Educational Insanity

Here’s the e-mail I sent to ISTE today. I haven’t heard back yet (save for the automated out-of-office reply). What do you think?

Greetings XXXXX,
First of all, thanks for all that you do with ISTE and especially the Digital Equity Summit. I have great interest, empirically and personally, in issues of digital equity in education. I’ve written about the issue, including here: http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v15n3/

I will be attending NECC this year, for the first time. I only learned of the Digital Equity Summit today as I was searching the program. I’d be quite interested in attending (I’d have to change my return flight, of course, but that’s not your problem). However, I’m wondering why there’s an extra $50 charge for this event. The costs of attending NECC are fairly prohibitive to begin with, and it strikes me as ironic, then, that there would be an extra charge to attend an important event about how we can better serve those in most need (especially, financially). Furthermore, if the corporate sponsors that are profiting from the education enterprise truly wanted to show concern and true sponsorship, they would cover the cost for participants.

I certainly do not want to come off as angry or combative; I’m partly asking for some explanations or clarification on what appears, to me at least, to be an unfortunate and disconcerting situation.

Thanks in advance for any explanations or clarification you can offer. Perhaps I’ll see you at NECC?

Best,
JB

1. Dave says:

   June 4, 2008 at 5:56 pm

   I think it’s a question worth asking and I think you did a good job of saying that you’re not asking in a hostile way. It really is strikingly ironic. I’m pretty sure the answer will be something like “it costs more”…and it probably does.
2. Jon Becker says:

   June 5, 2008 at 11:20 am

   Thanks, Dave. I’m sure it does cost more, but if there will be, say, 100 attendees, @$50 per, that’s $5K. That’s petty cash for some of the corporate sponsors. But, you knew that…
3. Tim Holt says:

   August 22, 2008 at 12:18 pm

   I have written about the larger issue of equity and also pointed out the irony of having to have $50 to learn about equity…
   http://snipurl.com/3it0b
4. Jon Becker says:

   August 22, 2008 at 11:07 pm

   That’s a great post, Tim. Thanks for stopping by and pointing me to that. Lately I’ve been wondering if the ed. tech blog/twitter/network is not only an echo chamber, but one that is a bit nearsighted (i.e. unaware of the big picture). I understand that many are working really hard in their own backyards, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be at least some attention paid to those beyond the chamber.