President Bush on Feb. 7 released his 2006 budget proposal, asking Congress to cut more than $1 billion in total education spending and eliminate entirely the $500 million Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) state block-grant program, the primary source of federal funding for school technology.

The massive, $2.5 trillion proposal includes a 1 percent across-the-board reduction for all discretionary spending programs and would earmark $56 billion for the U.S. Department of Education (ED) in 2006, down from more than $57 billion in 2005. If the president's budget is approved by Congress, it would mark the end of five consecutive years of increases in department spending, totaling more than $7.9 billion since 2001.

Of the 48 education programs slated for elimination in 2006, none stands to affect the ed-tech community more than the loss of EETT. Still reeling from a last-minute decision by Congress to cut EETT by nearly 30 percent in 2005--from $692 million in fiscal year 2004 to $500 million this fiscal year--several ed-tech advocates nationwide condemned Bush's proposed dismantling of the program as "short-sighted" and criticized the administration for failing to provide the leadership and funding necessary to support the use of technology in the nation's schools.

The Bush administration says its funding plan for schools focuses on doing away with substandard initiatives in favor of programs that work and practices the kind of fiscal restraint necessary to begin chipping away at the mounting federal deficit, which Bush has vowed to cut in half over the next four years.

Critics, meanwhile, say the elimination of EETT and other technology-specific education programs flies in the face of everything this administration has said regarding the important role technology must play in fostering widespread student achievement under the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), implemented by Bush in 2001 and touted during his State of the Union address as a top concern during his second term.

"Last month," said Bob Moore, chairman of the board of directors for the nonprofit Consortium for School Networking, commenting on Feb. 7, "the Department of Education concluded in its National Education Technology Plan that 'technology ignites opportunities for learning, engages today's students as active learners, and prepares our nation for the demands of a global society in the 21st century.' Today, the administration has moved to zero out the central source of educational technology funding. This plainly shows that the administration is unwilling to put [its] money where the policy is."

"These proposed cuts send precisely the wrong message at the wrong time," added Jan Van Dam, a retired assistant superintendent and board president for the International Society for Technology in Education. "Educators around the country are grappling with implementing No Child Left Behind, capitalizing on every resource at their disposal to increase student achievement, student learning, teaching skills, and efficiency. This funding proposal is both counterproductive and ultimately tragic in that it deprives educators of tools they so desperately need and students of opportunities they so desperately desire."