Senate Passes One-Year ADA Exemption

On September 15th, the Senate agreed to the insertion in its Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) appropriations bill (H.R. 2862) of an amendment that exempts for one year the E-Rate and all of universal service from the Anti Deficiency Act (ADA). . While E-Rate advocates have been pushing for a permanent exemption to ADA and two pieces of legislation that would achieve that goal – S. 241 and HR 2533 – have continued to gain cosponsors, this action might prevent E-Rate funding disruptions next year. The Senate’s CJS spending bill now heads to conference with the House’s version, which does not contain any ADA exemption language. It is not yet clear when a final CJS bill will be ready for final passage.

...from the EdTechActionNetwork (ETAN)

Legislation Passed to Keep the Government Running, But It Slashes EETT Funding; More Work Ahead for Education Technology Advocates

Congress passed legislation (called a Continuing Resolution) that provides funding to the Federal agencies that have not yet received their FY 06 funding allocations, thereby averting a government shutdown when the new fiscal year begins on October 1. The Continuing Resolution states that each program will be funded at the LOWER level of the FY 05 appropriation, the FY 06 Senate Committee Bill or the FY 06 House bill. The EETT program will therefore be funded at $300 million, the lowest of the three allocations and 40% less than its FY 05 funding level of $496 million. The Continuing Resolution will expire on November 18. Because the Department of Education will not distribute funding under the EETT program prior to November 18, the Continuing Resolution will not have an immediate impact on the program. However, it is possible that Congress will attempt to extend this Continuing Resolution to the end of FY 06, thereby gutting EETT to $300 million for the entire fiscal year. To prevent this outcome ISTE and CoSN will join forces with education organizations and will activate the ETAN network in the coming weeks to make sure Congress hears from the education community that this approach to funding is unacceptable and EETT must be funded at the $425 million level that was included in the Senate Committee bill.

...from the EdTechActionNetwork (ETAN)

NetDay; Speak Up Time!

It’s Speak Up time again!

Since 2003, NetDay has been hosting annual Speak Up Events. Our Speak Up events provide a unique opportunity for K-12 students and teachers to share their ideas on technology use and 21st century skills with national policy-makers and local decision-makers through an online survey.

To date, 377,000 K-12 students and 11,142 teachers representing 5,000 schools from all 50 states and American military bases worldwide have participated. Speak Up data contributed to the U.S. Department of Education's “National Education Technology Plan” and the “Visions 2020.2 Student Voices” joint report with the U.S. Department of Commerce. (See both the plan and the report at www.nationaledtechplan.org.)

Last year, 1,141 Connecticut students submitted online surveys as part of Speak Up Day for Students. We are excited to tell you that the Speak Up event will take place again this October – and we are very excited that to announce that we are also concurrently hosting Speak Up for Teachers. The registration system has been open for 2 weeks and so far 262 students and 51 teachers have registered from Connecticut.

ABOUT THE SURVEY
This year's survey will follow up on many of the technology issues addressed in the 2003 and 2004 student and teacher surveys. In addition, new questions cover hot topics in education such as online learning, one-to-one computer initiatives, professional development, science and innovation, and 21st century workforce skills.

· The survey only takes 15 minutes to complete and all responses are 100% confidential. We do not collect any identification information from your students with the exception of gender and grade; we do not collect any email addresses from any survey participants.
· No individual data will be shared with anyone. To participate, a school or district simply registers their site online and then provides their students with the URL and secret code to access the survey.
· The survey will be open for participation at www.netdayspeakup.org between October 21 and November 18. Students and teachers can take the survey anytime, anywhere, anyplace with an Internet connection and their school code.

Grant Readers Needed

We need you!

Grant applications are due on October 21st. for the Computer Assisted Writing RFP (http://www.state.ct.us/sde/DTL/RFP/cawt.doc). Readers will be given approximately two weeks to review between three and six proposals. Whether or not you have ever read a proposal before, your input is valuable. On November 9th., readers that have read the same applications will come together to summarize their findings.

Soon to be released is the new RFP for Infrastructure Wiring. If you are someone that uses the terms routers, switches and firewall as part of your everyday vocabulary, we need you to assist in the reading. Each reader will be given several proposals to read and then will have the opportunity to come together on November 21st. to compare their findings with other readers.

If you are interested in becoming a reader for either of the RFPs, please send me an e-mail (arthur.skerker@po.state.ct.us) with your contact information. If you want more details about the reading process, please call me @ (860) 713-6553.