The purpose of this report is to provide a "snapshot" of the status of technology use in United States schools. The report focuses on the following: school access to technology; student use of computers; evaluating the impact of educational technology; connecting teachers and technology; assessing the content and quality of courseware; and the costs of educational technology. Statistics for these issues are summarized and highlighted at the beginning of the report. Charted figures include: (1) technology penetration in U.S. public schools 1995-96; trends in the numbers of students per computer; the number of students per computer, multimedia computer, cable tv, internet access, CD-ROM, local area networks, videodiscs, and satellite technology compared to the number of Title I students, the number of minority students, and also compared by state; (2) students' use in 1994 of computers: at home and school, for school work, students with teachers teaching reading, U.S. history/social studies, and geography, use in mathematics, use by college-bound seniors, and computer-related coursework or experience of college-bound seniors by gender and race/ethnicity and in various subjects or experience; (3) percentage of teachers who had at least nine hours of training in education technology in 1994, by state; states requiring courses in educational technology for a teaching license, 1996; (4) courseware evaluation and application "road map"; number and percentage of courseware rated as "exemplary, desirable," and percentage not recommended by the CITC (California Instructional Technology Clearinghouse) from 1991 to 1995; for science, mathematics, history/social science, and English/language arts, 1995; integrating technology into the curriculum; (5) costs of four technology deployment models; ubiquitous LAN with local server and high-speed line model; average annual costs for fiber-optic broadband deployment to all U.S. public schools with three scenarios and two deployment schedules; and the percentage of schools in high-cost areas, by locality. (Contains 43 charts.) (AEF)