Education Week - February 26, 2014 - 9

refocus it on relevant technologies.
Earlier this month, the FCC announced
plans to act. In a Feb. 5
speech, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler,
an Obama administration appointee,
promised that the agency would spend
$1 billion more a year over the next
two years on broadband. Mr. Wheeler
also said the agency would prioritize
requests for broadband support in the
current E-rate funding cycle, for which
applications from schools are coming
in now; and phase out support for outdated
services, a change that would
be spelled out in a public notice to be
released by the agency.
Some backers of the E-rate program
say the overall money devoted
to the program needs to increase
dramatically-perhaps doubling in
size-to meet demand.
But Mr. Wheeler said in his speech
that the FCC needs to scour the existing
program for savings, and for
money that can be redirected, before
it considers taking that broader step.
"[T]he biggest immediate opportunities
are unlocked by first looking
carefully at how to do better
with what you already have," Mr.
Wheeler said. He called for "an assessment
of the use of current funds,
along with a fact-based analysis of
the needs of the program."
Evan Marwell, the CEO of EducationSuperHighway,
a nonprofit
group in San Francisco that seeks to
improve school Internet access, said
it made sense that the bulk of the
new broadband money would not
reach districts until 2015, partly because
the 2014 funding cycle is too
far along for the agency to make
major shifts in the kinds of projects
that receive money.
In some respects, that's not a bad
thing: The FCC will be able to ensure
that new broadband funding is
awarded as part of a restructured,
improved E-rate program, rather
than sending it to schools under the
existing model, Mr. Marwell argued.
The process of using E-rate money
for tech upgrades gets slowed down
for other reasons, he noted. It takes
time for districts to put out bids for
technology to companies, including
Internet service providers, and to
select them, he said.
Other scheduling barriers persist.
For instance, districts often try to
limit ambitious tech upgrades so
they occur during summer months,
rather than during the school year,
when they fear the work will derail
instruction, Mr. Marwell added.
Crafting Future Plans
But even if the money doesn't
course through the pipeline as
quickly as schools want, Mr. Marwell
said the delay should give districts
the opportunity to assess their needs
for bandwidth and devices, so that
when a substantial pool of money for
broadband does become available,
they'll be ready.
"Start getting your ducks in a row,"
Mr. Marwell said he would advise
K-12 systems. "Take a hard look at
what [you] have for wired and Wi-Fi.
Every school in the country should
have a plan."
Schools wondering about their dig-
ital readiness will soon be asked to
take their technology systems for an
important, and potentially arduous,
test lap around the track.
Later this year, the two main
state consortia designing online
common-core exams, the Partnership
for Assessment of Readiness
for College and Careers and the
Smarter Balanced Assessment
Consortium, will begin administering
field tests in districts across
the country.
The field tests "will reveal a lot,"
said Lillian Kellogg, the vice president
for client services at Education
Networks of America, a Nashville,
Tenn.-based company that is a managed-network-service
provider.
"What schools find out this year is
that they're going to need a lot more
bandwidth," she said. "I believe we
will see a huge surge in demand in
next year's cycle because schools will
better understand the limit of their
existing infrastructure."
Ms. Kellogg's company, which
serves 550 school districts, recently
joined two other organizations-the
"
Better
Principals.
Better
with SAMs .
TM
"My principals are better.In Hillsborough County, we
invest in our principals using the SAM process. As a result
of SAM, they spend more time improving teacher practice
and student learning. Their work with teachers focuses
on frequent coaching and support for improvement. My
principals spend the majority of their time on instructional
leadership. Better principals. Better with SAMs."
MaryEllen Elia, Superintendent
Hillsborough County Public Schools,
Tampa, Florida
Proven to increase
time spent to
improve teaching
and learning
www.SamsConnect.com
502-509-9774
I believe we will see a
huge surge in demand
in next year's [E-rate
request] cycle because
schools will better
understand the limit
of their existing
infrastructure."
LILLIAN KELLOGG
Vice President for Client Services
Education Networks of America
nonprofit Consortium for School Networking,
a Washington-based professional
association, and the eLearn
Institute, a Wyomissing, Pa.-based
nonprofit-in releasing a series of resources
to help schools prepare to administer
online common-core exams.
In the meantime, it's possible that
the FCC could use its authority to
redirect some funding for pressing
school district needs in 2014, rather
than waiting until next year, said
her colleague Bob Collie, a senior
vice president at the company. The
agency could redirect money that was
approved to go to various school systems
but has not been spent, he said.
Regardless of when funding ar-
rives, schools' needs are broad, Ms.
Kellogg said. And while it is an oversimplification
to say that districts'
technology needs are being driven
by online testing, the relationship
between digital needs for testing and
for classroom instruction is becoming
clearer, she said.
"If you're going to be testing digi-
tally, you have to be instructing
digitally," she said. "And you have to
have the infrastructure in place all
year long."
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innovation in education and school design
is supported in part by a grant from
the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Education Week retains sole editorial
control over the content of this coverage.
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Education Week - February 26, 2014

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