One of the listservs I follow contained a post by Lavona Grow concerning federal funding for technology. Lavonna is now associated with the FIPSE grant program (a focus on higher education). My personal reference for her is in association with the now defunct PT3 grant program (a Program to train future teachers to use technology we were able to tap for work at the University of North Dakota).
Lavona’s post mostly excerpted sections of an article in eSchool News explaining the funding cuts relevant to technology use in K-12 settings (Lavona’s own comments focused on cuts in FIPSE funding).
The eSchool article says:
The massive, $602 billion spending package–which includes funding for labor, health, and education initiatives–slashes funding for several ed-tech related programs, including $221 million less for the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) state block-grant program, the primary source of federal funding for educational technology.
The cut to EETT amounts to 45% of the present rate. Also cut (actually completely eliminated) was the 21st Century Community Learning Center Program.
What troubles me about this situation is that it places a greater portion of the burden for the cost of technology on the state and district. The districts most likely to pick up the slack will be those districts able to go to the local tax payers and successfully argue for more funds. In some locations this will happen and in many locations it will not. Now, attempt to wrap your mind around this situation while simultaneously contemplating the expectations of NCLB. Is it possible to create a logical explanation for this combination of expectations and resource availability? Why is it reasonable to blame schools struggling under the most challenging in and out of school circumstances for their performance and at the same time take actions that differentially remove the basic resources these schools rely on to function?
[Note – this is one of the topics I wrote about a month or so ago and am not rewriting due to a database problem on my server (my fault) and the significance of the topic.]
