[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 160 (Thursday, November 13, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12533-S12535]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY TO IMPROVE EDUCATION

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, as we prepare to complete this first 
session of the 105th Congress, I want to take a moment to look back at 
one of the great bipartisan accomplishments that we have made this 
year, and also to look forward to some important work that still lies 
ahead.
  I am referring specifically to the work we have been able to do in 
putting advanced technology to work to improve education in the 
country.
  Technology and better use of technology is critical in my home State 
of New Mexico. It is a big State. We have only a few concentrations of 
population and economic activity, and technology offers us a way to 
bring communities closer together and offers us a way to eliminate the 
gaps that separate the ``haves'' and the ``have-nots'' in our State and 
throughout the country.
  In more than half of American households with incomes of over 
$50,000, the children have access to a computer at home. But in my 
State the average family earns about $26,000, and in that income range 
the estimate is that one in four children in those homes will have 
access to a computer.
  We need to do better in the public sector, Mr. President, in 
providing technology in our schools so that we can use technology to 
narrow the gap between the haves and have-nots, rather than to allow 
that gap to increase.
  In the past year, several magazines have published articles that have 
challenged the idea that technology in schools can really improve 
education. The Atlantic Monthly had a cover story called ``The Computer 
Delusion.'' There have been articles that consider computers in schools 
to be ``snake oil'' or ``the filmstrip of the 1990's,'' just to cite 
some of the phrases used.
  Those articles are one reason I was interested in several recent 
reports that have reviewed the hundreds of research studies on the 
effects of educational technology on student achievement. The 
Educational Testing Service [ETS] did a report. Also, there has been a 
study commissioned by the Software Publishers Association [SPA]. The 
research results are uneven, but there are solid peer-reviewed studies 
that show significant improvement in

[[Page S12534]]

student performance and attitude in all age groups and all subject 
areas through better use of technology. Overall, technology-based 
instruction is 30 percent more effective in improving student 
achievement than instruction that does not include the use of 
technology. This is the equivalent of about 3 months of additional 
learning each year for our students.
  The findings of these studies validate the Federal investment in 
education technology that we have made. I introduced the Technology for 
Education Act in 1994, and it became law later that year. But when it 
did become law, I don't believe any of us could have predicted the 
progress that could have been made in these 3 short years. Let me show 
you some charts, Mr. President, to indicate the progress that has been 
made.
  This first chart, I think, makes the case very dramatically. It is a 
chart that demonstrates computer availability, that is, the students 
per computer, from the period 1983-84 through this just-completed 
school year, 1996-97. You can see the dramatic improvement that has 
occurred. In 1983-84, there were 92 students per computer in our public 
schools in this country. In this last school year, there were seven 
students per computer. That is significant progress. Computers have 
become much more available to students than they ever were before.
  Let me show another chart that is an indicator of the progress that 
has been made. This is a chart that shows connections to the Internet. 
It shows how those connections have continued to increase rapidly: 65 
percent of schools are now connected to the Internet. That is this 
green line on the chart. It indicates 65 percent are now connected. 
Only 14 percent of our classrooms are connected, but that number is 
also increasing rapidly. Real progress is being made there as well.
  This past summer, the Federal Communications Commission approved 
plans to implement the universal services fund that will provide 
schools and libraries with $2.25 billion in communications discounts 
next year. Thanks to the leadership of Senators Snowe, Rockefeller, 
Exon, and Kerrey, schools will have affordable access to the Internet 
over the coming years.
  So looking at these very positive trends, one would think that 
students are using computers a lot more, but that is not really the 
case, Mr. President. Let me show you one more chart that indicates the 
concern I have.
  This is a chart from a recent report by Education Week, a publication 
entitled ``Technology Counts.'' It shows that more than half of the 
eighth grade math students never or hardly ever use computers in their 
classrooms. Only 12 percent use computers almost every day. In my 
State, the numbers are even more startling. Two-thirds of the eighth 
grade math students indicate that they hardly ever use computers; 11 
percent in my State indicate that they use computers almost every day. 
This chart is a graphic depiction of those statistics.
  Another recent report by the CEO Forum, the Chief Executive Officers 
Forum, supports this same finding. Only 3 percent of schools have fully 
integrated technology into teaching.
  This means that we're making progress in some places, but that some 
important barriers are stopping our progress in other schools.
  This past weekend, the Congress passed the spending bill for the 
Department of Education, and I was privileged to be at the White House 
this morning when President Clinton signed that bill. It contains 
significant increases for programs authorized by the bill that I 
introduced back in 1994.
  Let me show on this final chart that I have here this afternoon some 
of the increases that we have been able to accomplish in a bipartisan 
way this year.
  In the technology literacy challenge fund--that is grant money that 
goes to States and school districts to support better use of 
technology--in fiscal year 1997, we appropriated $200 million. In the 
bill signed by the President today that number goes to $425 million. So 
it is more than twice the amount of funding.
  In the technology innovation challenge grants the figure for 1997 was 
$57 million. The figure for 1998 is $76 million.
  This year, for the very first time, we have funds earmarked to go 
specifically to train teachers to use technology more effectively. That 
is $30 million that was added in by the appropriators, and I think very 
wisely added. I think we have all begun to recognize that that is an 
item that needs additional attention.
  This last item is crucially important. We need a balanced investment 
in technology. Balanced investment in educational technology means more 
than just buying the right hardware and software, it means investing in 
the training of the teachers and the administrators to use the software 
and the hardware.
  Experts say that we should invest 30 percent of our technology budget 
in training. Nationally, we are investing less than 10 percent in 
training today. In my State, the estimate is that we are investing less 
than 5 percent of the funds that go into educational technology in the 
training of teachers to use that technology. Lack of teacher training 
will be the biggest barrier that we have to progress in this area.
  This problem is described in a report entitled ``Technology and the 
New Professional Teacher: Preparing for the 21st Century Classroom.''
  That is a report from the National Council for Accreditation of 
Teacher Education [NCATE]. They indicate that 2 million new teachers 
will be hired in the next decade.
  Here is a quote from that report. It says:

       If teachers don't understand how to use technology 
     effectively to promote student learning, the billions of 
     dollars being invested in educational technology initiatives 
     will be wasted.

  Colleges of education clearly need to change the way they train new 
teachers. And if today's teacher candidates are taught with technology, 
then they will teach using technology themselves.
  So that is why I introduced earlier in this Congress the Technology 
for Teachers Act and worked for the $30 million appropriation that I 
just referred to. Clearly, Senators Harkin and Murray here in the 
Senate deserve great credit for their support and their advocacy on 
these issues as well.
  The appropriation will provide competitive grants to States and will 
support growth and dissemination of the most effective programs for 
teacher training in the use of technology.
  This $30 million, as I see it, is a downpayment on what will need to 
be a very long-term investment in tomorrow's teachers. And I intend to 
work for, at least, a doubling of that in next year's budget. I think 
that is clearly the direction we need to move in.
  The Federal Government plays an important role in promoting the use 
of technology in education. But there are obviously other extremely 
important participants. The States and the school districts are 
developing challenging new standards. University researchers are 
discovering diverse ways that people learn.
  The role of the teacher is changing. The teacher is no longer going 
to be just a lecturer but rather a learning coach to the students. The 
software industry is developing powerful new learning tools.
  All of these efforts are pieces of a large and complex puzzle. 
Without a national strategy for coordination of these efforts, and 
without reliable data on what works, we will never get all of the 
puzzle's pieces to fit together.
  I am interested in what I read in a recent report from the 
President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology [PCAST]. 
That report stressed the need for more research as we introduce more 
technology into our schools. We need to study which approaches in this 
area are most effective, and we need to determine the best investment 
mixture among hardware, software, training, and other categories.
  As we come to the end of this Congress, I ask my colleagues to join 
me next year as we build on the progress that has been made here, the 
very substantial bipartisan progress. We need to take some new steps in 
promoting education technology. We need to continue our investment, of 
course, both in computers and in Internet connections. We need to 
increase substantially the investment in teacher training. And we need 
to promote new investments in research on the effective use of 
educational technology.
  The Federal Government can play a crucial role by promoting greater 
coordination and collaboration among

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the private sector and university researchers and educators and State 
and local governments.
  There are several ways to accomplish this. We can do so through a 
federally funded research and development center, or a consortium of 
private firms, or a network of universities and schools and companies 
and agencies. The participants will have to make the final decision as 
to what mechanism works best.
  The cost of this initiative, like the decisionmaking process, should 
not be the sole responsibility of the Federal Government. The costs 
should be shared by all the participants.
  Mr. President, I am proud of the progress that we have made on 
providing educational technology so it can be used to upgrade education 
in our schools. And I am very encouraged by the data that shows the 
first beneficial impacts in our schools, but we have a great deal left 
to do. The President and many here in Congress deserve credit for the 
progress that has been made, but obviously their continued effort will 
be needed in the future.
  The private sector, universities, and educational agencies need to 
work together to create a new culture of collaboration that will give 
teachers and their students the full benefit of these new technologies 
that are being developed.
  Mr. President, on a personal note, I also want to particularly 
acknowledge the excellent work that David Schindel has done as a fellow 
in my office throughout the year on this issue of educational 
technology, as well as several other issues. His accomplishments have 
been extremely useful to me and I think to the Senate. I appreciate his 
good work.
  Mr. President, with that I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning 
business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming is recognized to 
speak for up to 10 minutes in morning business.
  Mr. ENZI. Thank you, Mr. President.

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