The government gave a boost to US education on Tuesday when President Clinton announced a US$30 million grant to train teachers how to use the latest technology in schools.
Under the government's Technology Innovative Challenge Grant Program, money will be distributed among 20 school districts across 17 of the neediest states -- including South Dakota, Alaska, Kansas, and Louisiana. One million students are expected to benefit from the grants at the high school, college, and university levels.
"School districts are forming partnerships with businesses and community organizations across the country to meet the challenge of bringing their schools and communities into the information age," said President Clinton in the announcement.
Clinton called the program "one of many efforts needed to ensure that our students are prepared for the challenges of the 21st century."
The largest grants issued reach $2 million a year over five years. High-tech communities in each of the states are being encouraged to match that sum in private donations and offer their expertise to local educators.
"Students will benefit from teachers who are familiar with rapidly changing technologies and are able to effectively integrate them into their teaching curriculum," said US Secretary of Education Richard Riley.
Daniel Haugen, a spokesman for the Polson Public Schools district in Montana, said the grants are particularly important for rural states where the population is spread far and wide.
"We have something like 900,000 people spread across the fourth-largest state in the union," said Haugen. "Each school has a small number of pupils and teachers, and when you're operating on a base-level budget as we are, it takes a grant effort to go the extra mile."
Haugen said the nearly $2 million slated for his state this year will go toward basic multimedia training.
Montana has already attracted a number of high-tech companies and they are quickly wising up to the need for a well-trained high-tech workforce.
"There's a long laundry list of companies who have already partnered with us and pledged money to improve tech training in the region," said Haugen. Those signed up include AT&T, USWest, TCI, and Microsoft.
But Haugen admits that the grant is a drop in the bucket. "We're far from the amount we need to make real progress in technological training and integration," he said.
This latest education initiative comes after the Senate and House commerce committees ruled in June that the Federal Communications Commission's multibillion-dollar effort to help schools and libraries connect to the Internet was not working.
More than 30,000 schools and libraries were set to receive $2 billion from the program -- largely funded through long-distance phone surcharges -- before it was derailed.
