Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Veon introduced House Bill 2386 to meet Gov. Rendell's challenge that legislators fund the creation of a statewide education network for K-12 schools during the next 18 months.

"High-speed telecommunications has many applications in government, business and health care, but few are more important than the potential of this technology to bring outstanding educational content to all the schools in Pennsylvania," said Kevin Dellicker, executive director of Project e-Quality. "Our children in schools underserved by technology should have the same educational opportunities as those that already have affordable access to broadband. Development of a statewide education network will make this a reality to benefit our children.

"Our experience has shown that once schools are tied into a high-speed network, they serve as a model for the rest of the community and tend to drive greater technology use by other groups. So not only will our schools benefit directly by this proposed legislation, but we expect that businesses, hospitals and others will see their technology options increase from development of a high-speed education network throughout Pennsylvania."

Veon's bill would establish a Pennsylvania Education Technology Fund with a $50 million appropriation for the 2004-05 school year. The fund would be administered by the state Department of Education. It would be used to provide grants to intermediate units, public schools districts, nonpublic schools and vocational-technical schools. These grants would help them improve their technology infrastructure, and would provide parents, teachers and students with services to expand usage of the statewide education network.