As my colleague Emily Embury noted in her blog entry on ed tech policies, it’s an interesting time in education. With Race to the Top and Investing in Innovation (i3) funding included in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the federal government is making an unprecedented investment in schools. Continuing this trend, the Obama Administration issued a budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2011 that increases overall education spending by $3.5 billion. During the CoSN 2010 Conference, we had the opportunity to hear from Jon Bernstein, founder and president of Bernstein Strategy Group, to learn more about the recent changes in education technology funding and what to expect down the road. In Bernstein’s view, the area of greatest concern for educators, and the education technology community, is the elimination of the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program in the President’s proposed budget, as this is the only source of money dedicated to the purchase and implementation of education technology. EETT also provides funds for teacher professional development to integrate technology effectively into the classroom. While President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have stressed the critical importance of technology to education reform and ongoing school improvement, the FY2011 budget is the latest [...]
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