Education: education technology.

Existing law establishes various programs to enhance education technology, including the California Technology Assistance Project, which is composed of regional consortia that work collaboratively with school districts and county offices of education to meet locally defined educational needs that can be effectively addressed with the use of technology, as specified. This bill would authorize the Superintendent of Public Instruction to establish a task force for education technology, funded by private donations, for the purpose of making recommendations to increase and enhance the level of technology used to deliver instruction in California public schools. The task force would consist of no more than 15 education technology experts, including, but not necessarily limited to, parents, current credentialed teachers, administrators, school board members, researchers, and industry representatives, as specified. This bill would require the task force to address specified topics to be presented to the state board and the Legislature on or before September 1, 2012, and require the state board to adopt a comprehensive statewide plan to increase and enhance the level of technology used to deliver instruction in California public schools technology literacy model content standards, pursuant to the recommendations of the task force, on or before January 1, 2013. The bill would provide that the report to the Legislature be in a specified form. This provision would be inoperative on September 1, 2016.