In Ohio's Morgan County, schools, teachers, and students are doing a remarkable job with the tools available to them. They've cobbled together Internet-capable computers from hand-me-down equipment. They've helped create an ISP, which is an asset to the entire community. They're in the process of teaching themselves how to squeeze every possible benefit from new technology. Spence's vision of that "equal playing field" may still be far from reality, but it's a vision that's driving a lot of constructive change.

At Tennessee's York Institute, payoffs from earlier vision and investments have begun to materialize in the form of high performance records and student test scores that exceed not merely state and regional averages, but national averages.