Pay to play? It can't happen here... (ICT4E in developing and developed countries 1)

The NY Times on 4 Nov published a long account of the inroads that technology has made into schooling. Early on, the article drops "Rwanda" as a name, but the article is focused on the influence that vendors wield over schools and school districts. Who among us has not encountered pay to play?

In the US, the lack of compensation of teachers combined with a lack of support / respect opens superintendents and principals to the blandishments -- engagement in conferences, exposure to innnovation -- that are in one sense the only ways that school systems (and their representatives) can learn. 

(In another sense, the privation of teachers and the locus of innovation in the private sector is the result of [another] massive shift of funds from the public sector, in the form of public schools, to the private sector. Which are now in the best cases funded to buy products and services from the private sector. I believe that it's at least a $15 billion sector.)

I'm most interested in the ways in which this article, focused on 1:1 projects in the Greater Baltimore area, points out the ways in which ICT4E projects in developed"countries (the USA these days calls the concept of development into question) differ from those in developing countries. I recently proposed an evaluation of a project, "Rwandan Girls Education Advancement Programme," which among other interventions would provide: Support for basic literacy & numeracy among girls;support for improved attendance; support for reduced teenage pregnancy. Etc. It's not that these objectives are unwise, or that they aren't also appropriate for schools in the US; it's that they are priorities that are not well addressed through the quality-focused provisions of a 1:1 initiative.