infrastructure….
If all the areas of the Texas long range plan were body parts, the infrastructure would serve as the heart. Without the heart the body cannot survive; without an adequate infrastructure our technology plans will waste away and fall by the wayside. To continue the body part simile, just like we must continually exercise to keep the heart healthy, we must continually update our infrastructure. Technological advances today happen almost overnight and if we plan to implement our long range plan we must stay on pace with these advances.
According to the STaR chart data collected by Texas Education Agency (TEA), the Infrastructure component had more schools at the Advanced level (61%) than any of the other four areas (p. 102). To help fight our battle, there are various programs and numerous grants for which a district can apply that target expanding our infrastructure . For example, the National Broadband Plan and the Connected Texas Initiative are national and local programs (respectively) that aim to increase broadband capabilities across the state (TEA p. 102).
While the state shows promising results for infrastructure, my campus' numbers worry me. Over the past two years, our STaR chart scores for infrastructure include us in the Advanced Tech level, but they have dropped each year (2007-17, 2008-15, 2009-14). This worries me because we might have targeted improving our other three areas while putting this one on the back burner. Soon, we could find ourselves in a predicament of neglecting infrastructure so much that we will not have the money to purchase the necessary upgrades with the upcoming budget cuts.
Texas Education Agency (2010). 2010 Progress Report on the Long-Range Plan for Technology, 2006-2020. Retrieved from http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index2.aspx?id=5082&menu_id=2147483665
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