School tech advocates to mayor: Follow through on fixing technology in DC Public Schools
For the past year, a citywide coalition organized by Digital Equity in DC Education has continued to push city leaders to address the inadequate, unreliable technology in DC schools. While the city has started to address the technology challenges in schools highlighted in the coalition’s letter from last year, more planning and investment is needed to ensure a functional, modern school system that prepares our children for the jobs of the future, rather than hindering them.
This problem is fundamentally an issue of fairness. Unless DC Public Schools (DCPS) develops and funds a comprehensive technology plan that will provide equitable access to technology in all of its schools, we will fail to close the digital divide. In particular, students without access to computers at home (predominantly children of color living in communities with high concentrations of poverty) need every possible chance to acquire computer skills at school. Access to technology at home and in school has become a key factor in the opportunity gap.
Last week, 18 organizations representing a diverse coalition of parents, teachers and education advocates sent a version of the letter below urging Mayor Muriel Bowser to follow through on her commitment to provide equitable technology access and a 21st-century education for all students.
Dear Mayor Bowser:
One year ago, we wrote to you as a diverse coalition of parents, educators and advocates to urge you to address the technology challenges in DC Public Schools that were contributing to the digital divide and failing to prepare our children for the jobs of the future. Your $4.6 million allocation for technology in the 2020 budget was an encouraging sign that our city government is committed to removing technology barriers for all students and ensuring they will actually receive a 21st-century education. We are eagerly awaiting the delivery of much-needed new student computers to schools.
As we move into the fiscal year 2021 budget process, we urge you to follow through on your commitment to digital equity by continuing to fund technology for DC Public Schools. Investment in student computers is critical, but planned investment in a sustainable technology infrastructure is equally important. We have identified four areas in which additional funding and planning is needed to maximize student outcomes from DCPS’s new technology initiative.
- Staffing for IT support and asset management. Through an agreement with the Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO), DCPS funds 47 technicians who provide IT support for almost 60,000 DCPS technology users (including students, teachers, staff, and administrators). This staffing ratio of 1,000 to <1 is completely inadequate for the day-to-day support that is needed when computers and other equipment break down. Asset management — which involves everything from regularly updating IT inventories (a requirement from the DCPS central office) and accessing warranties for broken equipment to handling the logistics of distribution and disposal of computers and other IT equipment — is a job that is falling on existing school staff. In many schools, the responsibilities of technology controller and school tech lead are being assigned to administrative staff and/or teachers who already have full-time positions. These staffing challenges will be exacerbated as more computers are provided to schools as part of DCPS’s Empowered Learners Initiative to reach a 1:1 student-device ratio. We implore you to direct DCPS and OCTO to work together to finalize a concrete, funded plan for IT support and asset management.
- Support for teachers. Teachers play a critical role in the success of the school system’s technology initiative and the educational outcomes of our students. The bulk of the DCPS curriculum is now digital. The city must ensure that teachers are provided with current, functional computers and professional development/resources to learn and integrate technology into existing curricula and classroom practices. Current resources in these areas are modest and insufficient to support the entire teaching workforce in effectively using technology in the classroom. Additionally, a combination of factors — malfunctioning computers and interactive boards, insufficient baseline supply of computers, and, in some schools, the removal of computers from classrooms in order to ensure there are enough working computers for PARCC testing — prevents teachers from having access to technology all year long.
- Interactive boards (SMART Boards). The city has spent significant money to install SMART Boards in schools, yet no functional, predictable system for maintaining and replacing them exists. Students and teachers go months or longer with broken or obsolete SMART Boards in their classrooms. Similar to the situation with computers, any investment in purchasing interactive boards should be accompanied by planned funding to maintain them.
- Digital literacy and computer science education for students. While many students use smartphones and social media, they lack instruction on the range of common technology applications such as word processing, presentation creation and computer programming. Some students even struggle with typing, as typing instruction is either nonexistent or inconsistently taught at schools. The basic digital citizenship training modules used by DCPS focus on safe, responsible use of technology, not on technology skills that students will need for the jobs of the 21st century. While a few schools have programs related to computer programming, no standard computer science curriculum exists that can be scaled up and made accessible to the majority of our students. In addressing these challenges, DCPS should not place the burden on current teachers to provide this instruction without adequate training, resources and curricula. Our schools do not need another unfunded mandate.
Since the announcement of Amazon’s selection of Arlington, Virginia, as a new headquarters, neighboring localities have decided to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in regional institutions of higher education for technology research and education. The digital literacy and computer science education that DCPS provides will help determine whether graduates are able to take advantage of such opportunities.
If the city fails to invest and improve planning in the four areas outlined above, our children will not fully benefit from the computers and interactive boards purchased with taxpayer money. We will also fail to close the digital divide, which disproportionately impacts students of color from parts of the city with high concentrations of poverty.
Finally, we have yet to see a comprehensive, multi-year technology plan, as recommended by the DC auditor in 2017. A public plan is needed to outline how all aspects of school technology will be managed and funded, including how the three government agencies involved — DCPS, OCTO and the DC Department of General Services — will coordinate to provide a functioning technology infrastructure for all of our schools. We urge you to follow through on your commitment to providing a 21st-century education that prepares DC students for the evolving workforce.
Sincerely,
Ward Education Groups
Ward 1 Education Council
Ward 3-Wilson Feeder Education Network
Ward 4 Education Alliance
Ward 5 Education Council Steering Committee
Ward 6 Public Schools Parent Organization
Ward 7 Education Council
Ward 8 Education Council
The Village of Brookland Traditional Schools
Citywide Organizations
21st Century School Fund
DC Fiscal Policy Institute
Digital Equity in DC Education
EmpowerEd Teacher Council
Senior High Alliance of Parents, Principals and Educators (S.H.A.P.P.E.)
Teaching for Change
Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs
Washington Teachers’ Union
Media Partners
Education Town Hall — We Act Radio
EducationDC.net
An ad hoc coalition of 18 education advocacy groups sent the above letter on Jan. 14 to Mayor Muriel Bowser with copies to Deputy Mayor for Education Paul Kihn, Chief Technology Officer Lindsey Parker, DCPS Chancellor Lewis Ferebee, DC Council Chairman Phil Mendelson and at-large DC Council member David Grosso in support of increased planning and investment in DC Public Schools technology.
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Well put together letter