Helping Bridge the Digital Divide

HELPING BRIDGE THE DIGITAL DIVIDE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Joi Preciphs joi.preciphs@dowjones.com]
It is hard to get a decent-paying job if you can't use a computer. But with hectic lives and transportation problems, it is often a struggle for low-wage workers to find time for classroom training or ways to get there. So with a federal grant, New Jersey state officials in 2001 piloted a program that gave low-income mothers who had been working for at least four months laptops, printers and Internet access so they could do computer and job-skills training from home over the Internet. There was a bonus offer -- the computer was theirs to keep if they passed a skills test at the end of a year. The results have been impressive: 92% of the 128 women in the first class finished, and those who finished managed an average 14% pay increase. Fifteen went on to college or community college. The state has since expanded the program to seven of its 29 One-Stop Career Centers, and opened it to men as well. Now, a handful of other states are copying the program.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114290635409003678.html?mod=todays_us_ma...
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