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The Narragansett Regional School District in Templeton, Mass.,
can thank cow flops for some of the new multimedia workstations
and color printers in its classrooms. Not bonds, not grants, not
state technology funds, but cow flops (a.k.a. cow pies).
"We divided a field up into squares and had people put bids
on different squares," explains John LeClerc, the mastermind behind
a three-year series of entrepreneurial efforts in the small rural
district. Once all the squares were taken, organizers let a couple
of cows loose in the field, waited for the animals to flop on
a plot, then declared that square a winner. The event raised as
much as $11,000 one year, thanks in part to a matching grant from
the Wal-Mart Foundation, LeClerc says.
The cow flop lottery isn't the only way Narragansett funds its
technology. Matching funds from the state, donations from businesses,
and local operating funds are all involved. But the district's
novel approach underscores the lengths to which schools go to
find funding for technology programs. Federal grants, state technology
funds, contributions from private foundations, volunteer labor,
bond revenues, and even barter all figure in the effort. But while
advocates have urged schools to make more effective use of technology,
no single strategy has emerged for funding technology programs.
Instead, many schools find themselves piecing together a funding
plan from several different -- and constantly changing -- sources.
"Schools are just doing whatever they possibly can," says Linda
Roberts, director of the U.S. Department of Education's Office
of Technology, of the current funding effort in the nation's schools.
What schools do
Numbers reveal part of the challenge. According to Quality Education
Data (QED), a market-research firm that tracks school technology
expenditures, U.S. schools spent a total of $4.8 billion on technology
in 1997-98. That amounts to about 1.3 percent of the total spent
on K-12 education in the United States. When the numbers for this
year are calculated, the total is expected to rise to $5.4 billion,
the company says. In addition, a 1996 study from the Rand Corp.
estimates that it would cost between $10 billion and $20 billion
a year to provide all schools with technology-rich environments
-- a figure that amounts to between 3 percent and 8 percent of
current spending on K-12 education. Textbooks, in comparison,
account for about 2.7 percent of school expenditures.
But according to a 1998 General Accounting Office report --
Five
School Districts' Experiences in Funding Technology Programs
-- little is known about how districts are funding the technology
they do acquire. Each of the five districts the GAO studied received
a majority of its technology funding from a single source, but
the source varied from district to district. In some it was the
district's own operating budget; in others, it was special technology
levies and bonds, state and federal funds, or private contributions.
Schools in Seattle and Roswell, N.M., received half of their
funding from district-level bonds or levies. Roswell used a 2-mill
levy to raise approximately $4.5 million for technology, and Seattle
raised $22 million in a 1991 levy.
The Manchester (N.H.) School District, on the other hand, funded
two-thirds of its technology program with a $2.8 million federal
Challenge grant, while Ohio's Gahanna-Jefferson School District
funded 77 percent of its technology budget from district operating
funds, spending $2.5 million from its own budget on technology
over the past 10 years.
Though their approaches to funding differ, officials in all
five districts reported similar barriers to their fund-raising
efforts -- including community resistance to new taxes, the need
to compete with other district programs for funds, and the lack
of an adequate number of staff members to help raise funds from
sources outside the district. Some also reported that their efforts
were occasionally stymied by restrictions on certain funding sources,
such as federal grants that are targeted at high-poverty school
districts. One of their most difficult challenges, the districts
agreed, was finding funding for important technical support positions,
such as network administrators or technology aides. And, despite
their progress in raising money, none of the five districts reported
that it had obtained a stable, long-term source of funding.
The limits of funding
These five districts aren't alone: Stable funding sources aren't
easy to find, experts acknowledge. Districts that are nationally
recognized for their use of technology often have had substantial
backing from large corporations and foundations. But such funds
are designed to encourage experimentation and not to sustain a
program, technology advocates note.
"If you're serious about change, then the literature tells you
it'll take between five and 10 years to show progress, but funding
cycles are never that long," observes David Niguidula, a researcher
in educational technology and former technology specialist with
the Annenberg Institute for School Reform in Providence, R.I.
Federal funds also have their limits. Designed to leverage school
change and innovation, U.S. Department of Education technology
funds accounted for $548 million of the $4.8 billion spent on
technology in 1997-98. But while these grants are substantial,
they are also highly competitive. Seven hundred school districts
applied for last year's Technology Innovation Challenge Grant
program, says Niguidula, but only 19 applications were funded.
Bond elections and levies, which some school districts use to
fund the initial stages of their technology initiatives, might
not be the ideal solution either, policy makers say. While most
bonds require a 10- to 20-year payout, the useful life of most
computer technology is only about four years, says Spud Van de
Water, a technology analyst with the Denver-based Education Commission
of the States. That means schools end up paying for equipment
"when it's practically useless to them," Van de Water says.
Advocates worry, too, that the current catch-as-catch-can funding
model won't begin to cover the really hefty expenses, such as
technical support and teacher training. The solution: Instead
of looking for new sources of income, technology experts say,
school districts need to make technology part of their regular
operating budgets.
"Until technology is embedded within the budget as another instructional
support issue, it's not going to be as effective as it could be,"
says Harvey Barnett, senior research associate at the San Francisco-based
WestEd, one of 10 federal government's regional education research
laboratories.
A Colorado story
Embedding technology into your budget doesn't guarantee you'll
never wrestle with a lack of funds, though. For the last several
years, the Durango, Colo., school district has funded its technology
program out of its operating budget, spending an average of $600,000
a year, says technology director Howie DiBlasi. One year, the
school board even agreed to $1 million in funds. "The district
said, 'This is a priority. Go do it, and here's the money to do
the job,'" says DiBlasi.
That ongoing investment has allowed the 4,500-student school
system to put computers in all 10 schools and connect those schools
to a wide-area network with a fast T1 line. All of Durango's schools
also have Internet access, and the district's computer-to-student
ratio has dropped to approximately 1 to 6 -- though that number
"includes everything from eight-year-old Apples to the most current
Pentium II," DiBlasi says. The district has also been able to
hire a technology director, a network administrator, and a computer
technician -- key support positions that many districts lack.
Challenges remain, though: Like the mountain communities of
Telluride and Vail, Durango is a resort town where skyrocketing
housing costs have driven out many middle-class families, DiBlasi
says. The resulting decline in enrollments has put the squeeze
on school budgets and stalled plans to update technology.
"The capital budget that pays for hardware also has to pay for
roofs and buses," says DiBlasi.
This year, in fact, the district has allocated only $50,000
for technology, DiBlasi says, enough to pay for software licenses,
and upgrades, and repairs to crashed hard drives, but not enough
to purchase new equipment. The second year of a teacher-training
program that provides laptop computers to the district's teachers
has also been put on hold.
Nor are other sources of funding likely to ease the crunch.
Some federal technology funds are being channeled through the
state, DiBlasi says, including Eisenhower professional development
money and federal school-to-work funds. Overall, though, the district
doesn't qualify for many federal funds because it doesn't enroll
a large number of poor students. (Only 20 percent of Durango's
students are eligible for free and reduced-price lunches, a common
measure of poverty.) And after this year's expected cutbacks in
the federal E-Rate program, Durango doesn't expect to receive
any of the $90,000 in discounts it requested.
Grants and business partnerships are also part of Durango's
funding plan. In past years, DiBlasi says he spent perhaps 2 percent
of his time writing grants, but this year, he's devoting nearly
a quarter of his time to that task. The district is also exploring
more business partnerships with high-tech companies, which he
hopes might result in new equipment for the schools. The district
has already brokered an agreement with a local Internet service
provider to give Durango teachers Internet accounts for only $5
a month.
Overall, though, DiBlasi is optimistic. "A lot of people have
been going after grants for a number of years and not putting
money into the regular budget," DiBlasi says. "We're in better
straits than most. We've been able to build."
Site-based management and technology
The San Carlos (Calif.) Public Schools have taken a similar
approach. A small K-8 district in the heart of Silicon Valley,
San Carlos receives $3,100 per pupil in state aid. But though
the district is committed to funding technology out of its own
budget, such average daily attendance funds won't stretch easily
to fit the district's technology initiative, says district technology
coordinator Mark Miller.
"The level of technology in the schools has exceeded anyone's
ability to forecast for it," says Miller. Just five years ago,
when technology consisted of Apple IIes and dot-matrix printers,
teachers in many California districts were going out of pocket
to fund technology, and $300 donations from a parent organization
were significant contributions to a district's funding plan, Miller
says. With today's emphasis on networks and high-speed Internet
access, that approach to funding is no longer practical.
"Teachers aren't going to get together and pool their money
on routers," says Miller, a consultant who works with several
California districts.
Currently, the school district runs a mixture of older PCs and
Apple IIes as well as new Macintosh G3s and Pentium IIs. It has
also provided all six of its schools, plus the central office,
with Internet access.
Finding money to upgrade older machines is difficult, though,
Miller says. And in a district that's committed to site-based
management -- in which individual schools are given control of
their own budgets and school plans -- another issue has emerged:
Which technology expenses are the school's responsibility, and
which are the central office's? "Some decisions have to be made
at the district level, such as faster lines or replacing a router,"
says Miller. Other decisions aren't as clear. "Who buys the upgrades
-- the school or the district?" asks Miller. "Who buys the new
tape drives, at $1,000 each?"
Schools in turn face their own pressures. This year, California
has launched a new mathematics initiative, and as individual schools
begin to comply, that could mean more money spent on mathematics
and fewer dollars for technology. "You have to sit and prioritize,"
says Gary Addiego, principal of the district's Central Middle
School, a 6-8 school with 700 students.
And having to stretch existing dollars to fund technology slows
the pace. "We're willing to move a lot faster," says Addiego,
who spent $20,000 last year networking his school. "But the restraint
of funding slows us down."
Like Durango, San Carlos falls back on business partnerships
and grants to keep its technology plan going. Smart Valley, a
nonprofit technology group, donated a PowerMac and five PCs to
Addiego's school, and a "huge" donation of software from nearby
software company "just landed in our lap," says Addiego. Because
of a district arrangement with another high-tech firm, Addiego's
school and others in the district also hope to receive Java workstations,
capable of running sophisticated graphics, this year.
Other Silicon Valley corporations are also involved either at
the school or district level, Miller says, and a number of schools
have volunteer technology support teams staffed with parents who
work in high-tech firms.
On the funding horizon
What's ahead? Districts that can pass technology bonds probably
will continue to do so, some experts note, because initial technology
costs are so high. More and more, though, experts are urging districts
to use bond money not simply for hardware but for teacher training
-- a more appropriate use of long-term funds.
Other districts will investigate different long-term funding
methods. Two years ago, the Dade County (Fla.) Public Schools
raised $25 million for technology using a funding mechanism called
a certificate of participation, which allowed the district to
borrow money at a favorable interest rate. (Such certificates,
which are used to fund capital projects in Florida, typically
offer a piece of property as collateral for the loan.) Dade County
used the funds to finance the technology portion of Operation
Safety Net, a program that targeted 44 of the district's lowest-performing
schools. Last year, the district also used $2.1 million in federal
Title I funds to provide technology training in these schools.
Increasingly, too, policy analysts and technology advocates
note, states will be asked to play a significant role. A 1997
report from the U.S. Department of Education, for example, recommends
that states take responsibility for helping local districts with
their initial investment in technology so that they can ensure
equity.
Among the success stories cited in a report titled Investing
in School Technology: Strategies to Meet the Funding Challenge
are Georgia's commitment to funding school technology specialists
and Maine's mandate that the state's primary provider of telephone
services develop a statewide telecommunications network and ensure
that schools and libraries have access to it. The report also
cites Ohio's SchoolNet program, which provides equity grants to
the state's lowest-funded school districts, and Georgia's decision
to spend $86.4 million in lottery revenues on technology. States
can also help reduce the costs of technology by negotiating with
providers for better prices and establishing purchasing collectives,
the report says.
But in the long run, technology experts and policy makers agree,
unless schools find alternatives to the piecemeal funding approach,
they won't be able to sustain widespread and substantial use of
technology. As the Department of Education's Roberts warns, "If
[the funding] comes out of discretionary money, then it's much
more fragile, much more subject to ups and downs."
Donna Harrington-Lueker
is an education writer in Newport, R.I.
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