Ted Kraver, Chairman 602-944-8557 tkraver@qwest.net

The New Economy is highly dependent on a well educated and technology-effective workforce. Arizona ranks 12^th in college attainment of our workforce but 40^th or lower in K-12 education measures such as test scores, school funding and graduation rates. Importing talent will eventually run out of steam as other regions transform to the New Economy. Fortunately there is a direct and effective solution.

Arizona must strongly implement its K-12 Academic Standards. Testing and advocacy address only part of this opportunity. For success there must be a strong implementation driver in the classroom. Over 15 years of research and testing show that full adoption of the technology-effective classroom is a cost effective solution. Not only will graduation rates increase and students develop the information technology skills needed for the New Economy, but a one letter grade improvement in academic performance can be expected. By providing technology-effective K-12 classrooms statewide Arizona will remain a strong player in the New Economy.

Technology effective classrooms include:

1. one modern, networked computer with Internet for every four to six students;
2. software that supports the curriculum;
3. onsite technical support;
4. and teachers and staff with full profession development in integrating technology into their curriculum.

The Students First legislation will provide Internet connected, networked multimedia computers and infrastructure. The Students First legislation also provides $50 million for soft capital that can be used for software. To protect this investment in hardware and infrastructure, Arizona must also support technical support and professional development.

There will be approximately 200 computers networked within the classrooms of an average school. Since these instructional computers are to continuously support the classroom learning, they must be up 98% of the time. This requires at least on support technician per school.

As Arizona continues its rapid growth there will soon be 800,000 K-12 students and 50,000 teachers, librarians and professional staff. Over the next decade forecasts show that over one half of the teachers will retire or leave for other jobs. College graduates cannot make up this shortfall. Professional development is emerging as a strong retention and attraction tool for these incumbent information technology workers. Continuous professional development must be funded for every teacher and staff member to integrate technology and transform classroom practice to realize the benefits of emerging information technology.

Funded technical support, and teacher and staff professional development will provide technology-effective classrooms for all Arizona children.

Following on the example of Students First, pass legislation that mandates and funds technical support, and teacher and staff professional development. This would complement the current mandate and funding under Students First to provide one Internet connected, networked multimedia computer for every eight K-12 students in the classroom within the next two years. A center is needed that will provide the innovation driver as professional development and technical support are brought up to full implementation. This center would provide leadership, coordination, support, planning, oversight, accountability, technology transfer, assessment and longitudinal research.

Arizona Learning Technology Partnership has made initial estimates of costs in 1998. Based on this work ALTP task teams are currently developing a professional development curriculum framework, assessing the demand using the 1999 Milken data that surveyed 95% of the Arizona schools, and determining the supply of professional development with telephone surveys to over 100 providers including web-based, training firms, district staffs, and colleges and universities). This data will be grouped into four categories: support, fundamentals, integration and leadership. By the end of November gap and cost analyses will provide a detail report to support 2000 legislation.

From the previous studies in 1998, ALTP took into account the current funding from districts, the private sector and federal sources. The additional costs are estimated to be:

1. One support technician per average school with district providing part salary and supervision. Additional funding $27,000 for each of the 1000 Arizona schools.
2. Continuous professional development of 50,000 teachers and staff members of $1000 per year.
3. The cost of specialized mentor teachers for on-the-job learning support, instructional technologists, curriculum developers and technology directors for 1000 schools and with districts plus charter schools is approximately $10,000,000.
4. The center would cost $2,000,000 per year with a staff of 10 to 20 people.

Based on the total cost for Arizona K-12 education of approximately $5,500 per student is $4.4 billion. With 25 students in a classroom the approximate cost per classroom is $138,000. The additional cost to bring Arizona to full technology support and full professional development is estimated at $90,000,000 in total or $2250 per classroom. This would be an increase of 1.64% over current K-12 costs.

The phase-in should start at $30 million for the 2000-2001 school year. The phase-in is needed for teachers, school districts and professional development and computers/infrastructure providers to implement this transformation.

These expenditure levels are expected to be revised based on the information provided from the ALTP teacher professional development study to be complete in November.

Most teachers are eager to integrate technology in their classrooms. The best teachers will be attracted and retained in our school systems. For the first time K-12 education will be able to deliver on their promise to the workplace and higher education. But most important every Arizona student will be on the path to a life time of learning and realization of their goals. The problems of digital divide, rural isolation and inner-city constraints will fade away as learning technology accelerates information skills and academic performance for all Arizona children.