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
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.
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
Education technology policy and advocacy groups have a lot to deal with these days. There's the new proposal to expand the federal E-Rate program. There are the National Broadband Plan and the new National Educational Technology Plan, both of which are on the verge of being revealed. And there's EETT, the sole source of funding specifically earmarked for educational technology, which is currently in danger of zero-funding.
The federal E-Rate program could be in for some major changes as it heads toward "version 2.0." A bill introduced in the House Tuesday, known as the E-Rate 2.0 Act of 2010, would amend the school technology program by adding a $2.5 billion residential broadband voucher pilot program for students; a $200 million e-book pilot program; and refinements to program administration designed to ease the application process.
An annual report on student safety in Kentucky schools has recommended adoption of a unique identifier in order to connect disciplinary actions to a particular student and to evaluate the effectiveness of programs targeted at repeat offenders.
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 02/09/10
Under the Colorado Education Accountability Act of 2009, the state has made improvement of chronically low-performing schools a priority. With the help of federal funds, the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) has instituted a statewide school transformation and turnaround effort. This effort includes grants that will allow schools to reorganize under one of four intervention models: transformation, turnaround, restart, or closure.
- By Scott Aronowitz
- 02/08/10
If adopted by Congress without alteration, President Obama's proposed fiscal year 2011 budget would pump an additional $3.5 billion into education. But it would also cut the sole source of dedicated federal funding for education technology, and that has three prominent ed tech advocacy groups worried.
Human space flight wasn't the only casualty of the 2011 federal budget proposal issued by the Obama administration Monday. Despite an overall $3.5 billion increase in education spending, the proposed $3.8 trillion FY 2011 budget zeroed out the only federal source of funding specifically dedicated to education technology, while consolidating 38 education programs into 11 and shifting a total of $1.85 billion into the Race to the Top program and the Investing in Innovation Fund.
Does the proposed elimination of EETT mean the end of federal education technology spending? Not according to information quietly released Feb. 1 by the Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP), which provided some insight into the intent behind the numbers revealed in the 2011 federal budget proposed Monday by the Obama administration.