A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

                      FOR RELEASE                   Contact: David Thomas   February 25, 1997                    (202) 401-1576 

U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley announced today that Washington has received a $2.8 million grant that will help it respond to President Clinton's call to prepare students for the technological challenges of the 21st century.

In support of this goal, the president proposed a $2 billion, five-year Technology Literacy Challenge Fund to help schools use technology to improve teaching and learning. The president has challenged the nation to connect every classroom and library to the Internet by the year 2000, and envisions an America where "education will be every citizen's most prized possession."

"Our schools will have the highest standards in the world," President Clinton said. "The knowledge and power of the Information Age will be within reach not just of the few, but of every classroom, every library, every child."

In its first year, the fund totals $200 million. President Clinton has requested an increase to $425 million for fiscal year 1998.

According to a just-issued report by the department's National Center for Education Statistics, the number of schools connected to the Internet has almost doubled since 1994, while over the same period, the number of classrooms with a direct link to the Internet has quadrupled.

"We're making real progress," Riley said. "Still, we clearly have a long way to go before we can say that all students have the opportunities that new technologies can provide. I'm delighted that the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] is moving forward to assure that all schools will have affordable access to the Internet."

Overall, the administration's proposed FY98 budget requests $500 million for educational technology for the classroom -- about double the current appropriation -- to invest in hardware, education software and teacher training.

"This fund is an investment in our children and their future," Riley said. "Effective use of new technologies can broaden and strengthen the curriculum and provide every student with new tools to explore the world and to master challenging academic work."

The fund is the administration's major effort to address the president's four goals for educational technology:

• all teachers will be trained to help students learn through computers and the information superhighway;
• all students and teachers will have access to modern computers;
• all schools and classrooms will be linked to the information superhighway; and high-quality software and online resources will be part of the curriculum in every school.

"Achieving these goals," Riley said, "will require new partnerships and hard work, as well as planning and commitment. Through this fund, we hope to help states and communities move quickly to bring all students the resources and learning opportunities that technology can provide."

Washington will use the fund to help implement its Washington State Technology Plan. Under the plan, nine educational technology support centers have been created to provide assistance to school districts in several areas, including technology planning, network planning, staff development, and integration of technology. In 1996, the state awarded $10 million in competitive grants to local districts to help them implement their technology plans, which the centers helped them develop.

The fund will complement Washington's competitive grants to school districts, and at least 25 percent of the funds that each district receives will be used for staff development and teacher training on the effective use and integration of technology into classrooms and curricula.

The Technology Literacy Challenge Fund was created to help leverage state, local, and private sector efforts to improve teaching and leaning with the effective use of technology. It offers states the opportunity to provide school districts -- especially those with high rates of poverty -- with funds that will help them meet their most important technology needs.

Washington joins Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, and North Carolina as the first states to receive awards from the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund. They responded with long range, statewide technology plans that included strategies for achieving the administration's four goals, financing, targeting assistance to school districts that are the most in need, and placing technology in the classroom.

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