Monday, January 7, 2002

Four years ago the state Department of Education began to subsidize Internet access for public school teachers and administrators under the MassEd.Net program.

In the early days of 1998, America Online was approaching 10 million members. (It has since passed 32 million.) There were millions of Web pages. (There are now billions.) But educational uses of the Internet had barely been explored.

Massachusetts did the right thing, encouraging teachers to use the Internet and, inevitably, bring it into the classroom.

MassEd.Net wasn't perfect, and not every teacher welcomed the changing world of online information. Nor will Internet access with e-mail solve every educational ill.

But it was a good program, introducing thousands of teachers, their colleagues and their pupils to useful technology.

The deal, put together with Springfield-based JavaNet (which was later taken over by RCN), originally gave teachers a year of access for $25, which was dirt cheap. The state   —   meaning we taxpayers   —   paid $80, and JavaNet/RCN got about 20,000 customers in return for its discounted rate.

With an increase in fees after its third year, MassEd.Net hummed along with about 27,000 educators until the last week in November. It was then that the four-month-overdue state budget arrived   —   with the $2.1 million MassEd.Net line item unfunded.

Teachers were told they had three days to find Internet service elsewhere, but RCN and the state quickly reached a temporary agreement. MassEd.Net users can continue until the end of June for $13.95 per month. (Teachers who wish to reregister through June have until noon today to do so online at rereg.massed.net.)

The Department of Education says that's a good time for the program to be phased out.

Department spokesman Jonathan Palumbo said the service will be missed because, among other things, it has served as a mailing list and bulletin board to reach the 20 percent of the state's teachers who use it.

Even so, the days of subsidy will not return. "I can't imagine doing anything more," he said.

He's right. It's no longer appropriate for the state to support an individual teacher's Internet account. It makes no more sense than paying for the teacher's home telephone or cable TV connection. But in 1998, it was. That's how much the world has changed in four years.

So this is a good time to praise MassEd.Net for what it accomplished and to pause a moment to appreciate the real pioneers of the UMassK-12 program.

Founded in 1986 by UMass-Amherst physics professor Mort Sternheim and his wife, Helen, it began as a PC-based bulletin board called Physics Forum.

In 1993, the Sternheims created the K-12 Internet access program that they ran on university-owned computers and funded with federal and state grants.

When the grants went dry they charged $100 a year, and at its height in 1995 the program had about 7,000 subscribers.

By the time MassEd.Net came along, the K-12 program was down to about 1,700 subscribers as the growth of commercial access boomed.

"Our purpose was to get teachers and students to use the Internet," Mort Sternheim said at the time. "We can scale down now and declare victory."

Sternheim, who has since retired, was honored in 2000 with a Pathfinder Award from the Massachusetts Computer Using Educators.

Thanks are still due to the Sternheims and to their successor, the MassEd.Net program.

Larry Rivais is new media editor of the Union-News and Sunday Republican.

© 2002 UNION-NEWS. Used with permission.