If At First You Don't Succeed...
The Case of the Mysterious Hidden Impact
Who Are You?
District Technology Committee (includes teachers, school and district technology coordinators, parents, a principal, a school board member, and community representatives)
The Scenario:
It's budget time in your district and as is the practice in your district, the District Technology Committee prepares and submits a technology budget which calls for expenditures related to new equipment, maintenance, network expansion, technology staff, and professional development. The week of your school committee's annual budget meeting, the Superintendent comes up to the committee chairperson and says that he has been talking to school committee members and the feeling is that the district has "spent enough" on technology without seeing any specific benefit related to student achievement. There is apparently (he says) a sense amongst the school committee that unless it can be shown that improvements in student standardized test scores can be related to technology investments, that the money being spent on technology should be instead spent on something "proven"...such as more teacher aids and perhaps a new position (e.g., a reading teacher for the middle school). Naturally, this means that your technology budget will be decreased next year and for the foreseeable future.
Your Challenges:
What are you going to do? How will you answer the "impact" question...and in particular, what will you do to try to save your budget this week?
Think About:
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Last updated, December 29, 1998