SEATTLE (AP) — Washington state's new Charter School Commission opened the statewide application process for...
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Showing posts with label Schools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Schools. Show all posts
Saturday, October 5, 2013
Friday, October 4, 2013
Ga. high court rules in favor of charter schools
ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia's highest court has upheld a Fulton County court ruling that bars Atlanta Public Schools from using tax dollars to pay for its pension obligations before distributing a share of the money to local charter schools.
The unanimous ruling announced today by the Supreme Court of Georgia means the Atlanta school system can't deduct millions of dollars from its revenue to pay for its expenses before distributing the money to startup charter schools.
The justices decided that state law is clear regarding how the money is to be...
Already have an account? Please login.Nutter brings schools message to Corbett
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Inadequate funding for Pennsylvania's largest school district could damage the futures of the students and the state's economy, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said Monday after he lobbied Gov. Tom Corbett for more aid.
Nutter, a second-term Democrat, declined to lay blame for the worst fiscal crisis in memory in Philadelphia's schools. But he said things have to change.
"We cannot continue to go year after year after year with literally hat in hand to — whether its City Council and the mayor or the General Assembly and the governor — begging for the bare minimums," Nutter told reporters following a meeting in the Capitol with the Republican governor. "This is an economic issue. It's beyond a moral issue now. It is potentially damaging the futures of children, the economy of the city and, I would suggest,...
Already have an account? Please login.Why Schools Must Talk About Trayvon Martin
I applaud the San Diego school board’s decision this summer to promote student discussion about Trayvon Martin in middle and high schools. More districts and schools should follow.
As an educator, I know that students need space to voice their opinions. Yet I also know that people often feel uneasy about such dialogues, especially ones with racial overtones. Some may wonder whether schools have the capacity to hold these kinds of tough conversations.
The questions around promoting contentious conversations are messy. We raise schools up as institutions for democracy, even when they have historically fallen short of this ideal when it comes to persistent social ills, such as segregation, student dropout rates, poverty, and school violence. Given this context, many may ask whether schools are proper forums for...
Already have an account? Please login.Thursday, October 3, 2013
New Research Consortium Targets D.C. Schools
Schools in the nation's capital end up the guinea pigs for many new education programs and policies, but now they will get a stronger say in research to figure out which of...
Already have an account? Please login.Schools criticized for bans on dreadlocks, Afros
"Why are you so sad?" a TV reporter asked the little girl with a bright pink bow in her hair.
"Because they didn't like my dreads," she sobbed, wiping her tears. "I think that they should let me have my dreads."
With those words, second-grader Tiana Parker of Tulsa, Okla., found herself, at age 7, at the center of decades of debate over standards of black beauty, cultural pride...
Already have an account? Please login.Wednesday, October 2, 2013
APNewsbreak: Miss. picks Wright to lead schools
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi's state Board of Education has chosen former Washington., D.C., schools administrator Carey Wright as superintendent of education.
A person with direct knowledge of her selection told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the appointment had not...
Already have an account? Please login.At Minn. Catholic schools, gay rights debate stir
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Recent remarks about inclusiveness by the new president of the University of St. Thomas have heartened gay and lesbian advocacy groups on...
Already have an account? Please login.Many Iowa schools not meeting federal standards
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — More than half of Iowa's schools did not meet educational targets set by the No Child Left Behind Law during the latest academic year, according to a report released Tuesday.
But State Education Department Director Brad Buck said the results make clear that the federal program is a bad fit for states and needs to be revised.
Buck says the current system doesn't acknowledge different needs in different schools. He also says schools making progress with disadvantaged...
Already have an account? Please login.Monday, September 30, 2013
Marshfield schools say union law is saving money
MARSHFIELD, Wis. (AP) — Gov. Scott Walker's legislation that eliminated most public employees' union rights has helped at least one school district significantly reduce its salary...
Already have an account? Please login.Saturday, July 13, 2013
U.S. News Releases 2013 Best High Schools for STEM Rankings
High Tech High School in New Jersey continues its reign as the best public high school for STEM.It's not every day that a politician, a beauty queen and a hip hop star champion the same cause, but don't tell that to President Barack Obama, reigning Miss America Mallory Hagan and Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am.
All three are using their fame to promote STEM education, and it's not hard to understand why. Training in science, technology, engineering and math can place students in the pipeline for in-demand career fields such as software development, biomedicine and aerospace engineering.
Early exposure to those subjects is key to preparing high school graduates to eventually fill the millions of jobs waiting for technically skilled workers. The U.S. News 2013 Best High Schools for STEM rankings, released today, identify public high schools excelling at that task.
The rankings evaluate 500 gold medal public schools from the 2013 Best High Schools rankings, using Advanced Placement STEM test data for 2011 graduates as the benchmark. Of those schools, 250 earned a numerical rank for their STEM achievement.
[Learn more about how U.S. News calculated the STEM rankings.]
High Technology High School in New Jersey continues to outpace its peers on that front, earning the title of the Best High School for STEM for the third straight year. Students at the highly competitive school come from more than 50 school districts to immerse themselves in a curriculum rich with math, science and technology.
Students at High Tech High kick off their freshman year with courses in software applications and engineering design, take physics as sophomores and can earn college credit while studying sustainable energy at Brookdale Community College. The high school is located on Brookdale's campus, so students can easily go back and forth between the two.
Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Virginia and Troy High School in California did not ease up on their STEM focus, either. Both schools retained second and third place billing, respectively.
At Thomas Jefferson, students benefit from research labs rarely seen outside of a university setting. Job shadowing and internships at Troy help students connect the dots between classroom theory and real-world application.
[See photos of the best STEM high schools.]
Academy of Allied Health and Science made significant gains in STEM achievement, climbing from No. 135 to the No. 4 spot. The New Jersey school is one of 12 from the Garden State to break the top 100 in this year's rankings.
The Academy's swift rise illustrates the close competition between schools in the STEM rankings. A 12.4-point jump in the school's STEM index was enough to propel the school 131 places. That index, calculated by U.S. News, is based on the percentage of 2011 AP test-taking graduates who took – and passed – AP math and science exams.
Okemos High School in Michigan also improved leaps and bounds in the 2013 STEM rankings. The Chieftains jumped 73 spots to claim the No. 8 position.
Located across the street from Michigan State University's campus, Okemos is one of only two Michigan high schools to make the top 100 of the STEM rankings. The other – East Lansing High School – is just five miles up the road.
[See which top-ranked universities produce the most STEM degrees.]
California, New York and New Jersey are home to the lion's share of the Best High Schools for STEM in the country. The three states combined house nearly half of the public schools that earned a numerical rank this year. Close to 45 of the ranked STEM schools are either charter or magnet schools.
Stay up to date with the U.S. News High School Notes blog.
Friday, July 12, 2013
STEM High Schools Built on More Than Science and Math
STEM schools rely heavily on project-based learning and challenging lessons to drive student engagement.Take a peek at the foundation of a specialized STEM high school and you might be surprised by what you find.
The schools are not built on science, technology, engineering and math courses, said Aimee Kennedy, chief academic officer of Metro Early College High School in Ohio.
"If that's all it took to be considered a STEM school, any school in the country could do it," Kennedy said Wednesday during a panel discussion at the 2013 U.S. News STEM Solutions conference in Austin.
[See the best STEM high schools in pictures.]
Instead, these niche schools are built on project-based learning, critical thinking and collaboration – a model that can be replicated at schools across the country, according to STEM school leaders.
"Too often we focus on what we teach," said Steven Zipkes, founding principal of Manor New Technology High School in Texas. "In reality, it's not what we teach, it's how we teach."
Most teachers rely on lectures as their primary teaching method, he said. The result is students are "bored out of their minds."
Bored students are not engaged students, he said, so at Manor New Tech, teachers don't lecture. They don't use textbooks or offer Advanced Placement courses, either.
Instead, students complete 65 projects over the course of the school year. After each project, they give a public presentation. The school partners with business leaders to develop the projects using real-world problems, then builds in state standards, Zipkes said.
[Don't fall for these STEM education myths.]
The approach earned praise from President Barack Obama, who paid Manor New Tech a visit last month.
"The folks around here are doing something right and I think the rest of the country could learn from what you're doing," the president said during his visit. "Every day this school is proving that every child has the potential to learn the real-world skills they need to succeed in college and beyond."
Mimicking the success of schools such as Manor New Tech and Metro Early College – which boast high attendance, graduation and college acceptance rates – requires giving teachers the autonomy to collaborate and create challenging lessons that integrate STEM at every level, the panelists said.
"It is easily replicable, but you have to have that mindset that it's not the same old, same old," Zipkes said.
Both schools look for teachers that buy into that philosophy and are willing to learn and develop alongside their students.
These teachers also subscribe to the belief that all students are capable of learning, said panelist Lizzette Gonzalez Reynolds, chief deputy commissioner of the Texas Education Agency.
[Learn how high schools are fostering innovation.]
"They're not sitting around whining … saying 'Look what they sent me. How am I going to teach this kid,'" she said.
The agency oversees the Lone Star State's T-STEM initiative, which includes nearly 80 STEM academies serving more than 41,000 students across the state, many of whom are low-income and minority students.
These academies all follow a blueprint that includes personalized learning, counseling, professional development for students and teachers and advisory boards that bring together parents, teachers and business leaders.
"This isn't about creating a bunch of engineers," Reynolds said. "This is about maintaining rigor."
Have something of interest to share? Send your news to us at highschoolnotes@usnews.com.
Monday, July 8, 2013
Consider Law Schools With In-House Firms, Incubators
Incubators at law schools can help recent graduates get their firms off the ground.After Nicholas Edelson graduated from law school in 2003, it took him years to find his niche as an attorney working with subprime mortgages.
Just when he was comfortable, the subprime market took a turn for the worse.
"By the time the bubble collapsed in August of 2007, I was in contract to buy my own place, my wife was pregnant and my own business was going right down the tubes," says the City University of New York graduate. "I joined the incubator right after that."
[Evaluate law professors before choosing a school.]
Edelson was a member of the inaugural group admitted to the Incubator for Justice program at CUNY. The incubator provides between eight and 10 law graduates with training and mentoring as they start their own practices serving disadvantaged communities. Attorneys stay in the incubator for about 18 months.
The school created the first law school incubator, says Lisa Reiner, interim director of the Community Legal Resource Network at CUNY. Since then possibly a dozen schools have started similar programs, which have some similarities to a school's legal clinic.
One main difference is the number of cases someone may handle. A law student may have one or two cases through a school clinic. A law graduate in an incubator may have 25 cases.
Schools that provide new attorneys with the option of joining an incubator or a similar program can be enticing to prospective law students.
"A number of people come to law school saying 'My goal is to set up a community practice,'" says Reiner. "It's very hard to just do it on a dime with no community and no support. So that's an attractive option for people who have that idea and they want to do that. It's also attractive as the landscape changes as far as what options there are for lawyers to practice. The option of practicing on one's own becomes more attractive to people."
[Learn how to discuss diversity in law school applications.]
At the Pace Community Law Practice, which opened in September, law graduates get hands-on training serving clients who often can't afford the standard rate for legal services. Their practice areas include immigration, family law and disability rights, among other things.
"We're learning about office management, ethics, interviewing and counseling clients, advocacy," says Craig Relles, a 2012 graduate of Pace University.
After a year, fellows gain some independence and can open their own office. Relles says it's an excellent transition from law school to practicing as an attorney. But wanting to help people who can't afford legal services is imperative.
"For people who are just looking to have a job, something like this probably isn't the best thing," he says. "You need to be also committed to the work."
[Learn which law schools have the highest median LSAT.]
For Kristi Lee Graham, working at her school's incubator allowed her to jump-start her career goals. She always wanted to start her own practice but thought it would take five to 10 years.
Graham joined The Center for Solo Practitioners at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, her alma mater, just a few months after it opened last fall. It had been less than five years since she graduated.
About the Best High Schools Rankings
How to Use the Rankings
Methodology
Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.10 Public Schools With the Cheapest Out-of-State Tuition
The U.S. News Short List, separate from our overall rankings, is a regular series that magnifies individual data points in hopes of providing students and parents a way to find which undergraduate or graduate programs excel or have room to grow in specific areas. Be sure to explore The Short List: College and The Short List: Grad School to find data that matters to you in your college or grad school search.
State schools can allow college students to get a top-rated education without venturing too far from home or dropping loads of cash on a private institution.
The University of Michigan—Ann Arbor, University of Virginia and the University of California—Los Angeles, for example, all rank among the top 30 universities in the country and offer sticker prices below $13,500 for students lucky enough to live in those states. That is a bargain when compared with the more than $40,000 tuition rates at similarly ranked private institutions such as Carnegie Mellon University or the University of Southern California.
As soon as students cross state lines, tuition at most public schools doubles, though.
[Find advice and resources on paying for college.]
Out-of-state tuition averaged roughly $19,100 for the 2012-2013 school year, compared with nearly $8,300 for in-state students, according to data reported by 331 ranked public colleges in an annual survey by U.S. News.
But closer isn't always cheaper. Regional exchange programs allow students to attend select schools in nearby states for a fraction of out-of-state tuition, but come with conditions and restrictions. Financial aid packages that include scholarships and grants can also slash nonresident tuition.
[Learn how to get in-state tuition at out-of-state colleges.]
Students who don't qualify for either of those options aren't confined to their home states. Some colleges keep out-of-state tuition low to attract a diverse blend of students from across the country.
Minot State University in North Dakota set tuition for 2012-2013 at just under $6,000 for all students, regardless of residency, making it the least expensive public college for out-of-state students.
West Texas A&M University, Louisiana State University—Alexandria and the University of South Dakota are also among the 10 cheapest public schools for nonresident students. Average out-of-state tuition at these 10 schools was roughly $8,600 for 2012-2013, just a few hundred dollars more than average in-state tuition across the country.
[Discover 10 ways to save on college costs.]
The five military academies, which charge $0 in tuition in return for postgraduate service, were excluded from this list, as were schools designated by U.S. News as Unranked. U.S. News did not calculate a numerical ranking for Unranked programs because the program did not meet certain criteria that U.S. News requires to be numerically ranked.
Below are the least expensive public colleges for out-of-state students, based on tuition and required fees. These figures do not include room and board, books, transportation or other costs.
School name (state)Tuition and fees (2012-2013)U.S. News rank and category107, Regional Universities (Midwest)72, Regional Universities (West)93, Regional Universities (Midwest)51, Regional Colleges (Midwest)51, Regional Colleges (Midwest)RNP*, Regional Universities (West)RNP, National Liberal Arts Colleges72, Regional Colleges (Midwest)*RNP denotes an institution that is ranked in the bottom one-fourth of its rankings category. U.S. News calculates a rank for the school but has decided not to publish it.
Don't see your school in the top 10? Access the U.S. News College Compass to find tuition data, complete rankings and much more. School officials can access historical data and rankings, including of peer institutions, via U.S. News Academic Insights.
U.S. News surveyed more than 1,800 colleges and universities for our 2012 survey of undergraduate programs. Schools self-reported a myriad of data regarding their academic programs and the makeup of their student body, among other areas, making U.S. News's data the most accurate and detailed collection of college facts and figures of its kind. While U.S. News uses much of this survey data to rank schools for our annual Best Colleges rankings, the data can also be useful when examined on a smaller scale. U.S. News will now produce lists of data, separate from the overall rankings, meant to provide students and parents a means to find which schools excel, or have room to grow, in specific areas that are important to them. While the data come from the schools themselves, these lists are not related to, and have no influence over, U.S. News's rankings of Best Colleges or Best Graduate Schools. The tuition and fees data above are correct as of June 25, 2013.
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Fostering Innovation in High Schools
Team testing in high schools mimics workplace problem solving, and studies show it can also boost student engagement.Social media manager. App designer. Offshore wind farm engineer. Sustainability manager. Ten years ago, none of these jobs existed. Today, they are hot careers.
So how do you prepare high school students to work in – or create – a field that doesn't exist?
By injecting collaboration and creativity into the classroom, says Stephan Turnipseed, president of LEGO Education North America. Beyond their iconic building blocks, LEGO offers curriculum and professional development for teachers and sponsors robotics competitions for students.
"At 2 years old, when you do the standard creativity test, we are all – almost 100 percent of us – creative geniuses," he says. "By the end of 12 years of education only 3 percent score at that same level."
[Discover what the future workforce will look like.]
Turning that trend around requires occasionally tossing aside some steadfast notions in the education world, he says.
"We should be stressing things like collaborative test taking," where each member of the testing team has a role, Turnipseed says. "When I was a kid that was called cheating."
Tasking teens to work in pairs to solve problems more closely mimics real-world problem solving than traditional testing environments. It also boosts student achievement, according to studies.
One high school English teacher found that her students scored 20 percentage points higher than those who had taken the same test in previous years, according to one report. The difference: team testing.
"Students were listening to one another, talking to their peers about test items, trying to decipher the correct answer and debating why an answer was or was not the best response," the report notes.
Traditional testing methods are often criticized for promoting memorization over actual learning, but they can also stifle creativity, Turnipseed suggests.
"We ingrain in our students and our children that there is only one right answer," he says, adding that while two plus two equals four in a normal math problem, in certain realms of physics, it doesn't. "That's probably not the best way forward."
[Learn how teenage scientists innovated new medical therapies.]
Instead, teachers should create an environment where there are a variety of correct answers to a given challenge, Turnipseed says. That could mean having students devise a solution to an irrigation issue, or build a robot and then figure out how to make it go faster.
"You can't do this everywhere. But in STEM, it is absolutely doable. It is eminently doable," he says. "Of all the disciplines that we learn in school, STEM is an area where you can always have a world where there is more than one right answer."
Giving high school students opportunities to create and solve problems – and the freedom to devise multiple solutions – helps give classroom activities relevance and better prepares students for the workplace, he says.
Pulling that "imagination-creativity lever" can also inspire a student to be the next great inventor, he says.
"Start pushing kids to use their imagination and to use creativity in the appropriate environment and that would drive a lot of the results we need in innovation," he says.
Have something of interest to share? Send your news to us at highschoolnotes@usnews.com.
Friday, July 5, 2013
Fostering Innovation in High Schools
Team testing in high schools mimics workplace problem solving, and studies show it can also boost student engagement.Social media manager. App designer. Offshore wind farm engineer. Sustainability manager. Ten years ago, none of these jobs existed. Today, they are hot careers.
So how do you prepare high school students to work in – or create – a field that doesn't exist?
By injecting collaboration and creativity into the classroom, says Stephan Turnipseed, president of LEGO Education North America. Beyond their iconic building blocks, LEGO offers curriculum and professional development for teachers and sponsors robotics competitions for students.
"At 2 years old, when you do the standard creativity test, we are all – almost 100 percent of us – creative geniuses," he says. "By the end of 12 years of education only 3 percent score at that same level."
[Discover what the future workforce will look like.]
Turning that trend around requires occasionally tossing aside some steadfast notions in the education world, he says.
"We should be stressing things like collaborative test taking," where each member of the testing team has a role, Turnipseed says. "When I was a kid that was called cheating."
Tasking teens to work in pairs to solve problems more closely mimics real-world problem solving than traditional testing environments. It also boosts student achievement, according to studies.
One high school English teacher found that her students scored 20 percentage points higher than those who had taken the same test in previous years, according to one report. The difference: team testing.
"Students were listening to one another, talking to their peers about test items, trying to decipher the correct answer and debating why an answer was or was not the best response," the report notes.
Traditional testing methods are often criticized for promoting memorization over actual learning, but they can also stifle creativity, Turnipseed suggests.
"We ingrain in our students and our children that there is only one right answer," he says, adding that while two plus two equals four in a normal math problem, in certain realms of physics, it doesn't. "That's probably not the best way forward."
[Learn how teenage scientists innovated new medical therapies.]
Instead, teachers should create an environment where there are a variety of correct answers to a given challenge, Turnipseed says. That could mean having students devise a solution to an irrigation issue, or build a robot and then figure out how to make it go faster.
"You can't do this everywhere. But in STEM, it is absolutely doable. It is eminently doable," he says. "Of all the disciplines that we learn in school, STEM is an area where you can always have a world where there is more than one right answer."
Giving high school students opportunities to create and solve problems – and the freedom to devise multiple solutions – helps give classroom activities relevance and better prepares students for the workplace, he says.
Pulling that "imagination-creativity lever" can also inspire a student to be the next great inventor, he says.
"Start pushing kids to use their imagination and to use creativity in the appropriate environment and that would drive a lot of the results we need in innovation," he says.
Have something of interest to share? Send your news to us at highschoolnotes@usnews.com.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
G.O.P. Bill on Schools Would Set Fewer Rules
Coming two days after Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa and chairman of the Senate education committee, released a 1,150-page education bill, the bill by Mr. Alexander, who is the ranking Republican on the committee, will compete with it. The Alexander bill is described in its introduction as restoring “freedom to parents, teachers, principals, governors and local communities so that they can improve their local public schools.” At less than one-fifth the length of Mr. Harkin’s bill, Mr. Alexander’s legislation would allow states to devise curriculum standards, tests, school rating systems and consequences for schools that fail to meet state goals with far fewer guidelines than are included in the Harkin bill. Both bills would amend the half-century-old Elementary and Secondary Education Act that governs public schools receiving federal money to support the most vulnerable students. “What they are really saying is they don’t trust parents and they don’t trust classroom teachers and states to care about and help educate their children, and they want someone in Washington do it for them,” Mr. Alexander said of Democrats in a telephone interview. “I just completely reject that.” Congress has repeatedly failed to revise No Child Left Behind, which has been up for reauthorization since 2007. Starting last year, the Obama administration began granting waivers to relieve states from the law’s requirement that all students be proficient in math and reading by 2014. Under that provision, a majority of schools in the country were at risk of violating the law. Mr. Alexander’s bill continues the current law’s requirement of testing students in reading and math in third through eighth grades and once in high school. All schools must report the scores and show how different racial groups, students with disabilities, those learning the English language and poor students perform on the tests. The bill would require states to set standards that would allow students to be ready for college or a job “without the need for remediation.” Neither Mr. Harkin’s nor Mr. Alexander’s bill mandates the content of academic standards. Mr. Alexander’s bill also does not prescribe what should be included in a state’s annual goals for student performance on tests; Mr. Harkin’s bill sets more guidelines. The Alexander bill encourages, but would not require, states to set up teacher evaluation systems. It also does not mandate any turnaround measures for schools that fail to meet state goals, although it does list options including closing a school, replacing the principal or offering higher pay to recruit new teachers. Mr. Alexander said he wanted to include a provision allowing parents to take public money and put it toward any public school or accredited private school of their choice. He said that he and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky would be introducing an amendment to the bill once it reached the Senate floor to give vouchers to families to use federal dollars to attend private schools. Some who had seen parts of the bill said that leaving all decisions to states and local school districts and allowing them to set goals could disadvantage students who already start school behind. “The pressures from local superintendents and Realtors and everybody else to just make schools look good are overwhelming,” said Kati Haycock, president of the Education Trust, a nonprofit group that works to close achievement gaps for racial minorities and poor children. “And it is very hard to maintain a real focus, especially on the kids that have been behind.” Others who had not yet seen the bill but were aware of Mr. Alexander’s preferences said that the law was meant to set conditions for receiving federal money. “Nobody is forcing a state to take this money,” said Charles Barone, policy director for Democrats for Education Reform, a group that pushes for test-based teacher evaluations and has battled teachers’ unions. “If they are not willing to do this they should just be honest about it and live without the money.””
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Obama Promises Internet Upgrade for U.S. Schools
MOORESVILLE, N.C. — President Obama visited an innovative middle school in central North Carolina on Thursday to demonstrate the Internet-based education programs that he is proposing to make available nationwide. Speaking to an audience of excited teenagers in a steamy gymnasium, Mr. Obama called on the Federal Communications Commission to expand an existing program to provide discounted high-speed Internet service to schools and libraries, even if it meant increasing the fees that for years had been added to consumers’ phone bills. He said the initiative could lead to better technology at 99 percent of schools in five years. “There’s no reason why we can’t replicate the success you’ve found here,” Mr. Obama said to the students’ cheers. “And for those of you who follow politics in Washington, here’s the best news — none of this requires an act of Congress.” To further applause, he added, “We can and we will get started right away.” Mr. Obama was joined by his education secretary, Arne Duncan, whose department would work with the F.C.C. to revamp the initiative, known as the Schools and Libraries program or E-rate, to provide local schools with Internet speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second, among the fastest commercially available. With the federal money that Mr. Obama proposes to redirect for this purpose, schools also could pay for wireless networks throughout their buildings and campuses. The president singled out Mooresville for its program, which not only upgraded technology but also provided a computer to each student and extra training for teachers. School performance has improved in turn. Mr. Duncan, speaking to reporters on Air Force One en route to North Carolina, said that he had learned of the innovations in Mooresville, a town near Charlotte, because the local school superintendent was a friend. Mr. Duncan said the school quit purchasing textbooks several years ago to pay for the technology. Mr. Obama, he added, wants to “shine a spotlight on best practices and try to take them to scale.” To pay for a similar technology expansion throughout the United States, the administration wants to improve the efficiency of the current program, and for telephone customers to pay up to $5 a year extra, or about 40 cents monthly, on their bills. The Schools and Libraries program is part of the Universal Service Fund, an $8.7 billion program that distributes money for several purposes. Nearly half the money goes to a program that has long subsidized telephone and Internet service to rural or remote areas. About $2.2 billion goes to Schools and Libraries, a similar amount supports phone service to low-income consumers, and $200 million pays for telephone and Internet service to health care professionals in rural areas. As an independent agency, the F.C.C. does not answer directly to the president, but he nominates the agency’s chairman. Any changes to the program’s structure would have to go through a rule-making procedure and be approved by a majority of the commission’s members. Currently there are three members; two seats are vacant. The program assesses the fees on phone companies, but they typically pass the cost to consumers. The tax is roughly 15 percent on the long-distance portion of phone bills, resulting in a monthly assessment of a few dollars on the average combined home and mobile phone plan. Schools and libraries that qualify for E-rate support receive discounts of 20 to 90 percent on services and equipment, depending on the household income levels of students and whether the school is in an urban or rural area. Administration officials say that while the E-rate program, established in 1996, provides low-cost Internet connections to community institutions, the speed of those services is rarely different from those that home subscribers can receive, about 20 megabits per second. That is fast enough for the average home consumer to stream video, but if dozens of classrooms are trying to view video or listen to digital audio files at the same time, a school’s network will operate much more slowly. Officials say they also expect private companies to expand their offerings of devices and products like electronic textbooks in response to the expanded program.
Jackie Calmes reported from Mooresville, N.C., and Edward Wyatt from Washington.
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