Waste and Fraud Besiege U.S. Program to Link Poor Schools to Internet: A report issued last week by the Federal Communications Commission, which oversees the E-rate program, said 42 criminal investigations were under way.
On Thursday, Congress is to open hearings on all that has gone wrong. The hearings will be held by the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, whose chairman, Representative James C. Greenwood of Pennsylvania, says the F.C.C.'s supervision was weak.
Mr. Greenwood said that since schools often must pay only 10 percent of the cost of equipment and services while E-rate picks up the rest, "contractors have mastered the art of coming into these districts, recommending gold-plated architecture, and school officials, buying at 10 cents on the dollar, take everything they recommend.''
"You couldn't invent a way to throw money down the drain that would work any better than this," he added.
