April 2007 — News
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Report: States Fill In for Feds in Ed Tech
On the flip side, only 4 percent of states reported that NCLB funding was a "minor percentage" of funds awarded to local school districts, and 20 percent said that state funds match federal funds.
This report, the first of its kind from SETDA to measure the states' role in education technology funding, indicated that individual states "differ widely" in their approaches to ed tech funding, but 32 states in the United States indicated to SETDA that their state budgets include an education technology line item. Many provide funding for local district programs at the state level to "provide support to local districts through virtual high schools, technical assistance, or by providing a state portal for teachers." Several states provide funding for network infrastructure and integration. And some provide funding for regional organizations that support local districts. (See Fig. 1.)
General Ed Tech Funding by States
By category, infrastructure receives the highest amount of funding from states, at about $217.3 million (Fig. 2). Coming in at a close second is end-user technology at $204.4 million. Professional development receives about $98.5 million in state funding. And data warehousing trails the bunch at roughly $41.1 million.
In total, according to the report, states provide a total of $561 million in direct funding for educational technology in these four categories.
SETDA also broke down the amount of spending per state by category. According tot he report, "It is important to note that states may define categories differently, and that there may be overlap within categories depending on the individual state funding structure. Thirty-two states provide a total of $561 million in direct state funding for educational technology infrastructure, end-user technology, professional development, and data warehousing. States varied widely in the amount of direct state spending, ranging from $500,000 in Vermont to $115 million in Texas."
