Silver Spring, Md. (Feb. 21, 2008) – As a result of the settlement of a class action lawsuit, educators in several states now have access to critical funding from the Microsoft Corporation for educational technology. Among the products available for purchase with these vouchers are Discovery Education’s flagship product, Discovery Education streaming and the Discovery Media Server. To date, 18 states and the District of Columbia have reached proposed settlements totaling over 2.5 billion dollars. In nearly every state, 50 percent of the unclaimed funds have been earmarked for school districts.

Although each state is handling the distribution of these funds differently, the majority of state agencies are providing districts with both a general purpose and software voucher to use towards approved purchases. While the definitions of vouchers may vary from state to state, in general they are as follows:

General Purpose Vouchers may be used for qualifying hardware purchases. This includes personal computers, laptop computers, Tablet PCs and Apple Macintosh computers. If the total amount of your voucher(s) is less than $950, you may also redeem your voucher(s) for the purchase of printers, monitors, scanners, keyboards, mice and other pointing devices. If the total amount of your voucher(s) is $950 or more, you may redeem your voucher(s) for the purchase of printers, monitors, scanners, keyboards, mice and other pointing devices only in connection with the purchase of a computer.

Software Vouchers may be used to purchase qualifying software, which includes any software title that is available for sale to the general public in standard form and is capable of running on any qualifying hardware.

“As schools face growing budget challenges, finding alternative funding for educational technology purchases becomes vital,” said Scott Kinney, Discovery Education Vice President of Outreach and Professional Development and former Pennsylvania school administrator. “Through this program, administrators can access funds to purchase products like Discovery Education streaming, which has been scientifically proven to improve student achievement.”

For more information on how each state is handling the distribution of these settlement funds, call the below phone numbers or visit each state’s settlement website.

More Information

For more information on Discovery Education streaming or Discovery Education Media Server solutions or any other services from Discovery Education, please visit www.discoveryeducation.com or call 800-323-9084.

About Discovery Education

Discovery Communications revolutionized television with the Discovery Channel and is now transforming classrooms through Discovery Education. Powered by the #1 non-fiction media company in the world, Discovery Education combines scientifically proven, standards-based digital media and a dynamic user community in order to empower teachers to improve student achievement. Already, more than half of U.S. schools access Discovery Education digital services.

Contacts

Discovery Education
Stephen Wakefield
240-662-2893
stephen_wakefield at discovery dot com
www.discoveryeducation.com

C. Blohm & Associates, Inc.
Sandy Fash
608-839-9800
sandy at cblohm dot com
www.cblohm.com

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