Despite nearly two decades of policy and investment focused on closing academic achievement gaps and improving overall student achievement, reading scores on the NAEP 2009 assessment among fourth- and eighth-grade students have barely budged since 1992. And between the two most recent assessments (2007 and 2009), fourth-grade scores were flat, while eighth-grade scores increased just one point, returning to 2002's level.
After almost a year of development that included holding 36 public workshops in person and online and reading through 23,000 public comments, the Federal Communications Commission has released its national broadband plan with a formal report to Congress. Calling high-speed Internet access "indispensable for the 21st century, the foundation for our economy, the foundation for our democracy in the digital age," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski declared the plan "ambitious but achievable."
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 03/17/10
Once again invoking the mantra of school reform, President Obama this weekend released his new "Blueprint" for reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), calling for the transformation of American K-12 education into a "world-class" system that will "ensure that every student graduates from high school well prepared for college and a career." But even before its presentation to Congress Monday, the Blueprint received scathing criticism from one major education group--the National Education Association (NEA), which has 3.2 million-members.
In a presentation to stakeholders Wednesday, FCC Director of Education Steve Midgley provided a preview of the forthcoming National Broadband Plan, which will be formally released next week. The plan, as it pertains to education, calls for an expansion of E-Rate and new federal supports for the promotion and delivery of online learning.
The United States Department of Education has released final priorities and opened the application process for the Investing in Innovation Fund, also known as "i3," a $650 million grant program that's designed to fund "the development of path-breaking new ideas, the validation of approaches that have demonstrated promise, and the scale-up of the nation's most successful and proven education innovations."
If there were any doubts about the Obama administration's intentions toward education technology, the United States Department of Education settled them Friday with the release of the first public draft of the National Education Technology Plan (NETP). The 114-page document reveals an intent not only to infuse technology throughout the curriculum (and beyond), but to implement some major--sometimes radical--changes to education itself.
The United States Department of Education Thursday announced finalists in the first phase of the Race to the Top competition.
Innovation is an abstraction to many of us, a word vaguely hinting at something new and good arising through inspired creativity, some invention born of "outside the box" thinking. But that perception--and the approach to innovation that it implies--is just one of the many reasons most of us fail at it.
President Obama released his fiscal year 2011 budget request Feb. 1, and the news for the ed tech world, at least at first glance, was not good.
- By Geoffrey H. Fletcher
- 03/01/10
Univision Communications has launched a national campaign to promote academic achievement and college readiness among Hispanic K-12 students in the United States. "Es El Momento" ("The Moment Is Now") is a Spanish-language initiative that will focus on high school graduation, college readiness and completion, and parental and community involvement in reaching these goals.
- By Scott Aronowitz
- 02/26/10