Lawmakers Ponder Technology as Way To Bridge Funding Gap Between Schools

By Lonnie Harp

State lawmakers searching for solutions to their increasingly frequent and intractable school-finance-equity dilemmas are beginning to look to technology applications as a way of bridging the gap between rich and poor schools.

Distance learning and other forms of technology could do as much to ensure equal educational opportunity for every child, this line of thinking contends, as the huge tax increases or "Robin Hood'' revenue-sharing plans tried by other states in recent years.

Interest in the connection between technology and finance equity is most prominent in Ohio, where a school-finance panel last week received a report on use of technology by the state's poorest school districts. The report and earlier hearings on the subject have convinced the chairman of the panel that such programs hold the key to establishing the level playing field...