February 2, 2015
The Honorable Lamar Alexander The Honorable Patty Murray
Senate Health, Education, Labor, Senate Health, Education, Labor,
and Pensions Committee and Pensions Committee
United States Senate United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510 Washington, DC 20510
Dear Chairman Alexander and Ranking Member Murray,
Thank you for making reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) an early priority for the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. I am writing in my capacity as the Chief Executive Officer of the Consortium for School Networking, which represents school district technology leaders from across the United States. We appreciate this opportunity to make recommendations for strengthening the Every Child Ready for College or Career Act of 2015.
Our members believe that ensuring all students graduate ready for college, career, and civic life will require fundamentally better uses of technology at the classroom, school, and district levels. Strengthening the abilities of school systems to leverage innovative technologies and robust broadband services must begin with policies that build the capacities of school leaders and educators and sustain their expertise over time. Unfortunately, many schools – particularly in the nation’s most economically disadvantaged communities – are missing an opportunity to use technology to advance student learning through more effective data use, personalized instruction, and greater access to digital resources and tools.
We urge you to address this challenge by maintaining the important technology provisions included in Title II of the draft bill and by adopting the following additional recommendations.
1. Continue the Enhancing Education through Technology Program
Congress created the ESEA 50 years ago as a tool for promoting educational equity and helping rural and urban communities overcome deep and chronic poverty. Today, ensuring educational equity inherently means promoting digital equity, and we encourage you to reflect this reality in the new ESEA by continuing the Enhancing Education through Technology (EETT) program. Absent dedicated and sustained federal support, the education technology divide between wealthy and poor communities will continue to grow, leaving disadvantaged students and their teachers without critical learning resources, even as we call on them to achieve significantly higher standards. The draft bill already recognizes that certain high priority educational needs require dedicated programs (e.g., the Teacher Incentive Fund and the Charter Schools program) and EETT must be among their ranks if the nation hopes to dramatically improve educational outcomes at scale.
2. Grant States and Districts the Flexibility to Use the ESEA’s Assessment
Funding for Assessment Technology Acquisition
Many schools lack the technology required to successfully implement new online assessment systems. Among other uses, assessment technology supports the presentation of tasks and items, technology-enhanced response capture, scoring, reporting, and for some assessment models, adaptive capabilities. State and local leaders are taking steps to address communities' troubling education technology gaps, but timely federal support is needed to supplement their investments and support the national transition to dramatically improved assessments. We encourage you to increase the authorization for state assessments to $500 million and amend Section 1201 of the draft bill as follows (additions to the existing bill text are underlined):
Section 1201
· ‘‘The Secretary shall make grants to States to enable the States to carry out 1 or more of the following: (1) To pay the costs of the development of the State assessments and standards adopted under section 1111(b), which may include the costs of working in voluntary partnerships with other States, at the sole discretion of each such State, and for acquiring the technology required to deliver them.”
This sensible approach – relying on local decision-making and judgment – was recommended by the Obama Administration in the President’s Fiscal Year 2014 and 2015 Budget Request.
3. Incorporate Sound Technology Planning into School Districts Title I
Strategies
The U.S. Department of Education periodically publishes a National Education Technology Plan, but the Elementary and Secondary Education Act does not acknowledge the plan, nor does it encourage or require states or school districts to conduct any form of technology planning. Given technology’s growing role in instruction, assessment, content delivery, and data use, among other areas, we encourage you to include language in Section 1112 calling on districts to integrate technology planning into their Title I plans, including involving district technology leaders in the planning process (additions to the existing bill text are underlined):
Sec. 1112 Local Educational Agency Plans
“(a) PLANS REQUIRED.— (1) SUBGRANTS. —A local educational agency may receive a subgrant under this part for any fiscal year only if such agency has on file with the State educational agency a plan, approved by the State educational agency, that is developed in consultation with teachers, principals, technology leaders, and other school leaders, administrators (including administrators of programs described in other parts of this title), other appropriate school personnel, and with parents of children in schools served under this part, that satisfies the requirements of this section and, as appropriate, that is coordinated with local plans for other Federal education programs.
‘‘(b) PLAN PROVISIONS.— To ensure that all children eeceive a high-quality education that prepares them for postsecondary education or the workforce without the need for academic remediation, and to close the achievement gap between high- and low-performing children, especially the achievement gaps between minority and nonminority students, and between disadvantaged children and their more advantaged peers, each local educational agency plan shall describe…Paragraphs (1) –(12) Remain as Currently Drafted in the Bill…(13) how the local educational agency will use technology to support instruction, assessment, content delivery, and data use.
Thank you for carefully considering our recommendations. We appreciate your leadership on behalf of the nation’s students and look forward to working with you on legislation that will ensure quality education and effective technology use in our school systems
Sincerely,
Keith Krueger
CEO, CoSN
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