Funding for Technology...Find the Connection!

Funding for technology in the American K-12 school system has been declining annually. Last year we did a survey of 724 educators and 75% of schoolteachers classify themselves as "often in need" or "desperate for technology resources". That's a crisis! As budget reductions erode technology funding, our future workforce becomes progressively less able to prepare for the rapidly expanding global economy.   Businesses are forced to react to the changing global economy, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find and hire technologically qualified graduates. It’s a silent and cumulative crisis that now threatens to undermine our children’s future.

Long Term Social and Economic Change Theory - In broad terms, every teacher instructs 30 students, who live with 60 parents (with 60 relatives), who work at 60 businesses, that employ 300 workers from the local school community.  Collectively those 450 people form a teacher’s network that will eventually be affected by the technological proficiency of the students graduating from the local school. If students are “raised savvy”, then businesses that hire technology workers, will be able to hire locally and sustain or grow their operations. Graduates who find local jobs, will stay in local communities, raise families, buy houses, contribute to the tax base, and start new local businesses. A technologically rounded education has a downstream effect of supporting the economic development of an entire community. Everyone in the teacher’s network has a vested interest in helping the school.

Every community's future may just depend on creating and keeping savvy workers. Consider rural areas in an economic downslide, due to the closure of manufacturing plants.  It's an old story.   When seeking educational technology funding, it's not enough to argue for technology...you simply won't win this argument, because there's not enough research to back it up.  Can you show me a compelling stack of research that proves technology usage in K-12 increases test scores?

Change the Argument - If you want to succeed at getting school technology funding, you simply need to change the argument!  Argue for economic development and now we have entirely new areas of government and private funding that could play a role in your school's technology initiative.  Argue for "modernizing classrooms" and suddenly we can begin to use data on globalization.

New Movement - Through social networking, we can move our teachers to reach out to their local networks, with a "modernization" argument for technology in the K-12 classrooms.  Businesses who are already feeling the impact of globalization, will easily understand how modernizing classrooms can play a critical role in the future economic development of their communities.  Politicians can easily cut your "Technology" funding, but you'll never hear a politician argue against economic development!

Check out the social networking site at www.digitalwish.org - Digital Wish is a public charity on a mission to modernize classrooms for a changing workforce.