PUC’s long ride

The Public Utilities Commission has had a pleasant problem with the School and Libray Network it helped create in 1995. The project to wire Maine to the Internet came in ahead of schedule with only half its $20 million spent. What to do with the leftover money?

Last summer, the PUC properly looked around the network for shortcomings before calling it complete and suggested hiring what it called “circuit riders,” computer experts to offer training and correct system problems at individual schools and libraries. The order to spend $400,000 on this program for the next 18 months was approved recently, and it offers a model for improving computer use throughout Maine.

The PUC order is important because it recognizes that physically wiring every school and library in Maine is not nearly as difficult as helping people use the network effectively. This is not merely a question of searching for Web pages. Teachers and librarians must learn how their entire systems work, including the security devices and firewalls, to let them conduct indepth research and transform the computer from an encyclopedia with a plug to a useful teaching tool. For rural regions especially, a properly operating network that supplies solid training is the closest thing Maine has to education equity.

The three circuit riders will be directed to find the most serious problems with the network — like a site simply doesn’t work or works only occaisionally — solve the problem and train the teachers and librarians overseeing the sites to fix malfunctions in the future.

That’s a good start, but the PUC shouldn’t decide for several months that the program is adequate. It will take that long to figure out whether three circuit riders is enough, whether a bare-minimum system is up and working adequately and whether enough on-site people can be sufficiently trained during the 18-month program.

But the PUC is on the right track with its circuit riders, as long as it keeps the ride going long enough.