UCEA 2007 - How national technology policy REALLY gets made

Friday was the first day of sessions at the UCEA convention. CASTLE sponsored a panel discussion on national K-12 educational technology policy, moderated by Drs. Sara Dexter (U. Virginia) and Matt Militello (U. Massachusetts-Amherst).

 Listen to the podcast! (73.9 Mb, 81 minutes)

Panelists

• Hilary Goldman, Director of Government Affairs, ISTE
• Dr. Mary Ann Wolf, Executive Director, SETDA
• Doug Levin, Senior Director of Education Policy, Cable in the Classroom

Some main themes

• In the mid– to late 1990s, there were LOTS of national funding initiatives aimed at K-12 ed tech – all were replaced by EETT, which is much smaller and more limited – today, EETT has declined from over $700 million to $272 million – in the past, the Bush administration has even attempted to zero out the EETT budget – Congress has saved the program but at increasingly lower levels
• There is a perception that the job is done
• Teachers have not been trained how to use technology to improve student learning outcomes
• Educators are moving slow – lots of missed opportunities – extremely incremental change in a revolutionary environment
• TPCK model – preservice teachers should not take separate ed tech classes – should be integrated with content-specific methods courses
• We are finally starting to get research that is helpful for policy purposes – for example, the eMints program in Missouri and other states
• The amount of education that people need is astounding – state and federal policymakers, education associations, the public – they make major assumptions about what is happening that just aren’t true
• Example: because nearly all schools are wired, people truly think that means that all kids have access to the Internet – far from being true – only buildings and teacher computers are wired – every student is NOT wired and connected
• Example: lots of money has been poured into student information systems – as a result, people think that teachers are getting data that informs their day-to-day instructional practice – again, this is far from true – in most districts, the data that are in these systems are not that granular
• You have to use sexy vocabulary – the terms of art – that capture policymakers’ attention – right now it is global competitiveness
• High school reform and other change efforts – technology is not specifically articulated as a component – it thus gets lost or left out
• Ed tech policy is still fairly immature - we’re in our tweens
• Groups like NEA, AFT, NSBA, AASA, NASSP, and NAESP are not knowledgeable about technology – they advocate for Title I, IDEA - they don’t advocate for ed tech
• The Partnership for 21st Century Skills is trying to change the conversation rather than trying to figure out how to fit ed tech into existing paradigms / models / laws - this is a real herky-jerky process
• There is not, and has not been, a systemic long-term research agenda, funded by policymakers, to answer key research questions about K-12 educational technology
• What kind of research is needed to further the cause of K-12 educational technology?
• Most education academics are naive about how policy gets made – don’t really understand the policy process – much educational research is not pertinent or helpful to policy conversations and the questions that are being asked by policymakers - we have to remember that ed tech is only one voice of many
• ETAN – www.edtechactionnetwork.org – you don’t have to get to DC – can plug in your e-mail and zip code and get resources and information – just 12 letters can make a difference – meeting in local offices back home also make an impact – asking questions at local town halls sponsored by legislators
• We were blessed in the 1990s with the folks that were in the U.S. Department of Education (US DOE) – there are lots of places where this can break down – there are not strong advocates there today – one place to focus advocacy efforts is the US DOE, not just legislators
• Why has school leadership been left out of the ed tech policy conversation and policy efforts? – historically, efforts were focused on affecting the classroom, not on changing the system – promising levers appear to be 21st century skills, data-driven decision-making, and cybersafety
• We could draft Title II legislation around professional development for administrators regarding technology leadership

[left to right: Sara Dexter, Matt Militello, Hilary Goldman, Mary Ann Wolf, Doug Levin]