The National Educational Technology Program

The federal government recognizes that the key for America’s future is education and creates a plan to address the new challenges that schools, educators and students will encounter in the 21st century. The National Educational Program or NETP is created in 2010 and has two main goals:

Increase the number of college graduates from 39% to 60% of our population.
Close the achievement gap.

NETP calls for the incorporation of new technologies in all aspects of education. The plan states that new technologies will provide numerous options to engage in learning participate in new staff development activities, collaborate with the learning community.
Every aspect of education such as teaching, learning and assessment must utilize the full potential of electronic tools currently used by businesses.
NETP provides a plan provides a plan to address current needs in technology, staff development, assessment, infrastructure and teaching methodologies.
NETP also calls for more cooperation between K-12 schools and higher education institutions to improve graduation opportunities for all students.
Teaching is described in this plan as collaboration among educators. Connected teaching will enable the participation of teachers, students, librarians and after school programs to participate in the teaching and learning process. Staff development for teachers must support the use of technology to improve learning. The plan gives a comprehensive list of recommendations on how the different aspects of education need technology to improve and shares a new vision for Education.
One of my concerns about the plan is the support for elimination of restrictions to share and access more detailed information about students protected under The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). The information does not contain personal identifiable information about students, but it raises the same concern as medical records. Would employers be able to access this information?
I would also like to comment on the support given in the document to online education. I strongly believe that the need of highly skilled teachers in online instruction will increase in the future. In addition, online education is highlighted as an area of importance to offer instruction to more students regardless of schedule or geographical location.
I can also identify a similarity in some areas such as Teaching and Learning and infrastructure between the LRPT and NETP. However, in my personal opinion, NETP focuses on higher education.