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EETT Decision Postponed—Action Shifts to Home Districts Congress plans to adjourn September 30, leaving all unfinished business, including the FY 07 education funding bill, until after the November election. As the Federal fiscal year ends on September 30, Congress will pass a Continuing Resolution to keep government programs funded and operating until a final funding bill is enacted. Thus, next year’s funding for the Enhancing Education Through Technology program (EETT) remains in limbo. The House Committee bill includes no funding for EETT, while the Senate Committee bill level funds the program at $272 million. Senators Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Tom Harkin (D-IA), the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Labor, HHS and Education Appropriations Subcommittee respectively, are working to hold their fellow Senators to a commitment they made during the FY07 Budget Resolution process to restore funding for education-related and social services to FY05 levels. The Senate Appropriations Committee’s approval of an additional $5 billion for education and social service programs is still $2 billion short of the $7 billion needed to fund all programs at FY05 levels. As of this writing, Senators Harkin and Specter are circulating a sign-on letter to their colleagues that advocates for securing an additional $2 billion for the FY07 Labor, HHS and Education spending bill. Meanwhile, according to ISTE’s Director of Government Affairs, most Congresspersons will be in their home districts for the month of October. “We encourage all ISTE members to keep up the pressure,” she says. “Attend town hall meetings and campaign events. Speak up about education technology in general and EETT specifically. Tell members of Congress to fund EETT at $496 million, its FY 05 funding level.” Deleting Online Predators Act Passes the House, Stalls in the Senate Before Congress recessed in August, the House of Representatives passed the Deleting Online Predators Act, DOPA (H.R. 5319), by an overwhelming vote of 410 to 15. Specifically, DOPA requires all schools and libraries that receive E-Rate support to block access to all social networking websites. Despite the nearly unanimous passage in the House, the bill quickly became controversial; the educational technology community, though clearly supporting the aim of promoting internet safety, expressed strong concerns with the act as passed by the House. A senior Democratic Senator placed a hold on DOPA shortly after the House’s action, thereby preventing the Senate from moving it towards final passage. DOPA has been referred to the Senate Commerce Committee, which has held no hearings and scheduled no mark-ups on it to date. IISTE Statement on DOPA As the bill began to move in the House, it generated major opposition from the education technology community. ISTE and the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) summarized their concerns in a letter to Congress: “ISTE and CoSN hold that H.R. 5319’s requirements represent a significant encroachment on local control of school matters, would lead to overblocking of valuable educational content, would undermine the stability of the E-Rate program, and would create a major administrative burden for the agency charged with administering such requirements. We strongly urge you to oppose this legislation.” Other groups opposing the legislation include: the American Library Association, the National School Boards Association, the National PTA, and the US Chamber of Commerce. E-Rate and Network Neutrality The Senate Commerce Committee’s effort to rewrite the Telecommunications Act of 1996 also will not make it to the Senate floor before Congress leaves on September 30th, owing the to opposition to what some in the Internet community view as weak “network neutrality” provisions. Net neutrality posits that Internet service providers should not provide priority access to particular websites. The issue emerged when one telephone company executive suggested that charging particular websites for priority consumer access to their sites was a viable business model. The Senate Commerce Committee-approved version of telecommunications reform would not bar Internet service providers from charging a fee for faster delivery of certain content. It would, however, require the FCC to study the matter and it would endorse the FCC’s Internet Consumers Bill of Rights. The House bill would establish an adjudicatory process at the FCC to handle complaints about discriminatory service provision by ISPs. Beyond network neutrality language, the Senate bill contains three provisions favorable to the E-Rate.
With controversy mounting about the Senate’s net neutrality language, though, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK) has thus far been unable to round-up enough votes to prevent a filibuster if this bill is brought to the Senate floor. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) had told Senator Stevens that he could not bring any bill to the floor unless it was “filibuster-proof” because of the lack of available floor time before this Congressional Session expires. Both Senator Stevens and Commerce Committee member John McCain (R-AZ) believes that an expected lame duck session of Congress after the November election could provide an opportunity to pass this legislation. Meanwhile, the Federal Communications Commission issued a major order that granted waivers to 128 school districts, including several in Alaska, whose applications USAC rejected on the grounds that clerical and ministerial errors caused them to be filed late. This ruling represents a significant change in FCC thinking on the program, demonstrating that the FCC will now no longer automatically reject applications deemed untimely owing to small clerical or administrative errors. Senate Competitiveness & Innovation Bill A re-crafted Competitiveness and Innovation Bill was recently unveiled in the Senate by bi-partisan group of senators, including: Senators Alexander (R-TN), Bingaman (D-NM), Domenici (R-NM), Ensign (R-NV), Enzi (R-WY), Hutchison (R-TX), Kennedy (D-MA), Inouye (D-HI), Lieberman (D-CT) and Stevens (R-AK). The education portion of the bill focuses primarily on improving and expanding the pool of math, science and foreign-language teachers in the US, with the ultimate goal of making the US more competitive in the current global economy by enriching the education for those students likely to enter math- or science-related fields. The bill also includes grants through the Department of Energy and National Science Foundation that would create specialty science- and math-related schools, summer institutes, and other programs to serve as a mechanism to attract math- and science-oriented students to those fields at an early age. Provisions in the bill include required teacher training activities that focus on the use and integration of technology in the classroom. “ISTE is pleased that this version of the legislation has a stronger focus on education technology,” says ISTE CEO Don Knezek. “It’s only logical to ensure that classroom teachers have the skills and training they need to prepare students for the future they will face.” Though there was hope among the writers of the bill that it would go to the Senate floor for a full vote before Congress leaves, that remains unlikely. There has been no movement in the House on this bill.
Join the Ed Tech Action Network! If educational technology issues are important to you, then please join the Ed Tech Action Network at http://www.EdTechActionNetwork.org. This online advocacy tool will allow you to easily send important messages to your Representative and Senators, learn more about timely education technology issues, and receive tips for communicating with elected officials. Your voice is critical for impacting the decisions of policy-makers.
From the
Washington, D.C.
Office of
Bernstein Strategy Group
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The following
message is posted as a service of ISTE,
the International
Society for Technology in Education.
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