise,as well as with Microsoft, Intel and theUniversities of Texas and Kansas. The proj-ect brought online all of its 185 elementaryand secondary schools by 2001, just oneyear behind schedule. Given the huge taskof providing connectivity to 185 of the mostremote and isolated schools in the UnitedStates, Access Native America has provento be one of the true success stories of the OIEP.

Now that each school has connectivity,OIEP submits an application for E-Rate dis-counts to pay the monthly Internet fees forits 185 schools. In doing so, OIEP leveragesits resources for the benefit of the schoolsit serves. Therefore, one of the largest hur-dles that BIA-funded schools faced — pro-viding and maintaining Internet connectivity— has been overcome by OIEP.

THE FOUR DIRECTIONS PROJECTFrom 1995 to 2000, the Four DirectionsProject (4D) served as a highly successfulcollaboration (www.4directions.org/index.html) that involved the Tribal Nations, feder-al government agencies, universities, aca-demic organizations and private corpora-tions. Coordinated by the Pueblo of LagunaDepartment of Education and funded by aTechnology Challenge Grant from the U.S.Department of Education and corporatedonations, the 4D project improved theedtech capacities of 19 BIA-funded schools.It also provided them with the tools,resources and expertise they needed toincorporate technology into classrooms in aculturally appropriate manner.

Each participating school had a 4D facilita-tion team composed of teachers, students,administrators, school board members,community members and parents. Theseteams went through rigorous annual trainingworkshops to increase the level of practical

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knowledge necessary to create culturallyappropriate digital content and integrate itinto the classroom. Students and teacherslearned how to work as teams, both in per-son and over the Internet.

The 4D project had a lasting impact on par-ticipating schools in the sense that theydeveloped the organizational capacity to utilize technology effectively and sustaintheir endeavors through partnerships.Furthermore, 4D brought national attentionto these schools — and in doing so, openednew opportunities for attracting private fund-ing and additional partnerships, enablingthem to continue their innovative work.

Unfortunately, only a small number of BIA-funded schools had the opportunity to par-ticipate in the 4D project. The vast majorityof BIA-funded schools have yet to partakein a comprehensive collaborative project,nor have they built up their administrativeand technological capacities. Clearly thereis a need for OIEP to replicate successfulmodels like 4D and expand opportunitiesmade available through such projects to allBIA-funded schools.

CENTER FOR EDUCATIONALTECHNOLOGY IN INDIANAMERICA (CETIA)The Center for Educational Technology inIndian America (CETIA) is headquartered atthe Pueblo of Laguna Nation, operated bythe Pueblo's Department of Education.CETIA is attempting to build on the successof the 4D project by serving as a hub forincubating collaborative tribal, federal andprivate partnerships (www.ldoe.org/cetia/index.htm).

CETIA provides educators and administra-tors with training in edtech curriculum devel-opment. CETIA staff and regional expertsalso assist schools with technology plan-ning, professional development, hard-ware/software, Internet connectivity andtech support. CETIA also facilitates

research regarding the use of technology asa means of supporting culturally relevantlearning and cultural preservation.

In the summers of 2001 and 2002, CETIAprovided BIA-funded schools with Intel Teachto the Future classes. The goal of this pro-gram is to train teachers to promote project-based learning and effectively integrate com-puters into their existing curriculum toincrease student achievement. Over 54 mas-ter teachers from 46 Indian schools nation-wide have participated in these classes.

In addition to this program, one of the moreexciting developments to emerge fromCETIA is the Digital Council Fires project, acollaboration of CETIA, OIEP and Lightspan(www.ldoe.org/cetia/lightspan.htm). Theproject utilizes a Lightspan Network web-site that is designed for Indian educators,students and schools. The site provides anumber of useful teaching and learningresources, as well as culturally-relevantcontent to schools on a subscription basis.To support the effective use of web-basedcurriculum, training provided by Lightspan isavailable throughout the year in a number oflocations across Indian Country.

CETIA has already provided services tomore schools than the 4D project. But itslong-term success will depend upon its abil-ity to assist all 185 BIA-funded schools.Fortunately, efforts to fund the expansion ofservices, like those provided by CETIA, ledto the creation of the Indian EducationFoundation. Established through legislationat the end of the Clinton administration, theyoung foundation will hopefully have thecapacity to provide CETIA with theresources it needs to expand its services toall BIA-funded schools. Unfortunately, theDepartment of Interior, which houses theBIA, has been slow in developing the foun-dation. As a result, the potential of theIndian Education Foundation has yet to berealized.

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CONCLUSIONSchools with sufficient capacity are capableof effective planning and grant writing. Theyare capable of building private sector part-nerships and working effectively with inter-mediaries. And they are capable of findingways to leverage resources and attracting atalented, well-trained staff. Each of theseactivities is essential to sustaining technolo-gy investments. Therefore, building capacityin the schools of Indian Country is essential.

There are still a number of opportunities inwhich these schools can build their operat-ing capacities. The majority of these oppor-tunities are dependent upon the initiativeand individual leadership of school superin-tendents and principals. Yet the inability —or sometimes unwillingness — of theseschools to collaborate limits their ability tobuild capacity, attract partnerships andsecure funding for large, multi-year projects.

For the BIA-funded schools, collaborationhas been the key to their success in imple-menting innovative and culturally relevantedtech programs, providing low-costteacher training and professional develop-ment and building sufficient organizationalcapacity to sustain these endeavors. OIEPhas played a significant role in institutional-izing these collaborative processes; as aresult, collaboration among these schoolshas allowed them to build upon the suc-cesses of previous efforts.

Unfortunately, the majority of BIA-fundedschools have yet to participate in far-reach-ing collaborative projects. As a result, theyhave yet to build organizational and technol-ogy capacities in a similar manner. CETIA isattempting to bridge this gap by expandingto a larger number of schools, but it lacksthe resources needed to reach the majorityof BIA-funded schools. The creation of theIndian Education Foundation provides hopethat additional resources will eventuallybecome available. However, the Departmentof Interior has not shown a sincere commit-ment to developing the Indian EducationFoundation to its potential. Nor has the current administration provided the leader-ship necessary to ensure that the IndianEducation Foundation becomes operationaland adequately funded. Ultimately, this lackof commitment and action impedes thegrowth of the foundation, limiting potentiallyvaluable edtech opportunities for the major-ity of BIA-funded schools.

Kade Twist is a telecommunications consultantbased in Phoenix, Az.

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PART D — ENHANCING EDUCATION THROUGH TECHNOLOGY

SEC. 2401. SHORT TITLE.This part may be cited as the ‘Enhancing Education Through Technology Act of 2001’.

SEC. 2402. PURPOSES AND GOALS.a. PURPOSES- The purposes of this part are the following:

(1) To provide assistance to States and localities for the implementation and supportof a comprehensive system that effectively uses technology in elementary schools and secondary schools to improve student academic achievement.

(2) To encourage the establishment or expansion of initiatives, including initiatives involving public-private partnerships, designed to increase access to technology, particularly in schools served by high-need local educational agencies.

(3) To assist States and localities in the acquisition, development, interconnection, implementation, improvement, and maintenance of an effective educational technology infrastructure in a manner that expands access to technology for students (particularly for disadvantaged students) and teachers.

(4) To promote initiatives that provide school teachers, principals, and administratorswith the capacity to integrate technology effectively into curricula and instruction that are aligned with challenging State academic content and student academic achievement standards, through such means as high-quality professional development programs.

(5) To enhance the ongoing professional development of teachers, principals, and administrators by providing constant access to training and updated research in teaching and learning through electronic means.

(6) To support the development and utilization of electronic networks and other innovative methods, such as distance learning, of delivering specialized or rigorous academic courses and curricula for students in areas that would not otherwise have access to such courses and curricula, particularly in geographically isolated regions.

(7) To support the rigorous evaluation of programs funded under this part, particularly regarding the impact of such programs on student academic achievement, and ensure that timely information on the results of such evaluations is widely accessible through electronic means.

(8) To support local efforts using technology to promote parent and family involvement in education and communication among students, parents, teachers, principals, and administrators.

b. GOALS-(1) PRIMARY GOAL- The primary goal of this part is to improve student academic

achievement through the use of technology in elementary schools and secondaryschools.

(2) ADDITIONAL GOALS- The additional goals of this part are the following:(A) To assist every student in crossing the digital divide by ensuring that every

student is technologically literate by the time the student finishes the eighth grade, regardless of the student's race, ethnicity, gender, family income, geographic location, or disability.

(B) To encourage the effective integration of technology resources and systems with teacher training and curriculum development to establish research-based

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instructional methods that can be widely implemented as best practices by State educational agencies and local educational agencies.

SEC. 2403. DEFINITIONS.In this part:

(1) ELIGIBLE LOCAL ENTITY- The term eligible local entity' means — (A) a high-need local educational agency; or(B) an eligible local partnership.

(2) ELIGIBLE LOCAL PARTNERSHIP- The term eligible local partnership' means a partnership that — (A) shall include at least one high-need local educational agency and

at least one — (i) local educational agency that can demonstrate that teachers in schools

served by the agency are effectively integrating technology and proven teaching practices into instruction, based on a review of relevant research, and that the integration results in improvement in — (I) classroom instruction in the core academic subjects; and(II) the preparation of students to meet challenging State academic

content and student academic achievement standards;(ii) institution of higher education that is in full compliance with the reporting

requirements of section 207(f) of the Higher Education Act of 1965 and that has not been identified by its State as low-performing under section208 of such Act;

(iii) for-profit business or organization that develops, designs, manufactures, or produces technology products or services, or has substantial expertise in the application of technology in instruction; or

(iv) public or private nonprofit organization with demonstrated experience in the application of educational technology to instruction; and

(B) may include other local educational agencies, educational service agencies, libraries, or other educational entities appropriate to provide local programs.

(3) HIGH-NEED LOCAL EDUCATIONAL AGENCY- The term high-need local educational agency' means a local educational agency that — (A) is among the local educational agencies in a State with the highest numbers

or percentages of children from families with incomes below the poverty line;and

(B) (i) operates one or more schools identified under section 1116; or(ii) has a substantial need for assistance in acquiring and using technology.

SEC. 2404. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.a.IN GENERAL- There are authorized to be appropriated to carry out subparts 1 and

2, $1,000,000,000 for fiscal year 2002, and such sums as may be necessary for each of the 5 succeeding fiscal years.

b.ALLOCATION OF FUNDS BETWEEN STATE AND LOCAL AND NATIONAL

SEC. 2411. ALLOTMENT AND REALLOTMENT.a.RESERVATIONS AND ALLOTMENT- From the amount made available to carry out

this subpart under section 2404(b)(1) for a fiscal year—(1) The Secretary shall reserve—

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(A) three-fourths of 1 percent for the Secretary of the Interior for programs under this subpart for schools operated or funded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs;

(B) one-half of 1 percent to provide assistance under this subpart to the outlyingareas; and

(C) such sums as may be necessary for continuation awards on grants awarded under section 3136 prior to the date of enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001; and

(2) From the remainder of such amount and subject to subsection (b), the Secretary shall make grants by allotting to each eligible State educational agency under this subpart an amount that bears the same relationship to such remainder for such year as the amount received under part A of title I for such year by such State educational agency bears to the amount received under such part for such year by all State educational agencies.

b.MINIMUM ALLOTMENT- The amount of any State educational agency's allotment under subsection (a)(2) for any fiscal year may not be less than one-half of 1 percent of the amount made available for allotments to States under this part for such year.

c.REALLOTMENT OF UNUSED FUNDS- If any State educational agency does not apply for an allotment under this subpart for a fiscal year, or does not use its entire allotment under this subpart for that fiscal year, the Secretary shall reallot the amount of the State educational agency's allotment, or the unused portion of the allotment, to the remaining State educational agencies that use their entire allotments under this subpart in accordance with this section.

d.STATE EDUCATIONAL AGENCY DEFINED- In this section, the term State educational agency' does not include an agency of an outlying area or the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

SEC. 2412. USE OF ALLOTMENT BY STATE.a.IN GENERAL- Of the amount provided to a State educational agency (from the

agency's allotment under section 2411(a)(2)) for a fiscal year—(1) The State educational agency may use not more than 5 percent to carry out

activities under section 2415; and(2) The State educational agency shall distribute the remainder as follows:

(A) from 50 percent of the remainder, the State educational agency shall award subgrants by allocating to each eligible local educational agency that has submitted an application to the State educational agency under section 2414, for the activities described in section 2416, an amount that bears the same relationship to 50 percent of the remainder for such year as the amount received under part A of title I for such year by such local educational agency bears to the amount received under such part for such year by all local educational agencies within the State.

(B) from 50 percent of the remainder and subject to subsection (b), the State educational agency shall award subgrants, through a State-determined com-petitive process, to eligible local entities that have submitted applications to the State educational agency under section 2414, for the activities describedin section 2416.

b.SUFFICIENT AMOUNTS-(1) SPECIAL RULE- In awarding a subgrant under subsection (a)(2)(B), the State

educational agency shall—(A) determine the local educational agencies that—

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(i) received allocations under subsection (a)(2)(A) that are not of sufficient size to be effective, consistent with the purposes of this part; and

(ii) are eligible local entities;(B) give priority to applications submitted by eligible local educational agencies

described in subparagraph (A); and(C) determine the minimum amount for awards under subsection (a)(2)(B) to

ensure that subgrants awarded under that subsection are of sufficient size tobe effective.

(2) SUFFICIENCY- In awarding subgrants under subsection (a)(2)(B), each State educational agency shall ensure that each subgrant is of sufficient size and duration, and that the program funded by the subgrant is of sufficient scope and quality, to carry out the purposes of this part effectively.

(3) DISTRIBUTION- In awarding subgrants under subsection (a)(2)(B), each State educational agency shall ensure an equitable distribution of assistance under this subpart among urban and rural areas of the State, according to the demon-strated need of those local educational agencies serving the areas.

c.FISCAL AGENT- If an eligible local partnership receives a subgrant under subsection (a)(2)(B), a local educational agency in the partnership shall serve as the fiscal agent for the partnership.

d.ASSISTANCE- Each State educational agency receiving a grant under section 2411(a) shall—(1) Identify the local educational agencies served by the State educational

agency that—(A) have the highest numbers or percentages of children from families with

incomes below the poverty line; and(B) demonstrate to such State educational agency the greatest need for

technical assistance in developing an application under section 2414; and(2) Offer the technical assistance described in paragraph (1)(B) to those local

educational agencies.

SEC. 2413. STATE APPLICATIONS.a.IN GENERAL- To be eligible to receive a grant under this subpart, a State

educational agency shall submit to the Secretary, at such time and in such manner as the Secretary may specify, an application containing a new or updated statewide long-range strategic educational technology plan (which shall address the educational technology needs of local educational agencies) and such other information as the Secretary may reasonably require.

b.CONTENTS- Each State application submitted under subsection (a) shall include each of the following:(1) An outline of the State educational agency's long-term strategies for improving

student academic achievement, including technology literacy, through the effective use of technology in classrooms throughout the State, including improving the capacity of teachers to integrate technology effectively into curricula and instruction.

(2) A description of the State educational agency's goals for using advanced technology to improve student academic achievement, and how those goals are aligned with challenging State academic content and student academic achievement standards.

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(3) A description of how the State educational agency will take steps to ensure that all students and teachers in the State, particularly students and teachers in districts served by high-need local educational agencies, have increased access to technology.

(4) A description of the process and accountability measures that the State educational agency will use to evaluate the extent to which activities funded under this subpart are effective in integrating technology into curricula and instruction.

(5) A description of how the State educational agency will encourage the development and utilization of innovative strategies for the delivery of specialized or rigorous academic courses and curricula through the use of technology, including distance learning technologies, particularly for those areas of the State that would not otherwise have access to such courses and curricula due to geographical isolation or insufficient resources.

(6) An assurance that financial assistance provided under this subpart will supplement, and not supplant, State and local funds.

(7) A description of how the plan incorporates teacher education, professional development, and curriculum development, and how the State educational agency will work to ensure that teachers and principals in a State receiving funds under this part are technologically literate.

(8) A description of—(A) how the State educational agency will provide technical assistance to

applicants under section 2414, especially to those applicants serving the highest numbers or percentages of children in poverty or with the greatest need for technical assistance; and

(B) the capacity of the State educational agency to provide such assistance.(9) A description of technology resources and systems that the State will provide

for the purpose of establishing best practices that can be widely replicated by State educational agencies and local educational agencies in the State and in other States.

(10) A description of the State's long-term strategies for financing technology to ensure that all students, teachers, and classrooms have access to technology.

(11) A description of the State's strategies for using technology to increase parental involvement.

(12) A description of how the State educational agency will ensure that each sub-grant awarded under section 2412(a)(2)(B) is of sufficient size and duration, and that the program funded by the subgrant is of sufficient scope and quality, to carry out the purposes of this part effectively.

(13) A description of how the State educational agency will ensure ongoing integration of technology into school curricula and instructional strategies in all schools in the State, so that technology will be fully integrated into the curricula and instruction of the schools by December 31, 2006.

(14) A description of how the local educational agencies in the State will provide incentives to teachers who are technologically literate and teaching in rural or urban areas, to encourage such teachers to remain in those areas.

(15) A description of how public and private entities will participate in the implementation and support of the plan.

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c.DEEMED APPROVAL- An application submitted by a State educational agency pursuant to subsection (a) shall be deemed to be approved by the Secretary unless the Secretary makes a written determination, prior to the expiration of the 120-day period beginning on the date on which the Secretary received the application, that the application is not in compliance with this part.

d.DISAPPROVAL- The Secretary shall not finally disapprove the application, except after giving the State educational agency notice and an opportunity for a hearing.

e.NOTIFICATION- If the Secretary finds that the application is not in compliance, in whole or in part, with this part, the Secretary shall—(1) Give the State educational agency notice and an opportunity for a hearing; and(2) Notify the State educational agency of the finding of noncompliance and, in

such notification, shall—(A) cite the specific provisions in the application that are not in compliance; and(B) request additional information, only as to the noncompliant provisions,

needed to make the application compliant.f. RESPONSE- If the State educational agency responds to the Secretary's

notification described in subsection (e)(2) during the 45-day period beginning on the date on which the agency received the notification, and resubmits the application with the requested information described in subsection (e)(2)(B), the Secretary shall approve or disapprove such application prior to the later of—(1) The expiration of the 45-day period beginning on the date on which the

application is resubmitted; or(2) The expiration of the 120-day period described in subsection (c).

g.FAILURE TO RESPOND- If the State educational agency does not respond to the Secretary's notification described in subsection (e)(2) during the 45-day period beginning on the date on which the agency received the notification, such application shall be deemed to be disapproved.

SEC. 2414. LOCAL APPLICATIONS.a.IN GENERAL- To be eligible to receive a subgrant from a State educational agency

under this subpart, a local educational agency or eligible local entity shall submit to the State educational agency an application containing a new or updated local long-range strategic educational technology plan that is consistent with the objectives of the statewide educational technology plan described in section 2413(a), and such other information as the State educational agency may reasonably require, at such time and in such manner as the State educational agency may require.

b.CONTENTS- The application shall include each of the following:(1) A description of how the applicant will use Federal funds under this subpart to

improve the student academic achievement, including technology literacy, of all students attending schools served by the local educational agency and to improve the capacity of all teachers teaching in schools served by the local educational agency to integrate technology effectively into curricula and instruction.

(2) A description of the applicant's specific goals for using advanced technology to improve student academic achievement, aligned with challenging State academic content and student academic achievement standards.

(3) A description of the steps the applicant will take to ensure that all students and teachers in schools served by the local educational agency involved have

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increased access to educational technology, including how the agency would use funds under this subpart (such as combining the funds with funds from other sources), to help ensure that—

(A) students in high-poverty and high-needs schools, or schools identified under section 1116, have access to technology; and

(B) teachers are prepared to integrate technology effectively into curricula and instruction.

(4) A description of how the applicant will—(A) identify and promote curricula and teaching strategies that integrate

technology effectively into curricula and instruction, based on a review of rel-event research, leading to improvements in student academic achievement, as measured by challenging State academic content and student academic achievement standards; and

(B) provide ongoing, sustained professional development for teachers, principals,administrators, and school library media personnel serving the local educational agency, to further the effective use of technology in the class-room or library media center, including, if applicable, a list of the entities that will be partners with the local educational agency involved in providing the ongoing, sustained professional development.

(5) A description of the type and costs of technologies to be acquired under this subpart, including services, software, and digital curricula, and including specific provisions for interoperability among components of such technologies.

(6) A description of how the applicant will coordinate activities carried out with funds provided under this subpart with technology-related activities carried out with funds available from other Federal, State, and local sources.

(7) A description of how the applicant will integrate technology (including software and other electronically delivered learning materials) into curricula and instruction, and a timeline for such integration.

(8) A description of how the applicant will encourage the development and utilization of innovative strategies for the delivery of specialized or rigorous academic courses and curricula through the use of technology, including distance learning technologies, particularly for those areas that would not otherwise have access to such courses and curricula due to geographical isolation or insufficient resources.

(9) A description of how the applicant will ensure the effective use of technology to promote parental involvement and increase communication with parents, including a description of how parents will be informed of the technology being applied in their child's education so that the parents are able to reinforce at home the instruction their child receives at school.

(10) A description of how programs will be developed, where applicable, in collaboration with adult literacy service providers, to maximize the use of technology.

(11) A description of the process and accountability measures that the applicant will use to evaluate the extent to which activities funded under this subpart are effective in integrating technology into curricula and instruction, increasing the ability of teachers to teach, and enabling students to meet challenging State academic content and student academic achievement standards.

(12) A description of the supporting resources (such as services, software, other electronically delivered learning materials, and print resources) that will be acquired to ensure successful and effective uses of technology.


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c.COMBINED APPLICATIONS- A local educational agency that is an eligible local entity and submits an application to the State educational agency under this section for funds awarded under section 2412(a)(2)(A) may combine the agency's application for funds awarded under that section with an application for funds awarded under section 2412(a)(2)(B).

d.SPECIAL RULE-(1) CONSORTIUM APPLICATIONS-

(A) IN GENERAL- For any fiscal year, a local educational agency applying for financial assistance described in section 2412(a)(2)(A) may apply as part of aconsortium that includes other local educational agencies, institutions of higher education, educational service agencies, libraries, or other educationalentities appropriate to provide local programs.

(B) FISCAL AGENT- If a local educational agency applies for and receives financial assistance described in section 2412(a)(2)(A) as part of a consortium, the local educational agency shall serve as the fiscal agent for the consortium.

(2) STATE EDUCATIONAL AGENCY ASSISTANCE- At the request of a local educational agency, a State educational agency may assist the local educational agency in the formation of a consortium described in paragraph (1) to provide services for the teachers and students served by the local educational agency.

SEC. 2415. STATE ACTIVITIES.From funds made available under section 2412(a)(1), a State educational agency shall carryout activities and assist local efforts to carry out the purposes of this part, which mayinclude the following activities:

(1) Developing, or assisting applicants or recipients of funds under this subpart in the development and utilization of, innovative strategies for the delivery of specialized or rigorous academic courses and curricula through the use of technology, including distance learning technologies, and providing other technical assistance to such applicants or recipients throughout the State, with priority given to high-need local educational agencies.

(2) Establishing or supporting public-private initiatives (such as interest-free or reduced-cost loans) for the acquisition of educational technology for high-need local educational agencies and students attending schools served by such agencies.

(3) Assisting recipients of funds under this subpart in providing sustained and intensive, high-quality professional development based on a review of relevant research in the integration of advanced technologies, including emerging technologies, into curricula and instruction and in using those technologies to create new learning environments, including training in the use of technology to —(A) access data and resources to develop curricula and instructional materials;(B) enable teachers —

(i) to use the Internet and other technology to communicate with parents, other teachers, principals, and administrators; and

(ii) to retrieve Internet-based learning resources; and(C) lead to improvements in classroom instruction in the core academic subjects,

that effectively prepare students to meet challenging State academic contentstandards and student academic achievement standards.


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(4) Assisting recipients of funds under this subpart in providing all students (including students with disabilities and students with limited English proficiency) and teachers with access to educational technology.

(5) Developing performance measurement systems to determine the effectiveness of educational technology programs funded under this subpart, particularly in determining the extent to which activities funded under this subpart are effective in integrating technology into curricula and instruction, increasing the ability of teachers to teach, and enabling students to meet challenging State academic content and student academic achievement standards.

(6) Collaborating with other State educational agencies on distance learning, including making specialized or rigorous academic courses and curricula avail-able to students in areas that would not otherwise have access to such courses and curricula.

SEC. 2416. LOCAL ACTIVITIES.a.PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT–

(1) IN GENERAL– A recipient of funds made available under section 2412(a)(2) shall use not less than 25 percent of such funds to provide ongoing, sustained, and intensive, high-quality professional development. The recipient shall provide professional development in the integration of advanced technologies, including emerging technologies, into curricula and instruction and in using those technologies to create new learning environments, such as professional development in the use of technology—(A) to access data and resources to develop curricula and instructional materials;(B) to enable teachers—

(i) to use the Internet and other technology to communicate with parents, other teachers, principals, and administrators; and

(ii) to retrieve Internet-based learning resources; and(C) to lead to improvements in classroom instruction in the core academic

subjects, that effectively prepare students to meet challenging State academic content standards, including increasing student technology literacy,and student academic achievement standards.

(2) WAIVERS- Paragraph (1) shall not apply to a recipient of funds made available under section 2412(a)(2) that demonstrates, to the satisfaction of the State educational agency involved, that the recipient already provides ongoing, sustained, and intensive, high-quality professional development that is based on a review of relevant research, to all teachers in core academic subjects in the integration of advanced technologies, including emerging technologies, into curricula and instruction.

b.OTHER ACTIVITIES- In addition to the activities described in subsection (a), a recipient of funds made available by a State educational agency under section 2412(a)(2) shall use such funds to carry out other activities consistent with this subpart, which may include the following:(1) Establishing or expanding initiatives, particularly initiatives involving public-

private partnerships, designed to increase access to technology for students and teachers, with special emphasis on the access of high-need schools to technology.

(2) Adapting or expanding existing and new applications of technology to enable teachers to increase student academic achievement, including technology literacy—


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(A) through the use of teaching practices that are based on a review of relevant research and are designed to prepare students to meet challenging State academic content and student academic achievement standards; and

(B) by the development and utilization of innovative distance learning strategies to deliver specialized or rigorous academic courses and curricula to areas that would not otherwise have access to such courses and curricula.

(3) Acquiring proven and effective courses and curricula that include integrated technology and are designed to help students meet challenging State academic content and student academic achievement standards.

(4) Utilizing technology to develop or expand efforts to connect schools and teachers with parents and students to promote meaningful parental involvement, to foster increased communication about curricula, assignments, and assessments between students, parents, and teachers, and to assist parents to understand the technology being applied in their child's education, so that parents are able to reinforce at home the instruction their child receives at school.

(5) Preparing one or more teachers in elementary schools and secondary schools as technology leaders who are provided with the means to serve as experts and train other teachers in the effective use of technology, and providing bonus payments to the technology leaders.

(6) Acquiring, adapting, expanding, implementing, repairing, and maintaining existing and new applications of technology, to support the school reform effort and to improve student academic achievement, including technology literacy.

(7) Acquiring connectivity linkages, resources, and services (including the acquisition of hardware and software and other electronically delivered learning materials) for use by teachers, students, academic counselors, and school library media personnel in the classroom, in academic and college counseling centers, or in school library media centers, in order to improve student academic achievement.

(8) Using technology to collect, manage, and analyze data to inform and enhance teaching and school improvement efforts.

(9) Implementing performance measurement systems to determine the effectiveness of education technology programs funded under this subpart, particularly in determining the extent to which activities funded under this sub-part are effective in integrating technology into curricula and instruction, increasing the ability of teachers to teach, and enabling students to meet challenging State academic content and student academic achievement standards.

(10) Developing, enhancing, or implementing information technology courses.Subpart 2 — National Technology Activities

SEC. 2421. NATIONAL ACTIVITIES.a.STUDY- Using funds made available under section 2404(b)(2), the Secretary —

(1) Shall conduct an independent, long-term study, utilizing scientifically-based research methods and control groups or control conditions — (A) on the conditions and practices under which educational technology is

effective in increasing student academic achievement; and(B) on the conditions and practices that increase the ability of teachers to

integrate technology effectively into curricula and instruction, that enhance the learning environment and opportunities, and that increase student academic achievement, including technology literacy;


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(2) Shall establish an independent review panel to advise the Secretary on methodological and other issues that arise in conducting the long-term study;

(3) Shall consult with other interested Federal departments or agencies, State and local educational practitioners and policymakers (including teachers, principals, and superintendents), and experts in technology, regarding the study; and

(4) Shall submit to Congress interim reports, when appropriate, and a final report, to be submitted not later than April 1, 2006, on the findings of the study.

b.DISSEMINATION- Using funds made available under section 2404(b)(2), the Secretary shall make widely available, including through dissemination on the Internet and to all State educational agencies and other recipients of funds under this part, findings identified through activities carried out under this section regarding the conditions and practices under which educational technology is effective in increasing student academic achievement.

c.TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE- Using funds made available under section 2404(b)(2), the Secretary may provide technical assistance (directly or through the competitive award of grants or contracts) to State educational agencies, local educational agencies, and other recipients of funds, particularly in rural areas, under this part, in order to assist such State educational agencies, local educational agencies, and other recipients to achieve the purposes of this part.

SEC. 2422. NATIONAL EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY PLAN.a.IN GENERAL- Based on the Nation's progress and an assessment by the

Secretary of the continuing and future needs of the Nation's schools in effectively using technology to provide all students the opportunity to meet challenging State academic content and student academic achievement standards, the Secretary shall update and publish, in a form readily accessible to the public, a national long-range technology plan, by not later than 12 months after the date of enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

b.CONTENTS- The plan referred to in subsection (a) shall include each of the following:(1) A description of the manner in which the Secretary will promote —

(A) higher student academic achievement through the integration of advanced technologies, including emerging technologies, into curricula and instruction;

(B) increased access to technology for teaching and learning for schools with a high number or percentage of children from families with incomes below the poverty line; and

(C) the use of technology to assist in the implementation of State systemic reform strategies.

(2) A description of joint activities of the Department of Education and other Federal departments or agencies that will promote the use of technology in education.


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APPENDIX B

What Is Your School District’s Total Cost of Ownership Type?This chart is reprinted with permission of the Consortium for School Networking and its “Taking TCO to the Classroom” initiative. See http://www.classroomtco.org foradditional information.

The “TCO-Savvy”District

Devotes 15-30% of itsbudget to staff devel-opment

Provides computersupport at a ratio of atleast one support per-son for every 50 to 70computers or one per-son for every 500computers in a closelymanaged networkedenvironment

Recognizes that thegreater diversity ofsoftware packagesand operating sys-tems, the more thesupport that will berequired. Makes provisions for regularupgrading of softwarepackages

Budgets to replacecomputers on a regu-lar schedule, usuallyevery five years,whether leased or pur-chased

The “Doing the BestWe Can” District

Provides some stafftraining, but not attimes that are conven-ient or when staff isready to put the les-sons to work

Relies on a patchworkof teachers, studentsand overworked district staff to main-tain network and fixproblems. Does nottrack the amount oftime its network isdown or computersare not in use

Utilizes centralizedsoftware purchasing,but choice of applica-tion and respectivesupport left to individ-ual schools and/orstaff members

Plans to replace com-puters when they nolonger can be repaired

The “Worry About itTomorrow” District

Assumes that teach-ers and staff “willlearn on the job”

Relies on the “heyJoe” sort of informalsupport

Expects support personnel to managewhatever softwarehappens to beinstalled on a districtcomputer

Assumes that when computers arepurchased with 20-year bonds that theywill last forever

ProfessionalDevelopment

Support

Software

ReplacementCosts


BENTON BOOK 2.19.03 04°22°2003 12°20p Page 75 FREEDOM01 Juyong Lee:BENTON UPDATE:

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