On June 24, Senator Kerry (D-MA) introduced S.3184, the Empowering Teaching and Learning Through Education Portals Act. The bill would provide grants to States to help cover the cost of implementing and maintaining education portal initiatives. The grants would cover periods of one to three years and provide up to 50% of the cost of implementing and maintaining the initiative.
An education portal is a generic term that may mean many things, but to qualify for the grant the portal must collect and make available high-quality resources, including multimedia resources, that support teaching, reading, learning, and are aligned with State education standards. The resources must also be available for teachers to use for ongoing and sustainable professional development related to the use of education technology, the development of 21st-century skills for teachers and students, and the portal must provide educators research-based tools for coaching, collaborating, or mentoring.
The potential uses for an online education portal are limited only by one’s imagination. They may, and some already do, provide rich resources for parents, students, and teachers. They can offer an amazing breadth of instructional and professional information in a quickly searchable format. And they can provide professional networking opportunities for educators to collaborate on and discuss teaching, learning, curricula, and experiences that connect teachers across the hall, across the district, across the state, across the nation and around the globe. For example, a teacher in experiencing success in teaching third grade English language learners can now share that experience with a teacher working with students of similar demographics and challenges but who is struggling with those students for some particular reason. This bill recognizes the, powerful opportunities that education portals, properly vetted, offer and makes the first federal foray into supporting their growth.
S.3184, however, will not likely progress very far this year. Outside of the federal appropriations and maybe the Higher Education Act, the President will sign few education bills into law. This bill, then, is a marker for future work on this issue as separate legislation or as a part of larger legislation such as reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (no named No Child Left Behind). Whatever form it eventually takes, we can expect to see more initiatives focusing on the delivery of education resources and innovation at scale.
Resources:
“S.3184, A bill to make grants to States to implement statewide portal initiatives, and for other purposes,” http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-s3184/show, visited June 30, 2008.
