\n<\/p>\n
Only a small fraction of state education technology officials\u20146%\u2014say their states have plans to continue financing ed-tech initiatives previously funded through federal emergency pandemic aid, according to a survey released Sept. 10 by the State Educational Technology Directors Association. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s a significant decline from a similar SETDA survey conducted last year, which found that more than a quarter of state officials\u201427%\u2014said their states planned to keep supporting education technology programs paid for with roughly $122 billion in federal pandemic funding.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s more, the survey found that nearly 1 in 3 state ed-tech officials\u201432%\u2014identified funding as an unmet need, up from 25% in a similar survey conducted last year.<\/p>\n
SETDA\u2014along with Whiteboard Advisors, a consulting organization\u2014surveyed state education leaders\u2014including ed-tech directors, chief information officers, and state chiefs, receiving over 75 responses across 47 states. Some states were represented by more than one official. SETDA and Whiteboard Advisors also conducted individual interviews with teams in Alabama, Delaware, Nebraska, and Utah as well as focus group interviews with ed-tech leaders from 14 states.<\/p>\n
Districts spent billions in federal relief dollars on laptops and other devices and internet connectivity to support virtual learning when the pandemic emerged in 2020. That dramatically increased the number and scale of 1-to-1 computing initiatives in schools when in-person learning resumed. <\/p>\n
By March of 2021, 90% of educators said there was at least one digital learning device for every middle and high schooler. More than 80% said the same about elementary school students, the EdWeek Research Center found.<\/p>\n
But now, many of the laptops and tablets districts hurriedly purchased with time-limited federal cash may need to be replaced. This time around, however, there\u2019s no windfall of one-time federal funding to draw from.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a tough situation for states that are already strapped for cash, officials told SETDA in anonymous, open-ended responses in the survey. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe effort fighting for state ed tech is heard, but brushed off,\u201d one official wrote in a survey response. \u201cThe decisionmakers do not see the need to support the initiatives. It\u2019s tiring and frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n
The survey did not ask state officials to specify which pandemic-financed initiatives they\u2019d no longer be able to continue. But it\u2019s possible that at least some state officials may be referring to the devices and hotspots bought with the pandemic relief cash, said Julia Fallon, SETDA\u2019s executive director, in an interview.<\/p>\n
What makes matters even more difficult is that districts typically stagger their device purchases so they don\u2019t have to replace their entire fleet of laptops and tablets all at once, Fallon added. <\/p>\n
But spacing out purchases this way was tougher to do during the pandemic, when districts were trying to build districtwide virtual learning programs from scratch and had limited time to spend relief dollars.<\/p>\n
The end of the pandemic funding comes as other educational technology budget pressures mount. New tariffs could increase the cost of replacement devices, Fallon said. And federal funding for some technology initiatives\u2014such as WiFi for school buses\u2014is expected to diminish.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, over the summer, the Trump administration temporarily withheld more than $6 billion in K-12 funding already approved by Congress, including the Student Support and Academic Enrichment grants, a flexible fund that can be directed to technology. <\/p>\n
Though that money was eventually released, school districts are proceeding with fiscal caution. <\/p>\n
For years, \u201cfederal funds were fairly reliable,\u201d Fallon said. \u201cAnd now it\u2019s becoming more of a political football.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Only a small fraction of state education technology officials\u20146%\u2014say their states have plans to continue financing ed-tech initiatives previously funded through federal emergency pandemic aid, according to a survey released Sept. 10 by the State Educational Technology Directors Association. That\u2019s a significant decline from a similar SETDA survey conducted last year, which found that more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[116,12666,1651,1561,812,3982],"class_list":{"0":"post-20590","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-funding","9":"tag-pandemicera","10":"tag-problem","11":"tag-states","12":"tag-tech","13":"tag-wont"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}