The following TCEA 2009 Legislative Program was adopted by the TCEA Board of Directors on January 17, 2009. Please support the work of TCEA to enhance education through the use of technology.

The Technology Allotment of $30 per student was established in 1992. For seventeen years this allotment has helped fund the increasing need to integrate technology into the education of Texas children. This amount, however, is woefully inadequate to provide for the infrastructure, equipment, digital content, and professional development that today’s students and teachers need to prepare for tomorrow’s economy.

Texas school districts are innovative in their approach to educating the students in their schools. The historical method of providing every student a paper-based textbook is no longer practical. Districts need the flexibility to purchase the instructional materials that best meet their students’ needs in a format that takes advantage of the digital tools available. Information is rapidly moving to a digital delivery method. It is important that Texas not resist this transformation but rather embrace the opportunities that digital publishing offers. The trend of the traditional publishing model evolving into a digital one is happening in all areas of the publishing industry. Our districts need the flexibility to utilize digital content where it fit their curricular needs.

In order to access digital content, Texas students will need tools that will allow them to access this information and can also be used to formatively assess their knowledge and skills. With the intention of providing all Texas students with this access, it is important that our schools have the necessary equipment to provide ubiquitous access to the content and the assessment tools.

Teaching in a digital environment requires new teaching strategies. It is not enough to equip Texas classrooms with digital content and digital tools. High-quality sutainable professional development must be provided that will increase teacher retention and student achievement.

In addition to utilizing technology to assess Texas students for statewide tests, classroom teachers can also conduct innovative micro assessments to determine the students’ level of comprehension and provide targeted interventions that will help all students reach their highest potential. This will not happen without adequate teacher training, IT support to ensure reports delivered to teachers are relevant and user-friendly, and strong leadership about the importance of data analysis to drive classroom instruction.

After careful consideration of current research and practice, TCEA supports the following:

Funding

• Increase the technology allotment to meet the demands of the 21st Century learning environment

Instruction

• Flexibility in the instructional materials allocation to allow local school boards the discretion to decide how to utilize funds equivalent to their allotted costs of textbooks for instructional materials and devices to access those instructional materials.
• Insertion of language into proposed legislation that supports the use of technology in all existing and newly funded projects such as the high school allotment
• Ubiquitous access of digital content and technical tools to access that content
• Intensive professional development in the use of 21st Century tools to improve instruction

Online Testing
Comprehensive funding to ensure:

• Adequate technical and human resources required to support online testing
• Adequate infrastructure, equipment, and online systems that meet minimum standards required to access the test successfully. Specifically, ensure that tests are accessible to all districts in terms of computer platform, bandwidth, age of computers with a high level of confidence in security and uptime.

Visit the TexTAN web site at http://www.tcea.org/TexTAN

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