Three States Get Internet Grants
By Sandra Sobieraj
Associated Press Writer
Saturday, February 8, 1997; 10:07 a.m. EST
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Claiming great strides toward the promise to link every American classroom and library to the computer Internet, the Clinton administration is releasing the first of $200 million in grants for equipment and training.
"That's how we must prepare our children for the 21st century -- with the full promise of the Information Age at their fingertips," President Clinton said today in announcing the first wave of grants by the Education Department.
In his weekly radio address, Clinton also said a new survey by the department found that 65 percent of schools were connected to the Internet as of last fall, compared with 35 percent in 1994. "We are making a lot of progress," he said.
But the survey also found that just one in five public school teachers used advanced telecommunications for teaching, and only 13 percent of public schools required teacher training in the technology.
Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, who joined in the radio broadcast, had pledged in their re-election campaign to help wire every American classroom and library to the Internet by 2000.
Winning grants today were Illinois, Mississippi and New Mexico, which will share $14.3 million to buy classroom computers, provide Internet access and train teachers to use it. The 1998 budget plan that Clinton released earlier this week would increase funds for the "technology literacy" program to $500 million.
Under a telecommunications overhaul bill that the president signed a year ago today, the Federal Communications Commission is negotiating with industry to provide discounted Internet access fees for schools and libraries.
Clinton also used the radio address to plug his $51 billion education budget, portions of which congressional Republicans have questioned as excessively bureaucratic.
"During the Cold War, America had a bipartisan commitment to foreign policy and politics stopped at the water's edge," the president said. "Today, education is a critical national security issue for our future, and our politics must stop at the schoolhouse door."
Here is a good organization.
netday.org |
