Appendix E

Educational Technology Funding for K-12 Schools

Sources of Funding for Educational Technology, State by State"x" indicates that technology funds are not delineated by line item in that State¹.

Introduction and Background

The State of New Jersey, like many other states, is undertaking a study of various funding alternatives for educational technology and telecommunications. The accelerating rate at which technologies are being adopted in support of the educational process is challenging states and local districts throughout the country to develop long term funding programs that can assure both the installation and support of the total technology system. Due to the differences that exist among states with regard to allowable funding programs, there is no standard method to pay for technology. There are however several funding models that are worth considering. The following discussion of funding options suggest ways that New Jersey may wish to consider as it develops a model most capable of meeting its needs.

The Basis for State Funding Levels

States use a variety of bases to set a level of funding required by, or offered to,

K-12 educational technology development. Funding levels might be vision-based, that is, extrapolated through experts' assessments of minimal and ideal requirements for technology. A needs-based level could be established through an analysis of instructional and administrative needs for hardware, software, and training. Both bases tend to result in high levels of funding for technology. Availability-based funding, however, allocates a predetermined sum without concern for the absolute needs or envisioned needs of schools. Such a funding basis tends not to be directed toward the fulfillment of articulated technology goals, but rather toward the placement of a minimum standard of technology in schools.

Functional Responsibilities in Statewide Coordination

From an analysis of various states, certain commonalties are evident in the management and policy development of educational telecommunications. An overall policy of decentralization in implementation and coordination in planning is also evident across the states.

State Department of Education: Development of programs, staff, and connectivity in school districts appears to be the current focus of state departments of education. Education technology divisions within the departments are ensuring that students have access to educational technology for research and learning and that the schools are adequately supported by responsible staff members.

State Technology Coordination As a Predictor of Funding

States that have robust funding for educational telecommunications often have good governmental agency coordination systems also. Such cooperation is valuable for two reasons: First, where there is coordination of telecommunications, funding requests to the legislature are usually more coordinated, and legislators have more confidence that the funding will be used intelligently and equitably. Second, the infusion of substantial funds for educational telecommunications often requires some level of coordination for the administration of the funds or for the efficient use of the funds .

Purchasing and acquiring telecommunications equipment and transport is one element of coordinating telecommunications. Another potentially more important, activity, is designing and planning for the long-term telecommunications needs of education and state agencies in general. Recognizing the differences in the planning and the managing functions for telecommunications, some states have recently established agencies, councils, and boards to anticipate the future needs for, and directions of, the state information and telecommunications infrastructure. Maryland has its Information Technology Board, Virginia its Council on Information Management; Connecticut an Office of Information Technology. Those organizations, unlike divisions of telecommunications, are established to articulate policy and set directions for the state in implementation of information technology.

Some states organize centralized telecommunications planning on a formal, structured basis within an agency (e.g., North Carolina's Information Resources Management) or less formally through a committee or council. The trend across the USA is to establish less bureaucratic collaborative groups representing all agencies and stake-holders instead of new agencies of the state. Many of those agencies are mandated by the governor and funded by the legislature.

Size and Robustness of Funding of Educational Telecommunications

In terms of funding size alone, Texas, Georgia, and Iowa are identified as leaders in educational telecommunications investments. The Texas legislature, through a deal with the state's telephone service providers, obtained a pledge of $95 million per year for 10 years, to be deposited in the Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund. Most of the money will be used to finance K-12 school telecommunications development. The Texas fund dwarfs all other educational telecommunications funds.

Georgia began its capital development of educational telecommunications through the 1992 Distance Learning and Telemedicine Act and continues to build the project through state lottery revenues.

Iowa has already spent or committed approximately $200 million over a period of eight years to build its own Iowa Communications Network, reaching not only K-12 schools, but also colleges, hospitals, and government centers. K-12 schools, though, are among the largest users of ICN.

By contrast with Texas and Iowa, some states, like Alabama, do not set aside state funds of any kind for educational telecommunications. It is expected that schools will provide funding to support their own telecommunications projects.

Case studies of Georgia, Texas and Pennsylvania are provided below.

Georgia

Georgia has benefited from a generous system of funding for educational telecommunications, which provides both start-up capital and continuing or operating expenses. The start-up fund derived from a $50 million excess earnings charge, and the operating fund comes from lottery profits.

Most of the coordination of Georgia educational telecommunications occurs less formally. The Georgia Public Service Commission has approved the Classroom Communication Service Plan of Southern Bell to give Georgia schools service rates 40 to 80 percent lower than business rates. The Georgia Distance Learning and Telemedicine Act of 1992 (SB 144) continues to strongly influence distance learning in the state. SB 144 now has $70 million from an additional $20 million previously withheld by the Public Service Commission (PSC) to reimburse independent phone companies for revenues lost due to competition with the state. Since the amount requested by these companies was nominal, the bulk of the $20 million was reassigned to funding for projects in distance learning and telemedicine, as designated in SB 144. As of late 1995, $65 million had already been committed to a Universal Service Fund for these projects. The Distance Learning and Telecommunications Governing Board oversees the expenditures of this fund.

The distance learning network includes at least 206 sites, and the telemedicine network includes 57 sites. The Distance Learning and Telecommunications Board has agreed to fund an additional 125 sites and the Board of Regents will fund about 40 sites.

Georgia Public Television (GPTV) is a subset of GPTC. Through partial funding by the Distance Learning and Telemedicine Act, GPTV provides programming to every K-12 public school, college, university, community college, technical school, regional library, and regional service agency in the state through nearly 2200 satellite downlinks. The downlinks were funded jointly by the Distance Learning and Telemedicine Act of 1992 and the state lottery. To be completed in the fall of 1996, this system includes a full transponder on Telstar 401, and will provide six to eight channels with MPEG-2 compressed video.

The Georgia state lottery provides funding for educational projects and services in the state. In addition to satellite downlinks for every Georgia school, lottery money funds the full-tuition Hope scholarships for B-average high school and technical school seniors seeking higher education in Georgia. Lottery money also pays for computers, satellite dishes, other hardware and software, as well as maintenance and usage costs for these systems at all educational levels. The lottery funds a pre-K program for all children in the state. Through a $45.3 million appropriation for technology in schools and capital projects in 1994, the GPTV will build a state-of-the-art production facility for distance learning applications.

Approved by the governor in 1993, lottery earnings allocated for technology in the first year totaled approximately $250 million. While the state has not earned that much in subsequent years, they continue to receive large amounts of funding for scholarships, technology and other programs, and the program is slated to continue.

The Distance Learning and Telemedicine Board oversees the expenditures of the Universal Service Fund. Among other things, this one-time fund supports staff development and student instruction in technology. The Board has committed approximately $65 million of the $70 million Universal Service Fund. So far, $39 million of this has been spent on GSAMS, a cable project, a desktop video project, and an initiative to provide Internet access through public libraries.

SB 137, passed in 1995, requires Tier One telecommunication service providers who have spent an average of $500 million per year on infrastructure to continue to spend that amount per year over the next five years to improve infrastructure in Georgia. While this is not a legal obligation, it has encouraged the development of distance learning and telemedicine infrastructure within the $500 million framework.

Texas

Until very recently, Texas did not have a statewide plan for educational telecommunications since the retirement in the late 1980s of an energetic board of regents staff member. The planning process fell inactive, and only at the K-12 level was there engagement in planning. Even then, the K-12 representatives within the Texas Education Agency (TEA) focused on technology to redress inequities in school funding, not on telecommunications per se.

Since Governor Bush's administration developed a telecommunications deregulation plan, coordination has become a priority, particularly concerning the disbursement of the largest educational telecommunications fund ever created by a state. K-12 schools will receive the lion's share of a $95 million per year fund. Higher education and telemedicine will reap a smaller portion.

For implementation of educational telecommunications, the state relies on a central buying agency, the Department of Information Resources. Telecommunications projects are presented to the Department for acquisition. The Department generates cooperative purchases, negotiates rates, sets standards, and formulates purchasing plans for information technology on behalf of state agencies.

The Telecommunication Services Division in DIR manages a statewide network used by state agencies, higher education institutions, and educational service centers for school districts. The Division also provides bandwidth for data transfer and video via standard multiplexed T-1, and DS-3 technology for distance learning, telemedicine, and library traffic. DIR is working to implement SONET technology in 1996 to meet future bandwidth needs on existing networks. The Division, which employs ISDN technology, plans to begin migrating to an ATM environment during 1996.

While DIR functions in a planning role, particularly in facilitating planning for computing hardware and software, Telecommunications Services provides acquisition services for the purchase of bandwidth to agencies that need it.

Clustering of schools for telecommunications connections is funded by allocations other than the new Senate Bill 2128 Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund. It is expected that an initiative to integrate all networks within the state may soon evolve to ensure that institutions are able to share programmatic resources through a coordinated service.

State Educational Telecommunications Networks

The TEA-initiated Texas School Telecommunications Access Resource (T-STAR) provides one-way video, two-way audio and full data services using both TVRO (television receive only) and VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) technologies. T-STAR has installed or has grants for the installation of a satellite dish in over 900 of the 1,000 school districts in the state. This initiative will now be funded through the telecommunications infrastructure fund.

Texas Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund Summary

The Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund (TIF) is funded by two main entities:

1) the Telecommunications Utility account--financed by an annual assessment of all telecommunications utilities doing business in the state of Texas.

2) the Commercial Mobile Service Providers account--financed by an annual assessment of all commercial mobile service providers doing business in the state of Texas.

It was decided that the commercial mobile service providers benefit from the public telecommunication network by their ability to receive and generate calls transgressing the mobile/cellular network; and that they benefit because of the advancement of the public telecommunications network through projects funded under this section. Therefore, commercial mobile service providers must contribute to the TIF. The TIF is also supplemented by monetary gifts and grants.

The TIF is administered by a nine-member committee, appointed by the governor and the lt. governor. These appointees represent all cross-sections of education (K-12, higher ed., etc.), and libraries.

Beginning in fiscal year 1995 (starting September 1), the comptroller collects a total amount of $75 million each from telecommunications utilities and the commercial mobile service providers. This will continue for the nine fiscal years immediately following.

Moneys from the telecommunications utilities account will be used to award grants and loans to fund equipment purchases (include. computers, printers, computer labs, and video equipment) for public schools and for intracampus and intercampus wiring to enable those public schools to use the equipment. The moneys from the commercial mobile service providers account will be used to award grants and loans for equipment purchases, wiring, material, program development, training, installation costs, or any statewide telecommunications network.

Grants may be awarded for projects and proposals that:

(1) provide equipment and infrastructure needed for distance learning, information sharing programs of libraries and telemedicine services.

(2) develop and implement the initial or prototypical delivery of courses and other distance learning material

(3) train teachers, faculty, librarians, or technicians in the use of distance learning or information sharing materials and equipment.

(4) develop curricula and instructional material especially suited for delivery by telecommunications

(5) provide electronic information

(6) establish or carry out information sharing programs

Priority will be given to those projects and proposals that:

(1) Represent collaborative efforts involving multiple schools, universities, or libraries

(2) contribute matching funds from other sources

(3) show promise of becoming self-sustaining

(4) help users of information learn new ways to acquire and use information through telecommunications

(5) extend specific educational information and knowledge services to groups not previously served, especially those in rural and remote areas

(6) result in more efficient or effective learning than through conventional teaching

(7) improve the effectiveness and efficiency of health care delivery

(8) take advantage of distance learning opportunities in rural and urban school districts with disproportionate numbers of at-risk youths or with high dropout rates.

Pennsylvania

Project Link to Learn

A 1995 Quality Education Data, Inc. study reported that Pennsylvania ranked 47th out of the 50 states in regard to computer technology in schools.

In an effort to improve this extremely poor showing, the Pennsylvania Department of Education has instituted a program revision amounting to $121 million over a three-year period for school districts and public higher education institutions including community colleges to develop and invest in advanced computer and telecommunications technology for the purpose of creating the Pennsylvania Education Network (PEN). The goal of this initiative is to transform the traditional classroom (limited by institutional and geographic boundaries) in Pennsylvania into one where students are provided with virtually unlimited access to information and expertise in nearly limited subject areas.

Component One

The first component of this program targets $100 million over 3 years to improve the basic technology infrastructure and capabilities of public K-12 schools. In the first year of this program, $33.3 million will be available for eligible school districts to invest in the acquisition of new or replacement computers, the implementation of local area networks and wide area networks to position schools for eventual connection to the PEN, and to train teachers to integrate technology into course curricula. The Distance Learning grant program will also make $1.5 available to poor and rural school districts to purchase distance learning technologies.

Component Two

The second component gives $21 million over 3 years to the State System of Higher Education (SSHE); the State-related Universities: Penn State, the University of Pittsburgh, Temple University, and Lincoln University; and the community colleges.

PEN will provide the Statewide infrastructure to link all public K-12 schools, intermediate units, community colleges, public universities and public libraries throughout the Commonwealth in to a comprehensive, high-capacity network to support the exchange of voice, video and data communications.

The first year of funding will concentrate on 3 areas:

(1) assessing current telecommunications infrastructure resources in Pennsylvania, including types (telephone, cable, microwave, satellite, etc.), areas of coverage, strengths and weaknesses, and opportunities for expansion.

(2) establishing technology test sites for the purpose of evaluating if and how competing telecommunications technologies can be integrated in to a complementary network.

(3) the development of a strategic action plan for building the PEN.

Second and third year funding will be devoted to building the infrastructure and connecting all participating sites.

While the program concentrates on public institutions, private institutions and businesses have been encouraged to participate in the "link-up."

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FOOTNOTES

¹"x" indicates that technology funds are not delineated by line item in that State. _Back