July 27, 2008
TECHNOS QUARTERLY Fall 1998 Vol. 7 No. 3
Technology on Board
By Anne L. Bryant
What’s the single most important challenge facing everyone in K–12 education today? Raising student achievement. It’s now clear that our students must have the knowledge and skills to be far ahead of high school graduates of past decades. Our schools must produce comprehensive readers, graduates able to articulate complex concepts, and graduates who can use technology in research, fact-finding, communication, computation, and analysis. And technology is an integral instrument in fulfilling our society’s vision of providing an excellent education for all students.
No responsible vision of education can ignore the need for today’s students to have a solid understanding of how technology works and what it can do, and no effective instructional delivery system can ignore the power of technology as a tool in teaching and learning, as well as in data management and other administrative tasks.
Most school board members know these realities firsthand. They hear from their constituents—parents, business people, civic leaders—repeated calls for a technologically literate workforce that will have the necessary knowledge, skills, and habits of mind to be productive citizens of the 21st century. They learn from teachers and school administrators about the wealth of resources technology can bring to bear on instruction and administration. And they experience for themselves—at home, at work, and increasingly in the boardroom—the convenience and efficiency of technology.
Yet school boards have sometimes been unrecognized partners in technology-based reform. Too often technology implementation efforts have bypassed planning and policy and moved straight to practice. That is understandable: what happens in the classroom is the heart of education. But without a clear vision of technology’s potential for education and without a coordinated plan for acquiring and using technology in the schools, the results can be scattershot at best.
The Board’s Role
School boards, working with their superintendents, are uniquely positioned
to lead the necessary planning effort. In the world of public schools, the
local school board is the link between the public and the schools. At that
critical nexus, boards play four important roles: shaping a vision for what
education should be, establishing a structure for attaining this vision, holding
themselves and education professionals accountable for results, and serving
as education’s key advocate on behalf of students and their schools.
Those four roles—vision, structure, accountability, and advocacy—are perhaps especially applicable when it comes to educational technology. No other phenomenon in recent history has so affected our everyday lives as the rapid development of new technologies. No other has the potential to so change the way we do just about everything, including the way we conduct education.
And few phenomena elicit such strong opinions. Surveys such as the recent nationwide poll sponsored by the Milken Exchange on Education Technology tell us, for example, that voters and business leaders in the United States believe that equipping schools with technology should be one of the nation’s top education priorities, even above reducing class size and repairing or expanding crumbling, overcrowded school buildings. Voters, the same poll found, see adequate funding and equal access for both haves and have nots as among the top challenges in education technology, and business leaders voice especially strong support for investments in learning technology.
At the same time, though, concerns about school quality and student safety, coupled with demands for school choice and vouchers, have given increased urgency to the dialogue on the validity of public education as an institution. School board members, as duly elected representatives of their local community, can rally the community around any of these issues.
Shaping the Vision
Such public engagement is the necessary first step in shaping a vision for
technology implementation in local schools. On a national level, one such
vision for education emerged when the U.S. Department of Education convened
a forum of more than 400 educators, parents, business leaders, and others
in 1995.
Chief among the requirements for learning the 21st century identified by the group was a greater dependence on new communication and computing technologies that support new levels of student creativity and research. A related requirement was a change in the role of the teacher, from “sage on the stage” to mentor, researcher, publisher, technology user, knowledge producer, risk taker, and lifelong learner. (See Making It Happen, Report of the Secretary’s Conference on Educational Technology, March 7-9, 1995, Office of Educational Technology, U.S. Department of Education.)
At the local level, a vision of technology’s role in education might take a similar form—or, depending on local concerns and circumstances, it might look very different indeed. But whatever the vision, the school board, working with teachers and administrators, must see to it that sound structure is in place to uphold and advance it.
The foundation for such a structure is a comprehensive but flexible technology plan. The planning process will vary from district to district, of course, but most processes include such steps as consulting teachers; determining educational objectives; inventorying existing hardware, software, and human resources; conducting a needs assessment; establishing timetables and budgets; and identifying new software, curricula, and instructional techniques.
In addition, technology plans should specify professional development strategies and, depending on the state of the district’s infrastructure, necessary facility upgrades. Effective plans also include built-in mechanisms for regular review, evaluation, and revision.
Assessing The Vision
Evaluation of the technology plan and its implementation is an important element
of the board’s accountability role. It is the board’s responsibility, as a
proxy for the public at large, to step back periodically and assess how well
the schools are fulfilling the vision the public helped articulate.
- Are the vision, plan, and structure aligned and on track?
- Are schedules and budgets on target?
- Is there a good fit between the curriculum and the technology being put in place to support it?
- Are educational objectives being met?
- Are we seeing an increase in student achievement? In which areas?
The policies that enforce the technology plan are another element of accountability. Policies covering equal access to technology or fair use of online resources, to give just two examples, tell the school community and the public where the board stands on these important issues and specify consequences for disregarding the policies. Through its contract with the superintendent, the board holds the chief administrator—and, by extension, other school employees—accountable for upholding board policies and delivering instruction according to plan. Ultimately, of course, the board itself is accountable to the public that elected it.
None of this can happen, though, without adequate resources, and it is a major part of the board’s advocacy role to encourage community support for school technology initiatives. This support can take the form of a yes vote on a bond referendum, contributions to the district’s local education foundation, or a business partnership that shares expertise and resources.
But it is not enough to reach voters and business leaders. The board must also be seen by educators to be a strong advocate for appropriate technology use. One important way a board can demonstrate this “inside” advocacy is by championing ongoing professional development in technology for teachers and administrators alike and budgeting sufficient funds to cover these costs.
Resources for Boards
The National School Boards Association (NSBA) is engaged in a broad array
of initiatives designed to provide the resources school boards need to carry
out their four roles.
For more than a decade the association has recognized the important contribution technology can make in helping school leaders create a rich and rewarding learning environment. And just last year NSBA codified this recognition by adopting as a formal goal the promise “to be a catalyst and leading resource on appropriate technology applications to improve teaching, learning, and administrative practice.”
This commitment to educational technology stands as one of five structures supporting such overarching goals as improving student achievement and strengthening local school boards. This arrangement is not accidental, for NSBA has always seen educational technology as a means to an end, not as an end in itself.
That philosophy permeates the work of NSBA’s Institute for the transfer of Technology to Education (ITTE) and ITTE’s membership arm, the Technology Leadership Network (TLN). Founded in the belief that technology, used appropriately, can create a more effective education system, these programs are committed to the wise use of technology to prepare children in the United States to prosper in a technological world.
ITTE and TLN bring together all the people who are involved in creating technology in schools—policymakers, administrators, teachers, community and government leaders, and vendors—with the goal of sharing information about effective uses of technology in the classroom.
Through ITTE and TLN, NSBA offers a variety of print and online resources, site visits, and seminars. But the most visible technology initiative is the annual Technology + Learning Conference, to be held this year on October 29-31 in Nashville. T+L, cosponsored by more than 25 leading education organizations, is the premier education technology conference emphasizing participation by school district teams rather than technology specialists alone. Board members attend T+L with their superintendents, central office administrators, principals, and teachers, sharing experiences and trading insghts they gather from major speakers or roundtable discussions, workshops, showcase sessions, and exhibits.
This year, as always, the program will include special programming designed for school board members, including sessions on technology planning, policy issues, and funding. In addition, a meeting room will be set aside where board members can connect with colleagues from around the country for informal networking or group discussion. (More information on ITTE and the T+L Conference can be found online at www.nsba.org/itte.)
NSBA Projects
NSBA also is engaged in a number of ongoing and special technology projects,
including the following:
- The School Board of Tomorrow email group. This lively listserv, maintained by NSBA, gives school board members nationwide a chance to air concerns online, to pose problems, and to offer solutions. Other than infrequent conferences, this email group is the only opportunity most local board members have to talk shop with their counterparts elsewhere. Following their postings for even a few weeks gives a fascinating insight into the collective wisdom—and occasional crankiness—of grassroots democracy. (For more information, call Hilary LaMonte at 703-838-6153 or email her at hlamonte@nsba.org.)
- EdvanceNet. This joint project of the National School Boards Foundation, the Consortium for School Networking, and the MCI Foundation was launched in 1997 to help state education leaders become better informed about the integration of technology into K-12 education. EdvanceNet is organizing a connected corps of informed leaders from state education agencies and state school board associations and will provide these leaders the information and tools they need to strengthen their ability to make, manage, and respond to change inspired by new technologies. Ultimately EdvanceNet hopes to broaden education opportunities for children and families by providing information and resources that explain why and how to invest in educational technologies. (For more information, call Robin Kaczka at 703-838-6200 or email her at rkaczka@nsba.org.)
- Education Leadership Toolkit. This online technology resource and its accompanying print resource, Education Leadership Toolkit: A Desktop Companion, provide hands-on help in bringing technology to school districts. A project of the National School Boards Foundation funded by the National Science Foundation, these resources walk board members through real-life scenarios, successful school models, research findings, and strategies for using technology to improve student achievement. Change, planning, policy, curriculum and assessment, community involvement, facility planning, funding, and professional development are among the major topic areas covered in the Toolkit, which also provides resources for further learning. (The online Toolkit can be found at www.nsba.org/itte.)
- Family Education Network. The National School Boards Foundation and the Family Education Network, with funding from the AT&T Foundation, have developed a series of online articles and interactive quizzes to familiarize parents and others with the role and operation of local school boards and to encourage informed citizen involvement in school governance. The articles explore, among other topics, how school boards communicate with their constituents and how new technology is changing the way school boards do business. (These channel at http://family.education.com.)
- Electronic School. A quarterly print publication on education technology, Electronic School is supplement to The American School Board Journal and is distributed to some 40,000 technology directors and other interested readers in addition to 40,000 ASBJ subscribers. This award-winning magazine offers practical advice on a broad range of topics pertinent to the implementation of technology in elementary and secondary schools. Electronic School’s online edition, provided as a free service to the K-12 internet community, includes all articles from the print edition as well as regular news updates and other material. (You can access the online edition at www.electronic-school.com.)
Fulfilling the Promise
Like most education researchers and practitioners, those at NSBA believe technology
can benefit U.S. students. NSBA workers count themselves resolutely among
those who, in the words of the Presidential Committee on Science and Technology,
are “convinced that information technologies have the potential not only
to improve the efficacy of our current teaching methods, but perhaps more
importantly, to support fundamental changes in those methods that could have
important implications for the next generation of Americans.”
As a technology champion, NSBA recognizes a responsibility to help connect education’s many constituencies with informed opinion and reliable information about educational technology, including research on the relationship between technology and student achievment. As Larry Cuban and Heather Kirkpatrick put it recently in these pages, studies of the effectiveness of computer applications have so far “ranged from wildly enthusiastic to cautiously pessimistic.” (See “Computers Make Kids Smarter—Right?” in TECHNOS 7:2, Summer 1998.)
But longitudinal studies such as those being conducted in conjunction with the Blacksburg Electronic Village—a project of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and the town of Blacksburg, Virginia, with initial help from the Bell Atlantic Corporation—hold promise of demonstrating the measurable effect of networked computing on long-term student achievement. (See Lars Kongshem, “Wired Village,” in Electronic School, September 1997.) Meanwhile, NSBA is working with the CEO Forum on Education and Technology to monitor technology integration in schools and with Microsoft Corporation and others to review existing research and identify areas where more study is needed.
In the years that NSBA has been providing leadership and resources in educational technology, U.S. public schools have made enormous strides in technology acquisition and use. But there is still a long way to go. According to School Technology and Readiness Report: From Pillars to Progress, the CEO Forum’s 1997 report, just 3 percent of U.S. classrooms fully integrate technology; 59 percent have outdated and inadequate classroom technology.
Schools have, the Forum says, “taken the first critical steps” toward establishing what President Clinton has called the four pillars of technology literacy—hardware, connectivity, content, and professional development. The next challenge is to fully integrate these pillars into what happens in the classroom. The National School Boards Association is committed to helping school leaders meet this challenge.
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