Slashdot Mirror
Head of FCC Proposes Increasing Internet School Fund
Rambo Tribble writes: The commissioners at the FCC are expected to vote, on December 11, on a proposal by Chairman Tom Wheeler to increase the funding for the nation's largest educational technology subsidy program, E-Rate, by 62 percent. The proposal is intended to be paid for by higher fees on phone service. The increased cost is pegged at $1.92 a year, per telephone line. Support for the proposal, or lack thereof, appears to be falling along partisan lines. To quote Wheeler, however, "Almost two-thirds of American schools cannot appropriately connect their students to the 21st century."
In reality there's more important things than uber high speed broadband, like student to teacher ratio
There likely are more important things than "uber high speed broadband" but "student to teacher" ratio may not be one of them. There is very little evidence that smaller class sizes improve education in any measurable way, other than for disadvantaged kids in very early grades (K & 1). There is even less evidence that "student to teacher ratio" matters. The main advantage of smaller classes seems to come from the fact that they are quieter, rather than smaller. Maybe we should be investing in sound suppressing insulation rather than more teachers. Brighter kids have been found to sometimes do worse in smaller classes, because they are compelled to follow along with the class, rather than reading ahead or studying on their own.