Schools lack cash for technology staff

BOISE – Idaho has handed out more than $100 million to school districts for technology purchases in the past decade, but a new report says there’s been too much focus on the machinery, and not enough on the resources needed to effectively use and maintain it in schools.

“We determined most districts fall below minimum industry standards for adequate technology support,” a legislative performance audit released Thursday concluded.

In response to the audit, Sen. Mel Richardson, R-Idaho Falls, chairman of the Idaho Council on Technology in Learning and a longtime advocate for the technology funding, wrote, “We always hear that the answer to education problems is more money and staff. In this case, I fear that it is true.”

Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, is co-chairwoman of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee, which commissioned the study. “I’m really excited by the work that our staff did,” Keough said. “We’ve got some good information upon which we can make some sound policy decisions.”

Keough said lawmakers have been allocating about $10 million a year to the school technology initiative and have been very interested in where the money was going and how it was being used.

“Many of us got feedback from our school districts,” she said. While grateful for the funding, she said, the districts also expressed concern that “we would fund the money for the computers, but we didn’t fund the technician that was needed to get it up and integrated.”

The extensive performance audit offered nine recommendations to improve the program, most of them involving different approaches to planning the program, setting goals and measuring success. One recommended measure of success was a goal for technology staffing per computer.

The report called on the Council on Technology in Learning and the state Board of Education to help restructure the program, and also called for review of Idaho’s eighth-grade technology standards and how they fit in with the technology push and the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The report’s findings will be presented to the state Board of Education at its meeting next week.

Richardson’s heartfelt response to the audit, which was included in the final report, said the technology program included various efforts to provide training and technical help to school districts, but much of that disappeared because of budget cuts in 2001.

“From early in the program, it became obvious that just buying equipment wasn’t enough,” he wrote.

“Districts developed their maintenance programs to fit their funding. Some taught students how to build and repair computers; some used teachers or staff that had greater knowledge; and some used volunteers from the community. None of these produced results that are needed in an integrated technology program.”

The council, he said, “has tried to tell everyone that a permanent technology staff will be required. The only way we can accomplish this is with more money from the state.”

State Superintendent of Schools Marilyn Howard noted that in 2002, 2003 and 2004, her budget request for public schools called for an increase in classified staff aimed at allowing school districts more flexibility to hire technology staff.

“None of these requests were approved by the Legislature,” Howard said in her response to the audit.

Howard will present her budget request for next year to the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee next week.

To see the report on the Internet, go to www2.state.id.us/ope/ and click on “Public Education Technology Initiatives” under the heading “recently released reports.”