Join CoSN, ISTE, and SETDA on May 11, 2017, for a national Day of Action to advocate for the policies that could significantly impact educators, their schools and the students they serve.
What You Can Do on May 11th
On May 11th, we ask that you please join educators and advocates all across the nation by taking one (or all) of the following extremely critical actions:
1. Send a prewritten letter to Congress
Use our easy advocacy tool to send this pre-written letter to Congress about the effectiveness of E-Rate and the Title IV, A block grant, which houses the ed tech provisions in ESSA.
2. Tweet #ERateWorks, #MoreTitleIV, #Act4EdTech
Here are some sample tweets you can use:
- Millions of students are connected to the internet at school because #ErateWorks @AjitPaiFCC
- Personalized and digital learning is possible in schools because #ErateWorks to provide broadband in classrooms @AjitPaiFCC
- Give schools the funding to provide Students with a well-rounded education @[Congressperson] #Act4EdTech #MoreTitleIV
- Every school benefits from #edtech funding @[Congressperson] #Act4EdTech #MoreTitleIV
3. Call your members in Congress!
Unsure who your Representative is? – Visit the Find Your Representative tool. Unsure what to say? - Here is a script you can use when speaking to staff member of the office.
- I am a [insert title and organizational affiliation] and I am calling to urge Senator/Representative [insert name here] to support full funding of the Student Support and Academic Enrichment grant program under Title IV, Part A of the Every Student Succeeds Act. Congress authorized Title IV Part A of ESSA at $1.65 Billion to ensure that each school district received funds to support access to a well-rounded education, improve student’s physical and mental health and improve conditions for learning, and to increase the effective use of technology. Unfortunately, the current appropriation bill falls far short of full funding.
- There is a wealth of evidence that supports the needs for students to have access to a diverse academic curriculum that includes science, arts, foreign language and civic education; programs that support students physical, mental, and behavioral health, and the improve school safety; and modern, classroom based technology. All of these areas are critical to ensure all students graduate from high school ready to enter.
- ESSA consolidated most of the programs that support student health and safety, well rounded academics and education technology into this new flexible block grant. Without a significant investment in Title IV Part A, districts will be faced with the unnecessarily difficult decision of choosing which area to invest in. Full funding of Title IV Part A will ensure that each district is provided funds to invest in each of these critical areas.
- I urge Senator/Representative [insert name] to support the full funding if Title IV Part A.
We hope you can join us on May 11th to support edtech policies!
