A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n

Application for State Grants under the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund--November 1996

State Application for Technology Grant under Technology Literacy Challenge Fund

Introduction

The Technology Literacy Challenge Fund is a new program to help stimulate local, State, and private sector partnerships focused on fully integrating technology into teaching and learning to help ensure that all students are technologically literate by the dawn of the 21st century. This program will be administered under Subpart 2 of Part A of Title III of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).

Congress has appropriated $200 million in FY 1997 for this effort. The request to Congress for these funds described 1997 as the beginning of a five-year, $2 billion effort intended to help encourage State, local and private sector investment in technology for improving education. The funds were requested to advance the President's four goals for technology in education. The four goals are:

All teachers will have the training and support they need to help all students learn through computers and through the information superhighway;
All teachers and students will have modern computers in their classrooms;
Every classroom will be connected to the information superhighway; and
Effective and engaging software and online resources will be an integral part of every school curriculum.

Under this program, the Department will make grants to State education agencies (SEAs). SEAs will subsequently make competitive grants to local education agencies (LEAs) or consortia of LEAs and other partners. To meet application requirements under this program, States may submit their Statewide technology plans developed under Goals 2000 or other processes, supplemented as necessary to ensure that they meet the requirements of Section 3133 of the ESEA.

Instructions

To receive funding, an SEA must submit to the Department by March 31, 1997, an application that provides the following information:

A. Information on the application cover sheet, including the signature of the authorized SEA representative;

B. A statewide technology plan describing -

(1) long-term strategies for financing technology education in the State;

(2) how business, industry, and other public and private agencies -- including libraries, library literacy programs, museums, cultural and scientific institutions, and institutions of higher education -- can participate in the implementation, ongoing planning, and support of the plan; and

(3) the steps the SEA will take in order to provide assistance to local educational agencies that have the highest numbers or percentages of children in poverty and demonstrate the greatest need for technology, in order to enable such local educational agencies to assist their schools to carry out activities authorized under the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund. *

C. As required by section 427 of the General Education Provisions Act, a State must include in its consolidated plan a description of steps it proposes to take to remove barriers that may exist to the equitable access to, or equitable participation in , activities that the State undertakes (not including administration) with federal funds under the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund. (A State may either indicate the portions of this application that already address this issue, or provide a separate statement. Additional guidance on how this provision might be addressed is included in Appendix A to this document).

D. The signature of the authorized SEA representative on the application assurance sheet.

States are urged to consider how their plans and those of local educational agencies in their State can contribute to advancing the President's goals at the State and local levels.

The application with original signatures and two copies must be submitted by March 31, 1997, to:

Technology Literacy Challenge Fund
Office of Elementary and Secondary Education
U.S. Department of Education
Washington, DC 20202

A State which chooses not to participate in this Fund should send a letter to the Department indicating that it does not intend to participate at the address above by December 20, 1996.

* The specific statutory provision concerning the State application requirement, Section 3133 of the ESEA, is included in this package. Applicants, in preparing their narratives, should review this section closely and make sure they have addressed those requirements.
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[Application]

[Non-regulatory Guidance]