It's not as bad as having to wait a year between episodes of Downton Abbey (two previews are available for those as hooked as I am; both feature Maggie Smith, so they don't disappoint), but Funds for Learning is keeping us all on tenterhooks by releasing the results of their recent poll of applicants in several parts.
The latest release has got me thinking. The first graph shows which services applicants think are most important and least important. The winner for least important: cell phones. I recently commented on the mess that cell phone companies are creating by giving away phones, and FFL's graph has me thinking that the simple solution is to toss cell phones out of the program altogether. I mean, really, the free phones problem pales in comparison to the problem of usage from ineligible locations. As long as the location of service remains a criterion for eligibility (and it pretty much has to, unless we switch the E-Rate budget with, say, the Pentagon budget), cell phones are a poor fit in the program.
So as of today, I declare the newest windmill at which I will tilt:
Cell phone service should be ineligible for E-Rate funding.
I just hope I don't suffer retaliation in the form of a dead cell phone.....
An unrelated wry note from the same page:
On both graphs, 14% of applicants rate Internal Connections as the most important part of the program. Gee, I wonder if that's the same 14% that actually gets Internal Connections.... I'm surprised only 8% rated it "Least Important." Since over 80% of applicants will never see any IC funding, you'd think it would be least important to them. I guess hope springs eternal.
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