Texas officials are investigating whether Southwestern Bell has misled school districts while selling long-term deals for high-speed internet access.

Southwestern Bell, a unit of San Antonio-based SBC Corp., has been trying to lock in contracts by telling school districts that if they don’t sign up now, rates could rise next September, when a state law capping school rates expires, the Texas edition of the Wall Street Journal reported Nov. 15.

But Public Utility Commission (PUC) officials say the state Legislature has extended the caps, which allow school districts to pay below-market rates for internet access.

Three commissioners have asked Southwestern Bell how many school districts were told the discounted rates were expiring and which of them signed contract extensions. The contracts could be open to renegotiation, PUC officials said.

Under a 1995 law, Southwestern Bell and other companies agreed to provide high-speed internet connections to schools, libraries, and nonprofit hospitals at a rate capped at 5 percent above cost, in exchange for partial deregulation of the state’s telecommunications markets.

The PUC said the Legislature modified the law in 1999 to keep the discount rates until lawmakers vote to drop them.

But Southwestern Bell believes the 1999 change didn’t override the original expiration date. Spokeswoman Karen Kay Speer declined to elaborate.

In the meantime, Speer said, Southwestern Bell has “taken it upon ourselves” to extend discounts to schools through 2005. She said the company doesn’t know how many schools were contacted or signed deals.

The rate cap provides huge savings to school districts. Randal Douglas, education technology director for a consortium of schools in the suburbs west of Fort Worth, said he asked Southwestern Bell to provide a spreadsheet so he could compare costs.

The numbers, Douglas said, showed the cost of a high-speed internet connection in one rural area would more than triple from $350 to $1,325 per month after the cap expired.

“There is no way [the schools] can afford to do that,” he said.

In March, a Southwestern Bell accounts director, John Walling, wrote to Dallas school officials warning them that the 1995 rate-caps law was set to expire next year “and at this point we are not sure if it will be extended or not.” He urged the district to sign a five-year contract to lock in current rates—adding a penalty for disconnecting services early.

PUC officials fumed when they saw the letter.

“Trying to scare people into a five-year term. I mean, that’s not OK,” said Commissioner Judy Walsh.

At an open meeting of the PUC Nov. 1, Walsh expressed concern about the potential effects of Walling’s letter if districts take its contents at face value.

“If there [were] not the benefit of the doubt, or some scintilla of a doubt, I think this clearly violated the provisions about deceptive solicitations,” she said.

“Only in the unlikely event that this company could come forward and prove that [its] costs have gone up, could these rates go up, and even then it would only be able to charge you 105 percent of whatever the cost would be, and they would have to prove it to the Public Utility Commission before they could do that,” she added.

Texas Education Agency (TEA) spokesman Joey Lozano said his agency has had no prior problems with Southwestern Bell as a service provider, but he added that the agency does not oversee these types of services.

“The districts are responsible for negotiating their own internet contracts,” he said. “Those rates in question were part of the state laws dealing with public utilities and not part of the education code, so we were not involved.”

Lozano said he does not believe Southwestern Bell intentionally mislead any school districts.

“I think we all understood that on August 31, 2001, those rates would end. It’s only in the past few weeks that we’ve heard about the ruling that those rates would be extended,” he said.

Since 1995, hundreds of school districts in Texas have signed up for the lower-cost internet service allowed under the law and installed high-speed T1 phone lines.

That was a sales boom to telecommunications companies, according to Arnold Viramontes, former executive director of the Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund Board, a state agency that helps schools connect to the internet.

Links:

Public Utility Commission of Texas
http://www.puc.state.tx.us

Southwestern Bell
http://www.swbell.com

Texas Education Agency
http://www.tea.state.tx.us

A week before a deadlocked presidential election would stun the nation and shock the world, hundreds of superintendents and senior managers from school districts across the United States came together to address the promises and pitfalls of using technology to reform local elections. They discussed how balloting for school bond issues, tax referenda, and school board races could change if citizens cast their votes anytime, anywhere via the internet and if those ballots were tabulated instantly and automatically.

Electronic balloting in local elections was one of three emerging technology issues the school district CEOs grappled with during a first-of-its-kind Superintendents’ Technology Summit in Palm Springs, Calif., Oct. 30 and 31. The conference was produced by eSchool News, the nation’s only national newspaper about school technology. The theme of the conference was, “Setting the technology agenda for America’s schools.”

The realities of a national protocol for the electronic transfer of school and student records was also on the superintendents’ agenda, and they dealt as well with the issues surrounding internet policies for students and staff members.

After briefings from experts on each topic, superintendent leaders and professional facilitators from the National Association of Partners in Education guided the school district chiefs through consensus-building sessions. After intensive discussions formulating key alternatives in each area, the conference attendees came together to express a “Sense of the Summit.” They voted on three “National K-12 Advisories,” each composed of specific guidelines the superintendents offered up for the consideration of their peers and for the edification of lawmakers and opinion leaders from coast to coast.

Along with the consensus-building sessions, the conference also offered professional development on topics ranging from electronic procurement to communication strategies superintendents can use when discussing technology with business leaders and board members. But the Superintendents’ Technology Summit aimed to go beyond professional development by encouraging the superintendents to weigh in on three areas where emerging technology issues are likely to have a profound impact on the nation’s schools.

eBalloting

The nation’s first binding election that included voting via the internet—dubbed eBalloting—took place last February in the Arizona Democratic Primary election. Turnout increased by 800 percent compared to the number of citizens participating in that party’s previous presidential primary vote. During November’s presidential election, an experiment allowing a small number of military personnel to vote via the internet reportedly went without a hitch. Some experts predict that eBalloting will be ubiquitous in the United States as soon as 2004.

Mark Strama, eBalloting expert and vice president of Election.com, told attendees at the Superintendents’ Technology Summit that holding an online election might increase voter turnout, because it offers constituents the convenience of voting at any time and from anywhere.

Some advocates of eBalloting also speculate that opening elections to the internet would encourage more busy parents to vote, tipping elections for school bond issues in favor of the district as parents’ votes outnumber those of retirees, who often vote against school funding.

“Internet voting isn’t going to make other types of voting go away,” Strama said, although he said the Gartner Group, a research organization, has predicted voting will be done mostly online by the time the next presidential election rolls around.

Despite the potential for increased voter participation, online voting does raise some concerns—most notably, voter privacy and the potential for voter fraud. These issues can be resolved through technology, Strama told the superintendents, but the start-up cost of encrypting ballots to ensure voter privacy and mailing PIN numbers to authenticate voters could prove daunting for election officials in many localities.

Although online voting might one day be the norm, superintendents at the summit determined the prospect is not something very many educators are thinking about at the moment. One of the major roadblocks to eBalloting, attendees noted, is that laws would need to be passed permitting ballots to be cast via the internet.

Strama said New York so far is the only state where internet voting currently is legal. For now, Strama told attendees, his company is trying to find state officials and school districts willing to work with the company to change state laws that prohibit internet voting.

While arriving at a consensus on eBalloting, superintendents agreed that online voting will increase traffic to school web sites. They said voting via the internet will have no effect on the likelihood of passing bond issues or on the quality of school board members who might be elected via eBalloting. The superintendents also agreed that literacy will be a major factor in who uses online voting.

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)

An emerging protocol called EDI is beginning to enable K-12 districts to send student transcripts and other information electronically to colleges, state and federal agencies, and other participating school districts. This past fall, the Des Moines School District in Iowa became one of the first in the country to transfer student records using the EDI protocol, which is being developed by a U.S. Department of Education (ED) task force.

If all schools adopt EDI, it is likely to reduce cost and save time for administrators, guidance counselors, and college admissions officers, according to Raymond Yeagley, superintendent of the Rochester, N.H., School District and chairman of ED’s EDI Task Force.

A case in point is sending transcripts to colleges, Yeagley told summit attendees. The current process involves the costs of staff time to locate, copy, and package the paper transcripts along with the costs of supplies, photocopying, and postage. EDI can reduce staff time by as much as 75 percent, Yeagley said, while eliminating postage and supply costs and significantly reducing the cost of analysis at the colleges.

The downside to EDI is its initial set-up costs. Chief among the challenges to its implementation is the wide variety of student information systems used in schools, most having unique file formats that are incompatible with their competitors and with software used by colleges.

For EDI to be used to send transcripts and other student records, there must either be translation software to convert the files into a standard format, or each student software vendor would need to create an EDI module for its software. Each of these approaches is in its infancy at the present time, Yeagley said.

In addition, schools will need to deal with the learning curve associated with any new software and with the natural tendency of people to resist change. Guidance counselors and others will need to be convinced EDI really will be less work and less costly before they will embrace it and make it successful. To accomplish this, EDI proponents will have to be ready to such questions as how to transmit SAT information, letters of recommendation, and other narrative documents that typically are mailed with the paper transcript.

Such challenges notwithstanding, the consensus among superintendents at the summit was that EDI is a reliable, cost-effective, and efficient means of transmitting records and that the K-12 community should pursue EDI as a preferred means of exchanging information.

Conference attendees agreed the use of consistent, well-established, dependable standards for EDI are essential and that schools should use systems compliant with the standard EDI protocol, not XML. They also said the software industry, state and federal agencies, colleges and universities, and K-12 school districts should share the burden of implementing EDI.

Addressing concerns about internet security, the superintendents agreed the means are available to make the internet secure enough to transmit student records. But they said school districts need to develop procedures to authenticate records requests and to ensure that student information conveyed via the internet is as safe as records sent through the mail.

Internet-use policies

After lengthy deliberations on the topic of acceptable internet-use policies for staff and students, the superintendents identified guidelines schools should adhere to when creating these types of policies.

First and foremost, superintendents agreed there should be no federal mandate that would require school districts to use internet filters. At the same time, they said educators should be proactive in developing standards and specifications for filtering.

Such policies should outline that use of the internet in schools is for educational purposes only and that personal use must not interfere with educational duties. Violations of the policy should result in consequences consistent with existing student codes of conduct or other applicable school regulations.

Technology-use policies, the superintendents said, must be concise, understandable, and applicable to students, staff, parents, and the community. They must be legal and enforceable, consistent throughout the region, and must address all technologies—including analog and digital devices.

The superintendents also decided that school districts should be responsible for maintaining an internet environment free of commercialism for students. They said schools should be responsible for educating both students and staff about copyright laws and in proper citation of copyrighted material.

Think like a quarterback

Besides shaping the agenda for school technology in several key areas, the superintendents got executive briefings on other issues pertaining to technology and leadership.

Keynote speaker Ian Jukes, associate director of Audio Education Inc. of British Columbia, encouraged summit attendees to create forward-thinking visions of what technology should be like in their districts, especially considering the speed at which technology is evolving.

Jukes had one key message for the superintendents attending the technology summit: Think like a quarterback. When a quarterback throws the football to a receiver, Jukes explained, he throws the ball to where the receiver will be—not where the receiver is when the ball is released.

“There’s not a single person sitting in this room who’s prepared for what’s about to happen,” Jukes said. We are preparing our kids for jobs that don’t exist and to solve problems we don’t know anything about, he added.

Education is “about visualizing the life these kids will lead when they leave school,” Jukes said. “Reconsider education through the lens of emerging technologies.”

He cited a gap between where education is going and where the rest of the world is going. Education hasn’t yet grasped what the future holds or what is about to happen. “If we continue to do the things we’ve always done, guess what: We’re going to get what we’ve always had,” he said.

A practitioner of the type of forward thinking Jukes espouses is Joe Kitchens, superintendent of Western Heights, Okla., School District. Kitchens described how his district is providing more computers for a fraction of the cost using thin-client technology. Thin clients eliminate the need for a typical computer processor because they deliver software applications running off a central server.

“You have to have a pretty good-sized server. But … you can get the eRate to support a server for thin clients,” Kitchens said, referring to the federal program that provides discounts on telecommunications services, internet access, and internal network components.

Another speaker, University of Michigan Professor Elliot Soloway, went so far as to announce the demise of the personal computer in schools: “PCs are finished!” The concept of a personal computer in school is an oxymoron, anyway, he said, because school computers are shared.

“Palms are the personal computer for K-12” education, he said. “We’re working in schools where every kid in the high school has one.”

Soloway said personal digital assistants (PDAs) are great for schools, because they’re affordable, portable, and wireless. Every student can have the convenience of mobile computing, he said, especially now when more software applications than ever are being created for PDAs.

“We have to think differently.” Soloway admonished. “You have to be flexible.”

Technology resources

Sandy Paben, director of education for NY WIRED, reminded the superintendents of the importance of staff development. “Less than 30 percent of teachers feel prepared to use computers,” she said. “They’re not going to feel prepared until they get professional development.”

Lots of free content is available for teachers on the internet, Paben noted, and the International Society for Technology in Education already has created technology standards for schools.

“Don’t reinvent the wheel,” she advised. “If somebody has already done it for you, take it and tweak it.”

The “Star Chart,” created by the CEO Forum on Education and Technology, is a great resource that can help school leaders define their schools’ technology agenda, she said.

“I think this can help you set benchmark goals,” Paben said. “It’ll help you decide on your priorities.”

Setting sound priorities in light of the multiple opportunities and challenges presented by emerging technology was a constant theme at the first-ever Superintendents’ Technology Summit, co-sponsored by eschoolmall.com, with additional support from HostLogic, Kids 123, NCS Pearson, Solbourne, Smart Technologies, ThinClient@school, and VoicePoll.

The superintendents who gathered in Palm Springs weren’t able to head back to their school districts with comprehensive solutions to all the challenges emerging technologies might pose, but during the conference, most attendees said they attained a clearer perspective on what the future could hold for America’s schools.

NATIONAL K-12 ADVISORIES

At the Superintendents’ Technology Summit, Oct. 30-31, in Palm Springs Calif., school district CEOs from coast to coast weighed in on three matters of significance involving technology issues facing education. Based on their deliberations, they arrived at a “Sense of the Summit” on each of the three topics.

eBalloting

On using online voting for board elections and bond issues, superintendents agreed:

• Online voting will increase traffic to school web sites.
• Literacy will be a factor in who uses online voting.
• Online elections will have no effect on the likelihood of passing bond issues.
• eBalloting will have no effect on the quality of school board members who are elected.

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)

On the issue of using EDI to transmit student records electronically between schools, superintendents agreed:

• EDI is a reliable, cost-effective, and efficient means of transmitting records, and the K-12 community should pursue EDI as a preferred means of exchanging information.
• Use of consistent, well-established, dependable standards for EDI is essential, and schools should use systems compliant with the standard EDI protocol, not XML.
• The responsibility of implementing EDI should be shared equally among the software industry, government, K-12 educators, and post-secondary community, each contributing leadership and resources unique to that area.
• The internet is secure enough to transmit student records, but school districts need procedures to ensure that requests are legitimate and that the confidentiality of student information is protected to the same degree as with the U.S. Postal Service.

Technology-use Policies

On acceptable technology-use policies, superintendents agreed:

• Technology-use policies must be concise, understandable, and applicable to students, staff, parents, and the community.
• Technology-use policies must be legal and enforceable.
• Technology-use policies must apply to all technologies, including analog and digital devices.
• Technology-use policies must address the responsibility of supervision of technology users.
• Technology-use policies must be consistent throughout the region.
• Technology-use policy violations should result in consequences consistent to student code of conduct or other regualtions, as applicable.
• There should be no federal mandate that would require school districts to use internet filters.
• Education must be proactively involved in developing standards and specifications for filtering.
• Use of the internet is for educational purposes only, and personal use must not interfere with educational duties.
• School districts are responsible for maintaining an environment free of commercialism for students.
• Schools districts are responsible for educating both students and staff about copyright laws and what procedures they should take for for citing copyrighted materials.

Links:

Superintendents’ Technology Summit
http://www.eschoolnews.org/sts

Election.com
http://www.election.com

National Center for Education Statistics’ EDI information
http://nces.ed.gov/edi

Ian Jukes’ web page
http://www.ianjukes.com

NY WIRED
http://www.nywired.org

International Society for Technology in Education
http://www.iste.org

CEO Forum on Education and Technology
http://www.ceoforum.org

eschoolmall.com
http://www.eschoolmall.com

HostLogic
http://www.hostlogic.com

Kids123.com
http://www.kids123.com

NCS Pearson
http://www.ncs.com

Solbourne
http://www.solbourne.com

Smart Technologies Inc.
http://www.smarttech.com

ThinClient@School
http://www.national.com/thinclient@school

Voice Poll Communications
http://www.voicepoll.co

In a decision with broad implications for schools nationwide, a New Hampshire judge has ruled that the Exeter school district must make public copies of its internet history logs so a father can check whether officials are doing enough to keep pupils away from the web’s seedy side.

James Knight, a father of four whose children attended district schools until recently, filed a lawsuit asking a judge to force the district to hand over its internet logs after educators decided not to use filtering programs on computers children use.

The programs, which have been criticized for their accuracy, block access to objectionable internet sites. The district decided to use supervision and spot checks by teachers instead.

But Knight, 44, questioned whether that was enough and wanted to examine the internet logs to see whether children were accessing pornographic or other objectionable sites despite the supervision.

School officials denied the request, saying distributing the information would violate the federal Electronic Communications Act of 1986 and would fall outside the state’s Right-to-Know law.

Rockingham County Superior Court Judge Gillian Abramson disagreed. In a ruling released Nov. 2, Abramson said a district’s internet history logs are, indeed, public records.

She also ruled that the federal wiretap statute does not apply because the contents of the logs had not been wrongfully intercepted, which is a precondition to the application of those laws, at least in New Hampshire.

“The Court finds that, in this instance, it was unreasonable for the respondents to conclude that the records the petitioner requested were exempt from the Right-to-Know law, as they knew or should have known that the information was not exempt…,” Abramson wrote in her ruling.

Material that could divulge personal details about pupils is not public information and needs to be protected, district officials had argued. For example, under the state’s Right-to-Know law, a person cannot go to a public library and request a list of everyone who has borrowed specific books.

But Knight’s lawyer, Alec McEachern, successfully argued that pupils’ privacy wasn’t an issue in this case because his client wasn’t interested in learning who used the internet, only where they went. Any identifying information can be deleted from the log files before they are made public, McEachern said, so parents can’t tell which students visited which sites.

Judge Abramson agreed. But, to protect students’ privacy, the school district must write a computer program that removes user names and passwords from the log files before making the list of web sites that students visited available to Knight.

The cost of such a process must be paid by Knight or anyone else who requests the records, Abramson said.

Knight praised the decision, saying everybody wins—the children, their parents, and the district.

“I hope it will promote accountability now that parents will have access to this information,” Knight said. “Now, there will be more people making sure that the information [students] do have access to is acceptable . . .”

McEachern said he believes Knight’s lawsuit is the first attempt by a parent to get access to a school’s internet logs, though it isn’t the first time a state’s freedom-of-information laws have been tested on the issue.

Two years ago, a group concerned with internet freedoms won access to internet logs at schools in Utah. The group, the Censorware Project, opposed the use of filtering software and wanted to see if such programs were blocking pupils from accessing legitimate sites.

Jon Meyer, a lawyer in Manchester, N.H., who has experience in education law and civil rights cases, predicted that if Judge Abramson’s ruling is not overturned, it could encourage anxious parents in other states to use local right-to-know laws to gain access to school internet use logs to check on students’ web activity.

Arthur Hanson, superintendent of the Exeter school district, did not immediately return calls seeking comment. The district’s lawyer, Stephen Hermans, declined to discuss the case.

Links:

Exeter Regional Cooperative School District
http://www.ercsd.k12.nh.us

In the wake of an industry-wide internet shakeout, failing online advertising campaigns, and criticism from anti-commercialism groups, another education company has decide it can no longer afford to offer free services to schools.

N2H2 Inc. of Seattle, the leading provider of filtering solutions to K-12 districts and creator of the Bess filtering system, announced it will no longer offer its free, ad-based Bess Partners Program filtering system to schools as of the end of the current school year.

The announcement comes on the heels of a similar announcement from ZapMe! Corp., which recently said it could no longer afford to provide schools with free computer labs. The labs were subsidized by ads on the ZapMe! browser.

N2H2’s Bess is the leading internet filter in K-12 schools, according to figures from market research firm Quality Education Data. The company had offered schools a choice between a free web browser containing advertisements and a browser that is ad-free.

But the price was not the same for both models. Because advertisers underwrote the cost of the filtering solution—at least in part—the solution without advertising was more expensive. Schools that agreed to let a banner ad appear at the bottom of each web browser received free filtering and support for the lifetime of the solution.

A ‘softening market’ for online advertising

In a Nov. 16 statement to investors, Peter Nickerson, N2H2’s president and CEO, stated, “Beginning today, we are making a strategic move away from the Bess Partner Program, our advertising model in education. When we initiated this model in September 1999, our goal was to increase market share by making filtering more accessible to schools through a choice of either fee-based filtering or an advertiser-supported offering.

“Now, with internet advertising having softened industry-wide—contributing only 13 percent of our revenues in the fourth quarter—we are making the transition toward offering our services on a fee basis only,” he added.

“Internet advertising is a very new concept, and it has not been proven. So far, companies have not found it to be effective,” explained Jim O’Halloran, N2H2’s director of product marketing.

O’Halloran said the company’s intention with the Bess Partners Program was “to allow responsible corporate sponsors to subsidize the service for schools.”

“What we have discovered is that the ‘blue-chip’ sponsors we had targeted to help with this [initiative] did not come forward,” he said. “For example, for a time we had an arrangement with Chevron, but there were simply not enough of these folks coming forward. This is the case all across the internet community.

“Any observer of the internet industry can see that the internet world is having to reckon with online advertising problems. That model does not seem viable.”

O’Halloran said N2H2 might have been able to make the internet advertising model viable, but the company maintained very strict guidelines about which firms it allowed to advertise.

“We declined about 30 percent of potential advertisers. The Bess Partners Program may have been viable if we had violated the advertiser guidelines we set for ourselves, but we chose not to violate those limits,” he said.

The advertising debate

Some observers speculate that N2H2’s surprising announcement might stem, in part, from pressure by anti-commercialism groups, such as Washington, D.C.-based Commercial Alert.

Earlier this year, Commercial Alert participated in a letter-writing campaign aimed at removing advertising from the ZapMe! web browser, an action that ZapMe! executives believe led to the end of their organization’s involvement with education.

“Our critics attacked our sponsors in an effort to undermine us,” ZapMe! CEO Lance Mortensen told eSchool News. “I’d actually like to congratulate our critics for a job well done. They have successfully helped remove technology from our schools. That does not benefit anyone.”

Troubled by the proliferation of commercial advertising in America’s schools, and bolstered by the recent announcement that ZapMe! was getting out of the education business, a coalition of academics and other professionals set its sights on N2H2 just a few weeks before the company’s announcement.

In a Nov. 3 letter sent to President Clinton, Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.), and other key members of Congress, the group, which includes Gary Ruskin, director of Commercial Alert, urged that federally mandated internet filters in schools and libraries (such as N2H2’s Bess) should be prohibited from carrying any advertising.

The letter, also sent to Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., began, “We want to alert you to an unintended consequence of the mandatory software filter provision currently attached to the fiscal year 2001 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill.”

The bill in question would require schools nationwide to install filtering software before receiving government funding for certain educational programs, such as the eRate for school connectivity.

The letter urged the policy makers to ensure that “any mandatory software filter provision for schools and libraries that receive federal technology funds also prohibits the filtering program from acting as an advertising delivery mechanism.”

“Our main thought when writing this letter was that safeguarding kids from pornography should not be a reason to open them up to commercialism in school,” said Commercial Alert’s Ruskin.

“We want to make sure it’s federal law that any federally mandated browser will not have advertising on it,” Ruskin added. The group’s proposal is intended to be “a smaller provision inside a much larger provision,” he said.

Besides Ruskin, other signers of the letter included Andrew Hagelshaw, executive director of the Center for Commercial-Free Public Education; Colleen Cordes, co-coordinator of the Alliance for Childhood’s Task Force on Computers in Childhood; and Nancy Willard, project director for Responsible Netizen, an initiative of the University of Oregon’s Center for Advanced Technology in Education.

Immediately after the coalition’s letter to Congress became public, O’Halloran told eSchool News, “Commercialization is nothing new. Anyone who believes that disallowing ads on filtering technology would eliminate commercialism on the internet is sadly misinformed. The internet is replete with commercial messages, for better or for worse.”

O’Halloran said he believed corporate sponsorships could be a boon to schools struggling with budget constraints.

“There is a potential for valuable public-private partnerships at the K-12 level,” he said. “N2H2 has been experimenting with ways to allow responsible commercial entities to help fund school technology.”

But any advertising that targets kids is inappropriate, Ruskin argued. “The purpose of school is not to deliver a captive audience of impressionable schoolchildren directly into the hands of multinational corporations,” he told eSchool News.

When interviewed about the coalition’s letter in early November, O’Halloran said he did not believe the group’s demands would pose a problem for his company.

“I would say the effect of this [letter] will be negligible,” he said at the time. “It is disappointing that these types of concerns end up limiting the potential for partnerships with responsible commercial enterprises. We are losing out on opportunities.”

A ‘lightning rod for controversy’

Following N2H2’s announcement that it would discontinue its ad-based model, O’Halloran said the decision was not a response to pressure from groups like Commercial Alert.

“Groups like that did not affect our decision. We acknowledge that advertising in schools is a real issue, but we are not responding in any way to the singling out of N2H2 in that letter,” he said. “Filtering has always been a lightening rod for controversy, but I can say that this development is a result of real business concerns, not a response to pressure from non-commercial groups.”

O’Halloran also cited a statement posted on a Yahoo message board by one of the signers of the letter to Congress, titled “Praise for N2H2’s Decision on Ads.”

“As a critic of N2H2’s use of advertising on its public school filter, I want to commend the company for [its] decision today to go to a fee-based model. This is a responsible step that hopefully will be met with great success. No one can deny the need for filtering of the internet in schools. With the removal of the ads, I believe N2H2 opens up much larger markets for its filter,” wrote Jim Metrock of Obligation Inc.

“I think it is significant that this group acknowledges the need for internet filtering,” said O’Halloran.

O’Halloran addressed head on the argument that its previous ad-based option was morally flawed and potentially harmful to children.

“I’d contest the inference that our previous choices were not morally responsible. [We] intended to provide schools with an option. We wanted to find constructive public-private partnerships. I’d take issue with any suggestion that advertising in schools is evil by its very nature,” he said.

The future for schools

O’Halloran said N2H2 will work with schools that currently receive free filtering through the Bess Partners Program.

“We are talking with them now to arrange a smooth transition. We’re comfortable with our decision not to disrupt service until June 30, and we plan to work with each customer on an individual basis,” said O’Halloran.

According to O’Halloran, there are currently more than 14 million students using Bess, and of that figure, more than half are using the ad-sponsored Bess Partners Program.

“We’ve informed all the schools of the change, and we hope to work with each of those schools individually. So we’ve got a lot of work to do,” he said.

Initial indications are that schools will continue to use the company’s filtering solution, regardless of the change.

Said Carolyn Worsham, director of instructional technology at Nederland Independent School District in Nederland, Texas (K-12, enr. 5,381), “It will only affect me in that I have to make a decision about where to get the money from. Bess is so valuable to us that we think it is well worth the price.” Nederland has been using the ad-based model for one year, and the fee-based service for two years before that.

According to N2H2, the cost of the program will be similar to the current fees charged for the ad-free service N2H2 already offers schools. Pricing varies widely based on the school—but, in general, there is a one-time, non-recurring charge to place a server in the district.

“There is also a monthly fee charged per connected workstation. This varies, but it is approximately $1 or less per connected workstation per month,” said O’Halloran. “The set-up fee also varies according to the network configuration, but it’s usually several thousand dollars.”

According to O’Halloran, schools currently using the service will not be charged set-up fees, but next year they will be charged a monthly service charge if they continue to receive filtering from N2H2.

O’Halloran said N2H2 recognizes there may be some schools that cannot afford the subscription-based service and will have to discontinue their use of the Bess filtering program. In that case, he says, N2H2 will remove the servers from the schools.

“The initial fee is not a purchase; it is a set-up fee. But this is probably a moot point anyway, because there is no real reason they would want to hold onto the proxy server if they are not receiving the filtering service,” he said.

Nederland’s Worsham offers advice to cash-strapped school districts that fear they may be forced to discontinue service: “My advice is to work with N2H2 about setting up a pay schedule that works with your budget year. It is a two-edged sword. It will cost you money, but generally speaking, you get what you pay for.”

Nederland schools have felt the consequences of so-called internet fallout harder than most districts, it seems.

“Right now, I am also negotiating with ZapMe! on what we can do about that problem,” said Worsham. “I’m certainly understanding of the situation. They weren’t making any money. But, at the same time, it is hard when schools are struggling with limited dollars.”

Links:

Commercial Alert
http://www.essential.org/alert

N2H2
http://www.n2h2.com

Nederland Independent School District
http://www.nederland.k12.tx.us

Yahoo! Message Board
http://messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&action=m&boar d=22689355&tid=ntwo&sid=22689355&mid=1135