Doug Johnson

Directionless Dictates
Teacher Magazine, May 2005

I have always been a sucker for audacious goals advanced by government. Putting a man on the moon. Connecting all schools to the Internet. Making sure every child is literate. If one is going to make a plan, plan big.

So it was with great anticipation that began reading the National Education Technology Plan released in January 2005 <www.nationaledtechplan.org/>. This document has been long in the making with the Department of Education asking for input from both organizations and individuals. And for the $1.4 million dollars spent on it ($21, 875 per page), this ought to be one heck of a plan!

Just a few things were missing from this “plan.” A coherent vision, national baseline data on the current state of technology use in schools, empirical research indicating best practices in technology use, and measurable goals by which the achievement of the plan would be measured. Funny, all the things we as school districts are asked to provide in writing our district technology plans in order for them to be approved to get E-rate funds. However, out the 60 some pages we DID get an entire six pages covering seven “action steps and recommendations.”

1. Strengthen Leadership. (Personally, I would suggest management and interpersonal skill training before technology training for most school administrators.)
2. Consider Innovative Budgeting. (Given the state of school finance is there any other kind?)
3. Improving Teacher Training. (Wait, didn’t the feds just completely cut the PT3 program designed to do just that?)
4. Support E-Learning and Virtual Schools. (And the bottom line of the entrepreneurs pushing them?)
5. Encourage Broadband Access. (The plan recommends 24/7 broadband access to schools. I guess this means we will need to stop shutting off our connection between 3 PM and 8 AM and on the weekends.)
6. Move Toward Digital Content. (To run on what?)
7. Integrate Data Systems. (I wonder how many of the 210,00 students who provided input to this plan mentioned the importance of this?)

I found the recommendations uninspiring, things that most districts are already working toward as resources allow rather than dreaming about.

Say what you will about its ugly implementation, but the goals of NCLB are exciting - all children literate and all teachers highly qualified. Now THOSE are goals! Where are the equivalent goals of the NETP?

• All students able to use information technologies to solve problems creatively and give defensibly supported answers to meaningful, genuine questions.
• All students able to harness technology to communicate powerfully.
• All students able to use online resources safely and ethically.
• All teachers able to use technology to provide individualized learning opportunities for every child.
• The educational goals of all children with special needs met through the use of adaptive technologies.
• The digital divide permanently closed by providing 24/7 access to online learning opportunities for every kid in the US.

Why is the provision in NCLB that “requires” all children be technology literate by the end of eighth grade not even mentioned in the NETP?  The things we as educators think are important were left out – what our children can and should be doing with technology.

I am genuinely curious to know if any of the input collected from practitioners and educational organization was actually read. I don’t see any of MINE reflected in the plan, but my cynical side did not really expect to. My vision of technology use is rather different from that of the federal DOE and technology companies with lots of lobbying power. So who really had input into this plan?

Knowing that we currently have an administration that uses oil companies to write energy policy and the lumber industry to write environmental regulations, I suspect that consultant and author Nancy Willard (” National Educational Technology Plan” message to WWWedu of January 27, 2005) is correct in assuming those companies with a strong economic interest had a major role in this “plan’s” construction.  She writes: “…the National Educational Technology Plan is not a plan that focuses on the educational needs of kids — it is a business growth plan for the educational technology and Internet companies!” and refers readers to the enthusiastic response of the Software and Information Industry Association’s press release on the National Educational Technology Plan at <www.siia.net/>. She rightly questions who “is in the driver’s seat” of this plan – business or education?

What is the long-term impact of a national tech plan? Well, until federal funds are allocated with the requirement that one of the “action steps” are addressed in order to receive them, I think we can all safely put the document on the shelf and bring it our when it suits our purpose. And when funds depend on the plan, we twist (no excuse me), interpret the plan to fit our real needs as anyone who has been in education for six months or longer can do without thinking. It is far more important that our district and state tech plans reflect educational values. I’m not losing much sleep over this document.

As a side note, I was disgusted by the several references in the NETP that students are more “tech savvy” than their teachers. I addressed this concern in a 2002 column called “Old Folks and Technology” available at <http://www.doug-johnson.com/dougwri/oldfolks.html>. I wonder if the DOE itself really has a clue about what a great teacher actually does with technology.

The NETP is no “man on the moon by the end of the decade” challenge but an incomplete set of instructions on how to build a directionless bottle rocket. So sad - a lost and expensive opportunity to actually make our schools better places with technology.