Published: March 29, 2007

E-Rate’s Imprint Seen in Schools

After helping wire almost all American schools to the Internet, the 10-year-old E-rate program has even greater challenges ahead, its supporters say, as well as design problems to solve.

Since its founding, the federal program has committed $19 billion to help thousands of U.S. schools—large and small, urban and rural, public and private—afford the full range of telephone and Internet services.

“There’s no question, the E-rate is the most important funding mechanism for education technology for K-12,” says Keith R. Krueger, the executive director of the Washington-based Consortium of School Networking, which has school technology...