On September 9 and 10, ISTE and CoSN's Ed Tech Action Network (ETAN) held two very successful special advocacy days on Capitol Hill, urging Senators and Representatives to restore the $91 million in Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) funds that the House of Representatives voted to cut for Fiscal Year 2005.
ETAN representatives from thirteen states (California, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Texas) fanned out to meet with members of their states' Congressional delegations to inform them about the importance of education technology academically--particularly in supporting students' mastery of 21st Century skills and complying with accountability mandates such as No Child left Behind--and also professionally.
A highlight of the advocacy days was a well-attended press conference that featured remarks from ISTE CEO Don Knezek, CoSN CEO Keith Krueger, and Software and Information Industry Association Executive Director Ken Wasch. The event also included a stirring speech by New Mexico Senator Jeff Bingaman, a senior member of the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, who reiterated his strong support for federal investment in education technology. ETAN members Sheryl Abshire, from Louisiana, and Amy Perry Del Corvo, from New York, spoke at the press conference and presented the Senator with a letter opposing the cuts that was signed by more than 40 school districts and 20 national and state education associations, including the Consortium for School Networking, the International Society for Technology in Education, the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, the American Library Association, and the National PTA. Representatives of Intel and Cox Communications also presented Senator Bingaman with a letter making the business case for full funding of EETT that was signed by more than 30 high tech companies, including their own, Apple, BellSouth, Dell, Gateway, HP, and Texas Instruments.
The press conference was videotaped and is archived at ISTE 100 company MINDS. You can view the video at http://eett.minds.tv/.
The press conference has already received good press coverage, with a long article in National Journal's Tech Daily (available to subscribers only) and in eSchool News.
Aside from good press coverage, the meetings and the press conference are also paying dividends politically. We have just learned that the Senate Appropriations Committee is poised to restore the EETT cuts in its version of FY05 appropriations legislation and will likely seek to provide EETT with $691 million for next year. But even if the full Senate adopts the Senate Appropriations figure, ETAN will still have plenty of work to do in pressuring members of a joint House-Senate Conference Committee to hold to the Senate's higher figure. The most likely scenario remains that Congress will not complete work on education funding until after the November election, so ISTE and ETAN members can still make important contributions to this vital issue. Here are three things that you can do: