Outpessimised

Funds for Learning has released an estimate of what it would cost to reach President Obama's goal for the E-Rate (100 Mbps or 1 Gbps connections to each school, wireless connections inside school buildings).  I was interested to see what number they would come up, so I took a look.  As always, it was informative, but I found two things disappointing:

1. No graphs.  I have come to expect that FFL reports will enable me to skip the letters and numbers and just look at pictures to get all the info I need.  I actually had to read.  How tedious.
2. While their report was more fact-based than my wild speculation, the final numbers were not hard.  Harder than my speculation, which was based on estimates multiplied by guesses.  FFL at least is actual numbers multiplied by estimates.

What numbers did FFL come up with?  Well, they came out more pessimistic than I did, and I am not used to having someone be more pessimistic than I am.  They came up with $6.8 billion per year.  I stand by my calculation that an additional 40 cents on your phone bill (a number tossed around by Arne Duncan and unnamed administration sources) will only raise about $2.1 billion.  So we're short $4.7 billion, or about $15 for every man, woman and child in our country.  Per year.

Time for the FCC to hold a bake sale.