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Honda Talks Tech With Industry, Educators
Rep. Mike Honda, D-CA, on Monday brought high-tech industry leaders and educators together to discuss how best to improve state schools by integrating technology into class instruction and teacher preparation. Honda plans to work with southern Bay area educators and industry leaders from companies like IBM to push a number of tech-driven education proposals in Congress this year.
"This is kind of the opening salvo of an ongoing dialogue we're going to have," said Honda spokesman Ernest Baynard. "We're really working very hard to work with the tech community and the education community. The forefront of our education effort will be in the tech context."
Honda and those at his forum discussed granting tax credits to companies involved in deploying broadband Internet connections to classrooms and Honda's proposal to fully fund the development of technology and educational programs for children and adults with disabilities. The group also discussed Honda's proposal to establish a "tech corps" of volunteers that would provide technology training to teachers and technical assistance to school network administrators.
"It's kind of a win-win because the tech community wants to be more involved in education," Baynard said. "They were pleased to know that right off the bat they had a member who was willing to listen and wouldn't just talk at them."
Honda's initiatives are part of an ongoing effort to harness the resources of the Silicon Valley area to improve education around the country. "It makes good sense to bring local educators and high-tech industry leaders together to improve educational opportunities for our young people through technology," Honda said, "because both groups have a strong interest in making sure our young people are prepared to succeed in the global marketplace."
Filtering Takes Center Stage
Oral arguments were heard last week in a case where a California resident is suing the city of Livermore to urge the Livermore Public Libraries to install filtering software on computers used by children.
Anonymous resident "Kathleen R.," the parent of a child who accesses the Net through the Livermore libraries, claimed that her son several times secretly has downloaded sexually explicit pictures from the Internet, taken them to a relative's home and printed them. The mother is seeking to hold the library responsible for her son's conduct after the library refused to install filtering software.
Livermore Public Libraries does not accept e-rate or other federal subsidies for Internet access, so the recently enacted Children's Internet Protection Act, which requires schools and libraries that accept federal funding to install filtering software, is not applicable.
Utah Appoints Porn Czar
Watch out porn industry. Last Friday, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, R, named former prosecutor Paula Houston as the state's first official "porn czar." In the one-year position, Houston will help Shurtleff fulfill his 2000 campaign promise to expand the attorney general's duties to help parents block sexually explicit material on the Internet from children. Shurtleff last year created the Utah Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force to work on child porn cases full time.
"This is a fight worth fighting," Shurtleff said in a statement. "We will continue to sustain freedom of speech, but we will never shirk the responsibility to protect our children and families."
The announcement is the culmination of legislation, HB 343. The legislature created the porn czar's position to help advise local governments and assist them in investigating and prosecuting obscenity or pornography laws. The ombudsman also is charged with educating concerned organizations and providing arbitration between citizens and businesses to resolve complaints.
Along with working to curb Net porn, Houston will be responsible for creating a database to track porn offenders and aide porn victims. She also will help communities develop their own obscenity tests.
In other Utah news, patent-developer Micron Technology Foundation last week announced that it will sponsor two scholarship programs, totaling as much as $500,000, for students in Utah and other states. The scholarships will reinforce GOP Gov. Mike Leavitt's recently announced engineering, computer science and technology initiative. The scholarships will seek to recognize and reward excellence in academics and leadership while advancing engineering to a new generation of employees who can contribute to innovation and success in the growing microelectronics industry.
In Utah telecom news, industry and consumer representatives recently urged a legislative committee to take steps to ensure that private telecom companies have a level playing field when competing against municipalities that become providers of Internet, phone, cable or broadband services, The Deseret News reported. The officials said cities face fewer taxation and fee obstacles and have freer rein regarding interconnection and quality-of-service issues.
Washington Gets King Of A CIO
King County, WA, Executive Ron Sims last week hired Dave Martinez as the county's first chief information officer (CIO), reports Civic.com. In the position, created last December, Martinez will coordinate IT policymaking, strategic planning, standardization, budgeting and purchasing.
Martinez formerly headed the county's Information and Administrative Services Department and has worked as a consultant for Sims since June, after a short stint at Nextlink Communications. He also is the former director of engineering and operation for AT&T Wireless, was a manager of technology services for the county transit system and spent a short time at Digital Equipment Corp.
NACo To Talk E-government
The National Association of Counties (NACo) will hold its third technology summit in King County, WA, from Thursday through Saturday. Along with the elected local officials in NACo, industry leaders from Microsoft and other companies will attend.
The summit, entitled "The Priority of Privacy," will focus on current security and privacy issues, as well as what to expect in this area in the future. Other panels will address e-government, new technologies and the next stages of the Internet.
North Carolina Tech Group Lobbies For Education
The North Carolina Electronics and Information Technologies Association (NCEITA) last week released a list of topics it would like to see addressed as the legislative session there begins, reported the Raleigh News and Observer.
The agenda covers subjects from capital-gains taxes to Internet privacy, but President Joan Meyer knows it is a tight budget year for state government and plans to focus NCEITA's lobbying efforts on a shorter list: education technology spending and tax credits for companies that invest in research and development. "We still see that the R&D issues are absolutely critical," Meyer said.
The News and Observer reported that North Carolina lags behind states such as Georgia, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and California in passing a law to gives companies a tax break on their R&D spending. It also reportedly is far behind on technology spending where education is concerned. North Carolina reportedly spends $15.98 per student on education technology, whereas the national average is $104 per student.
What's New With NASIRE
NASIRE, an organization representing state chief information officers (CIOs), has contracted with a Washington, DC, firm to strengthen the group's relationships with its federal partners and DC-based organizations.
Collins and Co. will help the CIOs prioritize and track issues on the federal level that affect the states and help educate legislators and related officials on various issues. Shay Stuatz, senior associate for programs and legislation with the firm, will work with DC-based state associations and IT-related groups to highlight successful applications of IT customer service in government, to administer joint projects with the National Governors' Association and to provide federal IT updates to NASIRE.
- by Liza Porteus
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