Momentum Growing for Federal Investment in Digital Learning

Educators and public officials are no longer asking “if” technology, but instead “how” can they best support and leverage the modernization of schools and teaching through technology and digital learning. That effort has received several boosts this month, including today when President Obama will announce the ConnectED initiative.

Most significantly, “The President is calling on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to modernize and leverage the existing E-Rate program [to] . . . within five years, connect 99 percent of America’s students, through next-generation broadband (at speeds no less than 100Mbps and with a target of 1Gbps) to, and high-speed wireless within, their schools and libraries.” E-Rate funding has been relatively flat at $2.25 billion since its creation in 1996, while the need for, and the demand for, connectivity has grown dramatically.

The President’s proposal also directs the U.S. Department of Education “to make better use of existing funds to get this technology into classrooms, and into the hands of teachers trained on its advantages,” including especially around teacher professional development through Title II of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).

Notably, the President’s propsoal identifies the need to “Build on Private-Sector Innovation” to “allow our teachers and students to take full advantage of feature-rich educational devices . . . and high-quality educational software (including applications) . . .”

Federal support is also growing in Congress. Representative George Miller, Ranking Democrat on the House Education & the Workforce Committee, has introduced the Transforming Education Through Technology Act (HR521) to support school technology readiness and teacher professional development to ensure all students can access and benefit from technology. And Senate H.E.L.P. Committee Chairman Tom Harkin includes a number of related programs and provisions in his recently introduced Strengthening America’s Schools Act of 2013. The Harkin proposal builds on legislation (S1087) recently introduced by Senators Hagan, Murray and Baldwin.  At SIIA’s April policy forum (in conjunction with CoSN, ISTE and SETDA), FCC Commissioner Rosenworcel announced a related package of proposed changes to the E-Rate to increase its funding and improve its administration.

SIIA supports and has championed these federal proposals to increase investments in education targeted to both increase access to, and enhance the use of, educational technologies. Learning technologies are needed to improve learning opportunities, engagement and personalization. Yet SIIA’s Vision K20 educator survey and other data shows that access to and use of these technologies is limited.

SIIA calls on the FCC and Congress to advance these and related initiatives needed to ensure all students and educators can realize the educational benefits made possible by technology.

As the President’s proposal articulates: “From digital textbooks that help students visualize and interact with complex concepts, to apps and platforms that adapt to the level of individual student knowledge and help teachers know precisely which lessons or activities are working, this technology is real, it is available, and its capacity to improve education is profound.”


Mark SchneidermanMark Schneiderman is Senior Director of Education Policy at SIIA.

New Federal Legislation Supports Technology Readiness for Digital Learning and Online Assessment

U.S. Representative George Miller (CA) today introduced The Transforming Education Through Technology Act” (H.R. 521) to help ensure the nation’s elementary and secondary schools have access to the technology infrastructure, applications and professional support needed for digital learning and online assessment. Congressman Miller is Ranking Democrat on the U.S. House Education & the Workforce Committee, coauthor of the No Child Left Behind Act, and was recently recognized for his leadership in education technology.

“The Transforming Education Through Technology Act is an important step forward in providing our students and educators with the technology supports they need for success in school and in the workplace,” said SIIA President Ken Wasch. “We look forward to working further with Congressman Miller to provide the leadership and investment needed to modernize our educational practices and instructional resources through technology and digital learning.”

SIIA is pleased to be part of a coalition of organizations endorsing the bill, representing K-12 teachers, technology officers, administrators and high-tech companies.

The Transforming Education Through Technology Act would:

  • Support and prepare teachers and principals to use technology to redesign curriculum, effectively use real-time data to drive classroom practice, individualize instruction, and increase student engagement;
  • Help school districts ensure equitable access to, and effective use of, the technology infrastructure and applications all students need for expanded learning opportunities, online assessment and computer-based curriculum;
  • Seed new models of digital learning that help personalize learning, including through curriculum redesign, online communities of practice, and interactive learning simulations; and
  • Help states to support their school districts to improve student learning, upgrade assessments, and improve educator preparation and support around technology.

The legislation comes at an important time for the role of technology in education. Common core state standards and online assessments are among the factors driving the need for technology, and educators are asking “how” not “if.” However, the continued budget crunch has left too many schools and students without adequate access. This new bill would go a long way toward addressing those gaps, and SIIA will continue its advocacy for this and related public investments.


Mark SchneidermanMark Schneiderman is Senior Director of Education Policy at SIIA. Follow the SIIA Policy team on Twitter at @SIIAPolicy

SIIA Testimony to NY Education Reform Commission Calls for School System Redesign to Personalize Learning through Technology

I had the opportunity yesterday to provide invited testimony to the “New NY Education Reform Commission” appointed by NY Governor Andrew Cuomo to study and make recommendations for the reform and improvement of the state’s education system. My submitted written testimony describes a comprehensive vision for redesigning education to pesonalize learning through technology, and then makes dozens of reccommendations around each of the Commission’s seven objectives.

My October 16 oral testimony is provided below and video archived (at 02:02:40):

On behalf of the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) and our 500 high-tech companies, thank you for inviting me today. I am Mark Schneiderman, SIIA’s senior director of education policy.

SIIA agrees with the Commission that, “Future generations of students cannot compete unless we dramatically reform our education system.”

Our industrial-age education practices are largely unchanged over a century or more:
- Too many students are disengaged, not due to lack of technology, but from undifferentiated resources, rote one-to-many instruction, and lack of attention to 21st century skills.
- Time and place are constants, but learning is variable.

Instead, our education system must be fundamentally reengineered from a mass production, teaching model to a student-centered, personalized learning model to address the dramatic change in student daily lives, diversity and expectations.

The mandate is not for marginal change, but for: redesign to free learning from the physical limitations of time, place and paper; and instead customize instructional resources, strategies, and schedules to dynamically address each student’s unique abilities, interests and needs.

The redesign of education can take place without technology and digital learning, but not at scale.  Technology is a teaching force multiplier and a learning accelerator.

This doesn’t mean computers replace teachers, or that all learning takes place online.

It does mean that we use the technology:
1. to collect and analyze extensive student learning data to a degree not otherwise possible;
2. to provide a differentiation of interactive, multimedia teaching and learning resources and student creativity and collaboration tools not possible from one teacher, book or classroom; and
3. to free teacher time from rote and administrative activities to redirect to more value-added instruction.

The result is a more effective teacher, a more highly engaged and better performing learner, and a more productive system.

SIIA’s 2012 Vision K-20 Survey of 1,600 educators found that interest in digital learning is high at about 75%, but only about 25% rate actual technology access and use as high by their peers and institutions.

Here are 10 SIIA recommendations to the Commission and state:

1. Eliminate the Carnegie unit (credit for seat time) as the measure of learning and replace it with a competency-based model that provides credit, progression and graduation based upon demonstrated mastery and performance.

2. Eliminate fixed, agrarian-age definitions of the hours of the school day and the days of the school year and instead provide flexibility for 24/7/365 learning as needed for student mastery.

3. Ensure all teachers have access to a minimum slate of digital tools and supports provided to other professionals, including instructional technology coaches and virtual peer learning networks.

4. Ensure all educators have the skills needed to personalize learning and leverage technology, including by updating the curriculum of teachers colleges as well as teacher licensure and certification requirements.

5. Encourage and support a shift from print-only curriculum to instead provide students with anytime, everywhere access to interactive digital content and online learning.

6. Create a statewide online learning authority for approval and oversight of virtual learning providers to New York students and schools, and loosen arbitrary limits.

7. Invest to ensure equity of technology and digital learning access to change the education cost-curve and provide opportunity to learn, while providing increased local flexibility in the use of state grant funds to meet unique local needs.

8. Set minimum expectations for school/teacher electronic communication with parents and families and support home access to student performance data, assignments and curriculum.

9. Support more flexible higher education policies that end seat-time requirements, allow students to demonstrate prior learning and complete course modules that fit their learning gaps, and receive student aid for study toward skills certifications valued in the job market.

10. Finally, recognize the role of the private sector, which invests hundreds of millions of dollars each year to develop and deliver educational technologies and digital learning. Support public-private research partnerships, and reform the RFP process to enable the private sector to share their expertise, vision and innovative business models.

Our nation’s continued success will require that our educational system adopt modern methods and means to remain not effective and relevant in the 21st century.

On behalf of SIIA and our member high-tech companies, I look forward to working with the Commission to further identify and advance a reform plan for New York education.


Mark SchneidermanMark Schneiderman is Senior Director of Education Policy at SIIA.

Leaders or Laggards: The State Role in the Shift to Digital Content

The focus at the recent annual meeting of the State Instructional Materials Review Association (SIMRA) was the shift from print to digital. While paper weight and book binding standards remain on their agenda, the shift is symbolized in part by this group’s recent name change that replaced “textbooks” with “instructional materials.” I had the opportunity to present at the meeting, and had some timely discussions about the evolving state role in the digital world. Texas (see SIIA webinar), Florida (see SIIA summary) and West Virginia are among the states most proactive in helping lead their schools into the digital content future, while many states (with leadership from their SIMRA-member adoption director) are trying to catch up with their districts and understand their evolving roles and rules. A parallel but accelerated shift to digital is underway in state assessments with the leadership of PARCC and SBAC.

As background, SIMRA members administer the process used in 20+ states for instructional materials adoption, including identifying curriculum and technical requirements, soliciting publisher submissions, managing the peer review criteria and process, and coordinating the school procurement of approved materials (including with state funds to buy materials in states such as Texas, California and Florida). SIIA has advocated for years the need to update legacy rules that often create barriers to adoption of digital and online resources, and therefore limit local choice. While often this is simply about correcting for unintended consequences of legacy print rules, the issues are often far more complicated and reflect the still evolving views of instructional materials in the digital age. A leading example is dynamic content: State policies have traditionally required that content remain unchanged over the course of the six year adoption cycle, while digital resources can be seamlessly updated to remain current, accurate and meet evolving curriculum and pedagogical needs. Not surprisingly, SIIA has long advocated the flexibility for content to be updated and improved during the period of adoption.

Here are a few other trends identified at the SIMRA meeting:

  • State budget shortages continue, causing many states to delay adoption cycles or reduce funding and leaving many teachers and students with increasingly outdated materials.
  • Common Core State Standards are central to the process, but many state cycles are not aligned and adjustments are often not possible given the overall budget shortages.
  • Fewer states are funding instructional materials. In the traditional model, states paid for instructional materials, providing them the leverage to determine which materials are to be used. That is often no longer the case.
  • States are increasingly providing local control such that school districts can buy state approved materials, but can also buy any other instructional resources as well.
  • Some states are asking whether they should continue to target only single, primary tools of instruction (i.e., textbooks or their digital equivalents), or whether they should also adopt, for example, digital learning objects and modules to support teachers in dynamically assembling resources to differentiate instruction and personalize learning.
  • Some states are allowing the use of instructional materials funds for the purchase of the technology hardware needed to access those materials, though priority in general still for content.

States are working with SIIA, publishers and other stakeholders to address new challenges in reviewing adaptive instructional software and other robust digital content. For example, how do they review the full resource in cases where each student may be provided a unique, dynamic pathway through the content (compared to the relative ease of reviewing a more linear (e)textbook).

Also, as digital content shifts from supplemental to primary, format and platform are also increasingly of concern. State agencies, on behalf of local educators, seek to ensure the content they purchase is accessible from multiple platforms, as well as increasingly from their students’ personal/home devices. Some have floated the requirement that digital content must be accessible from every platform through a common format. While interoperability is a key goal, SIIA recommends for industry evolution of common standards and against regulatory mandates that could block use of many widely used technologies. SIIA instead encourages that states focus on ensuring publishers disclose system requirements to empower local decision makers with the information they need to determine what platforms and resources best meet their needs. This will enable technology innovation and competition, enhance education choice, and ultimately ensure the needs of teachers and students are best addressed.

SIIA encourages states to further lead the print to digital transition. In doing so, they must recognize that there is not yet any single best technology, curriculum or instructional practice solution for the use of digital content. Therefore, most importantly, SIIA encourages states to provide the investment, regulatory flexibility and technical assistance districts need to innovate as educators collectively and individually determine the best path forward.


Mark SchneidermanMark Schneiderman is Senior Director of Education Policy at SIIA.

The Social Costs of Patent Trolls

President Obama heralded the patent reform bill’s prospects for stimulating innovation when he signed the bill last week. SIIA concurs. The new law, which represents the first major reform the patent laws in 60 years, makes critical, necessary patent improvements that will drive our country’s continued leadership in the software and information industries. SIIA has continually called for patent reform, and we are pleased to see U.S. patent law move in the right direction. Enactment of the America Invents Act will enhance patent quality and encourage growth in sectors that are poised to create jobs and renew our economy.

While there is no question that the new law is a substantial improvement over the status quo, many fear it might not bring an end to abusive patent litigation that stifles innovation and hinders job growth.

A new study by James Bessen and Mike Meurer on the social costs of patent trolls in the years 2000-2010 sheds some light on the magnitude of the patent troll problem.

They conclude that patent lawsuits from entities that hold patents but do not produce goods or services “are associated with half a trillion dollars of lost wealth to defendants from 1990 through 2010, mostly from technology companies. Moreover, very little of this loss represents a transfer to small inventors. Instead, it implies reduced innovation incentives.”

The idea that patent litigation is creating disincentives for innovation is not new. Bessen and Meurer’s 2008 book, Patent Failure, summarized here, came to a similar conclusion that during the 1990s the net benefits of patents were negative for public companies outside the pharmaceutical and chemical industries. The news is that things did not improve in the first decade of the 21st century.

Abusive patent litigation has been a staple of recent press coverage. An August report by NPR highlighted the problem of unproductive litigation by non-practicing entities. A piece by Timothy B. Lee in the current National Review underscored the same problem. Tech entrepreneur Mark Cuban pointed out in his August blog post that patent litigation risk from non-practicing entities is “unlimited,” which forces companies to set aside resources for patent litigation that would otherwise be used for further investment and job creation. Companies within SIIA report that infringement suits are on the rise, significantly, within the last year. This problem is especially severe for mobile app developers and platforms, leading some offshore app developers to shun the U.S. market for fear of patent infringement suits. Major companies such as Apple, Google and Microsoft are amassing large portfolios of patents to improve their strategic position in the coming patent litigation wars.

The new law will make some improvements. It will allow the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to keep more of revenue it collects, thereby reducing the problem of bad patents, and it will make it easier to challenge bad patents after they have been granted.

But the new law applies only to new patents, and it does nothing to limit the risk of patent litigation by limiting damages from non-practicing entities. So the problem of abusive patent litigation will likely be with us for some time – along with the social costs outlined in the new Bessen and Meurer study.

SIIA submits comments on Cybersecurity, Innovation and the Internet Economy

In our continuing effort to maintain and expand the partnership between the private sector and the government to address our nation’s cybersecurity challenges, SIIA submitted comments to the Department of Commerce on Monday in response to their recent Green Paper on Cybersecurity, Innovation and the Internet Economy.

At the heart of the Green Paper is an effort to help define the roles of the Government and the private sector in combating cybersecurity threats and protecting the systems and networks that support the infrastructure that drives the nation’s economy. In our comments, SIIA offered strong support for the Department’s approach of looking toward voluntary codes of conduct for an innovative sector such as the Internet and Information Innovation Sector (I3S). We noted that the most critical element of achieving these goals is to resist an approach that is overly-prescriptive, where mandates would have the adverse effect of slowing the development of standards in the private sector, or the unintended effect of putting U.S. companies at a disadvantage to their counterparts around the world. Given the broad, rapidly-evolving cross-section of industry that comprises the I3S, a flexible industry-led approach is the correct best path forward to achieve an ideal security framework, rather than a regulatory model.

SIIA also noted that while the primary purpose of the Green Paper is to discuss an area that is outside of the critical infrastructure segment, and to bolster security in this area, this exercise can also help to appropriately define the critical framework of what is “covered critical infrastructure,” and it can help to avoid confusion and appropriately allocate resources where they are most needed.

For SIIA policy updates including upcoming events, news and analysis, subscribe to SIIA’s weekly policy email newsletter, Digital Policy Roundup.

Despite debt-limit talks, Technology Policy Continues in Washington

Although the debt-limit discussions are sucking much of the air out of Washington DC, Congress and the Administration remain focused on many key technology issues. Having just passed the half-way point for 2011, the clock is ticking louder — hence the long list of hearings and events listed in our calendar this week!
Highlights for the week include the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on privacy this Thursday. The hearing, introduced as the first of several on broad internet privacy issues, will be led jointly by Reps. Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) and Greg Walden (R-OR), with the focus on identifying key issues for legislation. In what is getting to be a regular occurrence, the hearing will include testimony and questioning of the three key Federal Agencies: FCC, FTC and DOC.
Regardless of how much — or how little — gets accomplished between now and the August recess, it’s looking more and more likely that this month will be packed with work to set the stage for a flurry of activity on our favorite topics in the Fall. That is, given the major issues to be resolved and jurisdictional challenges on issues such as privacy, patent reform and cyber and data security, legislators’ best intentions to advance anything will have to break the current logjam, muddied by the looming debt discussions.

To discuss the outlook on these key issues for the remainder of 2011, we’ll be holding Technology Policy and IP Committee meetings on Monday and Tuesday of next week, respectively. For more information, or if you would like to participate, please contact me dleduc@siia.net.

For SIIA policy updates including upcoming events, news and analysis, subscribe to SIIA’s weekly policy email newsletter, Digital Policy Roundup.