Key Legislation and Agency Proceedings

New Version of ATTAIN Bill Introduced in the Senate

As Congress continues to negotiate a reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) moved forward on the education technology front by introducing a revised version of the Achievement Through Technology and Innovation Act (ATTAIN) in June 2011, which would revamp the current Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program. With his colleagues, Senators Patty Murray (D-WA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Bingaman refashioned previous versions of ATTAIN to allow the creation of a nationwide grant competition in the event that annual appropriations falls below $300 million. If annual funding comes in higher than $300 million, ATTAIN would function, much like the current EETT, as a state block grant program with districts receiving funds via formula and competition. Work continues on integrating ATTAIN into any new ESEA reauthorization legislation and the introduction of companion legislation in the House.

ATTAIN’s introduction earned immediate praise from eleven major education and industry groups. Led by the Consortium for School Networking and the International Society for Technology in Education, groups supportive of ATTAIN included the Alliance for Excellent Education, American Association of School Administrators, Association of Education Service Agencies, National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), National Education Association, Software & Information Industry Association, and the State Educational Technology Directors Association. In a joint statement the groups declared:  “We welcome today’s Senate introduction of the ATTAIN Act…[It] will foster the expansion of online and blended learning and promote technology initiatives that lead to personalized, rigorous and relevant learning. The bill also will spur efforts to increase education productivity and reduce costs through the use of technology. By prioritizing funding to enhance technology integration, professional development and leadership, the legislation supports school districts’ capacity to implement online common core assessments in 2014.”

Under this new legislation, which sets an authorized funding limit of $1 billion, the ATTAIN program converts to a national competition if annual funding remains below $300 million. In a national competition, the U.S. Secretary of Education would be empowered to award competitive grants to consortia of State educational agencies. The Secretary would evaluate grant applications based on State characteristic priorities such as: student advancement and graduation based on competency rather than seat time requirements; student access to high-quality digital content and online courses without arbitrary enrollment caps; the inclusion of teacher technology literacy in certification and licensure requirements; state rules supporting electronic learning materials adoption; and the inclusion of student technology literacy standards in state learning standards.

Winning consortia must allocate 75% of funds received to local school districts. States must use the remaining 25% to support district use of online and blended learning, curricula redesign, and new strategies to personalize learning. State consortia applicants must also address one of the following areas: preparing and administering state assessments online; using technology and blended learning to improve productivity and reduce costs; and preparing administrators to lead education reforms through technology.

Should appropriations for ATTAIN exceed $300 million in any given year, the Department of Education would block grant funds to states based on the current Title I formula. States, in turn, would pass on 60% of that funding directly to districts based on the Title I formula and would disseminate the remaining 40% competitively. [EETT splits the competitive grants and formula grants 50-50.] The new ATTAIN would set a floor of $3,000 for formula grants, thus ensuring a decent amount of funding for each district. As in EETT, professional development remains a priority: 25% of all competitive ATTAIN grants and 40% of formula ATTAIN distributions must be devoted to it. The new ATTAIN also refines the focus of the grant competitions, requiring that grants be awarded based on district efforts to reform their curriculum, instruction and assessment, and data use through technology. Districts with schools in need of improvement and with large percentages of limited English proficient (LEP) students and students with disabilities would receive preference in the award of competitive grants. Finally, ATTAIN renews EETT’s commitment to ensuring that students are technologically literate by the eighth grade by requiring “state identification of existing related standards and state assessment of student technology knowledge and skills.”
With the introduction of ATTAIN, Senator Bingaman stated: “I strongly believe that the effective use of cutting-edge technology in the classroom is essential to ensuring that American students develop the skills necessary to succeed in the 21st century global workforce.   I look forward to working with Chairman Harkin and my ATTAIN Act cosponsors, Senators Murray and Blumenthal, to include the ATTAIN Act in the reauthorization of ESEA.” 

EETT Eliminated in FY11 Funding and Threatened With Deauthorization in House

On April 14, 2011 Congress passed a final FY11 funding bill, and in doing so, elected to terminate funding for the ten-year-old Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program along with dozens of other federal education programs. Driven by a prevailing sentiment in Congress and at the White House that significant federal funding reductions were necessary to combat the nation’s growing budget deficit, the FY11 funding bill cut $38.5 billion from last year’s FY10 federal funding, including nearly $1.9 billion from federal education programs. With many Congressional Republicans still seeking deeper cuts in federal spending in coming years, the likelihood of EETT or any other eliminated program receiving appropriations in FY12 is very slim.

Agreement on the final package for FY11 Appropriations came after weeks of haggling between House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and President Obama on the size of final cuts and the fate of controversial legislative riders added by the House in its version of FY11 Appropriations legislation. In the end, Boehner was successful in securing significant overall cuts to federal spending but fell about $20 billion in cuts short of the goal of many Republican Caucus members. Reid succeeded in removing many of the most problematic riders from the final bill, including those that would have defunded Planned Parenthood and certain Environmental Protection Agency activities, but was forced to swallow major funding cuts. And President Obama managed to protect investments in many major education programs (Title I and special education) and secure new funding for priority programs like Race to the Top, Investing in Innovation (i3) and Promise Neighborhoods.

Unlike the principles in the budget negotiations, education technology advocates did not emerge from the FY11 process with any victories. In addition to EETT’s elimination, other key education programs with strong technology components saw major cuts, including the removal of approximately $480 million from the Teacher Quality State Grants, which support technology professional development, and $19 million from the State Longitudinal Data Systems.

EETT’s demise did not go unnoticed on Capitol Hill. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, pledged continued support for EETT: “I am going to keep fighting for it though-because I know it works. And if we lose this funding stream, I am concerned we risk backtracking on the gains these programs have helped our schools make.” Rep. Mike Ross (D-AR) also decried EETT’s defunding: “Proven programs like Title I, IDEA, and education technology should be maintained and prioritized because they provide essential services to the students with the greatest needs throughout our nation.”

Supporters of the EETT program were further disappointed when in May 2011, the House Education and the Workforce Committee approved on a 23 to 16 vote the Setting New Priorities in Education Spending (H.R. 1891), which would repeal the statutory authorization for EETT. The CoSN and ISTE opposed this legislation on multiple grounds.  The bill is expected to reach the House floor later this summer. At this point in time, there is no Senate companion measure.

Demand For E-Rate Increased by 10% in 2011

The demand estimate for the E-Rate’s 2011 program year shows a 10% escalation in demand for E-Rate support, with total requests for 2011 funding reaching $4.309 billion. This $394 million surge in demand from 2010 coupled with $2.137 billion in Priority II (internal connections) requests from 90% eligible schools and libraries may lead to an internal connections funding crunch. With Priority I service requests (telecommunications and Internet access services), which are paid out first, amounting to $2.172 billion, there may not be enough money left under the program’s $2.25 billion annual cap to cover just the 90% level for Priority II funding requests.

Despite the significant increase in demand, there remains a decent chance that 90% eligible applicants will receive all of their internal connections support. In its letter accompanying the demand estimate, the program’s administrator noted that the application review process will inevitably reduced total demand as duplicative applications and ineligible service requests are sifted out. Additionally, the Commission may well roll-over to 2011 unused funding from previous years, thereby raising the program’s annual cap.

New Broadband Map Shows Areas for Improvement

In February 2011, the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) unveiled the National Broadband Map, an interactive map designed to show the availability of broadband as well as broadband availability gaps across the country. The map is fully searchable, and contains a variety of demographic data, including internet performance ratings for various institutions.

Overall, the map depicts a country where 90% of residents enjoy broadband with speeds up to 10 mbps. However, it also shows that only half the nation enjoys access to broadband with speeds of up to 25mbps. Urban centers have significantly more access to broadband, with 54% enjoying access to broadband speeds of at least 50 mbps, while just 15% of rural areas have access to those same speeds. Areas with a high median income such as Chicago (IL), New Haven (CT), and New York (NY) generally had access to high speed broadband, while those with a lower median income, such as Missoula (MT), Muncie (IN), and Jonesboro (AR) generally lacked access.

For education, the map reinforces past studies that indicate a looming bandwidth crisis in schools. While past reports by the National Center for Education Statistics have revealed that 97% of schools have access to the Internet, this map shows that, by and large, Internet access is at speeds inadequate to education’s needs. According to the map, 90% of the K-12 schools that responded to the survey reported that they had broadband. This number, however, is deceptively high because the FCC defines any internet connection above 4 mbps as broadband and past reports have shown that most schools require 50 to 100 mbps per 1,000 students. Moreover, based on the summary statistics accompanying the map, the median speed for schools, libraries, and community centers is 9.8 mbps, and two-thirds of schools report speeds lower than 25 mbps. Both of these figures are far below education’s reported needs. The full broadband map can be found at: www.broadbandmap.gov

FCC’s E-Rate Study Shows Schools Need More Bandwidth

A survey of more than 1,000 E-Rate applicants by the Federal Communications Commission released in January 2011 shows that - even after thirteen years of E-Rate investments in infrastructure - the vast majority of schools and libraries remain dissatisfied with their broadband. According to the survey, 80% of respondents indicated that their broadband connections fail to meet their current needs, with 55% identifying slow connection speeds as their primary concern. The high cost of broadband also remains a significant issue, with 39% of respondents citing service cost and 27% citing installation costs as barriers to meeting their Internet needs. 20% of rural respondents and 10% of urban respondents indicated that the lack of availability of Internet access was a significant barrier.

The survey also provided interesting data around current school bandwidth status. Only 10% of respondents stated that they had bandwidth of 100 Mbps or greater while 55% indicated that they had bandwidth of 3 Mbps or greater. Approximately 30% of respondents have connection speeds under 3 Mbps. The report noted that rural E-Rate recipients reported slower speeds than any other entities.