89 percent of U.S. public schools use the Internet to provide data for instructional planning at the school level, according to the U.S. Education Department. That’s a giant leap considering that only 35 percent of schools had Internet access at all in 1994.

Some 87 percent also reported providing high-quality digital content from digital libraries or museums, or any text, images, sounds and video that have been digitized. More than half of these schools also use the Internet for online professional development courses for teachers, and one-third use the Web to access student distance-learning courses.

Source: Internet Access in U.S. Public Schools and Classrooms, Education Department

Parental Pressure

According to a Global Attitudes survey, 56 percent of American adults believe that too little pressure is being placed on students to achieve, while only one-quarter think that parents are exerting the right amount of pressure. The U.S. results differ greatly from China, India and Japan, where the majority of adults believe too much pressure is placed on children to achieve in school.

Source: August 2006, Pew Research Center