Here's a Shocker...

Networks May be Built Ahead of Policy is the subheading on the article from the Washington Post about the FCC and developing guidelines/plan for the broadband stimulus. The FCC is starting on a year long project to develop guidelines to bring high-speed internet to every home in the U.S. The FCC has been charged with creating a comprehensive plan mapping specific policies to bring broadband to the nation due by Feb. 2010

Yet, the FCC will not be handing out the broadband funds -that is up to NTIA and USDA and that is happening beginning with the first phase now in April through June, with the last being completed by September 30th, 2010

WHAT?!! Does this seem bassackwards to anyone else? Time they develop the policy the money will be spent and gone!

Here again we have a case of fear and panic from the economic trouble leading to bad decision making.

 

One might get discouraged...

At least someone is listening, while they do not understand, at least I know they heard me...
This was in response to my emails to Ga. Senate Education Committee members 1 of the 10 I have been emailing weekly asking not to vote on the waiver to media expenditure controls:

"Dear Melissa:
Thank you for contacting me. Unfortunately, our state is facing a very real economic downturn that, of course, affects revenue. We must cut spending by $3 billion this year and next year looks no better. We are cutting K-12 education by half of what we are asking other department to cut because it remains our highest priority. And, to allow local systems to determine how best to spend the limited resources, we are granting temporary flexibility. I hope that does not mean libraries are cut, but the local school board will make that determination.
Eric Johnson"

Unfortunately the economy is being used as a reason for whatever policy legislators chose to introduce right now. As of now media centers in Georgia are already having the funds that have not been spent for this year rescinded in the mere anticipation of this bill passing - one can only imagine what will happen next year! But I can give you a preview - money that should be spent on books and materials for the media center will now be spent on copy paper and laminating film!

Oh and the sunset on this bill has already been extended another year while in committee, think it won't be extended again next year?

NTIA Roundtable - A "Debate" on Innovative Programs

As the discussion of the stimulus package money and what do do with it continues, this interesting discussion addresses the concept in the bill that refers to "innovative programs." As usual, a bill has passed with some ambiguous and ill-defined language. With 7.2 billion up for grabs the question arises with many stakeholders - what is considered an innovative program?

In a March 17th NTIA roundtable meeting various stakeholder groups, including the American Telemedicine Association, The American Association for Community Colleges (AACC), OneEconomy Corportation (and what is that you ask? I too wondered - see below) and the American Library Association (ALA), discussed how their organizations are or could be providing innovating programs.

ALA Executive Director, Emily Shekatoff, argued for a greater investment to be made in public libraries, as they are "the premier public computer centers in America's communities. Libraries are the sole source of free access in 73% of America." Yet over 60% suffer from slow connections that impair their patron's ability to access information. When asked about definition of innovation Shekatoff follows with the amount of bandwidth that it takes for libraries and schools to provide all of the innovative resources they do to the public to everyone,"no matter where you live or how wealthy you are." Nice finish I think!

So score 1 for Shekatoff as she makes the good point that people are turning to libraries more and more during the economic troubled times and in many small communities the library is where people go for internet access. And +1 for finishing with flair!

While the Hermes from the AACC argues that they are even more crucial than libraries because they provide a link "back to into the educational fold for people during economic downturns." An by educating people here in their communities they are providing better skilled workers to come out and be productive members of the community.

OK sounds impressive AACC (score +1 for impressive argument), but definitely has more limitations on it than the general population that would be impacted with libraries. So that's going to cost you .5 points Mr. Hermes.

Next up, Ramsey from OneEconomy Corp. He slams the libraries and schools, in that they are inaccessible for many people. For example, people can't get there during their hours because they are working or do not have transportation to get there. He says the only way that American can make sure that everyone has access to broadband is to bring it to their homes. He even goes on to bring poor Dorothy into it with "there's no place like home!"

Well, well, well Ramsey comes out swinging with the equality card for lower-income groups and kids. In that people that only have access at libraries are "second-class citizens." Whew! I would have loved to see Shekatoff's expression on that! But here is the fatal flaw - he goes on to comment that once people have access and are aware of the advantages that broadband can bring to them they will find it affordable. What? Really now-is the man behind the curtain going to make that appear as well? And have you asked these people would they even use and access broadband if brought to their doorstep? Because as we have seen in previous readings this is debatable!

So Ramsey gets the point (+1) for tugging at the heart strings, but loses (-1) for defiling the Wizard of Oz and ignoring the usage issue.

Finally, Linkous, CEO of American Telemedicine Association. He begins with first trying to define his own organization's interests, in which he takes the broad approach in that it can cover expanding broadband services not just to health care facilities, but to homes of undeserved populations as well.

Linkous goes for the jugular with the "oh yeah well we can do both argument" and argues for diversity in access points. He warns against projects overlapping and duplicating each other which would be a waste of money.

Linkous I am sure scores here (+1) with the scare factor - "oh no, someone is going to bust us for wasting the stimulus money" fear that I am sure is in the back of  NTIA's mind. Yet when asked to specifically describe some example of these innovative projects he skirts the issue with Stating there will be applications we haven't even thought of yet.

So who wins? Who scores the big bucks? Your guess is as good as mine! It might be helpful if some definitions, standards or guidelines were present, but we all know that is not going to happen.

Right now it is just a backyard brawl to see who is going to get the biggest piece of the pie!

Info:

One Economy Corporation-this is taken from their web site: Is a global nonprofit organization that uses innovative approaches to deliver the power of technology and information to low-income people, giving them valuable tools for building better lives.We help bring broadband into the homes of low-income people."  AH HA - here we go! So here we see their focus is on the home so of course they are down playing the libraries' and schools' importance. Also note the use of "innovative" in their mission statement - one wonders if that was in there a couple of moths ago...

Obama to Limit Use of Signing Statements

In a Washington Post article President Obama said that he would only issue signing statements to "address constitutional concerns." Apparently Bush had a tendency to use these statements to make changes to the intentions of bills as he signed them into law. What a sneaky way to get around the intent of the bill! Another example of his blatant abuse of power!

Of course there are those criticizing Obama for not completely doing away with the practice. The ACLU in articular says that these statements can be used in an abuse of presidential authority to change the meaning of legislation that they don't like instead of the intended purpose of providing guidance. Obama promised to use the signing statements sparingly, but only time will tell and you can be sure people will be watching and taking note.

Crossover Day 2009

The Georgia Legislature is in full swing and we have almost reached crossover day! Crossover Day is Day 30 of the session. Legislation that originates in one chamber must make it to the other chamber by Day 30 in order to be considered for passage this session. Day 30 is rapidly approaching-this Thurs. March 12th. So legislation is starting to move very quickly at the Georgia General Assembly this week.

The bill I am watching is HB 278 - this bill would waive media center expenditure controls for the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 school years. This means that the money that is designated (from FTE count) to be spent for media materials (books, periodicals, supplies...) would now just go into the general fund and media centers would get whatever was left. This means money will not be spent on books for students. This is a huge issue for the media centers because I believe once the expenditure controls are waived they will be gone forever.

So I have been busy emailing Senators and the Education Committee today. The bill has already passed through the House 147 to 6 and 27 members excused. Also Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle's office has stated that he is in favor of the expenditure control legislation and plans to have the Senate act on it quickly. Additionally, he is already proposing that the sunset provision be extended - here we go already! So it does not look very promising that we can stop this, but just have to keep trying!

Stimulus to Help Retool Education

From Arne Duncan (U.S. Sec. of Education): "D.C has had more money than God for a long time, but the outcomes are still disastrous, Duncan said in an interview with Washington Post editors and reporters. He said the unprecedented influx of cash, which will begin to flow in the next 30-45 days, would target states, local school systems and nonprofit organizations willing to adopt policies that have been proven to work."

Well what a novel idea - "proven policies that work." Now does he go on to define these proven policies that work? Of course not...

This money will probably go to education in one way or another, but in reading his ideas I am not sure it is going to be the most beneficial way, in the way it was supposed to be-to reduce the amount of teacher layoffs. In reading his "education reform ideas" it sounds as if Mr. Duncan has his own agenda and and it didn't seem to be about the teachers.

On a positive note he does mention libraries and that is good, but in the same breath he also questions why are school building that offer all this technology only open for 6 hours a day. Well because they are schools and we are teachers, and we are there to teach the children. If I had wanted to work nights and weekends I would have chosen to be a public librarian.

Information Policy Issue

So it seems I am running into information policy issues all over the place lately. I was on a conference call with my Library of Congress (LOC) group today. They were showing us the mockups of the database and interactives we designed this past fall. These will be professional development modules for teachers. One of the questions we had was could we have people log into the modules and get some sort of professional development credit for working through them.

The woman from the LOC says well that is a privacy policy issue. Since the LOC is a government agency, and if people were to log in then the site would technically be collecting personal data form them and this leads to all sorts of issues that would have to be worked out. And I thought to myself yes it does-information policy issues! :-)

Kids.gov

While reading through the e-gov readings for this week I spent time exploring the USA.gov site, which by the way has the potential of becoming a great tool to use to find everything in one place. Of course I was very interested in the links for kids, teens and educators. There is indeed great information here, not just for teaches to use, but beneficial to the kid and teen users as well. Teens can find out about driving and student aid policies and resources on many topics. Kids.gov has many features and resources for kids to use and explore. One feature links to the various state government pages for kids, but in looking at Georgia's I found that is was just horrible. If we want these type of information sources to survive and be useful they need to first provided access to beneficial information and second, be update with some frequency.

Response From Ga. Representative

While it may not be the exact response I wanted, at least someone is reading all those emails I have been sending!

"Melissa,
Thank you for writing me with your concerns on HB 278.

While I fully understand and agree with your position, it remains a reality that the money just not exist for the state to fund everything they have in the past.

Rather than the state dictate exactly how the local school districts spend every penny, this bill, like others to come, does not cut out any money but only allows the local boards to make those decisions.

Hopefully the Cherokee board and the Superintendent will make the best decisions possible with the diminished funds from the state and local revenue reductions.

My best,
Calvin Hill
State Representative, District 21"

Stimulus Negotiations

Negotiations continue and President Obama has set a weekend deadline for working out the disagreements and coming to a compromise on the legislation that will pass both the House and the Seante. This process of trying to get Obama's stimulus package to pass both the House and Senate has not been good news for education. The Senate is cutting out most of the bill that would benefit education. Many states were counting on receiving money from the stimulus and have stated that education will suffer and teachers will lose their jobs.

• The House bill provided $39 billion for state education budgets, $15 billion for incentive grants and innovation, and $25 billion that governors could use at their discretion. "The Senate cut the education aid to $31.3 billion and the incentive money to $7.5 billion, and it eliminated the $25 billion in discretionary funding" (Washington Post, 2009).
• Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle (D) states that "The schools are going to have to do with less over the next few years. We all understand that, but we really hope that there will be further help," he said. "We can't just say to a second-grader, 'Come back in five years and do second grade when the economy's better' "(Washington Post, Feb. 11, 2009).
• For higher education it means higher tutition rates, less students admitted, and cuts in staff.
  

The one glimmer of hope left is that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that some House Democrats were "concerned" about Senate cuts to education and other spending initiatives already approved by the House. So we will see...

States Counting on Stimulus Aid to Balance Budget
2/11/09

Coalition for an Accountable Recovery

After the trouble with TARP and the disappearing bailout funds, OMB Watch has joined a group The Coalition for an Accountable Recovery (CAR) which consist of more than 30 other groups calling for transparency and accountability requirements in federal recovery efforts, including the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (H.R. 1).

This coalition states that the government needs to be accountable to the public for where all this money is going and how it is being used. That this information should be made available to the public through detailed data and research tools on a searchable website. Then the public can "judge how any recovery funds, including those to the financial sector, are being spent and to ensure that hundreds of billions of dollars of federal spending is disbursed fairly; spent with minimal waste, fraud, and abuse; and can be assessed as effective or ineffective" (OMB Watch, 2009).

After the TARP incident, let's be glad that someone is taking action!

Issues I am Watching....

It is legislative season so I am busy keeping up with state and federal leg. that could impact school library media centers and emailing my representatives! Here is a quick list of some of the things I am following:
1. New Education Secretary-Arne Duncan: looks like school library media specialists are on his radar and the buzz on the various listservs is that Arne Duncan is good news for school libraries!

2. Mr. Perdue, our esteemed Ga. Governor, that used the teachers and SLMS support to get elected is once again hitting on education. Several pieces of legislation that impact school libraries and SLMS have been introduced:

• HB 278 - Rep. Matt Ramsey (R-Peachtree City) - would give local systems more funding control by waiving expenditure controls for media centers, staff and professional development, and instructional costs for the 08-09 and 09-10 school years.
• HB 243 - Rep. Jimmy Pruett (R-Eastman) - HB243 corresponds with the Governor's 2010 budget request to discontinue funding for teachers with National Board Certification. This legislation would "...repeal the salary increase for persons receiving certification from the National Board for Teaching Standards..."
  

Currently, there are over 120 Senate bills and 330 House bills. This year, issues range from school board management/requirements to tax exemptions, and from PE and student physical fitness assessments to creating more flexibility in the 180 day school year. So it is vital that you stay current on what is going on and keep emailing!

Additionally of course I am monitoring the stimulus plan and its impact on schools, more on that to come...

PATRIOT Act still alive and well

My legislative tracing experience is still impacting me every time I think about how such a huge piece of legislation was pushed through so quickly (again fear and panic...) Saw this on my weekly email from EFF:

In-Flight Confrontations can Lead to Charges Defined as Terrorism

At least 200 passengers have been convicted of felonies under the Patriot Act, often for behavior involving raised voices and profanity. Some experts say airlines are misusing the law.

Ok not the smartest things to be doing on the plane I agree, but are they terrorist?

Advocacy Rant

I am a big believer in taking responsibility and advocating for what I believe in.

That is why I was glad to hear that as a major theme at the ALA Washington Briefing and at the AASL meetings attended. I am probably naive to think it actually matters, but there are time I feel that I actually might be making a difference - ex. the CPSC calling ALA and saying "call them off!"

Yet then there are times I read things like this post on the GaMedia listerv on proposed budget issues for Ga. school library media centers:
Mr. Perdue is prosing to place a temporary (yeah right) waiver on the expenditure controls found in GaCode that state that money designated for media centers only be used to buy items for the media center. So yes that means that media centers will never see that money.

So I immediately go to email and call House and Senate Appropriations Education Subcommittee members to explain the importance of expenditure controls to them.

THEN I see the following post and want to scream:
"What concerns me is this: in this economic crisis. . .if we raise our visibility by complaining about waivers and cuts and such, I wonder if they'd decide to just cut media programs and media specialists completely, but I'm wondering if, in this present situation, staying under the radar and accepting what comes down might be the best course. AND another one agrees with him saying "why are we complaining? Everyone and all programs will need to make sacrifices, including school library media programs. In my humble opinion, GLMA paid lobbyists need to tread lightly in these economic times or we could all be out of a job."

(hmmm fear and panic seems to have been a theme last week in our discussion)

YES of course if we all hide our heads in the sand it will be much better....come on!

CPSC

Well looks like sometimes our voices are heard - especially when in great numbers...

(CNN) -- Librarians across the United States are making noise about new federal restrictions on lead that could take books out of the hands of children.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission Improvement Act requires all products, including books intended for children younger than 12, to meet new standards calling for lower lead content.Commission regulations, written in response to the law, take effect February 10. Even stricter limits will become effective in August.Paper, ink, covers and glues would need to pass lead content standards.

So go read the article - make sure to notice David Arkush, director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch division comments....just makes you wonder what some of these "supposed" watchdog groups are really watching!

Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008

So the saga continues with the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) ... ALA and AASL have put out the call for action...

A public meeting was held January 22 with Kristina Hatlelid, Directorate for Health Sciences, and other Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) staff to allow Allan Robert Adler, of the Association of American Publishers, and major publishing companies to discuss the lead content of books. The meeting was a time for the publishing companies to explain their research to the CPSC staff that proves that normal books (non-play, paper books) do not contain lead in the amount specified under the CPSIA. The publishing companies have compiled a group of 300 test results that can be viewed here.

After the meeting, Cheryl Falvey, General Counsel for the CPSC, stated that a decision should be made by the first week of February. She advised libraries not to take any action at this time, and we are hopeful that the Commission's decision will exempt libraries.

Even with her assurances, we must let the CPSC know how important an issue this is to libraries. You can visit their Web site, found here, to submit your comments to the Commission. Explain to the Commission that it is simply impossible for libraries to remove all children's books from the shelves and/or ban children under 12 from the library and still provide the level of service that is needed.

I am just amazed at this! It almost reads like a spoof or something that you would read online at the Onion or something...

What is Information Policy and Why Should We Care?

Information policy impacts my ability to do my job and that is why I have always been active in following what is going on in regards to national and state government. I found out early on in my career that, especially in education, it is very important to know what is going on that can impact my profession. I realize through the various historical aspects that we have read about that while staying informed on current events I have neglected the past and we all know what happens when we don’t learn from the past. Relyea (2008), McDermott (2007), and Herndon et al. (2002) present a comprehensive historical look at public policy as it relates to information and access to information. It was interesting to see while they all presented information on some of the same legislation they each had their own slant on the issues. While it seems that there is some agreement on the past, there is no exact agreement as to which constitutes a definition of “information policy.” Duff (2004) goes back to the argument that maybe we first need a definitive idea of what information is before we can define information policy.

In reading Jones (1984), Anderson (2006), McDermott (2007) and McClure (1999) we are presented with the question of what is information policy and why should we care about it. I like McClure’s (1999) concise definition of “interrelated principals, laws, guidelines, rules and regulations, directives, procedures, judgments, interpretations, and practices that guide the creation, management, access and use of information” (p. 307). The “creation” part of this definition of information policy really struck me and caused me pause for thought. I guess I am on the other side of the coin, in that I am a librarian and always worried about access issues. Yet in this age of Web 2.0 and the participatory culture that is growing up because of it the “creation” aspect is becoming more and more important. In fact we are already seeing an increase in copyright and intellectual freedom issues coming to light.

I also found interesting the idea that information policy can be considered a sort of “meta” policy in that it affects all other policy systems. This makes sense to me because of the assumed multidisciplinary aspect of information science in general. As for the why we should care question, I have to say I am inspired by McDermott’s (2007) passion and identify with her cynicism! I am coming to realize that I need to be concerned more about the bigger picture of information policy. I tend to focus on my own small world of education and what I see as having a direct impact on my students and me as an educator. For example, when ALAWON sends out briefs or alerts that don’t relate to school libraries, education or children I tend to hit the delete key. Though through these readings it is becoming clear that everything trickles down and does impact me as an information professional.


References
Anderson, J. (2006). Public policy making (6th ed.). New York: Houghton Mifflin.

Duff, A. F. (2004). The past, present, and future of information policy. Information, Communication & Society, 7, 69-87.

Jones, C. O. (1984). An introduction to the study of public policy (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA:Wadsworth Publishing Corp.

McClure, Charles R. (1999). United States information policy. In K. Allen (Ed.) Encyclopedia of library and information science [Electronic version] (vol. 65, pp. 306-314). New York: Marcel Dekker.

McDermott, P. (2007). Who needs to know? The state of public access to federal government information. Washington DC: Bernan Press.

Relyea, H. (2008). Federal government information policy and public policy analysis: A brief overview. Library & Information Science Research 30, 2-21. Retrieved January 5, 2009, from ScienceDirect database.

Lawmakers Behaving Badly

Not actually policy related, but a comment on our policy makers that sounds exactly like what we were talking about in class on Tuesday - a lack of civility. From the Washington Post: When the results from the election were officially read in a joint session of Congress on the House floor most rose to applaud. A notable exception was Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the Senate, on the front row. This comment from columnist Dana Milbank rings true: "There's nothing quite like public petulance by our leaders to make the current age seem small. And McConnell had company in his bad manners. McCain, the vanquished Republican presidential nominee, skipped the ceremony entirely, along with two-thirds of the Senate. On the Republican side of the aisle, 41 seats were empty."

Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2009

Well looks like here we go again withe the issue of the presidential records. The House voted on and passed H.R. 35, Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2009 and H.R. 36, Presidential Library Donation Reform Act of 2009.

H.R. 35 revokes President Bush’s executive order (E.O. 13233). This ruling invalidates part of E.O. 13233 that allows former Presidents and Vice Presidents to review executive records before they are released under the Freedom of Information Act.

Presidential Library Donation Reform Act of 2009 makes it mandatory to disclose all donations to charities set up to build presidential libraries. It passed the House (388-31).

Obama Links Ed Tech to Economic Growth

When catching up on reading some educational journals this week, I ran across this article: Obama Links Ed Tech to Economic Growth. This economic stimulus plan could mean funding coming to the schools for broadband internet access and computers.

"From the integral role that technology played in his campaign to indications that he will create a chief technology officer in the federal government for the first time, Obama has led many ed-tech experts to believe that the new administration will revolutionize the way technology is viewed and used in the United States, and, it is hoped, in K-12 education."

There were a few items that made me think of information policy. The Relyea article described and gave a brief history of the Presidential Records Act which requires that all presidential correspondence be made part of the public record. This article explains that Obama's favorite means of communication is his blackberry and unless a solution is found he may have to stop using it to send and receive emails. Also mentioned in reference to Obama's commitment to technology is his move to appoint a chief technology officer for the government.

Another item to watch for in regards to policy will be Obama's appointment of Arne Duncan as U. S. Secretary of Education and his attempts to lead the new administration’s effort to improve the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act and to work with Congress to rewrite the law for reauthorization.

Federal Government Information Policy by Relyea

I liked the historical perspective of this article because it gave me a nice overview of where we have come from and how things have changed (or have stayed the same). We have all had basic government classes and know about the three branches of government and their checks and balances, but it is the dynamics between them where things get interesting. Also from this historical perspective you can see the back and forth changes that occur with the imposing of and then the reducing of restrictions on access to information.