Digital Promise needs your help!
We need everyone to contact their congressmen and encourage them to please support the new National Center in their fiscal year 2010 appropriations requests.
Below is a sample letter and an attachment that you can send to them.
To find you senators and representatives you can use the links below.
Senate
House of Representatives
Download Attachment File
[Date]
The Honorable [Name of Senator or Representative]
[U.S. Senate] or [U.S. House of Representatives]
Washington, DC [20510 for Senate] [20515 for House of Reps.]
Dear [Senator ___ or Representative ___]:
I write today to ask for your support for $50 million in funding for the National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies in the FY 2010 Labor, HHS, Education Appropriations bill. The National Center, a Congressionally-created 501(c)(3) housed in the Department of Education and authorized in the Higher Education Act last summer, was supported on a bi-partisan basis in both the House and Senate.
The program’s goal is no less than to revolutionize America’s education, workplace training, and lifelong learning through the development and use of advanced digital information technologies. While these technologies have transformed almost every other sector of society – from our nation’s economy, communications, and financial systems, to our defense needs and daily lives – the nation’s education and training institutions are not taking advantage of these technologies. The National Center will enable our nation’s schools, universities, libraries, museums, health service systems, public broadcasters, and others to reach out to millions of people in inner cities and rural areas, no matter how poor or remote, with the best of the educational and informational content now locked inside their walls.
[Insert paragraph on what the program will do for your institution.]
The National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies will support the research and development of new models and prototypes of educational content, state-of-the-art simulation, visualization, and other tools, while fully incorporating the Internet and other new digital distribution technologies.
Furthermore, this new program will provide an excellent boost to the economy by providing an investment in technology and innovation in the education and training sectors. As thousands of Americans continue to lose their jobs in this economic downturn, it is especially important to boost the job training sector. Funding the National Center would boost the economy in the short term, and would also lead to continued economic growth in the future. Moreover, the National Center is an essential ingredient in plans to make infrastructure investments. As you know, intelligent infrastructure plans must include new technologies for learning in all aspects of life, both for workforce training and for formal and informal education.
The attached summary explains our funding request for $50 million. We would appreciate your support of the new program in your FY 2010 appropriations requests. As always, thank you for your leadership and support on this important issue.
Sincerely,