SB 104-09: COMET Act of 2021 (Passed)

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

AN ACT
To make sure that schools have educational devices for their students and high speed internet in schools


Be it enacted by the Senate of the Republic of Atlasia assembled

Section 1. Title

This legislation may be cited as the School Technology Grants Act of 2021.

Section 2. Content

1. $75 billion shall be appropriated to school districts across Atlasia for purchasing devices that may include buying laptops/tablets/desktop computers/iPads/iMacs/Macbooks/ for educational use towards students.
2. $5 billion shall be appropriated towards making sure that every school in Atlasia has access to high speed WiFi.
3. The Government of the Republic of Atlasia shall have full responsibility for funding everything in this Act.

Section 3. Taking Effect
1. This Act shall take effect immediately following the passage of this bill.

Sponsor: Ishan Joseph Cao

The gentleman from the Virgin Islands is recognized.

[Senator-elect Spark]

In full support of bringing additional educational technology into our classrooms across the land.

[Continential]

This Act will make sure that every student in this country has access to educational devices that will help them learn and this act will make sure that every school in this country has access to high-speed internet.

[AGA]

Is the current education budget insufficient? I am wary of additional deficit spending.

[Joseph Cao]

So firstly, seconding AGA's concerns about where exactly this fits into the budget.

In addition, we allocated several billion dollars' worth of funds for this exact purpose not two months ago with the Let's Get Wired Act, itself built on the CHONKYFIRE Act. I suppose there may be a case to be made for adding a specific category to improve connectivity in schools, as opposed to the existing categories of improving connectivity nationwide and expanding connectivity in schools, but I apologize if it doesn't seem obvious to me at the moment.

If you are looking at purchasing these devices directly then there is also a 5% tax on such devices to consider in your final accounting.

[SevenEleven]

As has been stated, I don't think internet access is something we need to worry about, as all schools should be sufficient or on track to be soon.

Regarding investing in educational technology, this is certainly the direction that our schools need to move toward and most are. So I would support bringing equipment to schools that aren't able to acquire it themselves. Perhaps we can drop this bill for now and work some of the goals into a broader educational package.

[Joseph Cao]

Also, and I realize this really should have been done during initial questioning, may I ask how the sponsor derived that $75 billion figure?

(There will be an amendment forthcoming but I'd like to get Ishan's feedback on this.)

[Dr. MB]

introducing an amendment

AN ACT
To make sure that schools have educational devices for their students and high speed internet in schools


Be it enacted by the Senate of the Republic of Atlasia assembled

Section 1. Title

This legislation may be cited as the School Technology Grants Act of 2021.

Section 2. Content

1. $75 billion shall be appropriated to school districts across Atlasia for purchasing devices that may include buying laptops/tablets/desktop computers/iPads/iMacs/Macbooks/ for educational use towards students.
2. $5 billion shall be appropriated towards making sure that every school in Atlasia has access to high speed WiFi.
3. The Government of the Republic of Atlasia shall have full responsibility for funding everything in this Act.
4. No federal government funds may be used for purchase of new or additional school security equipment, including but not limited to surveillance cameras, facial recognition devices, or metal detectors.

Section 3. Taking Effect
1. This Act shall take effect immediately following the passage of this bill.

[Continential]

The amendment is friendly.

[Joseph Cao]

Also, and I realize this really should have been done during initial questioning, may I ask how the sponsor derived that $75 billion figure?

Ishan?

[Continential]

Also, and I realize this really should have been done during initial questioning, may I ask how the sponsor derived that $75 billion figure?

Ishan?

Presuming that every student gets a computer and since there are 56.4 million students, and if everyone gets a $1250 computer, the total cost would be 70.5 billion. I chose 75 billion because some computers could be more expensive.

[Joseph Cao]

Also, and I realize this really should have been done during initial questioning, may I ask how the sponsor derived that $75 billion figure?

Ishan?

Presuming that every student gets a computer and since there are 56.4 million students, and if everyone gets a $1250 computer, the total cost would be 70.5 billion. I chose 75 billion because some computers could be more expensive.

Right, thanks. Napkin math with your figures and the 5% tax I mentioned earlier does bring the total cost up to about 74 billion, in case we need to think about raising that figure slightly to account for higher prices.

[AGA]

Lots of schools already have computers for their students, though.

[Joseph Cao]

Assuming MB's amendment has passed I'll just introduce this.

AN ACT
To make sure that schools have educational devices for their students and high speed internet in schools.


Be it enacted by the Senate of the Republic of Atlasia assembled,

Section 1. Title

This legislation may be cited as the School Technology Grants Act of 2021.

Section 2. Content

1. $75 billion shall be appropriated to school districts across Atlasia for purchasing devices that may include buying laptops/tablets/desktop computers/iPads/iMacs/Macbooks/ for educational use towards students.
2. $5 billion shall be appropriated towards making sure that every school in Atlasia has access to high speed WiFi.
32. The Government of the Republic of Atlasia shall have full responsibility for funding everything in this Act.
43. No federal government funds may be used for purchase of new or additional school security equipment, including but not limited to surveillance cameras, facial recognition devices, or metal detectors.

Section 3. Taking Effect
1. This Act shall take effect immediately following the passage of this bill.

As has been said, we've allocated plenty towards making sure all areas of Atlasia get high-speed internet access, including school districts. It isn't a problem that needs to be solved a second time in a separate bill like this one.

And on a separate note, there really ought to be some kind of more targeted way to approach this problem; as AGA has mentioned, not all schools will need these devices. Targeting lower-income school districts or districts with less internet infrastructure might work better than just throwing laptops at every student. In the latter case there might also need to be a section to tie this bill's implementation to that of our previous broadband bills to prevent schools ending up with devices that they can't use.

[wxtransit]

Assuming MB's amendment has passed I'll just introduce this.

AN ACT
To make sure that schools have educational devices for their students and high speed internet in schools.


Be it enacted by the Senate of the Republic of Atlasia assembled,

Section 1. Title

This legislation may be cited as the School Technology Grants Act of 2021.

Section 2. Content

1. $75 billion shall be appropriated to school districts across Atlasia for purchasing devices that may include buying laptops/tablets/desktop computers/iPads/iMacs/Macbooks/ for educational use towards students.
2. $5 billion shall be appropriated towards making sure that every school in Atlasia has access to high speed WiFi.
32. The Government of the Republic of Atlasia shall have full responsibility for funding everything in this Act.
43. No federal government funds may be used for purchase of new or additional school security equipment, including but not limited to surveillance cameras, facial recognition devices, or metal detectors.

Section 3. Taking Effect
1. This Act shall take effect immediately following the passage of this bill.

As has been said, we've allocated plenty towards making sure all areas of Atlasia get high-speed internet access, including school districts. It isn't a problem that needs to be solved a second time in a separate bill like this one.

And on a separate note, there really ought to be some kind of more targeted way to approach this problem; as AGA has mentioned, not all schools will need these devices. Targeting lower-income school districts or districts with less internet infrastructure might work better than just throwing laptops at every student. In the latter case there might also need to be a section to tie this bill's implementation to that of our previous broadband bills to prevent schools ending up with devices that they can't use.

Fully agree. Giving excess laptops to districts that already have sets of laptops for their students would not only be an extra cost for our government but also be environmentally wasteful.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Yes, MB's amendment has been adopted. Sponsor feedback is needed for Cao's amendment.

[Continential]

Friendly.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Senators have 24 hours to object to Senator Cao's amendment.

[Joseph Cao]

Working on an amendment to address my earlier concerns. Might have it up within a day or two depending on scheduling things.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

Can the sponsor specify what exactly this adds to the acts already passed by previous Congresses? I don't think it makes sense to just keep throwing money at something we already threw money at and haven't seen the results of.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Cao's amendment is adopted.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Based on what Transit said, shouldn't we then go lower than the $75 billion since if I read the number above correctly, that would be for every student, correct?

[Joseph Cao]

Sorry about the amendment delay, everyone. RL plus the costing stuff Yankee alluded to is proving an extremely thorny pain in the u kno what.

And for the record, assuming Ishan is not about to answer, the act as it currently stands has no overlap with other laws – my amendment cut all that out and hopefully the upcoming one will make it more targeted on top of that.

[KoopaDaQuick 🇵🇸]

Before we go any further with this bill, are we sure that every school in Atlasia needs tablets and laptops and everything? Classroom technology can do some amazing things, don't get me wrong, but I'm not 110% convinced that spending the extra money on technological infrastructure will actually help raise test scores, increase student attention and participation, get more homework turned in, etc.? We could be throwing 70 billion taxpayer dollars on something that students have gone fine without for centuries.

[Continential]

I'd like to apologize for not responding to the question about overlap and to answer the question by Senator Koopa, lets say there is a pandemic like this one, should poorer student be disadvantaged by not having a laptop or tablet and not being able to access the learning that a student can get by having a computer. For instance, my textbooks can be accessed online which means that you can learn almost anywhere. Also, students can learn from websites like Khan Academy if you give every student a laptop.

Schools can have after school tutoring and it is more easier for someone who poorer to do it online than to do it at school because their parents would have to travel to school to pick them up if they had to stay at school. Also from personal experience, I have a class on robotics and coding in school, and laptops are nearly essential, especially in coding.