Washington State Superintendent Reveals Plan to Boost School Technology Funding
Washington State Superintendent Randy Dorn revealed a plan to designate funding to technology implementation in K-12 classrooms from the stage of the FiReGlobal : West Coast technology conference last week. Responding to a suggestion by David Engle, SNS Project Inkwell Director of Operations, that the state designate $500 per student for the implementation of 1:1 computing, Dorn revealed that such a movement is already under discussion in the state-level Quality Education Council. Dorn stressed the necessity of technology in improving Washington State assessment utility and effectivity.
“We’re actually meeting,” Dorn told Engle and the audience. “We have a state-level [council] called the Quality Education Council and we’re looking at the funding of education and technology in basic education and doing just like you said. This piece of that funding has to go to technology, and the state [is] stepping up to that mark.”
FiReGlobal : West Coast 2009, held October 15th at the Seattle Four Seasons Hotel, was the first ever gathering of world-class thought leaders in technology and economics designed to produce fresh and innovative solutions to large-scale regional problems. Problem areas were selected by a steering committee of 50 community leaders. Solutions were achieved beforehand by CTO work groups and produced on-the-fly by presenters on-stage. FiReGlobal was the first regional event for producer Strategic News Service (SNS), whose yearly Future in Review (FiRe) conference has been labeled “the best technology conference in the world” by The Economist.
“We welcome Superintendent Dorn’s shared vision of one to one computing in K-12 classrooms. We look for his continued leadership on this issue, knowing this may be the only affordable path for achieving radical improvements in K-12 outcomes. Our kids need this exact change in moving to the 21st century competitive environment,” said SNS CEO Mark Anderson.
Anderson opened the conference by encouraging participants to “not just talk, but to take action.” Other speakers included Michael Dell, chair and CEO, Dell Inc.; Irwin Jacobs, co-founder, Qualcomm; Rob Glaser, founder, chair, and CEO, RealNetworks; Lee Hartwell, Nobel Laureate and president and director, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center; Steve Reynolds, president and CEO, Puget Energy and Puget Sound Energy; Rogers Weed, director, Washington State Department of Commerce; Larry Smarr, director, California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, UCSD; Denis Hayes, president and CEO, Bullitt Foundation; and Roger Payne, founder and president, Ocean Alliance.
To register for FiReGlobal : West Coast 2010, go to www.futureinreview.com/global/wc.