As Congress begins debate this summer over a series of bills to reauthorize the Higher Education Act (HEA), lawmakers will be asked to decide how much leadership the federal government should provide in making technology an important part of the teacher education process.

At issue, among other things, is the fate of a $62.5 million federal program that encourages partnerships between universities and K-12 schools to help new teachers integrate technology into their instruction.

A bill approved in mid-June by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce would sustain the four-year-old Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) program for another four years and would explicitly allow federal grant money from the Improving Teacher Quality program to be used for training new teachers in the use of technology.

Known as the Ready to Teach Act (H.R. 2211), the bill's passage would signify a partial victory for lobbyists and other ed-tech advocates, many of whom are concerned that the exclusion of PT3 from President Bush's 2004 budget proposal will lead to the program's extinction.

"The decision of majority staff on the House Education and the Workforce Committee to reauthorize PT3 with no significant changes represents an important victory for education technology advocates," according to the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), a national nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the use of information technology in K-12 schools.

When the bill reaches the full House for debate, however, lawmakers will have to weigh the Education and Workforce Committee's recommendations against those of the House Appropriations Committee, which voted earlier this year not to fund PT3 in its version of the 2004 education budget. The Senate Appropriations Committee also has excluded PT3 funding from its version of the budget.

Bush administration officials argue that PT3 is unnecessary because the Improving Teacher Quality program already provides nearly $3 billion to support teacher preparation and professional development initiatives. But ed-tech advocates say PT3 is the only federal program that specifically addresses pre-service teacher training in the use of technology, an important topic as schools of education reform their pedagogies to address 21st-century classroom challenges. Continued federal leadership in encouraging this type of reform is necessary, they contend.

"Making sure teachers are prepared to use technology when they arrive at the schoolhouse is critical," said Keith Krueger, CoSN's executive director. Given the increased accountability demands of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and other sweeping measures, Krueger says the effective use of technology in schools presents one of the most significant challenges educators face today.

PT3 has been targeted for elimination during the last three funding cycles and was only narrowly rescued from the chopping block last year when Congress decided at the last minute to fund the program at the previous year's level.