Both Virginia and North Carolina have placed among the top 10 in a report on the use of technology in U.S. schools.
Conducted for Education Week newspaper by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, the Technology Counts report measures access to, use of and capacity to use technology in the state's schools.
Virginia earned a B+ score overall, the fourth-highest. North Carolina's B- was 10th-highest.
"I'm ecstatic," said Lan Neugent, Virginia's assistant state superintendent for technology and technical and career education. "A good score on a report like this shows that Virginia is right there at the top."
States are not only buying computers and increasing science and math requirements, they are changing teaching approaches and starting new schools focused on those topics.
Virginia, for example, is establishing six career and technical academies to provide instruction in science and technology.
One in Newport News will focus on engineering, and another at the Pruden Center for Industry & Technology in Suffolk will specialize in engineering and technology fields.
Neugent said the state's schools have up-to-date technology because the General Assembly has set aside money annually for more than a decade to buy the newest equipment.
"That really pays off well," he said.
In Virginia, 95 percent of fourth-graders and 96 percent of eighth-graders had access to computers in 2007. There was one computer with high-speed Internet access for every three students in the state in 2006, according to the report. Virginia got an A- on the access measure.
In North Carolina, which got a C+ for access, 87 percent of eighth-graders had access to computers. The national average is 83 percent.
Virginia students' scores on national math and science tests have also been improving in recent years, while results have been more mixed in North Carolina.
That state earned an A for use of technology. North Carolina requires students to learn about technology and gives some tests on computers. Virginia also offers computer-based assessments, but scored an A- because students are not tested on technology.
Both states scored lowest in their capacity to use technology, which is the report's measure of teacher and administrator preparedness. Virginia scored a B, North Carolina a D.
Virginia requires teachers and administrators to learn about technology to earn their initial licenses, while North Carolina does not. Both states include technology in teacher standards but neither requires teachers and administrators to refresh their technology knowledge when recertified.
The Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, which issued the report, is a nonprofit based in Bethesda, Md., that conducts policy surveys, collects data and performs analyses for Education Week's annual reports.
Lauren Roth, (757) 222-5133, lauren.roth@pilotonline.com
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