Chicago schools: E-rate struggles

Remember the e-rate? It was big news back in the late-'90s, as US schools and libraries gratefully scrambled to apply for the federal program that helped them with Internet access (funds came from adding a tax to consumers' phone bills). The bulk of e-rate news more recently has been about corruption concerns. It's interesting that the first place I find an e-rate update this month is out of the UK. The Register reports that Chicago schools that turned to the e-rate program "have suffered through a string of bureaucratic blunders, politically tainted contracts and overall incompetence," and many of the city's poorest schools remain without Internet access at all. The Register is covering investigative reporting done by the Chicago Tribune, which found, among other things, that "Chicago has received a stunning total of $389 million from E-rate but may have to give up $50 million of that total as a result of failing to meet federal deadlines to spend the cash."