Dennis Pierce

Education technology consultant Alan November says these are the lessons that every student should be learning in today's schools -- but not every middle or high school is teaching these...

About $5 billion of the estimated $19.5 billion in eRate funds committed to schools and libraries from 1998 to 2006 were never used, according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

If Harvard Business School's Clayton Christensen is right, half of all instruction will take place online within the next 10 years--and schools had better get into the online-learning market or risk losing their students to other providers.

Business leaders are intensifying their call for schools to retool their curriculum. A new report makes a strong economic case for why students must learn key 21st-century skills. And Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama (IL) has highlighted an education plan that addresses the need to meet rising global challenges.

Despite gains in the number of households that are online and the number of computing devices in the hands of students, making sure all learners have equitable access to technology resources continues to be a challenge in the United States and worldwide.

With so much money at stake, and a byzantine application process, the E-rate is the source of nightmares for many participants. Yet, despite the program's complexity, three out of four applicants say the E-rate is meeting its goal of connecting schools and libraries to the Internet, according to a comprehensive new survey--and many applicants say they couldn't do without it.

A five-year, $28 million contract awarded to Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) to manage the information systems used to administer the federal E-rate has some E-rate service providers crying foul.