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budget

86th Texas Legislature Wrap-Up

by Jennifer Bergland June 5, 2019

written by Jennifer Bergland

All good things must come to an end, but only someone who loves politics would consider the legislative process a good thing. I’m one of those people. I love every minute of it, even the ones that go past midnight! Looking back over the past four months, I am happy to report that TCEA was able to move our vision of education forward through legislation and have some promising opportunities to help shape the future of Texas schools. I have created a 2019 Bill Analysis document that include the specifics about the bills that will impact digital education, but below is a quick summary of the more important bills.

Computer Science and Coding

Legislature We had some huge wins in the area of computer science and computational thinking this session. Our six-year goal of providing weighted funding for the 9-12 Technology Application courses has finally been achieved. In HB 3, the school finance legislation, the weighted funding for CTE was changed from grades nine through twelve to grades seven through twelve. In addition, the bill specified that CTE courses and programs include Technology Application courses. This means that Technology Application courses from grades seven through twelve will receive the same weighted funding as CTE courses, which is 1.35 (instead of the normal 1). HB 963 requires the SBOE to consolidate the 9-12 Technology Application courses with similar courses found in the CTE curriculum. The goal is to eliminate duplicates and identify the purpose of each of the courses. Finally, HB 2984 requires the SBOE to update the K-8 Technology Application standards to ensure that they include coding, computer programming, computational thinking, and cybersecurity. It also establishes a committee to create a strategic plan for K-12 CS education to increase computer science instruction and participation in public schools.

Broadband

Legislature There are two pieces of legislation that are going to impact educational broadband. The first is HB 1960 which creates a Governor’s Broadband Council that will advise the governor on issues related to broadband access to unserved areas. This is progress, but not as much as we hoped for. There are few, if any, areas of Texas that are unserved. The original bill included underserved areas, but heavy lobbying by the large telecommunication companies eliminated that language from the bill. However, we consider this progress because we finally have some entity at the state level that will look at the state’s needs for broadband from a strategic perspective. For too long, all state entities have tried to provide affordable, scalable broadband for their own purposes when it would be much more cost efficient to survey the needs across agencies and entities and design a plan to meet all the needs. HB 1960 at least establishes a council that could do this in the future, if given the authority.

The second bill that may help with broadband is HB 3906. This is an assessment bill that requires online testing by 2022-2023. The bill requires TEA to evaluate the availability of Internet access for each school district and identify changes to state law or policy that are necessary to improve the availability of Internet access. This may open a door for more aggressive action in parts of the state that are “served” but are underserved.

Digital Learning

HB 3 established a Blended Learning Grant program and then funded it at $6 million a year. TEA’s Math Innovation Zones are how the agency is fulfilling this requirement. It is good to know that the agency has funding to continue these types of grants.

Legislature

I have already mentioned that HB 3906 requires TEA and the SBOE to implement online testing by 2022-2023. Before this can happen TEA and the SBOE must devise an implementation plan that is approved by the legislature. The planning for this type of implementation will require heavy district input, which will largely come from their technology departments. This has the potential to finally focus some much needed light on what the state must do in order ensure that all students have access to technology, not just for assessment, but for learning throughout the year. In order for students to be successful on an online assessment, they must first be technically proficient and familiar with the type of device they will be using when taking the assessment. This translates to more access to digital tools for all students.

Funding

HB 1 is the budget bill for the 2020-2021 biennium. Listed below are some of the appropriations that were made that will impact digital education:

Technology and Instructional Materials Allotment – $1,101,430,204
OER curation – $20,000,000
Blended learning teacher training – $2,000,000
Blended learning grants – $12,000,000
TxVSN administration – $800,000

HB 396 allows districts to use their TIMA on software that will help manage instructional resources, including the usage and effectiveness of digital materials. HB 4611 stipulates that 50% of the funds that the Texas General Land Office sends to the legislature for education must be appropriated to the TIMA. If this had been in place this biennium, there would have been $3 million more placed in the TIMA. In addition, the budget stipulates that the SBOE should restrict instructional material proclamations to 75% of the TIMA and should consider school district’s technology needs when determining the size of the percentage of the Permanent School Fund sent to the legislature. 50% of this distribution goes into the TIMA. In translation, this means the SBOE should be sending the legislature enough money from the PSF to fund both the instructional material needs of school districts and also their technology needs.

Cybersecurity

SB 820 requires each school district to establish a cybersecurity policy that determines the cybersecurity risks to the district and a plan to mitigate those risks. The district will also be required to designate a cybersecurity officer who will oversee the policy. In addition, the district will be required to report to TEA any cyber attack that breaches the system security and notify the parents of the students whose information has been compromised.

Professional Development

There are several opportunities in the bills mentioned above that will provide professional development in digital learning. The Blended Learning Grants are largely designed to provide professional development for educators in blended learning, not to mention the funding provided to UTeach to continue to provide this type of training to Texas teachers. Also, this is a good chance to remind districts that the TIMA may be used to provide professional development on the use of technology. In addition to these bills, the legislature passed HB 2424 that requires the SBEC to establish rules to create microcredentials in fields of study related to an educator certification class. This was one of TCEA’s legislative priorities, so we are excited to see this bill pass.

What’s Next

The legislative session has come to an end, but the hardest work is ahead of us. Enacting legislation is the first step in changing things. Now we begin the process of working with the different agencies and entities to ensure they are enacted well. Stay tuned for more blogs about many of these legislative initiatives and how you can provide input.

Credits

Photo of the computer code taken by Sai Kiran Anagani on Unsplash. Photo of cables taken by Jordan Harrison on Unsplash. Photo of teacher interacting with students taken by Mimi Thian on Unsplash Photo of teachers taken by Kylie Haulk on Unsplash.

June 5, 2019 0 comment

Content Areas Good Teaching

Getting Students Invested: The Power of Interactive Storytelling

by Guest Blogger July 2, 2018

written by Guest Blogger

“Who can tell me what a budget is?”

The class responds with blank stares, the kind that could last the entire period if I let it kill my excitement. I can already see the class clowns waiting for the right moment to pounce on me. But watch this: “A budget is a tool you can use so you can do whatever you want with your money–and hopefully have more.”

The Story of Jason

More money? Now I have their attention. Even the skeptics are quiet. I have about five seconds before they challenge me. “Let’s jump right into it,” I continue, “On the smart board, we’ve got two columns: income and expenses. In this example, we’re going to look at creating monthly expenses for an imaginary student named Jason who just graduated from high school. How much do you think he spends on rent? Call it out.”

All sorts of ideas come flying out, from $100 to $3,000 to someone who insists that “Jason lives at home, yo he don’t pay rent.” We all have a laugh. Everyone’s budget is going to look different, I explain. We plug $100 into the budget for now, and I ask them what about groceries? We’ll multiply a weekly estimate by four. Everyone calls out their best guesses. They argue over how much is too much or too little, and everyone falls skeptically silent when I say I normally only allow myself $40 per week for groceries and sometimes just $20. In New York City? Yes, anywhere.

Applying Storytelling to Real-World Application

“It’s all about choices. Some people chose to spend more on groceries, less on rent. It’s all about making the numbers work for you. We’ll talk more about that later. How much for clothes? Travel? Going out and having fun? There are no right or wrong answers.”

We fill out the other category expenses for a total of $1,000 a month, then compare that to Jason’s part-time income working at McDonald’s: $300. A third cell calculates the difference of the income and expenses: every month, Jason is in the red by $700.

Now it’s time to raise the stakes: “Let’s say Jason wants to go on a date with his significant other; that will cost $120. Does he have money?”

“No!” says the class, laughing. We reduce the grocery budget by half. Instantly, we see how much closer Jason is to reaching his goal. Now he’s only in the red by $600. Once we get Jason into the black by reducing his expenses (and/or getting a better job), we can see how long it will take him to reach his goal in another cell which divides the goal by the difference. If Jason makes a $30 profit every month, it will take him four months to reach his goal. Does he want to wait that long? His date is tomorrow. What else can we do?

Advantages of Interactive Storytelling

Everyone’s excited to share ideas and laugh at Jason. Since he’s imaginary, nobody gets embarrassed. But since his story is so relatable, they get emotionally invested in helping Jason go on this date. They always root for their peers who volunteer to create a budget and have real goals like going to college, becoming a doctor, bringing family member over from Pakistan, starting a business, or maybe just buying the latest iPhone.

Well, how soon do you want the iPhone? How much are you willing to sacrifice for it? How hard do you want to work for it? I offer suggestions, but they can see for themselves what happens when we plug in the numbers together. It’s my favorite game show and interactive story ever told on a smart board–or whiteboard if we’re doing the calculations by hand. You can access the spreadsheet I used and make a copy for your own lesson here.

This presentation has worked in dozens of inner-city schools in New York City and New Jersey. Over a thousand students have participated in planning imaginary Jason’s future. Hopefully, a significant number of them will use these budgeting skills to plan their own.

I think what made this lesson successful, compared to the times I tried lecturing about my experiences and strategies, was that I give them control of Jason’s story, to precede the control they will have over their own stories. I am the facilitator of this activity, and they are the instructors. It’s a space where they can play and decide for themselves if imaginary Jason was wise to spend $600 on clothes every month and wait five years before he can afford the new iPhone.

Applying Interactive Storytelling Across the Curriculum

Interactive storytelling can apply to any subject!

Imagine a choose-your-own-adventure activity for history class to see how hard it was for Lincoln to keep the country together.
In physics class, we could be measuring tennis ball bounces to design an imaginary lunar landing craft.
In English class, we can write essays to convict or defend Poe’s narrators.

Everything we teach in the classroom can apply to real life, but sometimes it takes a little bit of imagination to get students to think in the moment to the point that they’re so invested they stop asking why we’re learning it.

This is a guest blog by Jason Hewett. Jason is a writer, presenter, and actor based in New York City. He’s been working with kids for more than a decade as a teaching artist and volunteer at Camp Possibilities, a summer camp for diabetic children. Feel free to say hello or see what he’s up to by visiting jasonhewett.com.

July 2, 2018 0 comment

Leadership

Solving Wicked Problems: When Details Matter (Part 3)

by Miguel Guhlin July 27, 2016

written by Miguel Guhlin

In the previous blog entry in this series, I shared two approaches to obtaining funding and resources to solve wicked problems, 1) The Conversation that Results in Action and 2) Executive Summary. In this final installment, we will explore the long proposal format.

When details matter, and there are many stakeholders who will need to review a project prior to implementation, you will want to take advantage of the standard proposal format. The brief version of the proposal format includes certain elements of the longer form:

Proposal
Research
Cost
Registration Process
Give Back.

Proposal
This proposal recommends that Ardent ISD fund attendance at the TCEA 2017 Convention & Exposition taking place February 2017 in Austin, Texas for 200 principals and/or ESSA instructional specialists. Administrators play a pivotal role in determining how well technology is used in our schools. Enabling administrators to attend the conference enables Ardent ISD to define what administrators need to know and be able to do in order to discharge their responsibility as leaders in the effective use of technology in our schools.

[inspirational quote that summarizes the importance of professional learning for campus instructional leaders]

Research
School leaders, especially at the campus level, need access to professional learning opportunities that help them to better understand the best uses of technology in educational settings. Some research regarding the role of the campus principal and leadership…[include bulleted list of research points]. Based on this research, as well as others not cited here, it is clear that the role of the principal in affecting use of technology in classrooms is incredibly important.

Cost
The cost of sending approximately 200 staff is based on a cost of $285 for every 10 staff members. For 200 participants, the cost is $22,800.

Registration Process
To register campus leaders for the TCEA 2017 Convention & Exposition, the Office of Instructional Technology Services will take the following steps…

Give Back
Participants at the convention will be expected to facilitate presentations at the Ardent ISD Tech Unconference to be held in June 2017.

For the longer proposal format, the headings appear below. As you might imagine, it can be quite tedious to fill out and plan all the implementation details. That aside, I have never had a “long form” proposal declined because it is overwhelmingly powerful. I often think of this as the dreadnought battleship approach to getting things done.

Goal
Vision of What Successful Implementation Looks Like
Background Information
Content Area Focus
Professional Learning
Implementation Phases
Key Areas to Implementation Success
Implementation Timeline (which includes a table with action step, office/staff responsible, and a completion date)
Appendix (with information such as):
- Readiness Checklist
- Hardware/Network Assessment

Solving wicked problems can seem impossible. But often, it requires the strategic application of one or more approaches outlined in the “Solving Wicked Problems” series. Make the effort and you will see the results.

Join the ongoing TCEA Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) SkypeChat via your mobile device or online. Explore and share concepts at the intersection of teaching, learning, leading, and technology.

July 27, 2016 0 comment

Leadership

Solving Wicked Problems: Getting Things Done (Part 2)

by Miguel Guhlin July 25, 2016

written by Miguel Guhlin

In the previous blog entry in this series, I shared that solving wicked problems involves different approaches, each of which will be received differently by your supervisor or those with the power to pay for an expensive project. This is part two in the series.

Speak to an administrator at the cabinet level, and they all have one expectation: “Keep it to one page.” A one-page document can make all the difference, and I can honestly say that I have had hundreds of thousands of dollars funded through a well-written executive summary submitted to superintendent level staff.

Scenario #1 – Insufficient Power

“When the power poles in the computer labs were put in, the maintenance department failed to connect the power.”

“Wait!” the technology director asked surprised. “Are you saying that all these power poles do not have power in them? Are you just daisy chaining the power from one outlet?”

“Yes,” replied the media specialist. “That is exactly what we have had to do. As you can guess, we can’t put as many computers in this room as we would like. And I’m worried about overloading power. Isn’t that unsafe or something? I’ve told my principal, but she doesn’t have the money to get it done and it should have been done when they built the school several years ago.”

In this scenario, there are several issues. The first is that the maintenance department failed to connect the power. The second is that no one followed up for years to address the issue when it was fresh, plus the temporary/permanent solution may be unsafe or result in greater damage to the campus’ infrastructure. The fourth, and most important, consequence is that the lab cannot be used at full capacity, preventing students from taking advantage of the computers. In fact, some of those computers have been moved out of the lab because there is insufficient power.

Something needs to happen. The answer to this scenario involves an executive summary focused on getting things done.

Join the ongoing TCEA Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) SkypeChat via your mobile device or online. Explore and share concepts at the intersection of teaching, learning, leading, and technology!

Note the brevity, as well as the key elements, of the Executive Summary below:

Executive Summary for Ardent ISD High School Campus Electrical Needs

Overview

The Ardent ISD High School campus currently has several computer labs. However, each lacks critical electrical connections. The lack of electrical connections prevent full utilization of the computer labs, impacting their use for high stakes assessments:

Room #

Description

Network Drops Needed and 48-Port Switch

Electrical

321

Standalone Lab (30)

Window 10 OS

4 drops

Has electrical poles installed, but no electrical outlets. Electrical outlets are in the floor, which presents problems for consistent use.

221

Standalone Lab (30)

Window 10 OS

5 drops

Same electrical challenges as Room 321

Staff Impact

Staff who employ the computer labs adjoining library.

Student Impact

All students at the campus would be affected.

Budget Available

Campus has not identified funding for infrastructure needs.

Professional Learning

Not applicable

Products

Improved network support and responsiveness, upgraded lab.

Stakeholders

Campus; Maintenance Department; Technology Department

Why is this necessary?

High School campus labs lack electrical connections needed to “complete” the labs. Inadequately wired rooms have consequences on performance of equipment and reliability.

What happens if we don’t implement?

High school campus labs will continue to face electrical issues caused by poles that were never wired for electrical. Furthermore, new equipment will sit unused in the labs.

Potential summary of costs are as follows (estimated since quotes are not yet available):

Electrical in Labs: $1,000 (estimate)

How will we measure success?

All labs will be at 100% utilization and have functional network and electrical connections.

When will this happen?

This is scheduled for the 2016-2017 budget year.

In the next blog entry, we will explore another approach to getting projects funded out of existing budgets: the Standard Proposal.

July 25, 2016 0 comment

Leadership

Solving Wicked Problems: Talk Is Cheap (Part 1)

by Miguel Guhlin July 22, 2016

written by Miguel Guhlin

“Our kiddoes are stuck in a portable building with no Internet,” challenged a kindly, experienced principal, smiling her demand, “and I’m not sure why. Can you help me, please?”

In any environment, there are various ways of accomplishing goals and objectives and of receiving funding for needed projects. In some locations, a conversation that moves participants towards action suffices, while in others, the value is placed on a formal presentation or proposal. In the next few blog entries, I explore several ways that most supervisors will ask for plans of action. Having successfully introduced and implemented several types of technology projects, I hope that these suggestions will save you some time.

Approach #1 – Conversations that Result in Action (and Funding)

“The network conduit pipe needs to be installed to a ‘pull box,’ capped when not being used, with a pull string, and the pipe needs to be buried, not laid in an open trench.” I had just come from seeing the work a small district maintenance team had done and snapped a few pictures.

The response was to the question “Why can’t the district maintenance department do the job at a lower cost?” Of course, they had stated they knew how to do the job of putting a network conduit pipe in place, but had done so poorly, a fact evidenced by several photographs. Obviously, not doing these things resulted in several problems. When it rained, the network conduit pipe was filled with water and the networking contractor could not run the cable without a pull string. This resulted in a delay of several months to the project during the school year.

The goal was to outsource the job to networking professionals who knew the proper way to install a conduit pipe. But how to get district leadership to understand the necessary cost and that saving money really was just wasting time?

Join the ongoing TCEA Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) SkypeChat via your mobile device or online. Explore and share concepts at the intersection of teaching, learning, leading, and technology.

When working with others who approve budgets for a project, it is absolutely critical to introduce expensive ideas in informal conversations that focus on the needs of the organization. Your responsibility, as the person proposing the information, is to clearly articulate the need(s) of the organization. It’s not YOU that wants to spend money; rather, you are compelled by the need you have encountered.

Make sure to have these conversations with all stakeholders prior to having a formal meeting. These kinds of conversations will carry the day for the needs you have expressed and the people you serve. When possible, obtain pictures or photos. Following this approach enables leadership to not be overwhelmed with technical information and to clearly see the problem.

It’s clear that while talk is cheap, conversations can result in much-needed action.

A Problem for You to Solve
Let’s explore an additional scenario which features a wicked problem, a problem that has endured for years, and see how you would handle it. Leave your approaches in the comments.

“When the power poles in the computer labs were put in, the maintenance department failed to connect the power.”

“Wait,” the technology director asked in surprise, “Are you saying that all these power poles do not have power in them? Are you just daisy chaining the power from one outlet?”

“Yes,” replied the media specialist. “That is exactly what we have had to do. As you can guess, we can’t put as many computers in this room as we would like. And I’m worried about overloading power. Isn’t this unsafe or something? I’ve told my principal, but she doesn’t have the money to get it done and it should have been done when they built the school several years ago.”

In the next blog entry, we will explore another approach to getting projects funded out of existing budgets: the Executive Summary.

July 22, 2016 0 comment