CUE > Proposed Budget-Cut will cause California Schools to Lose Millions in Federal Funding for Technology

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Advancing Student Achievement Through Technology

Proposed Budget-Cut will cause California Schools to Lose Millions in Federal Funding for Technology

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The Legislature has proposed mid-year budget reductions that include the elimination of funding ($17.6 million) for the California Technology Assistance Project (CTAP) and the Statewide Educational Technology Services (SETS) programs.

Cutting these programs would cause California’s schools to lose hundreds of millions of federal dollars each year.

Four financial reasons to maintain CTAP and SETS:

1. Federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Funding: Since their inception in 1998, the existence of CTAP and the SETS projects made the state eligible to receive nearly $100 million dollars in federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Title II, Part D funding for technology and related training. Additionally, CTAP and SETS programs assist school districts to develop plans and proposals needed to be eligible for these funds. This budget cut would put California at risk of being out of compliance with NCLB and would be in danger of losing more than $33 million annually in federal Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) grant funds.
2. K-12 Ed Tech Voucher funding: CTAP and SETS resources and support help qualify schools to receive almost $243 million in K-12 Voucher funding made available through the Microsoft Settlement with California’s consumers. CTAP regional staffs help school plan for and purchase programs with proven value that support the State Curriculum Standards rather than waste funding on ineffective programs.
3. Federal E-Rate Funding: CTAP and SETS play the primary role in assisting schools to develop technology plans to make them eligible to collectively receive over $3 million in federal E-Rate funding. Without this assistance, schools quite often do not have the knowledge and staff to develop these required technology plans.
4. Saved local school district expenses: Over the past 8 years, CTAP and SETS have been proven, through external evaluations, to save school and district funds through more cost-effective purchasing services on a statewide and regional level. CTAP and SETS significantly reduce duplication of effort and increase equity of services by providing equal opportunities for support to teachers and school administrators from rural to urban regions of the state.  Support ranges from effective integration of technology into curriculum to the planned use of technology to cost-effectively manage and analyze student assessment data.

CTAP and SETS are critical for the future: CTAP and SETS are the only programs that enable the state and school districts to develop and adopt the plans necessary to ensure federal compliance with these programs as well as new programs that may be proposed by the President-Elect Obama and Congress. California, considered the high-tech state, ranks about 46th in the country in terms of technology access and use in schools and cannot afford to lose what little it has. Furthermore there are many economic reasons for preparing students for the 21st century workforce. This is difficult if schools cannot provide the technology and the capacity of educators to prepare students for California’s future.

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