EDUCATION

Internet subsidy ends for teachers

By Emily Sweeney, Globe Staff Correspondent, 12/2/2001

hen Nancy Gardner, a technology teacher at the South Middle School in Waltham, heard last week that her Internet service would be terminated in a matter of days, she was stunned.

Even for tech-savvy teachers like Gardner, four days is not a long time to switch Internet service providers. But that's what 27,000 teachers across the state must do, since the Legislature axed funding for MassEd.Net, a state program that provides Internet accounts to teachers at a discount. This year, teachers paid $56 for eight months of Internet access for their home computers, which allowed them to do research, build Web sites, e-mail students and fellow teachers, and check out educational Web sites.

The state was scheduled to pull the plug on MassEd.Net on Friday.

Just days before, public school teachers, librarians, and administrators learned the news for the first time through word of mouth, memos, and e-mails. Educators across the state scrambled to find other Internet service providers and change their e-mail addresses.

''MassEd.Net will meet its demise on Friday,'' confirmed Heidi Perlman, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Education, in an interview last week.

Perlman said the Department of Education planned to end the program after this year, but funding for the $2.1 million line item was eliminated completely from the fiscal 2002 budget.

''But our plan was to give more than a couple days' notice,'' she said. ''The conference committee budget came out and gave us nothing. That line item is zeroed out.''

Perlman said the news was posted on the Department of Education Web site. Meanwhile, state officials are discussing with MassEd.Net's vendor, RCN, creating a program to keep the service going. And as the budget process continues at the state level, a deal might be reached to reverse the cuts. But on Wednesday, Perlman was not hopeful.

''It doesn't look good. We're operating under the assumption that it's gone,'' said Perlman.

Ann Carey, a drama teacher at the Nathaniel Banks Elementary School in Waltham, used her MassEd.Net account to research Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt. Using that research, she would assign her students to write and perform scenes from ancient times in Egypt, fulfilling the sixth-grade Egyptian studies required by the state curriculum frameworks. Now she doesn't know when she will be able to get that important research done.

Carey's Hewlett-Packard computer is eight years old; she is debating whether paying about $30 for service would be worthwhile for her slow, outdated machine.

That's what worries Mike Gilbert, the technology director for the Massachusetts Association of School Committees. He said the demise of MassEd.Net will have a negative impact on the intergration of technology and curriculum. Teachers use their computers to research Web sites for kids to use, as well as build Web sites for their classes. Many educators don't know what alternatives there are, or they may not want to pay for them.

''It's unfortunate that the Legislature did this at the last minute, because it didn't provide the Department of Education with sufficient time to help with the educators' transition,'' he said.

Susan Huntoon, head of Newton North High School's library department, spent time last week hanging up fliers to alert faculty that MassEd.Net would be offline by Friday. Huntoon said the service was invaluable for teachers, since Newton North has only four computers in the library where teachers can access the Internet.

Last Wednesday at the Field School in Weston, fifth-grade teacher Carol Repose found a memo in her school mailbox stating that her MassEd.Net account would be gone.

''It's very disappointing. There are Web sites where I can find lesson plans that other teachers have tried, math problems for my top math students, and whole units on the Civil War,'' Repose said.

Repose said she will likely subscribe to America Online to continue her Internet service. ''It's such a valuable resource. This is disheartening,'' Repose said.

Emily Sweeney can be reached at esweeney@globe.com.

This story ran on page W1 of the Boston Globe on 12/2/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.