Unintended Consequences: Content

Unintended
Consequences
t h e l o c a l i n t e r p r e t a t i o n o f
f e d e r a l p o l i c y - c o n t e n t
f i l t e r i n g p o l i c y i n H a w a i i p u b l i c
s c h o o l s

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Abstract
In the absence of leadership in the Hawaii Department of Education with requisite

technological expertise to understand the changes in learning, teaching and society that

have occurred between the late 1990’s and the present with regard to internet access and

use, the responsibility for developing, implementing and enforcing content-access policies

made necessary by FCC E-rate requirements under the Children’s Internet Protection Act

was left to office workers who are not educators. The result is content-filtering and

content-access policies that do not serve the needs of students or teachers in a twenty-first

century learning environment. This paper examines the problem, the background, and

proposes possible policy change alternatives.


the Problem
A student in AP Chem takes her laptop to the School Library
and attempts to view a video podcast of a Chemistry 1A lecture
from UC Berkeley via iTunesU - she cannot

A high school Psychology teacher wants to project a video of
Piaget working with children from YouTube.Edu to her
classroom SMARTboard. - she cannot

A 12th grade AP Gov student wants to research and present to
his class information about how local candidates use Social
Media to reach voters - he cannot in Hawaii’s public schools


The Problem II
17 and 18 year-old high school students and adult teachers are
restricted in access to the internet at the same level as are
kindergarteners and first graders

decisions regarding content filtering policies were not made by
operational “policy-makers” (Superintendent and Ass’t
Superintendent level) but by office workers who are not
educators

HIDOE content filtering policies were created in response to a
decade-old federal law and have not changed with the changing
realities of teaching and learning in the 21st century


Background
In the late 1990’s, before Facebook (2006), YouTube (2005) and
Wikipedia (2001), use of the internet in schools was not
commonplace

Media coverage of the perils awaiting children in “chat-rooms”
and prevalence of internet pornography encouraged the
introduction in 1999 and passage of S 97 IS, the Children’s
Internet Protection Act (CIPA)

Federal funding of school technology through E-rate was tied to
the provisions of CIPA


Background II
CIPA and E-rate
“Schools and libraries subject to CIPA may not receive the
discounts offered by the E-rate program unless they certify
that they have an Internet safety policy that includes
technology protection measures. The protection measures
must block or ﬁlter Internet access to pictures that are: (a)
obscene, (b) child pornography, or (c) harmful to minors (for
computers that are accessed by minors). Before adopting this
Internet safety policy, schools and libraries must provide
reasonable notice and hold at least one public hearing or
meeting to address the proposal.”


Background III
interpretation by HIDOE
In the absence of educational leadership in the HIDOE
conversant with the growing and changing role of digital
technology in teaching and learning as well as the changing
impact of the internet on children and society:

responsibility for compliance with CIPA/E-rate was delegated
to workers in the HIDOE Network Services and Support
Branch (NSSB)

there are no educators currently working in this branch and
the Chief Information Ofﬁcer for the HIDOE is not an
educator (the Superintendent of HIDOE is also not an
educator)

Background IV
interpretation by the HIDOE

NSSB contracted a private vendor, Websense, to provide
content-ﬁltering for the domain k12.hi.us

content-ﬁltering policies go far beyond the intent of the original
statute and hinder the ability of teachers to teach and students to
learn in a 21st century educational environment


criteria for an effective
policy change
a policy change ought to meet the following minimum criteria:
1) It must comply with Federal law.

2) It must reasonably address the duty of care of the school to the child.

3) It should support the HIDOE General Learner Outcomes by helping children in schools
become effective and ethical users of contemporary technologies.

4) It needs to take into account the needs of educators and students in a twenty-ﬁrst century
learning environment as well as provide for the concerns of the other stake-holders.

5) It should be economically feasible. Implementation of the policy alternative should not
place an undue burden on schools or the Department.


Policy Options
the so-called Zero Option:

assumes that mechanisms exist within the present policy
structure to mitigate the problems of the current policy
situation

no system-wide policy

eliminate system-wide content ﬁltering and make compliance
with FCC/E-rate the responsibility of individual schools


Policy Options II
the Zero Option is not appropriate since repeated efforts by
schools, individuals, and even a State Senator have not resulted
in any substantive change and students and teachers in schools
have gone to great lengths to ﬁnd ways around HIDOE policy
in their efforts to provide a 21st century educational
environment.

the elimination of system-wide ﬁltering policies is also not viable
due to the requirements of federal law and the duty-of-care of
the Department to take reasonable efforts to provide for the
safety and security of children in its charge


proposed policy change I
A successful policy alternative will most likely be one that retains a level
of system-wide content-filtering that is consistent with the requirements
of CIPA/E-rate.

At the school-level, filtering models and software will be made available
and in consultation with educators, determinations will need to be made
about how to frame a policy of progressively greater access and
responsibility.

Questions will need to be posed and answered about what is age-
appropriate for a first-grader to access, what is appropriate for a high-
school student in a university-level class to access, and what tools should
teachers have available.


proposed policy change II
A group exists in each school for eliciting information from all segments
of the school-community. School-Community Councils should be part of
the conversation regarding Internet access in the schools.

Additionally, teachers will need to become more informed and educated
regarding the world of twenty-ﬁrst century digital natives (students) and
will need the guidance of Administrators who are also aware of the
realities of legal requirements, budgetary constraint, and pedagogical
appropriateness.

Finally, there must be a greater transparency between the people and the
ofﬁces that exist to support teaching and learning in the schools and the
end-users who provide students with the skills, aptitudes and habits of
mind they will need to be successful in the world in which they will live
and work.

QUESTIONS?


Unintended Consequences: Content

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