School and library organizations that rely on E-rate funding are making a last-minute push to get their messages out about how they want the Federal Communications Commission to vote tomorrow on retooling the 18-year-old program that subsidizes their telecommunications and Internet costs. Several associations are lining up staunchly behind the proposal as a critical first step to bringing America’s schools closer to President Barack Obams’s stated goal of providing at least 99 percent of America’s students with access to high-speed broadband in their schools and libraries within the next five years. Several organizations signed a July 7 letter endorsing a draft E-rate plan circulated by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. Those groups include National Association of State Boards of Education, the Consortium for School Networking, EducationSuperHighway, the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, Digital Promise, the American Library Association, and the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies. Another backer of the plan, the State Educational Technology Directors Association, highlighted those endorsements in a blog post published July 8. Read more…
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