Communications-Related Headlines
Digital Beat - EXTRA
3/16/2000
Education Technology
The E-Rate in America -- Is it Working?
Nothing is more important to the success of democracy than robust systems of communications and education. Communications bind society together. Education expands its conscience. Without an effective system of communication, we cannot engage in collective action or acquire the inform- ation we need to make sound decisions. Without a strong system of education, we cannot cultivate citizens with the knowledge and skills they need to govern themselves.
-- The E-Rate in America: A Tale of Four Cities
Earlier this month, the Benton Foundation and the EDC/Center for Children and Technology released a report that examines just how school administrators have responded to the E-Rate. The new report, entitled "The E-Rate in America: A Tale of Four Cities," reviewed the E-Rate funding process in four Midwestern school districts: Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit,and Milwaukee.
The E-Rate -- the federal program that offers schools and libraries a subsidized educational rate for telecommunications services (right, if you're interested in education technology, you've probably never heard of it) -- lies at the heart of the continuing struggle to create communications and education systems that fulfill our democratic creed. This sweeping innovation, which ensures students access to telecommunications services through schools and libraries, represents an enormous stride toward realizing the dream of universal access to the basic prerequisites of democracy.
The report's findings suggest that the E-Rate is working: it has led to dramatic improvements in network infrastructure and Internet access at schools.
Common Themes
While each of the districts has pursued its own path through the process of planning, applying for and using E-Rate funding, several common themes emerge from their experiences:
1. Network infrastructure deployment accelerated, and Internet access improved dramatically.
The E-Rate initiative has made it possible for these districts to create robust, high-quality networks that would never have been put in place without E-Rate funding.The E-Rate has had an especially high impact for several reasons: the funding it provides was not capped at a certain level; it requires intensive planning and implementation; and it encourages leveraging of multiple funding sources. Several district administrators said E-Rate funding enabled them to make a quantum leap in their districts.
2. E-Rate funding has enabled school districts to leverage existing financial resources.
Resources freed up by E-Rate funding, as well as money from state-level initiatives, are now being used to pay for elements of technology programs that are not covered by the E-Rate. For example: because of E-Rate subsidies, Detroit has been able to combine money from a state-level program with funds saved at the district level to pay for much of its electrical upgrades.
3. Professional development needs are increasing geometrically.
Schools must provide adequate professional development to help teachers learn how to use these newly accessible tools. Otherwise, the gap between technologically sophisticated and technologically weak schools will grow wider. Even though the need for training will only grow, departments often must support these efforts on insecure or inadequate funding. District leaders must be convinced of the importance of continuing to emphasize sustained, creative professional development for teachers around the use of these new tools.
4. School districts are highly dependent on E-Rate funding, even though the advances they are making are highly vulnerable to changes in the political environment.
Although the E-Rate is enabling school districts to leverage important resources, it is not generating significant local expenditures for technology infrastructure. On the contrary, district budgets often rely on the E-Rate to ensure that they will be able to sustain their newly established networks. Several district administrators expressed concern that the Schools and Libraries Division is not yet emphasizing to schools and districts the need to plan how they will meet ongoing costs. For example, as schools make the transition to conducting district-wide administrative business online, telecommunications bills will be high; meeting them will require continuing discounts via the E-Rate program.
5. The E-Rate has led to changes in school district planning practices.
The E-Rate has forced school administrators to acquire new knowledge and to learn new forms of collaboration.The result has been better planning, new lanes of communication and improvements in billing and accounting practices. In some cases, staff members from educational technology departments have gained significant influence in other departments such as information technology or operations departments. Improved coordination -- particularly among curriculum and instruction, educational technology and information technology departments -- will be crucial to ensuring that the E-Rate leads to long-term improvements in teaching and learning at the classroom level.
6. The current E-Rate process taxes relationships with vendors.
In every district, the E-Rate has stretched relationships with vendors to their limits. Many factors complicate the bidding, including payment and reimbursement processes required by the Schools and Libraries Division; the SLD's requirement that districts have in hand the full (pre-discount) cost of the services they request; delays in receiving reimbursements from vendors; the strain placed on vendors' inventories and labor supplies by bidding and awarding processes (described as "hurry up and wait" by some); and the time constraints placed on implementation of annual plans. Implementation phases were so intense that in each of the four cities delays were caused when contractors ran out of qualified labor. As an administrator explained, "We were using every electrician in the city of Chicago. They had to bring people in from downstate to get all of the jobs done."
7. "Building basics" delay the deployment of information technology.
These school districts faced an acute need for at least two important resources that the E-Rate program does not support: electrical upgrades and hardware. In several of the districts, state grant programs were crucial to creating plans for electrical upgrades. But hardware purchasing is largely the responsibility of individual schools in these districts. District administrators should be careful to track whether individual schools increase their investments in hardware in order to take advantage of the networks that have been brought into their classrooms.
8. High-level school administrators and community stakeholders need to be made aware of the impact of the E-Rate.
In some districts, though not all, high-ranking administrators were initially dubious that the E-Rate was a "real" program that would produce actual funding. Even now, administrators in some districts report that their superiors are not fully aware of the impact of this program. In order to realize the maximum benefit from the E-Rate program, community members and administrative leaders in these districts need to be better informed about this program and about the work that it is supporting at the local level.
Getting A Copy
"The E-Rate in America: A Tale of Four Cities" is available online and through shop.benton.org. In addition to the findings above, the report includes a primer on how the E-Rate works, a history of the program, An Educator's Toolkit -- Planning an Evaluation of the Impact of the E-Rate Program and online resources. For additional information, contact Andy Carvin.
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