December 3, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/opinion/sunday/internet-access-and-the-new-divide.html
The New Digital Divide
By SUSAN P. CRAWFORD
FOR the second year in a row, the Monday after Thanksgiving - so-called Cyber Monday, when online retailers offer discounts to lure holiday shoppers - was the biggest sales day of the year, totaling some $1.25 billion and overwhelming the sales figures racked up by brick-and-mortar stores three days before, on Black Friday, the former perennial record-holder.

Such numbers may seem proof that America is, indeed, online. But they mask an emerging division, one that has worrisome implications for our economy and society. Increasingly, we are a country in which only the urban and suburban well-off have truly high-speed Internet access, while the rest - the poor and the working class - either cannot afford access or use restricted wireless access as their only connection to the Internet. As our jobs, entertainment, politics and even health care move online, millions are at risk of being left behind.

Telecommunications, which in theory should bind us together, has often divided us in practice. Until the late 20th century, the divide split those with phone access and those without it. Then it was the Web: in 1995 the Commerce Department published its first look at the "digital divide," finding stark racial, economic and geographic gaps between those who could get online and those who could not.

"While a standard telephone line can be an individual's pathway to the riches of the Information Age," the report said, "a personal computer and modem are rapidly becoming the keys to the vault." If you were white, middle-class and urban, the Internet was opening untold doors of information and opportunity. If you were poor, rural or a member of a minority group, you were fast being left behind.

Over the last decade, cheap Web access over phone lines brought millions to the Internet. But in recent years the emergence of services like video-on-demand, online medicine and Internet classrooms have redefined the state of the art: they require reliable, truly high-speed connections, the kind available almost exclusively from the nation's small number of very powerful cable companies. Such access means expensive contracts, which many Americans simply cannot afford.

While we still talk about "the" Internet, we increasingly have two separate access marketplaces: high-speed wired and second-class wireless. High-speed access is a superhighway for those who can afford it, while racial minorities and poorer and rural Americans must make do with a bike path.

Just over 200 million Americans have high-speed, wired Internet access at home, and almost two-thirds of them get it through their local cable company. The connections are truly high-speed: based on a technological standard called Docsis 2.0 or 3.0, they can reach up to 105 megabits per second, fast enough to download a music album in three seconds.

These customers are the targets for the next generation of Internet services, technology that will greatly enhance their careers, education and quality of life. Within a decade, patients at home will be able to speak with their doctors online and thus get access to lower-cost, higher-quality care. High-speed connections will also allow for distance education through real-time videoconferencing; already, thousands of high school students are earning diplomas via virtual classrooms.

Households will soon be able to monitor their energy use via smart-grid technology to keep costs and carbon dioxide emissions down. Even the way that wired America works will change: many job applications are already possible only online; soon, job interviews will be held by way of videoconference, saving cost and time.

But the rest of America will most likely be left out of all this. Millions are still offline completely, while others can afford only connections over their phone lines or via wireless smartphones. They can thus expect even lower-quality health services, career opportunities, education and entertainment options than they already receive. True, Americans of all stripes are adopting smartphones at breakneck speeds; in just over four years the number has jumped from about 10 percent to about 35 percent; among Hispanics and African-Americans, it's roughly 44 percent. Most of the time, smartphone owners also have wired access at home: the Pew Internet and American Life Project recently reported that 59 percent of American adults with incomes above $75,000 had a smartphone, and a 2010 study by the Federal Communications Commission found that more than 90 percent of people at that income level had wired high-speed Internet access at home.

But that is not true for lower-income and minority Americans. According to numbers released last month by the Department of Commerce, a mere 4 out of every 10 households with annual household incomes below $25,000 in 2010 reported having wired Internet access at home, compared with the vast majority - 93 percent - of households with incomes exceeding $100,000. Only slightly more than half of all African-American and Hispanic households (55 percent and 57 percent, respectively) have wired Internet access at home, compared with 72 percent of whites.

These numbers are likely to grow even starker as the 30 percent of Americans without any kind of Internet access come online. When they do, particularly if the next several years deliver subpar growth in personal income, they will probably go for the only option that is at all within their reach: wireless smartphones. A wired high-speed Internet plan might cost $100 a month; a smartphone plan might cost half that, often with a free or heavily discounted phone thrown in.

The problem is that smartphone access is not a substitute for wired. The vast majority of jobs require online applications, but it is hard to type up a résumé on a hand-held device; it is hard to get a college degree from a remote location using wireless. Few people would start a business using only a wireless connection.

It is not just inconvenient - many of these activities are physically impossible via a wireless connection. By their nature, the airwaves suffer from severe capacity limitations: the same five gigabytes of data that might take nine minutes to download over a high-speed cable connection would take an hour and 15 minutes to travel over a wireless connection.

Even if a smartphone had the technical potential to compete with wired, users would still be hampered by the monthly data caps put in place by AT&T and Verizon, by far the largest wireless carriers in America. For example, well before finishing the download of a single two-hour, high-definition movie from iTunes over a 4G wireless network, a typical subscriber would hit his or her monthly cap and start incurring $10 per gigabyte in overage charges. If you think this is a frivolous concern, for "movie" insert an equally large data stream, like "business meeting."

Public libraries are taking up the slack and buckling under the strain. Nearly half of librarians say that their connections are insufficient to meet patrons' needs. And it is hard to imagine conducting a job interview in a library.

IN the past, the cost of new technologies has dropped over time, and eventually many Americans could afford a computer and a modem to access a standard phone line. Phone service - something 96 percent of Americans have - was sold at regulated rates and the phone companies were forced to allow competing Internet access providers to share their lines.

But there is reason to believe this time is different. Today, the problem is about affording unregulated high-speed Internet service - provided, in the case of cable, by a few for-profit companies with very little local competition and almost no check on their prices. They have to bear all the cost of infrastructure and so have no incentive to expand into rural areas, where potential customers are relatively few and far between. (The Federal Communications Commission recently announced a plan to convert subsidies that once supported basic rural telephone services into subsidies for basic Internet access.)

The bigger problem is the lack of competition in cable markets. Though there are several large cable companies nationwide, each dominates its own fragmented kingdom of local markets: Comcast is the only game in Philadelphia, while Time Warner dominates Cleveland. That is partly because it is so expensive to lay down the physical cables, and companies, having paid for those networks, guard them jealously, clustering their operations and spending tens of millions of dollars to lobby against laws that might oblige them to share their infrastructure.

Cable's only real competition comes from Verizon's FiOS fiber-optic service, which can provide speeds up to 150 megabits per second. But FiOS is available to only about 10 percent of households. AT&T's U-verse, which has about 4 percent of the market, cannot provide comparable speeds because, while it uses fiber-optic cable to reach neighborhoods, the signal switches to slower copper lines to connect to houses. And don't even think about DSL, which carries just a fraction of the data needed to handle the services that cable users take for granted.

Lacking competition from other cable companies or alternate delivery technologies, each of the country's large cable distributors has the ability to raise prices in its region for high-speed Internet services. Those who can still afford it are paying higher and higher rates for the same quality of service, while those who cannot are turning to wireless.

IT doesn't have to be this way, as a growing number of countries demonstrate. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ranks America 12th among developed nations for wired Internet access, and it is safe to assume that high prices have played a role in lowering our standing. So America, the country that invented the Internet and still leads the world in telecommunications innovation, is lagging far behind in actual use of that technology.

The answer to this puzzle is regulatory policy. Over the last 10 years, we have deregulated high-speed Internet access in the hope that competition among providers would protect consumers. The result? We now have neither a functioning competitive market for high-speed wired Internet access nor government oversight.

By contrast, governments that have intervened in high-speed Internet markets have seen higher numbers of people adopting the technology, doing so earlier and at lower subscription charges. Many of these countries have required telecommunications providers to sell access to parts of their networks to competitors at regulated rates, so that competition can lower prices.

Meanwhile, they are working toward, or already have, fiber-optic networks that will be inexpensive, standardized, ubiquitous and equally fast for uploading and downloading. Many of those countries, not only advanced ones like Sweden and Japan but also less-developed ones like Portugal and Russia, are already well on their way to wholly replacing their standard telephone connections with state-of-the-art fiber-optic connections that will even further reduce the cost to users, while significantly improving access speeds.

The only thing close is FiOS. But, according to Diffraction Analysis, a research firm, it costs six times as much as comparable service in Hong Kong, five times as much as in Paris and two and a half times as much as in Amsterdam. When it comes to the retail cost of fiber access in America, we do about as well as Istanbul.

The new digital divide raises important questions about social equity in an information-driven world. But it is also a matter of protecting our economic future. Thirty years from now, African-Americans and Latinos, who are at the greatest risk of being left behind in the Internet revolution, will be more than half of our work force. If we want to be competitive in the global economy, we need to make sure every American has truly high-speed wired access to the Internet for a reasonable cost.

Susan P. Crawford is a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and a former special assistant to President Obama for science, technology and innovation policy.

December 2, 2011

Today, the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice have issued long-awaited policy guidance to K-12 schools and colleges and universities across the U.S., about the ways in which they can legally and effectively pursue their compelling educational interest of reducing the very high level of separate and unequal schooling now prevailing in much of the country. Segregation of students by race, poverty, and language has been increasing for 20 years. Our nation's public school enrollment is deeply multiracial but millions of students attend segregated and inferior schools which usually offer little chance to prepare well for college.

The new official guidance affirms the educational value of integration, a goal that is supported by increasingly powerful research evidence that integration helps all groups of students. It deepens students' knowledge and understanding, and prepares them to live and work more effectively in a very diverse society. When students from inferior schools gain access to stronger schools, their educational opportunities expand. In a country that will soon have a nonwhite majority among its young people, integrated schools can give more students the opportunity to attend schools that develop the talents of all groups, something we badly need in a competitive knowledge-based world economy where the U.S. has fallen behind in high school and college graduation levels. Integrated schools can help build a society where the old divisions are replaced by mutual understanding and respect in diverse communities.

There has been a great deal of confusion among educators because the court decisions were complex and, until now, government has provided no positive guidance and support to those seeking ways to legally pursue the vision of Brown v. Board of Education. This guidance, about permissible voluntary action which very carefully hews to the Supreme Court decisions while recognizing the educational urgency of these issues, will be welcomed by educators in school districts and universities. There are many legal ways for educators to work to limit segregation in inferior schools and provide more opportunity for integrated education in schools and colleges.

This guidance draws on the words of the Supreme Court to clearly communicate a range of legally and educationally sound approaches for educators and communities to consider. The Civil Rights Project is grateful that this guidance has been issued and we look forward to working with educators, community groups, and the federal government to support districts and colleges already engaged in efforts to reverse segregation and expand opportunities, but also to support others which wish to take voluntary actions that can help build healthy race relations and stronger education.

For further information on the Civil Rights Project and work on these issues, see our studies of segregation levels, manuals prepared in collaboration with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), as well as our new manual on integration issues in racially diverse suburbs at civilrightsproject.ucla.edu. The Civil Rights Project is an active member of the National Coalition on School Diversity, which has been working very actively on these issues.

For more information about this statement, contact:
Gary Orfield at 310-267-4877; 310-267-5562; orfield@gmail.com; crp@ucla.edu
Erica Frankenberg at ericafrankenberg@gmail.com

To read the guidance, go to: www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu

Studies of segregation levels in our nation's schools:
http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity

Still Looking to the Future: Voluntary K-12 School Integration, A Manual for Parents, Educators, & Advocates (2008), NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund and Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles
http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity/still-looking-to-the-future-voluntary-k-12-school-integration

Preserving Integration Options for Latino Children: A Manual for Educators, Civil Rights Leaders, and the Community (2008), Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles
http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity/preserving-integration-options-for-latino-childrenManual on suburban integration

Integrating Suburban Schools: How to Benefit from Growing Diversity and Avoid Segregation (2011), Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles
http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity/integrating-suburban-schools-how-to-benefit-from-growing-diversity-and-avoid-segregation


About the Civil Rights Project

Founded in 1996 by former Harvard professors Gary Orfield and Christopher Edley Jr., the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles (CRP) is now co-directed by Orfield and Patricia Gándara, professors at UCLA, and housed in the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies. The CRP's mission is to create a new generation of research in social science and law on the critical issues of civil rights and equal opportunity for racial and ethnic groups in the United States. It has commissioned more than 400 studies, published more than 15 books and issued numerous reports from authors at universities and research centers across the country. The Supreme Court, in its 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger decision, cited the Civil Rights Project's research.

http://csta.acm.org/Curriculum/sub/K12Standards.html?mid=541

Computer science and the technologies it enables now lie at the heart of our economy and the way we live our lives. To be well-educated citizens in a computing-intensive world and to be prepared for careers in the 21st century, our students must have a clear understanding of the principles and practices of computer science. This document delineates a core set of learning standards designed to provide the foundation for a complete computer science curriculum and its implementation at the K-12 level. To this end, these standards:

1. Introduce the fundamental concepts of computer science to all students, beginning at the elementary school level.
2. Present computer science at the secondary school level in a way that can fulfill a computer science, math, or science graduation credit.
3. Encourage schools to offer additional secondary-level computer science courses that will allow interested students to study facets of computer science in more depth and prepare them for entry into the work force or college.
4. Increase the availability of rigorous computer science for all students, especially those who are members of underrepresented groups.

These standards have been written to be coherent and comprehensible to teachers, administrators, and policy makers.

Click here to see the Table of Contents

Click here to see the Executive Summary

Click here to download the full standards document with active hyperlinks. (4.1 MB)


Standards Committee

The CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards were developed by the CSTA Standards Task Force:

Deborah Seehorn, North Carolina Department of Public Instruction
Stephen Carey, Brunswick School Department
Brian Fuschetto, Lyndhurst High School
Irene Lee, Santa Fe Institute
Daniel Moix, College of the Ouachitas
Dianne O'Grady-Cunniff, Westlake High School
Barbara Boucher Owens, Southwestern University
Chris Stephenson, Computer Science Teachers Association
Anita Verno, Bergen Community College

Standards Reviewers

The CSTA standards were developed and refined using a rigorous, multi-faceted review process involving teachers, faculty, researchers, and curriculum specialists from all educational levels. CSTA would like to extend special thanks to the following reviewers, all of whom made significant contributions to this document:

Gail Chapman, ECS Director of National Outreach, Exploring Computer Science Program
Renee Ciezki, Computer Science Instructor, Estrella Mountain Community College
Creighton Edington, Deming Public Schools
Dr. Barbara Ericson, Director of Computing Outreach for the Institute for Computing Education, Georgia Tech
Dr. Michael Erlinger, Professor of Computer Science, Harvey Mudd College
Dave Feinberg, Teaching Professor of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
Baker Franke, University of Chicago Lab High School
Dr. Joanna Goode, Assistant Professor of Education Studies, University of Oregon
Dr. David Hemmendinger, Professor Emeritus Dept. of Computer Science, Union College
Stephanie Hoeppner, Clermont Northeastern Schools
Joe Kmoch, Milwaukee Public Schools
Carl Lyman, Utah State Office of Education
Dr. Jane Margolis, Senior Researcher, UCLA Graduate School of Education, UCLA
Deepa Muralidhar, North Gwinnett High School
Joshua Paley, Henry M. Gunn HS
Tammy Pirmann, Springfield Township High School
Kelly Powers, Advanced Math and Science Academy
Beth Richtsmeier, Meridian Technical Charter HS
Dr. Eric Roberts, Professor of Computer Science, Stanford University
Esther Romero, Portland Pubic Schools
Cameron Wilson, Director of Public Policy, ACM
Nancy Yauneridge, Saint Benedict School

Einstein Fellowship Program Overview

Announcements
Apply to 2012-2013 Einstein Fellowship
The Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship Program provides a unique professional development opportunity for accomplished K-12 educators in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to serve in the national education arena. Fellows spend eleven months working in a Federal agency or in a U.S. Congressional office, bringing their extensive knowledge and experience in the classroom to education program and/or education policy efforts.

Host agencies that have participated include: the Department of Energy (DOE), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Department of Education (ED), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship Act was signed into law in November 1994 and gives the Department of Energy (DOE) the responsibility for managing the program (Fellowship Act Public Law 103-382, Improving America's Schools Act of 1994). The DOE Office of Science's Office of Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists (WDTS) manages this program for DOE in collaboration with the Triangle Coalition for Science and Technology Education and the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education.

Some outstanding contributions of past Einstein Fellows include:

Designing and implementing national science, math, and technology education programs;

Initiating collaborations and partnerships among Federal agencies;

Drafting legislation and advising on policies that seek to improve K-12 education in the United States;

Creating web-based science education programs; and

Establishing and evaluating national and regional programs centered on school reform and teacher preparation in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology.

Gordon Dahlby
Reminder: http://www.trianglecoalition.org/einstein-fellows/einstein-fellow-application-process/application

APPLICATIONS:

The Einstein Fellowship applications for the 2012-2013 program must be completed through the DOE online application process. Applications are due no later than January 5, 2012, but can be submitted earlier.

http://digitallearningnow.com/ten-elements-of-high-quality-digital-learning/

You can download the report at the above URL.

Here is a great list of ocean observing instruments from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Ocean Instruments On the woods hole site they are clickable.

How they work, what they do, and why they do it

http://www1.coseecoastaltrends.net/modules/observing_the_ocean/learn_about/



Instruments and what they measure:

Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) - velocity of currents
ALACE, PALACE and SOLO Floats - drifting with currents, profiling the upper ocean
ASIMET: Air-Sea Interaction Meteorology - adding heat, water and momentum flux to climate models
BIOMAPER II - counting zooplankton with video and sonar
Conductivity, Temperature, Depth (CTD) - conductivity (salinity), temperature, depth
Gravity Corer - properties of ocean sediment
Kongsberg-Simrad EM300 Multibeam Echo Sounder
MOCNESS - remote-controlled nets for catching zooplankton
Marine Magnetometer - measures magnetic field strength
Moored Profiler - measuring the entire water column
Ocean-Bottom Seismometer - earthquakes deep below the sea
Piston Corer - properties of sediment deep below the seafloor
RAFOS Float - velocity of currents
REMUS - using gliders to monitor ocean changes
Sediment Trap - catching 'marine snow' on its long fall to the sea floor
Spray Glider - temperature, salinity, and turbidity
Towed Camera System "TowCam" - deep-sea imaging
Video Plankton Recorder - zooplankton
Platforms designed to hold ocean instruments:

ABE - high-resolution mapping and searching by robotic vehicle
Alvin - exploring the depths
Coastal Research Vessel Tioga
Jason and Medea - remote controlled exploration of the sea floor
Martha's Vineyard Coastal Observatory - research station providing real-time oceanographic and meteorological dat
Nootka Buoy - a wireless hotspot in the deep ocean

Check out this awesome image of global salinity from the new Aquarius satellite
http://aquarius.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/Aquarius_salinity.25Aug2011-11Sep2011.jpg

Why study oceans? Here are some compelling reasons:
Why Study the Oceans? The Oceans Influence Our Lives in Many Ways

The CO2 problem, global warming, and the role of the oceans in climate.
The oceans strongly influence climate including earth's heat temperature, by influencing:
The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere,
The transport of heat from the tropics to the polar regions,
The operation of the hydrological cycle,
Earth's carbon cycles.
Most of the oxygen in the atmosphere comes from the oceans.
The oceans may be responsible for abrupt climate change.
Will global warming plunge the world into the next ice age?
El Nino and the role of the ocean in changing weather patterns.
The oceans strongly influence weather patterns.
The largest source of year to year change in the weather is El Nino, which is a disruption of the interaction of the atmosphere and ocean in the Pacific.
Does El Nino really influence all our weather? Does it cause drought in Texas?
Fisheries and sustainable resources.
Roughly 25% of the protein used by people comes from fish.
So many fish have been taken from the ocean that the fish populations have collapsed almost everywhere.
The loss of fish changes the marine food webs.
Changing food webs affect other life and processes in the sea.
How many fish can be caught?
Coastal pollution and its consequences.
Coastal pollution seems to be the cause of large scale harmful algal blooms.
Pollution also seems to create dead zones in some regions.
What causes the dead zones off Mississippi in the summer?
Coastal processes influence beaches and those who live and work near the beach.
Beaches are constantly being eroded away.
Structures along the beach in most areas will be destroyed in the long run.
Cost of protecting structures along the beaches is very high.

EDUCATOR RESOURCES
http://www1.coseecoastaltrends.net/modules/observing_the_ocean/learn_about/

A new federal resource will help groups share learning materials and policy recommendations as they strive to improve the quality and availability of learning resources in education.

Launched by the U.S. Departments of Education and Defense, the new "Learning Registry" is an open-source community that takes advantage of technology tools to help users share information about learning resources more effectively among a broad set of education stakeholders.

"Learning Registry addresses a real problem in education, by bridging the silos that prevent educators from sharing valuable information and resources," said Education Secretary Arne Duncan in a statement. "The Registry also allows content developers, curriculum coordinators, principals, counselors, and everyone else who supports good teaching in the classroom to benefit from the combined knowledge of the field."

The project was made possible by a $2.6 million investment, with the Departments of Education and Defense each contributing $1.3 million to the effort.

Rather than creating an alternative destination to existing websites, Learning Registry is a communication system that allows existing educational portals and online systems to publish, consume, and share important information about learning resources with each other and the public, while respecting the privacy of individual users.

http://www.eclassroomnews.com/2011/11/16/feds-launch-open-source-learning-registry/2/?

Recognizing the vital role that High Performance Computing (HPC) plays in national competitiveness, on November 8th 24 U.S. Senators signed off on a letter to the White House asking the Administration to support the Department of Energy's (DOE) exascale computing initiative.

America's leadership in high performance computing (HPC) is essential to a vast range of national priorities in science, industry, energy, environment, health, and national security. The DOE has identified exascale computing as a critical need for the United States to maintain international leadership in advanced scientific computing for energy and national security applications and is among the most important priorities for the Council on Competitiveness.

Able to execute one million trillion calculations per second, exascale computers are integral to simulating complex systems and present the opportunity to understand grand challenges like nuclear warhead explosions, climate change, or protein interactions inside of cells.

Exascale computers will make a significant contribution to America's efforts to:

Analyze, design, and stress-test critical systems such as communications, homeland security, and defense systems;
Develop domestic energy sources in economically viable and environmentally friendly ways; and
Understand the complex biogeochemical cycles that underpin ecosystems and control the sustainability of life on Earth.

Exascale computing investments will better position the U.S. to secure a competitiveness advantage in both high-tech manufacturing and information technology industries.

Microsoft wins TEACH campaign from Education Dept
By Valerie Strauss
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/microsoft-wins-teach-campaign-from-education-dept/2011/11/13/gIQA5t5bMN_blog.html
A division of Bill Gates' Microsoft is taking over from the Education Department a campaign called TEACH that is aimed at recruiting new teachers into the profession.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the Microsoft Partners in Learning Global Forum last week in Washington D.C. that the division had won a competition to take over from the department the TEACH campaign and its website. The website provides free information for teachers and prospective teachers.

Duncan said that the Partners in Learning division will be "the sole owner and operator" of the TEACH project, "improving and expanding the teacher recruitment campaign" as well as all related marketing efforts.

That the department would select Microsoft's division is not especially surprising, given that Duncan and Gates walk and talk the same school reform line, sometimes sounding as if their speeches came from the same shop.

The decision to turn over TEACH to Partners in Learning serves to expand the already outsized influence Gates and his fortune have on public education.

The topic of Gates and education reform has been explored before on this blog, including earlier this month in this piece, and here. The latter piece, by Economic Policy Institute research associate Richard Rothstein, explains how Gates misinterprets facts about education in his expensive to mold education reform down the path he supports - even when there is no evidence to back up his actions. Gates has also spent many millions of dollars in public relations efforts to persuade the public to support his efforts.

"It is remarkable that someone associated with technology and progress should have such a careless disregard for accuracy when it comes to the education policy in which he is now so deeply involved," Rothstein wrote about Gates.

Gates's misinterpretation of facts didn't come up in Duncan's speech at the Partners in Learning Global Forum. In that speech, which you can read here, Duncan spoke about the coming need for massive teacher recruitment:

"We started the TEACH campaign because the U.S. faces serious challenges to building a world-class teaching force in coming years. The math here is simple. Teachers are the single biggest in-school influence on student growth and achievement. But over a million Baby Boomer teachers - fully a third of America's teachers - will retire or leave the teaching profession before the end of the decade.

(We will only mention the fact that there isn't enough evidence to say without doubt that teachers are the most important in-school factor; a new research brief issued by the Education Writers Association says that this the most that can be said: "Research has shown that the variation in student achievement is predominantly a product of individual and family background characteristics. Of the school factors that have been isolated for study, teachers are probably the most important determinants of how students will perform on standardized tests.")

Duncan continued: "America's schools are facing potential teacher shortages, especially in high-poverty schools and communities and key subject areas like science and math. But they are also struggling with a serious underrepresentation of minority teachers in the classroom, which I find deeply troubling."

It is deeply troubling. But so is the influence that wealthy businesspeople and financial managers have on education reform. And now, Microsoft has an even bigger role, courtesy of the Education Department.

Adoption Gap Remains Along Demographic Lines; Socio-Economic Status Does Not Explain the Entire Gap

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Department of Commerce's Economics and Statistics Administration (ESA) and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) today released a report, "Exploring the Digital Nation," that analyzes broadband Internet adoption in the United States. Overall, approximately seven out of 10 households in the United States subscribe to broadband service. The report finds a strong correlation between broadband adoption and socio-economic factors, such as income and education, but says these differences do not explain the entire broadband adoption gap that exists along racial, ethnic and geographic lines. Even after accounting for socio-economic differences, certain minority and rural households still lag in broadband adoption.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110428/DC91889LOGO)

The report analyzes data collected through an Internet use supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS) of about 54,300 households conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau in October 2010. Earlier this year, NTIA released initial findings from the survey, showing that while virtually all demographic groups have increased adoption of broadband Internet at home since the prior year, historic disparities among demographic groups remain. Today's report presents broadband adoption statistics after adjusting for various socio-economic differences.

"Closing the broadband adoption gap is a priority because Americans increasingly need 21st century skills to succeed in today's economy. Today's report provides a comprehensive, data-driven analysis of broadband adoption that will inform efforts to close the gap and promote America's competiveness in the global economy," said Acting Deputy Commerce SecretaryRebecca Blank.

"To get a good job, you often need access to the Internet and online skills.

But nearly one in three American households do not subscribe to broadband service," said NTIA Administrator Lawrence E. Strickling. "NTIA's broadband grants program is helping to address this challenge by expanding public computer centers and providing Americans with the training needed to participate in the Internet economy. The lessons learned from these broadband projects and today's report will help the larger community working to close the digital divide, and we encourage researchers to use the survey data for further analysis."

The principal findings of the report are:

Overall
--Sixty-eight percent of American households used broadband Internet in 2010, up from 64 percent in 2009. Only 3 percent of households relied on dial-up access to the Internet in 2010, down from 5 percent in 2009. Another 9 percent of households had people who accessed the Internet only outside of the home.

--All told, approximately 80 percent of American households had at least one Internet user, whether inside or outside the home and regardless of technology type used to access the Internet.

--Cable modems and DSL were the leading broadband technologies for home Internet adoption, with 32 percent and 23 percent of households, respectively, using these services.

Differences in Household Broadband Adoption
--Households with lower incomes and less education, as well as blacks, Hispanics, people with disabilities and rural residents, were less likely to have Internet service at home.

--Eighty-one percent of Asian households and 72 percent of white households had broadband at home, compared with 57 percent of Hispanic households and 55 percent of black households.

--Seventy percent of urban households had broadband at home, compared with 57 percent of rural households.

--Households with school-age children were more likely to have broadband at home (78 percent) than the national rate. Older householders, particularly those ages 65 and older (45 percent), were less likely to have broadband at home.

--Less than half (43 percent) of households with annual incomes below $25,000 had broadband access at home, while 93 percent of households with incomes exceeding $100,000 had broadband.

--Average broadband adoption in 2010 varied by state from about half (52 percent) of all households to 80 percent.

Role of Socio-Economic Factors
--Socio-economic differences do not explain the entire broadband adoption gap. For example, after accounting for socio-economic and geographic factors, black and Hispanic households still lag white households in broadband adoption by 11 percentage points, though the gap between Asian and white households disappears.

--After accounting for socio-economic and demographic factors, rural households still lag urban households in broadband adoption by 5 percentage points.

--In contrast, differences in socio-economic characteristics do explain a substantial portion but not all of the broadband adoption lag among people with disabilities.

Reasons for Not Subscribing to Broadband at Home

--The main reasons cited for not having Internet access at home were a lack of interest or need (47 percent), the expense (24 percent), and the lack of an adequate computer (15 percent).

--Not surprisingly, individuals without broadband service at home relied on locations such as public libraries (20 percent) or other people's houses (12 percent) to go online.

Long-term Trends in Internet and Computer Use
--Between 2001 and 2010, broadband Internet use at home, regardless of technology type, rose from 9 percent to 68 percent of households.

--Between 1997 and 2010, Internet use among households, regardless of technology type, rose from 19 percent to 71 percent.

--More than three quarters (77 percent) of American households had a computer at home in 2010, up from 62 percent in 2003.

NTIA and the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service are administering a nearly $7 billion Recovery Act initiative to expand access to and adoption of broadband services. NTIA is utilizing approximately $4 billion of that funding for theBroadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), which provided grants to approximately 230 projects that are deploying broadband infrastructure, enhancing and expanding public computer centers, and encouraging the sustainable adoption of broadband service. In addition, NTIA's State Broadband Initiative is supporting a host of state-driven initiatives to better integrate broadband and information technology into state and local economies.

The full report is available at http://www.esa.doc.gov/Reports/exploring-digital-nation-computer-and-internet-use-home.

Supreme Court to weigh warrantless GPS tracking
By Gautham Nagesh and Brendan Sasso

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Tuesday in a case to determine whether police need a warrant to track a person's car using a GPS device.

The case, United States v. Jones, involves a Washington, D.C., nightclub owner, Antoine Jones, who was the subject of a federal drug investigation. Police tracked his movements for four weeks by installing a GPS device in his Jeep. The D.C. Court of Appeals overturned his conviction, ruling that tracking his movements without a warrant violated his Fourth Amendment rights.

When the Supreme Court confirmed it would review the case, it also instructed the lawyers to address whether the act of attaching the GPS device to a car would require a warrant.

The American Civil Liberties Union, the Gun Owners of America, the Cato Institute and the Center for Democracy and Technology have all filed briefs in support of Jones. The Council on American-Islamic Relations also submitted a brief, arguing that Muslims are especially likely to be the subject of GPS tracking. The Center on the Administration of Criminal Law filed a brief on behalf of the government.

The Justice Department argues that a person does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy while driving on public streets, but the lower court ruled that a person would not expect to have their every movement tracked for weeks on end. Many of the briefs on behalf of Jones refer to George Orwell's classic dystopian novel 1984 to argue that not covering new technologies such as GPS under the Fourth Amendment could lead to a frightening surveillance state.

On Monday morning, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski will announce a retrospective review of his agency's regulations during a speech at Georgetown University's Business School. The planned review comes in response to President Obama's executive order for independent agencies to ensure their regulations are cost-effective and promote economic growth.

In addition to the review, Genachowksi will discuss steps the FCC has taken to support innovation, economic growth and global competitiveness. The event is sponsored by the Center for Business and Public Policy at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business as part of its Evolution of Regulation Series.

The Senate Armed Services Committee will hold a morning hearing Tuesday on the committee's investigation into counterfeit electronic parts in the Defense Department's supply chain. Improving supply chain security for federal technology contractors has been a key recommendation from cybersecurity experts for years. They argue counterfeit tech hardware that either malfunctions or comes pre-loaded with malware poses one of the largest threats to government networks, particularly the classified and restricted systems used by the Pentagon.

On Tuesday afternoon, Facebook will host a live chat with Maj. Juanita Change, director of online and social media for the Army's Office of Public Affairs, and Veterans Affairs director of online communications Brandon Friedman.

The guests will discuss how the military, military families and veterans organizations are using Facebook. Viewers will be able to ask questions in real time, and Facebook has promised an exciting announcement at the event.

The Senate Judiciary Committee Privacy subpanel will hold a Wednesday hearing on protecting health information in the digital world. Stakeholders have argued the strict rules governing the release of patient data have failed to keep up with the shift to electronic medical records.

Complicating the issue is the need for researchers to have access to aggregate data in order to better determine the efficacy of various treatments, a growing trend in the healthcare industry. Witnesses have yet to be announced. Subcommittee chairman Al Franken (D-Minn.) will preside.

BY VANESSA VEGA
10/25/11
People often ascribe technological devices with magical properties, as though the inert objects in and of themselves can bestow us with the capacity to be "better, faster, and more productive." In actuality, it is the people making and using technological devices to achieve shared goals that produce the seemingly magical results. In a similar way, this Microsoft infographic seemed to suggest that simply having a home computer with Internet would fix billions of dollars of lost-earning potential due to nearly 10 million American students lacking access to digital tools.
Certainly, increasing access to digital tools is a necessary step towards solving the problem, but as technologies of the moment come and go, it's even more important to ground digital inclusion agendas in the skills that youth will need to become and remain informed, engaged and discerning in a ever-rapidly changing technologically-infused world.
Issues of Access
In the last 10 years, broadband Internet access has increased greatly in America. As of May 2011, 60 percent of Americans have broadband Internet at home, compared to six percent having broadband, and 41 percent having dial-up, at home in 2001. Of course, averages do not tell the whole story. The likelihood of having broadband at home changes based upon your income, age, race, and the device you're using. According to a recent Pew Foundation report, (Figure 1), if your household income is $30k/year or less, (which applies for 31 percent of Americans), your chance of having broadband Internet at home drops to 40 percent.
Meanwhile, if you make $75k/year or more, your chance of having broadband Internet at home is 87 percent. The inequalities in Internet access are less significant if we're talking about access through a cell phone. But, if you have ever tried to do important work online using just your cell phone, you can probably understand how not having fast, reliable, home Internet, 24-seven, would hinder your best efforts to advance in work or school. Using a mobile phone, or an outdated computer with a slow connection makes it much harder to participate fully in digital culture, and a society that is increasingly reliant upon digital tools for access to events, services, and greater choice-options in general.

Literacy Opens the Doors to Engaging with Diverse Ideas
The First Amendment guarantees free speech and a free and unrestrained press as the primary protections for ensuring a diverse marketplace of ideas in support of an informed citizenry. However, to ensure a diverse marketplace of ideas and an informed citizenry, literacy is also essential. Beyond knowing how to read and write, digital literacy means knowing how to leverage digital tools to express ideas, reach a wider audience, and engage with diverse people and ideas from around the world. In these ways, digital tools can help to "ignite the learning light" in each and every student.
A wise scholar of digital inclusion policies once told me, with regard to his extensive fieldwork, that "It takes a lot more than a laptop to get a job." His point was that high-quality Internet access is necessary, but not sufficient for meaningful participation in digital culture. As the sheer quantity of information grows exponentially, finding useful information becomes increasingly important. In addition, critically evaluating the credibility of information and the source of a message helps individuals to make more informed and better decisions. Finally, the persistence and creativity involved in trouble-shooting hardware and software issues is essential for adapting to constantly evolving interfaces, and technologies designed for obsolesce.
Fortunately, numerous organizations are working to ensure that all people, regardless of income, age, or race, are not left without access or culturally-relevant training to use and benefit from digital technology. These are just a few examples of organizations working to ensure that digital tools and literacy-training opportunities are accessible to all:
Community Technology Network (CTN) supports computer labs and digital literacy in the Bay Area's most vulnerable neighborhoods. To learn more about the skills CTN teaches, check out their volunteer page.
Digital Excellence Coalition, based in Chicago, is an active community of computer labs and digital literacy programs that promote educational and professional advancement.
Free Geek (across the US) and Alameda Computer Recycling Center, in Alameda, California, educate individuals in rebuilding computers (which they can then keep), while recycling electronic components and saving our landfills from toxic materials.
Teaching to Bridge the Digital Divide
The knowledge gap refers to the phenomenon in which the information-rich get richer, and the information-poor get poorer, with the diffusion of new technologies. Without access to digital technology, one in five children are far less likely to develop the digital literacy skills necessary for surviving in the modern economy, and for participating in a globally-networked information society. When a child has access to a computer and broadband internet at home, they have a seven percent greater chance of graduating from college -- and by extension, the potential to earn greater income over their lives relative to educational attainment. Teachers can do much towards creating a world-class education for their students by preparing them to readily access information on their own terms, and to become and remain "informed, engaged and discerning" throughout their lives. Here are just a few ideas to get started:
Be aware of the different levels of technological access and fluency in your classroom.
Inform students about local, public venues to access the Internet, and about organizations helping to develop digital literacy skills.
Model and discuss strategies for critically evaluating sources, finding useful and diverse information, expressing ideas in different formats, and trouble-shooting common issues that arise when using digital tools.
Post your technology needs and apply for a micro-grant on DonorsChoose.
Launch a home-Internet program for disadvantaged students at your school with our how-to guide.
Create, find, and share lesson plans that develop digital literacy skills; Teaching Digital Natives: Partnering for Real Learning, by Marc Prensky, is an excellent place to start. Also, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society offers excellent resources for discussing the role of Internet in society with your class.
Further Reading:
New Technology and Digital Worlds: Analyzing Evidence of Equity in Access, Use, and Outcomes, Education Research Review (2010).
Home Computers and Educational Outcomes: Evidence from the NLSY97 and CPS (2005).
For more information on the digital divide, visit our Digital Divide Resource Roundup.
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/digital-divide-technology-internet-access-literacy-vanessa-vega#comment-99434

Digital Natives are a myth in the November issue of Learning & Leading with Technology, ISTE's magazine. Interesting short essays.

http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/201111#pg8

By Michael Nunez | October 28, 2011 12:00 PM EDT

The Federal Communications Commission accepted Chairman Julius Genachowski's proposal to overhaul a program dedicated to building telephone connections in remote places. The $8 billion subsidy program that Genachowski dismantled was written in the dial-up era of internet and was structured to subsidize basic phone service-not broadband. The commission voted 4-to-0 to restructure the subsidy program.
Regulators approved a $4.5 billion subsidy to extend high-speed internet to 18 million Americans unable to reach broadband internet. The alteration of the FCC's subsidy program will ensure that they're building long-lasting technology in rural places rather than dated dial-up technology.

"We are taking a system designed for the Alexander Graham Bell era of rotary telephones and modernizing it for the era of Steve Jobs and the Internet future he imagined," said Genachowski at the meeting in Washington. He believes that broadband may spur hundreds of thousands of jobs in the affected areas.


]

The effort makes huge strides in closing the digital divide, one that's apparent in remote communities, where they often don't have access to high- speed internet. The FCC will also lower rates it charges companies to connect calls in remote areas, which will help more people get connected in these areas and promote business.

The FCC's order relies heavily on competitive bidding in awarding subsidies to phone companies, sends more funds to hardest-to-serve areas and places stricter limits on new fees carriers may levy to make up for reduced connection charges an FCC spokesman said in a Bloomberg Businessweek report.

Still, some are critical of the decision-mainly wireless carriers and companies that will not be allowed to bid on servicing these remote places. Other telecom providers believe that the FCC is giving incubmant phone companies an unwarranted advantage to provide broadband to the area. Mobile broadband providers feel like the FCC is discouraging mobile broadband carriers-the ones pushing innovation in the broadband industry-from investing dollars into these areas.

The new plan will not not cost taxpayers anymore money, according to FCC Commissioner Robert McDoweell, whose quoted in the Businesweek report. The announcement comes after years of lobbying from rural phone companies, large telecommunication companies, cable companies, wireless carriers and consumer groups - who each had reasons for trying to impact the bill.http://newyork.ibtimes.com/articles/239668/20111028/fcc-steve-jobs-era-fund-bridges-digital.htm

New coalition seeks to protect future of broadcasting
By Gautham Nagesh

A diverse coalition of businesses and public interest organizations will launch Tuesday with an aim of safeguarding the future of broadcast television. A lunchtime press conference to announce the Future of TV Coalition at the National Association of Broadcasters will include NAB President Gordon Smith, former Atlanta Mayor and Bounce TV co-founder Andrew Young, Vme Media President Carmen DeRienzo and Gannett broadcasting President Dave Lougee. The group will argue that the future of broadcast TV is bright despite the rise of the Web and pay-TV.

The announcement comes as pressure is increasing on the deficit-reduction supercommittee to include authorization for spectrum auctions as part of their budget negotiations.

The public's growing demand for mobile broadband means more spectrum must be made available to wireless carriers, but spectrum is in short supply - even the government has been urged to consider relinquishing some of its airwaves. The broadcasters are firmly opposed to any auctions that aren't completely voluntary and argue that broadband and broadcast are complementary rather than in competition, noting that the growing demand for online bandwidth is driven mostly by consumers' appetite for video that could potentially be off-loaded and more easily transmitted over the broadcast system.


Speakers at the event will also likely tout the Open Mobile Video Coalition, which is made up of roughly 1,000 television stations across the country along with networks such as Fox and NBC that are dedicated to allowing consumers to watch local television via their wireless devices. Because the transmission system used would be different than the cell network, the broadcasts to wireless devices would in theory be more reliable than the network used to place calls.

TUESDAY: The Senate Judiciary Committee's Crime subpanel will hold a morning hearing on combating international organized crime. The Obama administration has pushed to update the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), which is used to prosecute organized crime, to include hacking and other computer-related offenses.

Federal officials argue hacking and other digital crimes are increasingly the favored tool of sophisticated criminal networks. The push is consistent with the administration's hawkish stance towards digital crime, also reflected by its aggressive enforcement actions in areas such as online piracy, Internet gambling and the sale of counterfeit goods over the Web.

WEDNESDAY: The House Science Committee's Technology subpanel will hold a morning hearing on fostering innovation in the U.S. to create grow new businesses and create jobs. Witnesses include Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation senior scholar Brink Lindsey, Skybox Imaging co-founder Julian Mann and former Martek Biosciences CEO Steve Dubin.

THURSDAY: The House Science Committee's Education subpanel will hold a morning hearing on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education and transferring those skills to the workplace from the classroom. The technology industry has repeatedly pointed to the K-12 education system's failure to adequately prepare students in those fields as one of the leading barriers to continued innovation and economic growth in the U.S.

The House Homeland Security Committee's Transportation Security subcommittee will hold a hearing in the afternoon on how improving the agency's technology procurement could stimulate job growth. Tech stakeholders have frequently argued the federal government can do more to encourage innovation and adequate cybersecurity by better deploying the $80 billion it spends annually on information technology.

Department of Homeland Security Chief Information Officer Richard Spires and Department of Defense Assistant Deputy Chief Management Officer David Wennergren will present at Deltek's FedFocus conference in Falls Church, Va., aimed at technology vendors seeking opportunities with the federal government in 2012.

FRIDAY: The National Archives will host a panel discussion on what's next for social-media innovation within the government (#Gov20), featuring White House Director of New Media Macon Phillips, Harvard Berkman Center senior researcher David Weinberger and National Archives Chief Digital Access Strategist Pam Wright. O'Reilly Media's Alex Howard will moderate.

Also, Digital Capital Week (DCWEEK) begins Friday with a party at the 9:30 Club featuring bands, DJs and local tech entrepreneurs. The event starts in earnest the following week - Hillicon will do its best to stop by and say hello.



RELATED ARTICLES:

Online gambling finds support in the House:
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/189675-online-gambling-finds-support-in-house

Unlicensed spectrum a sticking point in House talks:
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/189923-congress-grapples-over-unlicensed-spectrum

House members unveil Stop Online Piracy Act:
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/189999-house-members-unveil-stop-online-piracy-act

FCC votes unanimously to revamp rural phone fund as broadband subsidy:
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/190265-fcc-votes-unanimously-to-revamp-rural-phone-fund-as-broadband-subsidy

Committee approves bill to eliminate per-country limits on high-skilled immigrants:
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/190295-committee-approves-bill-to-eliminate-per-country-limits-on-high-skilled-immigrants