The purpose of the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund Supplemental Study is to evaluate the implementation of the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund (TLCF) at state and local levels. The study, which includes a special focus on high-poverty school districts, will provide a national picture of the availability and use of educational technology in the nation's schools and the role of the TLCF in supporting such availability and use. The study builds on the TLCF State Performance Reports and is being conducted as a central component of the Department's Integrated Studies of Educational Technology (ISET).

1. What is the status of state and district planning and leadership with respect to educational technology? What is the role of the TLCF in these areas (including how states are structuring the TLCF competitions, and flexibility and targeting issues)?

2. How are states and districts initiating and supporting the use and evaluation of educational technology? What types of state and district activities have TLCF funds supported? Do these supported activities differ according to district technology need, TLCF status, poverty or quality of district plan?

3. How is educational technology used and supported in schools and classrooms? Does this use differ according to TLCF status, poverty, level of technical and programmatic support provided, and quality of the district educational technology plan?

4. How are states and districts using educational technology funds? How are the uses of TLCF and other funds coordinated?

5. How do state and district educational technology activities relate to other systemic reform efforts? To what extent is the TLCF being implemented to promote reform?

6. What do the answers to the above questions tell us about states? What do they tell us about districts? What are the implications of answers to the above questions for state, district and federal policy?

Conducted by the American Institutes for Research, the TLCF Supplemental Study builds on the annual TLCF State Performance Report, which is an on-line collection of information on program implementation at the state and district level submitted each year by states to the Department of Education. The TLCF Supplemental Study also is coordinated with the Professional Development for the 21^st Century Classroom Study and the Formative Evaluation of the E-rate. Collectively referred to as ISET (the Integrated Studies of Educational Technology), these three studies will collect data from a nested, nationally representative sample of teachers, schools and districts as well as all states. The sample includes a particular focus on high-poverty, rural and urban areas and allows for comparisons between TLCF and non-TLCF districts.

An analysis of TLCF State Performance Report data from the first two years of the program, 1997 and 1998, began the TLCF Supplemental Study. This includes information on goals and funding for educational technology and state administration of the TLCF. An interim report will present the data collected and analyzed through the State Performance Report.

The ISET survey instruments supplement the TLCF State Performance Report and will collect data on key topics related to the availability and uses of educational technology as well as the policy structures related to such availability and use. A survey module designed to collected detailed fiscal information on support for educational technology, modeled on the survey used for the Department's Study of Educational Resources and Federal Funding, will be administered in a subsample of districts.

To support interpretation of survey data and gain a richer understanding of state and district planning for the acquisition and use of educational technology, the TLCF Supplemental Study also will review state technology plans and local technology plans from the subsample of districts completing the fiscal survey.