Enormous challenges for school technology leaders marked the year just ended--from shrinking state budgets to more stringent requirements for hiring teachers, educating students, and collecting and reporting school data under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).

Viruses, worms, and unsolicited commercial eMail (or spam) throttled school computer systems to an unprecedented extent. Digital copyright dilemmas cropped up on several fronts. And the largest single program for funding school technology--the eRate--was beset with problems of its own, culminating in a congressional probe into alleged instances of waste, fraud, and abuse.

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