Mountain State Matters

In more serious news, Education Week released their 2008 State Technology Grades. The results? West Virginia was the ONLY state to receive a grade of “A” for their overall use of educational technology in grades K-12. The report deemed that West Virginia was exemplary in providing access to technology, using the technology and  including the technology in its teacher and administrator standards.

From working (temporarily) in a WV public school, I would have to agree. Every classroom had one or more computers, there were several computer labs, and I was generally impressed by the familiarity most kids had with the computers. It’s admirable that the state education system has put so much emphasis on technology in the schools, as there are parts of the state where broadband isn’t yet available and personal computer use isn’t as widespread as it is in more urban areas.

Despite all this technology, the state’s achievement levels are still lagging the rest of the nation, according to the report. The superior technology grade is a great start, but until that technology begins translating into higher student achievement, there’s still work to be done.

Access to high-speed internet isn’t an issue that comes up very often in highly-populated suburban and urban centers, but is much more of a problem for those in rural areas. In a bill that was authored in February and signed earlier this month, Governor Manchin said that bringing broadband internet to every crevice of the state by 2010 was a primary goal for the state and the legislature. Can this happen in two short years?

Internet has become a huge part of our culture, and I, for one, consider it as my main form of information, responsible for most of my contact with the rest of the country and the world. But look at that map to the left created by Connect West Virginia (click on it to make it bigger). Most of West Virginia is white on that map, meaning that there is no high-speed Internet access. Granted, some of the white areas are likely mountains that aren’t heavily populated, but most of the state’s population is rural.

If the whole state has Internet access by 2010, the governor needs to make sure that the service is useful to the majority of the state. The bill is to be commended for specifically focusing on providing “outreach and education in underserved areas,” but that’s likely not enough because without computers, the Internet will be useless. Now, outreach and access combined with frequent public computer labs would be useful, and would play a large part in education and job skills throughout the state.