Keith Krueger

The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA), State E-rate Coordinators' Alliance (SECA), Allianced for Excellent Education (All4Ed), Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition (SHLB) and the Council of the Great City Schools (CGCS) submitted to the Federal Communications Commission an estimate outlining the cost to provide much-needed cybersecurity protections to US K-12 school districts and a petition for declaratory relief and rulemaking urging the agency to expand the E-rate program to cover these protections.

A coalition of education advocates petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to close the remote learning gap for the estimated 15 to 16 million students who lack home internet access. If granted, the petition would allow schools and libraries to connect these disconnected learners using funding from the E-rate program.

CoSN (the Consortium for School Networking) CEO Keith Krueger issued the following statement on the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality plans:
 

[Commentary] In the newly-released 2014 CoSN IT Leadership Survey, district technology leaders indicate that being ready for online assessments is their number one priority.

And fewer than 18 percent report their district is fully ready for the online and other digital assessments starting this fall in many states.

Clearly, school systems must take steps to prepare their districts for the onset of this new era of online testing. To help school district leaders, CoSN recently released our Raising the BAR: Becoming Assessment Ready initiative. We’re also calling on Congress to provide funding in the Fiscal Year 2015 budget to help districts fill assessment technology gaps and related professional development. Building a scalable, affordable, and reliable education network is no longer “nice to have.” It is a basic requirement for school districts today.

As President Barack Obama said: “In a country where we expect free Wi-Fi with our coffee, we should definitely demand it in our schools.” We are at a tipping point for technology in K-12 -- it is a “new normal.”

[Krueger is the CEO of the Consortium for School Networking]