USA
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Gary Shattuck
Director of Technology, Newton County School District
Educational technology in the United States is not new; but it became the focus of educational, business, and political leaders in the mid 1990s when the Internet helped define the world as a global village.
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The United States (see Figure 1) is located in the Western and Northern Hemispheres. It is the third largest country in the world, the third most populous, and the second wealthiest with a Gross Domestic Product of $36,200 per capita. As a country, it has the most number of computers, 164,100,000, over three times more than Japan the next highest country. This number of computers equals one computer for every 1.7 man, woman, and child in the United States. Additionally, the United States has the highest number of Internet users, 148,000,000, or 53% of its population. Because it is one of the most industrialized countries in the world, it is also one of the largest polluters producing six tons per person per year of carbon dioxide emissions (Aneki.Com, 2004).
Politically, the United States uses a federal system of governing, meaning that each level of government: the federal level of government, the state level of government, and the local level of government, has different areas of responsibility, and each level of government has different levels of authority. Generally speaking, the Federal Government is responsible for issues that have a national perspective. Prior to 1965, the Federal Government exerted little if any influence over education within the United States, because according to the Constitution of the United States of America, the Federal Government is not given the responsibility for public education; so, by default, that responsibility is assumed by the states (US Department of Education, 2004a). As a result, prior to 1965, there had been little educational consistency, in the funding, in the curriculum, and in the requirements, between the states.
Since 1965, however, the Federal Government has become more involved in public education when the first Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was passed. This involvement, as illustrated by ESEA, was fueled by the realization that the Federal Government has a, “compelling…interest in the quality of the nation's public schools,” by the desire to make sure that all students have equity in access to a quality educational system and by the desire to make sure that all students have equity in access to equal educational opportunities (US Department of Education, 2004a). This federal involvement has resulted in the creation of more consistency in educational laws, in educational rules, and in educational policies between the states. For example, all states now provide free public education in grades kindergarten through 12. All states now have mandatory attendance rules for all children; and for most of the states, the mandatory attendance age is 16 years old. Most states have divided their educational system among three levels: elementary school (grades K-5), middle school (grades 6-8), and high school (grades 9-12) which is a 5-3-4 system (R.S. Whatley, personal communication, September 15, 2004).
Another driving force that has created a consistency between states is the standardized tests (R.S. Whatley, personal communication, September 15, 2004). All states and now the Federal Government require some type of standardized testing to make sure that the public schools in each state are educating their children according to state guidelines. Thus, the Federal Government calls for accountability from all states so that if individual schools in the states do not meet the state guidelines, there are consequences which can include the state taking over that individual school. This emphasis on testing and on accountability has become more important since 2001 with the passage of the most recent iteration of the ESEA known as “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) (US Department of Education, 2004e). Since these tests, in one form or another, are used throughout the United States, the curriculum in every state and the requirements in every state have become very similar (R.S. Whatley, personal communication, September 15, 2004).
In 1965, with the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Federal Government began to exert a certain level of control over public education through the disbursement of federal funds. By 2003, the Federal Government's share of funding for K-12 reached 8.2% (US Department of Education, 2004a), which by itself is not a high percentage; but, it has given the Federal Government enormous influence over education in the United States as evidenced by what the No Child Left Behind legislation has imposed on states and on local school districts: a strict standard of accountability by testing students in grades 3, 5, and 8. Therefore, schools which do not meet the standards are identified as “needing improvement,” “needing corrective action,” or “needing restructuring” so that “no student is trapped in a failing school” (US Department of Education, 2004e). If a school meets the goals that are established by NCLB, then that school has met “Average Yearly Progress” (AYP). If a school does not meet AYP for two consecutive years, then that school is labeled as a “needs improvement school” (US Department of Education, 2004e). Once a school is labeled a “needs improvement school, ” it must offer a variety of remedial actions, such as tutoring or such as allowing students to transfer to another school which is not a “needs improvement school”; thus, the variety of remedial actions are designed to assist those students in that school in improving their test scores. If a school, or more accurately, if a school district, does not want to participate in NCLB, that school district will no longer be eligible for any Federal funds (US Department of Education, 2004a; US Department of Education, 2004e).
Annually, the United States spends in excess of $500 billion from all sources on public education at all levels including post-secondary education, which places the United States near the top of the per-student-expenditures category when compared to other industrial nations in the world (See Figure 2); and yet, the United States consistency is ranked near the middle of every comparative achievement survey among these same countries (Cuban, 2000, p. 7-20). Obviously, there is something wrong in the educational establishment in the United States. This weakness does not bode well for education because it exposes the educational establishment to criticism and to tinkering by the politicians (Department of Education, 2004a; Cuban, 2000, p. 7-20; Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2003).
Although the Federal Government of the United States exerts tremendous leverage over the states, the states are not required to accept these federal funds for public education; however, the promise of billions of dollars of money from the Federal Government means that every state participates. The role that the Federal Government played in education when it passed ESEA was to ensure equality of opportunity. In the second iteration of ESEA in 1971, the Federal Government added Title 1 as a component to this act. The purpose of Title 1 is to provide funds to high poverty schools. Even though some of these Title 1 funds may be used to enhance technology in these high poverty schools, technology did not reach the national consciousness until the 1990s. The Title 1 program has grown over just the last 25 years from around $3 billion per year to almost $14 billion (see Figure 3). Examples of additional areas into which the Federal Government has invested money are Special Education, Staff Development, Safe and Drug Free Schools, and Vocation programs. The primary purpose of all of these programs is to ensure equality of opportunities (US Department of Education, 2004a).
 Figure 2. OECD Secondary Education Expenditures per Student |  Figure 3. Title1 Grants for Disadvantaged Children |
Prior to the mid 1990s, technology was not considered to be a national educational priority; but, in 1996, President Clinton proposed a Technology Literacy Challenge program that would establish a grant that funneled $400 million into educational technology. The program was included in the 1996 version of ESEA and was included in the section entitled Title 2D. The purpose of President Clinton's challenge program was to jump-start the nation's public schools into the Technological Age. This program established four goals: 1) all teachers will have the training and the support they need in order to help students learn by using technology, 2) all teachers and all students will have modern computers in their classrooms, 3) all classrooms will be connected to the Internet, and 4) effective software and online learning resources will be an integral part of every school's curriculum (US Department of Education, 2004c). In addition to the annual $400 million for the Technology Literacy Challenge program, during President Clinton's term of office, a new tax was placed onto every telephone bill in the United States. This Universal Service Fund Tax, known as E-Rate, makes available $2.25 billion annually to schools. These funds are to be used to pay for telecommunication services and for Internet Access, as well as, to provide funding for Internal Connections (Infrastructure). A formula, based on a school's poverty level or based on a school district's poverty level, determines the percentage of funding that a school or that a school district receives. The higher the percentage of students who qualify for the Free and Reduced Lunch Program the higher the percentage of reimbursement to a school or to a school district for Telecommunications, Internet Access, and Internal Connections (Universal Service Administrative Company, 2004; Sonnenberg, 2004). However, even though the United States may have the annual $400 million for Technology Literacy Challenge and may have the $2.25 billion for E-rate per year, unfortunately, it is going to take more money because it is estimated that $10-$15 billion is needed annually to assist schools in meeting the four goals stated in the Technology Literacy Challenge. This funding gap has still not been addressed in any meaningful way (US Department of Education, 2004c).
In the 2001 “No Child Left Behind” act passed by the Federal government, the Department of Education was directed to develop a National Technology Plan which is due in the fall of 2004 (US Department of Education, 2004c; US Department of Education, 2004d). This National Technology Plan will call for a greater emphasis on Professional Development of public school teachers and will call for a greater emphasis on how these teachers integrate technology into the classroom. This Technology Plan will recognize that, “increased access to technology alone will not fundamentally transform education. It will take a willingness to explore the changes that need to occur around technology in order to create the environments that best support its use” (US Department of Education, 2004d). The Technology Plan will, also, call for every student to be technologically literate by the time they reach 8th grade (Culp, Honey, and Mandinach, 2003). Unfortunately, in a study conducted by Henry Becker (2001), it was discovered that the practice of technology integration is very different than the theory of technology integration. It has been determined that other than in computer class, there were less than 25% of regular education teachers in secondary schools who used computer integration on more than a weekly basis (Becker, 2001, p. 4). Even the Department of Education's Secretary Rod Paige recognized this fact when he wrote in the Vision 2020 Report that:
Indeed, education is the only business still debating the usefulness of technology. Schools remain unchanged for the most part despite numerous reforms and increased investments in computers and networks. The way we organize schools and provide instruction is essentially the same as it was when our Founding Fathers went to school. Put another way, we still educate our students based on an agricultural timetable, in an industrial setting, but tell students they live in a digital age (US Department of Education, 2004c).
Furthermore, Becker (2001) reports that,“only in a small minority of secondary school academic classes, is technology used to assist students in acquiring, in analyzing, and in demonstrating understanding of information." Becker reports this “small minority” exists in spite of the fact that billions of dollars should have been spent on teacher staff development and on technology integration in the last few years (Becker, 2001, p. 4)
Developing a National Technology Plan for public schools has other drawbacks, as well. The overwhelming cost to create and to maintain a national infrastructure will exceed the funds available. In the decade between 1993 and 2003, over $40 billion has been spent on upgrading the nation's technology infrastructure (Culp, Honey, and Mandinach, 2003). This has resulted in an increase in access from 35% of the schools to 99% of the schools being connected to the Internet, and this has resulted in the student-to-computer ratio dropping in only four years in 1998 to 2001, from 12:1 to 5:1 (US Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics, 2003; Dickard, 2003). But this does not necessarily mean that the United States will sustain this kind of investment. Historical patterns would suggest that this kind of investment cannot be sustained (Culp, Honey, and Mandinach, 2003). The E-Rate program provides $2.25 billion annually for K-12 technology, but only a small portion is earmarked specifically for infrastructure improvements. In addition, prior to the 2003-2004 school year, the only schools which have received this infrastructure funding from the E-Rate program are those same schools that receive Title 1 funding (Universal Services Administrative Company, 2004). The same is true for Title 2D funding which is the successor of the Technology Literacy Challenge program which President Clinton began in 1996 (US Department of Education, 2004b). To be designed a Title 1 school, a school must have 50% or more of its students eligible for the Free and Reduced Lunch Program. Therefore, most of the federal funding is being funneled to the poorest of the schools. Even though this is admirable and to a certain degree necessary in order to bridge the digital divide, it leaves out those schools which do not quite reach that Title 1 threshold but are not affluent enough to fund their own technology improvements. Newton County School System, for example, has had between 43% and 47% Free and Reduced Lunch eligible students for the last four years, but has not received any funds from the E-Rate program for infrastructure upgrades (T. Bell, personal communication, September 22, 2004).
Therefore, the Federal Government, in an effort to create equity, has funneled all of its technology funds to only those schools with high poverty level. This leaves technology funding for the remaining schools up to the local school districts which, under current budget constraints and under current economic conditions, makes that funding problematic. In addition, the E-Rate program is under Congressional scrutiny because of reported waste and fraud in the program, and there are some Congressmen who are calling for the elimination of the E-Rate program altogether (Branigan, 2004a; Branigan, 2004b). If this occurred it would further erode the local districts' ability to maintain a current technology infrastructure. Furthermore, with technology changing so fast, the Federal Government may not be able to adapt quickly enough in its approach to meet this changing challenge. It has taken the Federal Government two years to write a National Technology Plan; and, in two years, technology has changed dramatically (Culp, Honey, and Mandinach, 2003). In 1965, Gordon Moore, a pioneer in semiconductor technology, predicted that computer processing speed will double every 18 months while decreasing in price. This became known as Moore's Law, and this prediction has proven to be true. Moore later became CEO of Intel., the largest manufacturer of computer processors for the personal computer market (Encarta 2003). The validity of a national technology plan, therefore, is called into question. A plan that took two years to create becomes suspect in meeting current technology needs.
As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the E-Rate Program for public schools has been under a high level of scrutiny due to recent scandals. The most highly publicized of these scandals dealt with waste, abuse and fraud in two cities, Chicago and Atlanta, and in the US territory of Puerto Rico. As a result of this scrutiny, the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), the people who administer E-Rate funds, has been tightening up its procedures and is expanding its oversight responsibility (Universal Service Administrative Company, 2004; Branigan, 2004).
One of the major factors that contributes to the difficulties of educating the youth of the United States is that the United States has one of, if not the most, diverse student populations of any country in the world due to immigration. Furthermore, in the public school K-12 classroom, the diversity of the student population is now greater than at any time in United States history (Lewis, 2000). Thus, the language diversity in K-12 public schools has grown tremendously. For example, in Montgomery County, Maryland, and in Fairfax County Virginia, students are enrolled whose families speak more than three dozen languages (Lewis, 2000). A more extreme example is in Gwinnett County, Georgia, where there are approximately 100 languages spoken as a first language by its students (B. Arno, personal communication, December 9, 2004). As a result, one of the fastest growing educational programs in the United States is the English Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). For the public schools, that, alone, would make for many difficulties that are not present in most other countries in the world.
References
Aneki.Com. (2004). World almanac. Retrieved December 4, 2004, from http://www.aneki.com/index.html
Becker, H. (2001). How are teachers using computers in instruction? Paper presented at the 2001 Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Seattle, WA. Retrieved August 25, 2004, from http://www.crito.uci.edu/tlc/FINDINGS/special3/
Branigan, C. (2004a). eRate chaos looms for schools: Senators view delays with bipartisan alarm. eSchool News, 7 (11), pp. 1, 40.
Branigan, C. (2004b). Lawmakers call for eRate overhaul. eSchool News, 7(8), p. 12. Cuban, L. (2000). Underused and oversold: computers in the classroom. Cambridge, MA: University of Harvard Press.
Culp, K.M., Honey, M., and Mandinach, E. (2003). A retrospective on twenty years of education technology policy. Retrieved September 2, 2004, from http://www.nationaledtechplan.org/docs_and_pdf/20yearsdocrevised.pdf
Dickard, N. (2003) The sustainability challenge: taking edtech to the next level. Benton Foundation. Retrieved September 15, 2004, from http://www.benton.org/publibrary/sustainability/sus_challenge.html
Georgia Public Policy Foundation (Spring 2002). Spring 2002 Georgia report card for parents. Retrieved October 2, 2004, from http://reportcard.gppf.org
Lewis, A. (June 2000). Diversity in U.S. education. Retrieved September 2, 2004, from http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itsv/0600/ijse/diversty.htm
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (2003). United States climate page. Retrieved October 16, 2004, from http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/USclimate/states.fast.html
Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2003). Learning for the 21st century. Retrieved May 10, 2004 from http://www.21stcenturyskills.org Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, University of Texas Libraries. (2004). United States. Retrieved October 16, 2004, from http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/cia03/united_states_sm03.gif
Sonnenberg, W.C. (2004). Federal support for education FY 1980 to FY 2003 (NCES 2004-026). US Department of Education, Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.
US Department of Education (2004a). 10 facts about k-12 education funding. Retrieved September 2, 2004, from http://www.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/index.html
US Department of Education (2004b). Enhancing education through technology program 2005. Retrieved September 2, 2004, from http://www.ed.gov/about/reports/annual/2005plan/edlite-esea-educationaltech.html
US Department of Education (2004c). Executive Summary. Retrieved September 2, 2004, from http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/os/technology/plan/national/execsum.html
US Department of Education (2004d). National education technology plan. Retrieved September 2, 2004, from http://www.nationaledtechplan.org
US Department of Education (2004e). No child left behind: a desktop reference. Retrieved October 16, 2004, from http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/account/nclbreference/page_pg4.html#i-a
US Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics (October 2003). Computer and internet use by children and adolescents in 2001. Retrieved September 2, 2004, from http://nces.ed.gov
Universal Service Administrative Company (2004). About the schools and libraries division. Retrieved October 16, 2004, from http://www.sl.universalservice.org/overview/about.asp
Related cases
Georgia
This case discusses Ficquett Elementary School, a public elementary school. It includes a brief overview of the state of Georgia, located in the southeast, and the Newton Country School district to which Ficquett belongs.
About the Authors
| Gary Shattuck is technology coorindator the Newton County School District in Georgia. He earned his EdS degree in Instructional Technology at the University of Georgia, and at the time this article was written he was pursuing a doctoral degree in Educational Psychology and Instructional Technology at the University of Georgia |  |
Citation
APA Citation: Shattuck, G. (2005). USA. In M. Orey, T. Amiel, & J. McClendon (Eds.), The web almanac of educational technologies. Retrieved <insert date>, from http://www.waet.uga.edu/
