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 Going the Distance! Newsletter Articles:
Qualified Teacher Requirements of NCLB and the Effect on America’s Rural Schools An article titled, “The Highly Qualified Teacher Requirements of No Child Left Behind: Impact on America’s Rural Schools,” from a recent issue of the Rural Policy Matters newsletter discusses some recent changes to NCLB. Some of the highlights include:
For the full text go to http://www.ruraledu.org/issues/nclb/Highly_Qualified_Teacher_Fact_Sheet.pdf REPORT: eRate Funds Remain Untouched According to a recent article titled, “eRate Funds Go Begging,”which was featured in eSchoolNews, schools and libraries nationwide have failed to use 42 percent of the eRate discounts committed for funding year 2002. The article sites an eRate consulting firm, Funds for Learning. Funds for Learning claims that $947 million went un-spent for the 2002 school year. "It's a bit more than in the past," said Sara Fitzgerald, vice president of communications at Funds for Learning. "The first year had the best utilization rate." The amount of remaining funds has steadily increased in the past three years but luckily this $420 million was added to the $2.25 billion available in 2003. George McDonald, vice president of USAC (Universal Service Administrative Co.) who is in charge of the SLD (School and Libraries Division), said final numbers are still not available for 2002 due to funding commitments for IBM-related appeals. Applicants’ still receiving 2002 funding notices have until September 2005 to use funds. The rising concern of unused funds concerns educators. According to Greg Weisiger, Virginia's state eRate coordinator says lag time between deadlines and overlapping program years can make it difficult for applicants to use funds. Many times schools don’t receive notice of funding in time or underestimate their funding needs. "There's a certain lack of meaningful feedback from the SLD," said Robert Bocher, a state eRate coordinator for the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. "It would be one thing if the SLD said, 'You're OK, we're just still working on (your application),' but you don't get that." At the Consortium for School Networking conference in Arlington, Va., March 2, USAC's McDonald announced an increase in staff at SLD to process eRate applications faster. Funds for Learning has also developed a free, web-based tool, called eRate Manager, to help applicants keep track of approved discounts and deadlines to minimize the amount of unused funds. For the full text of this article go to: http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStory.cfm?ArticleID=4956 New Tool for Education Technology Lobbying 'Action Network' features talking points for communicating with members of Congress In December, Congress voted to eliminate the $62.5 million Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology program and federal funding for technology education programs has decreased 12 percent since 2001, according to an article titled, “New Program Helps Educators lobby for Ed Tech,” (eschoolnews April 1, 2004). In a response to that, the Ed Tech Action Network, with support from the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), has launched a web site to help educators tell Congress about the importance of technology in schools. "We've seen continual cuts in ed tech through the federal budget," said David Tortorelli, ISTE's director of policy and governmental relations. "The message we keep hearing from members of Congress is, 'We're not hearing enough from our constituents. We're not hearing enough about why educational technology is important.'” According to the article, the web site will contain information about the legislation process, along with up-to-date information about what is happening in Congress and contact information of Congress members. Educators are encouraged to share their success stories with legislators. "When major topics come up that affect us, we then have a place to gather to get information and take action. I think that's really important," said Ryan Imbriale, facilitator for the Maryland Students Online Consortium at the Baltimore County Public Schools. According to the article, about 150 people participated in the Washington Advocacy Day, March 4th. Organizers hope with the new web site, they will continue to build momentum throughout the year.Distance learning policies vary greatly from state to state according to a recent study by the Rural School and Community Trust and State Technology Directors Association. The report, entitled “2003 State Distance Learning Policy Study,” is featured in a recent Rural Policy Matters newsletter. For the full text of this article go to: http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStory.cfm?ArticleID=4965 Education Week: Rural Education According to an article titled “Rural Education,” in a recent issue of Education Week, slightly more than 31 percent of elementary and secondary schools in the US are classified as rural and 21 percent of public school students attend rural schools. Rural education is now earning more attention, due to the number of small schools and the challenges rural schools are facing with new mandates from No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The article states that students in rural schools generally score as well on standardized tests as non-rural students. Achievement levels vary from state to state when comparing rural and non-rural schools. This variance is contributed to differences in available resources and courses offered depending in individual schools. For the most part, rural schools are predominately white, however, uncommon to find some schools to be composed of a single, nonwhite racial or ethnic group. Poverty levels overall in rural schools are not as high as urban areas but the article reports approximately 2.5 million rural children in the United States are poor. Studies in several states say that it is possible to overcome the achievement gap in small schools between poor students and their more affluent counterparts. Despite the advantages of small schools, the U.S. has reduced school districts by 91 percent since 1930. This consolidation is forced upon states to save money and combat decreasing enrollment. Rural schools are also facing an increased struggle finding teachers due to the new NCLB mandate, requiring all teachers to be Highly Qualified in all courses they teach by the 2005-06 school year. According to the article, the difficulty of finding teachers is due to lower salaries than the urban and suburban counterparts, along with social and geographic isolation. NCLB has required all states to increase test levels to “proficient” on state tests. This law poses problems for small schools that have few students taking tests. Therefore, a small amount of students determine if the school is meeting state standards. As of now, the issue is being disputed on how to solve the problem. The article also discusses the difficulty rural schools face with funding. Many state programs are skewed, for various reasons, to fund larger districts. Combating these problems, the federal government started the Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP) targeting federal funding directly to rural schools. For the full text of this article go to: http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStory.cfm?ArticleID=4913 For the full text of this article go to: http://www.edweek.org/context/topics/issuespage.cfm?id=124 The 2003~2004 school year rapidly comes to a close. Springtime brings changes as the days get progressively longer. Spirits lighten, energies increase and I'm sure that students are not the only ones counting days (to sharpen their math skills, of course). Please take this time to leave some notes for yourself, other staff members, and especially new staff that will be coming aboard with the next school year about the school's technology. Maybe this note contains information that's site specific, such as the location of equipment required for Distance Learning or Internet access. Remember to include those items that aren't mentioned during the opening in-service held by the district. If this note contains the district contact for technology issues and our contact information, we can take it from there. We can be reached by phone at 1-888-254-2858 and by email at schoolaccess@gci.com. All of us at the SchoolAccess Help Desk look forward to serving you in the coming year. Feel free to take the time to let us know how we did. Either by an email or a phone call, we would love to hear from you. All the best to you and to your summer adventures, and we look forward to hearing from you early next school year.
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