Maria Cantwell: “The article says: But Union City did far more than simply buy computers. The school day was reconstructed into longer…”

“The article says: But Union City did far more than simply buy computers. The school day was reconstructed into longer classes; teachers were given 40 hours of training a year-- And the school district doubled its budget-- and the traditional curriculum of emphasizing rote learning was scrapped so students could work on joint projects such as research reports and inventions. The article further says that the kids are more involved and they are no longer being force fed in the educational system. The result is, the article says, that Union City topped all New Jersey cities on State tests. The number of graduates accepted at top institutions such as Yale University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology has jumped from just 8 of their graduates from Union City in 1997, the last time a class was taught the old-fashioned way, to 63 accepted graduates in 1999. I think it shows the success of our focus on technology ought to be on curriculum development, teacher training, and on integration of the system. This amendment asks that the Department of Education analyze after 3 years the best practices so we can scale the use of these best practices into our educational system in this country.”