Bringing Businesses and Communities Together
Computers, software and other technology products are invaluable tools in the workplace, and it's important for our children to learn how to use the tools of their day while they are in school. In addition, exciting new technologies offer invaluable benefits to children's learning, making learning come alive and creating learning opportunities not previously possible.
In industry, it is common today to find a computer on every employee's desk. In our schools, however, where we prepare our children with the skills and knowledge they need to be successful in their adult lives, most children have limited access to technology. Schools continue to struggle to find sufficient funding to make the new technologies available to children in school. To assist in this need for funding, the Computer Learning Foundation has been bringing together companies willing to help schools receive the computers, software and related technology products they need. Begun in 1990 with DelMonte Foods and continued with Office Depot, TetraPak and AT&T, the Technology for Education Program has brought hundreds of thousands of dollars in new technology products to our schools.
In the Technology for Education Program, schools earn points -- called TechCredits-- for purchases made by people in their community of participating companies' goods and services. Schools then use the TechCredits to order state-of-the-art technology products for their schools from the Computer Learning Foundation's catalog of approved products.
The Technology for Education Program is a unique program, in that it is offered by a nonprofit organization, strictly for the benefit of schools, not for profit-making reasons. The program is designed to be easy for schools to participate in and to minimize the time required to manage the program. In addition, there are no profit-taking organizations in the middle of the program, so that corporate giving goes to purchase more products for the school than is true in similar types of programs. For example, all technology products are purchased at wholesale price and the number of TechCredits required to order them is against wholesale, not retail price. Furthermore, the catalog of products offered in the Technology for Education Program are carefully selected to be the best for your schools. The products offered are selected by experts in educational technology, not by companies, to ensure that your schools receive the best products possible.
Unfortunately, corporations' commitment to programs is sometimes not as long as the Foundation or schools would like, even with high participation in a program. To protect the schools, the Computer Learning Foundation requires corporate sponsors to fund the TechCredits schools earn monthly, so that the TechCredits are always funded. (The funding is maintained in a separate trust account.) This allows schools to continue to accumulate TechCredits, despite changes in the corporate sponsors involved.
The Computer Learning Foundation is currently seeking corporate sponsors to continue the program and will notify schools of new ways to earn TechCredits just as soon as new companies join the program. In the interim, any schools that had TechCredits balances can be assured that their balances will be waiting for them when the Technology for Education Program resumes.
If you know of any corporations who are committed to helping schools that might be interested in joining the Technology for Education Program, please let us know.
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