Corporations and consumers around the world are discovering the benefits of the information superhighway that connects people to one another and to a vast array of information resources. But what about schools? In this electronic age, few schools in the United States have computers, let alone network connections. Indeed, most do not even possess telephone lines to the classroom.

Policy makers, educators, and private sector leaders are beginning to raise this issue in public debate. But many questions remain. What would it take to connect schools to the superhighway? Would connection be technically feasible over the next five to ten years? How much would it cost? What would be the main challenges?

Connecting America's K-12 public schools to the national information infrastructure would be valuable and is achievable

As part of a report prepared for the National Information Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIIAC), McKinsey has developed a fact base and perspectives to help address these and related questions. The report concludes that connecting America's K-12 (kindergarten through to 12th grade) public schools to the national information infrastructure (NII) would be valuable and is achievable, given effective leadership largely at the community level. The technology exists today, and the cost of installing and supporting it would represent a small portion of the public education budget.

Our analysis indicates that the cost of connecting all public K-12 schools in the United States to the information superhighway - including not only the connection, hardware, and content costs, but also essential professional development and support for teachers - could range from 1.5 to 3.9 percent of the total national budget for those schools during the peak year of expenditure, depending on how much technology is deployed and how fast. By comparison, 1.3 percent of the budget is spent on similar technology today.

At every stage in deployment, dedicated leaders will need to provide direction and sustain momentum

The deployment process will take time: time for schools and districts to secure funding to cover the costs not only of initial deployment but also of ongoing operations and training; time for teachers to build skills and develop confidence with technology; and time for courseware developers to produce a range of high-quality curricular materials. At every stage in deployment, dedicated leaders will need to provide direction and sustain momentum. Indeed, this will probably be the single most important factor determining the pace of deployment and the level of success in capturing the educational benefits of connection to the NII.

Is it worth it?

Imagine a typical morning at a middle school connected to the information superhighway. It might begin as a group of students arrives early to update the school's home page on the World Wide Web. The home page signals to other schools with access to the Web that here they have a peer school whose students and teachers are interested in exchanging ideas about world events and educational topics.

At the same time, another group of early arrivals works with the vice-principal to prepare the morning broadcast. Each school day formally starts with a live television presentation about the day's events. Written, directed, and produced by rotating teams of students, these presentations are broadcast internally to all classrooms.

In the quiet minutes before the broadcast, a language teacher is using his desktop computer to access an electronic bulletin board to see how colleagues from schools across the state have responded to his question about the best ways of explaining prepositions. Meanwhile, the principal is reviewing electronic mail sent by parents the previous evening, before sending a voicemail to all her teachers suggesting a schedule for the upcoming parent-teacher "open house."

Later that morning, the same video technology that carried the internal broadcast now enables a modern history class to tour the Smithsonian's aerospace museum. In the classroom next door, the subject is anthropology. Students are grouped around computers in teams of three or four, engrossed in a simulation that allows them to become archaeologists exploring Egyptian sites and using artifacts to understand this ancient culture.

Down the hall, each student in a math class is working on problems pitched at exactly the right level of difficulty and getting immediate feedback, thanks to interactive software. At the same time, students in a writing class are drafting essays on their computers and employing electronic mail to get rapid feedback from their peers.

None of this is science fiction. Similar activities are taking place in innovative schools right now. And the early evidence suggests that as well as engaging and exciting students, computer and network technology supports important educational goals.

At the very least, it promotes the computer literacy and networking and information skills that are required in more and more jobs. By the year 2000, as many as 60 percent of American jobs may demand these technology skills. In addition, by providing easier, faster, and more efficient access to a wide array of courseware, connection to the superhighway enhances computer-assisted instruction - a proven means of helping students master traditional academic subjects such as mathematics, science, and writing.

Using computers in the classroom can reduce the time it takes to acquire certain types of knowledge by 30 percent

A review of 254 controlled studies concluded that using computers appropriately in the classroom can reduce the time it takes to acquire certain types of knowledge by as much as 30 percent. Put another way, in three school years, students benefiting from computer-assisted instruction could cover almost an extra year's worth of the curriculum compared with students who do not have access to this form of teaching.

In testimony to the academic studies, many schools say they have experienced major improvements in student performance after introducing computer-assisted instruction. When the Carrollton City School District in Georgia established a computer lab, it saw the failure rate in ninth-grade algebra fall from 38 to 3 percent. In New Jersey, student performance at the Christopher Columbus Middle School rose from well below to above the state average in standardized tests in reading, language, arts, and math after the school implemented reforms that included the extensive use of networked computers.

Case studies suggest that when technology is integrated into the curriculum, it can support new teaching methods that emphasize critical thinking and investigative skills. Among students in California's Hueneme School District, for instance, average critical thinking abilities rose dramatically after computers and electronic networks were introduced into classrooms (see boxed insert, "Smart classrooms and learning pods").

Reasonable costs for infrastructure

While the coming years will see important technological advances such as the wider availability of broadband networks with their superior speed, capacity, and transmission quality, the basic technology needed for connecting schools to the NII already exists. But connection entails more than just an external link between a school and the NII. It requires a local area network at the school to link the equipment; computers, video equipment, and other hardware; electronic content in the form of multimedia courseware, educational video programs, and online services; professional development programs for teachers; and ongoing technical support. Moreover, as Exhibit 1 illustrates, there are choices to be made concerning the form of connection which will determine what range of applications - for instance, e-mail and interactive video - are available to any school.

To date, few public K-12 schools have assembled all the necessary elements of technology infrastructure. While there are on average 14 multimedia-capable computers per school, for example, their distribution is highly uneven. Some schools have many computers, others few. And while up to half of all schools have already installed local area networks, less than 10 percent of these networks connect computers in classrooms; most just link administrative computers. Similarly, almost all schools have telephone lines, but these are primarily used for administrative purposes; only 12 percent of classrooms have telephones.

Every school and district will have to make decisions about how much investment in technology will be needed to achieve its educational goals, which elements of infrastructure to emphasize, and how quickly it wishes to deploy the infrastructure. To provide a framework for considering the wide range of options, Exhibit 2 presents a series of models for deployment that incorporate different levels of infrastructure. These models represent prototypical technology choices that schools actually face. They assume telephone company connections to networked multimedia personal computers - rather than, say, cable company connections to interactive television - since these are widely available today, offer two-way interactivity, and can be priced.

Connecting every classroom in every school by 2005 would cost about 3.9 percent of the education budget for that year

The costs associated with these models indicate the scale of the funding challenge (Exhibit 3). Connecting a computer lab with 25 multimedia-capable computers to the information superhighway in every public K-12 school by 2000, for example, would cost 1.5 percent of the projected education budget for that year (the peak year of expenditure, assuming phased deployment over five years). The cost of connecting every classroom in every school by 2005 would represent about 3.9 percent of the projected education budget for that year (again, the year of maximum expenditure, assuming phased deployment over ten years). Introducing business-quality video and voice infrastructure to classrooms would add another 0.4 percent to these figures.

Both initial and ongoing deployment costs are included in these figures, as are all the investments involved in buying, installing, operating, and maintaining equipment, as well as the costs of technical support staff and professional development for teachers. Not surprisingly, the purchase and installation of hardware constitutes the largest initial cost in all models (Exhibit 4). But during the period of deployment, professional development for teachers becomes the largest ongoing cost. By contrast, the costs of connection (such as telephone bills) represent a relatively small part of overall expenditure.

Three challenges

For all schools, the pace and effectiveness of deployment will be determined by three factors: the availability of funding, professional development opportunities for teachers and other school professionals, and the pace of courseware development. Installing the hardware and network connections is the easy part; the value of this infrastructure ultimately hinges on the quality of the courseware and on teachers' ability to integrate it into the curriculum.

While the funding challenge sounds reasonable in aggregate, numerous pressures are squeezing education budgets at national, state, and local levels. The Department of Education forecasts that increases in real operating costs and student enrollment will drive annual spending to rise by 2.6 percent each year. In addition, systematic underinvestment in schools' physical plant has let the nation with an estimated $101 billion capital deficit. And these demands come at a time when governments are under pressure to do more with less. Another complication is that educational technology is unevenly distributed across schools at present. Some schools have already established computers, video, and networks as integral to their curricula. Many have experimented with the technology in a limited way. Others have yet to launch - or find funding for - their first experiments.

All the same, it should be possible to secure adequate funding through a combination of reducing costs, reprogramming existing funds, and launching new initiatives in the public and private sectors. In cost reduction, for example, introducing bulk purchasing at the state level would have more impact than a typical district could achieve on its own. Taking categories of the school budget that bear some relation to technology spending and reprogramming them to support connection is another possibility: for instance, part of the textbook budget might be shifted to acquiring electronic educational materials. Finally, innovative schools across the country have secured funding through partnerships with corporations and community organizations.

Nearly 50 percent of teachers have little or no computer experience, and lack the training and support they need

Providing adequate professional development for teachers is the second critical factor in successful deployment. Teachers play the pivotal role in integrating technology into the curriculum and facilitating its day-to-day use. But nearly 50 percent of teachers have little or no computer experience, and lack the training and support they need to integrate networked computers fully into their classroom teaching. Learning how to use computers is only the first aspect of the challenge; the real payoff will come when teachers acquire the skills and experience required to leverage the new tools to produce improved educational outcomes. The educational system offers teachers little incentive to develop and apply technological capabilities. To address the skills gap, incentives must be established and state credentialing requirements, teacher training college curricula, and in-service programs must be revamped.

The value of hardware and network connections depends on the quality of the educational materials they deliver. Meeting the diverse curricular needs of schools calls for an extensive array of high-quality courseware. At present, the production of educational courseware is limited because the market for such materials is still relatively small. Widespread commitment to connecting public K-12 schools to the information superhighway would accelerate the growth of this market and hence encourage the production of courseware. In addition, today's slow and cumbersome public school budgeting and procurement processes could be streamlined to speed up the adoption of new courseware and make it easier for courseware developers, especially smaller and start-up companies, to enter the public school market.

Leadership

Leadership is the final crucial factor in educational technology deployment. It needs to come at many levels from both public and private sectors. However, since schools are governed locally, deployment requires a local, "bottom up" approach. Without the commitment of teachers, administrators, school boards, and parents, there can be little change in classrooms or schools.

At the same time, individual schools need help in marshaling the resources to meet the deployment challenges. Not all school districts have the ability or the desire to make deployment a priority; no single school or district alone can stimulate the courseware market or make a compelling case for new sources of funding.

Four leadership actions stand out as critical to making deployment happen quickly and equitably:

• Influential business leaders, educators, and political leaders should create a forum for raising funds and providing support and training to school districts and other local leaders. In addition to financial support, most localities will require practical assistance in organizing, budgeting, planning, and implementing.
• Foundations, schools of education, and state and federal departments of education should sponsor rigorous academic research into the educational benefits of network technology and computer-based learning, building on the experiments currently taking place in leading-edge schools. These initiatives can both identify which approaches work best and build support for them. In addition, these initiatives should be carried out in collaboration with schools of education and school districts in order to simultaneously develop models for teacher professional development.

  Rigorous academic research should be sponsored into the educational benefits of network technology and computer-based learning

• Educational software developers and publishers should join forces with educators to develop new products and reduce the disincentives to entering the school courseware market.
• Finally, governors, mayors, school boards, and superintendents should articulate clear goals and make technology deployment an important element of plans for education reform.

These four leadership actions address the main challenges in deployment: funding, professional development for teachers, and courseware availability. They bring together the different levels of leadership needed to drive the deployment process: educators, funders, courseware developers, and community leaders. And they represent new partnerships that cut across the boundaries of the public and private sectors, as well as across local, state, and national lines.

Many political leaders in the United States are rallying around the issue of connecting schools to the superhighway. We believe that it would be in the interests of business leaders to do the same. While many innovative efforts are under way at the local level and a few broader initiatives have secured business support, there are a number of gaps.

Most efforts are aimed at installing hardware and network connections; too few involve revisions to the curriculum and to teacher development, accompanied by support for the funding of ongoing operations. The challenge of developing effective courseware and retraining teachers has gone largely unaddressed. Similarly, there are few initiatives to train and support local leaders of education reform. In short, there are several arenas in which business leaders could contribute to the effective use of technology in education.

Technology is not the answer to educational reform, but it is an important tool. With it, our children can achieve much more than we ever did; without it, they will watch the world pass them by. The scarce commodity is leadership. We owe it to our children to provide that.