Consensus: e-Rate a success -- but still needed

CONSENSUS: E-RATE A SUCCESS -- BUT STILL NEEDED
[SOURCE: eSchool News]
After 10 years of e-Rate support, more than 90 percent of classrooms in rural, high-minority, and low-income school districts now have Internet connections, allowing them to leverage modern communications tools to support student achievement, a new report says. Although such progress is significant, the report notes the program's work is hardly complete: Schools and libraries not only must sustain their current access levels, but also need to expand their bandwidth capacities to ensure that students, teachers, and community members keep pace with the ever-expanding digital resources available online. Created in 1997, the e-Rate is a federally funded program that provides up to $2.25 billion per year in discounts on telecommunications services, Internet access, and internal networking to U.S. public and private schools and public libraries. To date, nearly $19 billion in discounts have been provided to schools and libraries. (much more at the URL below)
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStoryts.cfm?ArticleID=6882