Nearly 80 percent of the nation's public schools are connected to the Internet, but only 27 percent of the classrooms are, the government says.
The Education Department concluded that progress is being made but more work needs to be done, administration officials said Wednesday.Specifically, the report found that 78 percent of the country's 80,000 public schools - covering 52 million kindergarten through 12th-grade students - were hooked to the Internet last year, the officials said.
In 1996, 65 percent of all public schools were connected and in 1994 35 percent were connected, the officials said.
The report also found that 27 percent of all public classrooms kindergarten through 12th grades were connected to the Internet last year. In 1996, 14 percent of classrooms were hooked to the Net and in 1994 only 3 percent, the officials said.
The Clinton administration is particularly interested in connecting more classrooms because that is where learning takes place. Vice President Al Gore was expected to stress that point while releasing the report Thursday.
A number of federal programs were designed to help students get access to the Internet. One of them was the centerpiece of the Clinton administration's education efforts: a new federal program that gives schools, libraries and rural health care providers discounted hookups to the Internet. The new subsidies are likely to be disbursed in the spring or summer.
But a fight is looming between the Republican-run Congress and the Democratic-controlled Federal Communications Commission over the structure of the program.
Congress doesn't have direct oversight of the subsidy program because it is administered through two not-for-profit corporations created by the FCC last year: The Schools and Libraries Corp. and the Rural Health Care Corp.