October 2004 — Editorial
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Integrating Technology Throughout Education
We in technology and education certainly are getting mixed messages these days. Consider the following points: First, a goal of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act is that all students will be technologically literate by the end of the eighth grade. The definition of “technologically literate” is left up to the states, and there is no requirement for states to report their progress on this goal. Second, the NCLB Act requires states to show how they will ensure that technology is integrated throughout all of their curriculum and instruction by Dec. 31, 2006. States are not required to report on the extent to which they are meeting this task; thus, obviously, there are no sanctions when they do not meet the requirement. Finally, the House Appropriations Committee has approved a $91 million cut to the Enhancing Education Through Technology program, the only program in NCLB with dedicated technology funding, for the next fiscal year. Well, perhaps the message is not so mixed, at least from the U.S. House of Representatives.
At the state level, state departments of education are still reeling from tight budgets; budget cuts; and in some cases, such as Texas, the complete obliteration of their technology departments. But as Marc Tucker and Thomas Toch indicate in “The Secret to Making NCLB Work? More Bureaucrats” in the September 2004 issue of Phi Delta Kappan, the states - not local school districts - “are responsible for reshaping their education systems to produce higher student performance” (p. 30). Yet the states are not set up to do that. Bill Insko of the Kentucky Department of Education is quoted in the same article as saying, “We’re set up to handle tens of schools ... NCLB is requiring us to work with hundreds.”
So states are understaffed and unprepared to deal with the most pressing part of NCLB: getting underperforming schools up to speed. Those at the top of state departments of education have little time or inclination to be concerned with technology requirements that do not even need to be reported to the feds. Despite these mixed messages and budget difficulties, there are enormous and promising efforts going on:
- State technology staffs are struggling to do good things, as was shown in our July issue with the State Educational Technology Directors Association. They do see the importance of technology in education and are working to implement meaningful projects.
- ISTE, CoSN and SIIA are lobbying to restore the proposed cut mentioned above.
- The Partnership for 21st Century Skills is working with the industry, teacher organizations and others to define 21st century skills and work them into standards nationwide.
Couple these efforts with a compelling commentary by Frank Levy and Richard J. Murnane in the Sept. 1 issue of Education Week, which is based on their book The New Division of Labor: How Computers Are Creating the Next Job Market, and you get continuing and growing rationale and evidence for the importance of technology and education. The authors, both economists, explain that every job requires processing of information, whether the information is words, numbers, sounds, etc.
