Fighting the Good Fight, Continued

• 05/01/06

Two federal education technology programs, E-Rate and Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT), are at risk of being cut out of President Bush’s 2007 budget, but not without an urgent opposition effort from educators. This is the second consecutive year Bush has proposed eliminating EETT from the annual budget. Last year, faithful lobbying by education technology professionals from districts nationwide got the program restored to the 2006budget.

In early March, the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), and more than 150 ed-tech decision- makers from across the United States met with members of Congress from their home states in an attempt to save EETT and ERatefrom the chopping block.

Since these meetings, Representatives Judy Biggert (R-IL) and Ron Kind (D-WI) joined Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) to draft letters advocating the return of the programs in 2007. Fifty members from the House of Representatives and 28 members of the Senate each submitted similar letters. The 62 Democrats, 17 Republicans, and one Independent who signed the letters will not know the outcome of their efforts until mid- May, when Congress will negotiate the final budget and allocate funding for individual programs.

This article originally appeared in the 05/01/2006 issue of THE Journal.