Policy

Education Week
With millions of grant dollars on the line, representatives of the 16 state finalists for federal Race to the Top prize money will go to Washington next week to make final, in-person pitches to the U.S. Department of Education for investment in their brand of school reform.
Full story

eSchool News
James Shelton, assistant deputy secretary for ED’s Office of Innovation and Improvement, acknowledged that the innovation pipeline is fractured and there are obstacles making it difficult to get from the research and development phase to taking a product or idea to scale. Specifically, Shelton said he is worried that applicants might have problems providing [...]

Education Daily
Educational technology advocates told policymakers federal education technology funding streams should not be consolidated, as called for by the Obama administration’s FY 2011 budget request, in order for education reforms to succeed.

Education Week
The U.S. Department of Education today unveiled the final rules for its $650 million Investing in Innovation, or i3, grant program, standing fast in the face of criticism that its proposed guidelines demanded too much from applicants in the way of private-sector match and evidence to back up their proposals.
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Education Daily   
Stakeholders on Capitol Hill this week urged Congress to salvage the main federal education technology funding stream, which President Obama proposed to eliminate in his FY 2011 budget request. More than 200 educators at the Washington Education Technology Summit pledged to work with legislators to restore funding for key initiatives they say are necessary [...]

EdWeek
Over at the  National Journal’s education blog, two top federal education officials have started a lively conversation on the role of innovation in education. The questions being posed by John Easton, the director of the department’s Institute of Education Sciences, and Jim Shelton, the chief of the office of innovation and improvement, are:
What are the [...]

EdWeek
As the U.S. Department of Education prepares final rules for the $650 million Investing in Innovation Fund, officials face strong concerns from school districts and philanthropies that requiring matching funds from the private sector is unworkable and would turn foundations into the gatekeepers for the federal grants. The influential Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the [...]

eSchool News
Train every pre-service teacher to teach online in teacher-education programs at colleges and universities; invest in the development of open courseware with federal and state funding; encourage the use of technology to create new forms of assessment that better measure student learning gains; provide national standards for school IT support, with recommendations for optimal [...]

EdWeek
A new report card on state-level innovation in education by a trio of ideologically varied groups reports what they see as deeply disturbing results, with most states earning C’s, D’s, or even F’s in such key areas as technology, high school quality, and removal of ineffective teachers.
Full story

EdWeek
The national board that advises the U.S. Department of Education on its research operations voted to weigh in yesterday on the proposed rules for the new Investing in Innovation or “”i3″” program—and just in the nick of time.
The window for commenting on draft guidelines for the $650 million grant program was scheduled to close at [...]

Try out this Leaders and Laggards interactive map that displays the 2009 data on state educational innovations and barriers. See how states match up on 8 dimensions.

On Nov. 16, the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) will have a new leader: Long-time ed-tech industry executive Douglas Levin will take the reins from current SETDA Executive Director Mary Ann Wolf–and with challenges ranging from state funding shortages to the formation of a new national broadband plan, he’ll have his work cut out [...]

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation his taking unprecedented steps to spend millions to influence the way the federal government distributes nearly $5 billion in “Race to the Top” grants to overhaul public schools. The foundation is offering $250,000 apiece to help states apply, so long as they agree with the foundation’s approach. Obama and [...]

What does broadband access mean for the disability community? The FCC hosted an all-day workshop to find out.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan signaled last week that the Department of Education is poised to launch reauthorization efforts for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. He used a packed meeting of key stakeholders here to underline his likely priorities and stress his sense of urgency.
The new version of the law, he said, will [...]

When the filing window opens later this fall, applicants will find no major changes to next year’s e-Rate, the $2.25 billion-a-year federal program that provides discounts on telecommunications services to eligible schools and libraries. What they will find instead is a program that is more dedicated to helping e-Rate newcomers–as many as half of all [...]

President Obama plans to make the nation’s economy more stable in the future by investing in education for high-tech industries. The president unveiled a new “innovation strategy” that builds on $100 billion of economic stimulus funds to support entrepreneurship, education, infrastructure, and other investments. The plan aims to make the U.S. economy more competitive and [...]

The e-Rate can play a significant role in the national broadband plan being developed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), panelists said during an Aug. 20 hearing–but for this to happen, commissioners must raise the program’s funding cap.
Read the full story from eSchool News.

Education experts are split after a recent proposal published by some influential members of the Democratic Party suggested the government provide electronic reading devices to every student in the United States.
Click here to read the full story from eSchool News.

Some of the world’s largest technology companies have banded together in a bid to push open-source software on the United States government. They’ve formed a group called Open Source for America, which seeks to make sure that government agencies at least consider open-source software as an option in their buying decisions.
Click here to read the [...]

Educational technology advocates are hoping that Congress amends the fiscal 2010 budget to include funding for a grant program that focuses on improving new teachers’ abilities to use technology in the classroom.
Lawmakers created the Preparing Teachers for Digital Age Learners (PTDAL) program last year when they reauthorized the Higher Education Act. The program awards three-year [...]

Some influential members of the Democratic Party want to give electronic reading devices to every student in the country. The Democratic Leadership Council, a left-leaning think tank, argues that government should furnish each student in the country with a digital reading device, which would allow textbooks to be cheaply distributed and updated, and allow teachers [...]

Opinions about the management of the federal e-Rate program have improved over the last year, a new survey suggests. But applicants continue to be frustrated by audits, and they’d like to see more transparency in the program.
Click here to read the full story from eSchool News.

A panel of educational technology experts spoke before the members of the House Education and Labor Committee June 16, stressing the importance that technology plays in the classroom as well as the need for continued professional development.
In the first of what Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., said will be a series of panel discussions, educators [...]

ED Secretary Arne Duncan suggests school officials should use the short-term federal funding to upgrade technology and improve the tracking of student data to avoid being caught short when stimulus money runs out. Adopting innovative technology now could pay dividends for school systems in coming fiscal years, the secretary explained. ED has $10 billion in [...]

More than 25 percent of the available eRate funding that was committed to applicants during the program’s first nine years has not been disbursed. About $5 billion of the estimated $19.5 billion in eRate funds committed to schools and libraries from 1998 to 2006 were never used, according to a recent report from the Government [...]

Be informed as to how the legislation will impact your community and work. Check out these sites tracking the process and implications.

Is Internet access a fundamental human right? That is the question confronting policy makers as they try to bring Internet access to the masses while seeking to curb illegal copying of digital music, movies and video games.
The United States Congress held hearings last week on the growing problem of piracy, which the American entertainment industry [...]

Leaders of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on April 1 said they have reached agreement on key elements of a bill to revise U.S. patent law, changes that aim to reduce the number of patent-related lawsuits in fields such as technology. To read more about the proposed changes to the bill, click here.

On April 10, The Schools and Libraries Division (SLD) of the Universal Service Administrative Co. (USAC), the outfit that manages the $2.25 billion-a-year federal e-Rate program,announced that intranet web hosting has been classified as e-Rate eligible beginning with the FY2009 program year. This change comes two months after the FY2009 filing window closed.
Schools and libraries [...]

President Obama has chosen Vivek Kundra, 34, the chief technology officer for the District of Columbia, to oversee a push by the federal government to expand uses of cutting-edge technology.
To learn more about Vivek Kundra and President Obama’s expectations, click here.

Follow up study on the effectiveness of reading and mathematics software has been released by the U.S. Dept. of Education, IES. What are the ramifications for your work?

Digital Directions: The President-elect pledges to put more computers in classrooms and expand broadband access to schools and homes. . . .

On August 27, 2008, Target and the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) announced that both parties have agreed to a class action settlement over complaints about the accessibility of Target’s Web site, www.target.com.  Rulings by Northern District of California Judge Marilyn Hall Patel that both the Americans with Disabilities Act and the State Unruh Civil [...]

On June 29, 2008, the Software and Industry Information Association (SIIA) published the results of a pilot survey designed to assist educators and administrators in monitoring their progress toward achieving the following goals and measures (termed Vision K-20):

Help schools meet the needs of all students
Support accountability and inform instruction
Deepen learning and motivate students
Facilitate communication, connectivity and [...]

Introduced legislation would mandate captioning and descriptions of Internet video including on portable devices.

The “Doing What Works” site offers a user-friendly interface to quickly locate teaching practices that have been found effective by the U.S. Department of Education’s research arm – the IES – and similar organizations. The site recently added a feature that will empower educators and administrators with research-based strategies to help boost their early childhood language and literacy practices.

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) recently released a study that presents the impacts of the Reading First program on classroom reading instruction and student reading comprehension during the 2004-05 and 2005-06 school years. The Reading First federal program provides assistance to states and districts to ensure that increased proportions of students read at or above grade level, have mastery of the essential components of early reading, and that all students can read at or above grade level by the end of grade 3.

Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL), delivered a powerful speech about the employment of people with disabilities and the future of the ADA at the Fourth Annual Tony Coelho Lecture in Disability Employment Law & Policy.

This issue brief provides guidance to states as they respond to requirements presented in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA 2004) in the area of dropout prevention for students with disabilities. It also highlights the role of State Performance Plans as starting points for states to develop data collection and monitoring procedures, and supplies states with considerations and recommendations for providing a consistent method of tracking dropout data.

A new coalition of 100 organizations has formed to provide leadership and advocacy around issues of accessibility in Internet protocol technologies. Join the Coalition to keep watch on legislation and regulations.

The Industry Profile on Education Technology: Learning Disabilities Technologies and Markets, produced by T2RERC at the University at Buffalo, provides an overview of the current state of the education technology industry as it relates to students with learning disabilities.

NCTI Dialogue Events were forums held in 2004-2005 for experts to discuss timely topics of interest to the field, share information, and network with potential partners. The findings from these lively discussions are presented in the NCTI report, Moving Toward Solutions: Assistive and Learning Technology for All Students.

NCTI established a partnership with the Special Education Assistive Technology (SEAT) Center at Illinois State University and the University of Kansas to advance a national research agenda for issues related to the effects of assistive technology on educational outcomes.

The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders asserts that more than 30 million Americans are exposed to hazardous sound levels on a regular basis. Califone International, Inc. and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) announced a collaborative effort to promote awareness of the safe use of audio products. Also read about Califone International’s new [...]

Doing What Works is a website dedicated to assisting teachers in the implementation of effective educational practices. The Doing What Works website contains practice guides developed by the Department’s Institute of Education Sciences that evaluate research on the effectiveness of teaching practices described in the guides. The website also contains examples of possible ways this [...]

Initiated by the accessibility industry, the Accessibility Interoperability Alliance (AIA) is a group of leading Information Technology (IT) and Assistive Technology (AT) companies, content providers, and other key engineering organizations, working to create and harmonize standards for accessible technology.
Because the need for accessible technologies is growing — an estimated one in four computer users today [...]