CDW to Acquire IT Solutions Provider Berbee

CDW Corp. has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately held Berbee Information Networks Corp., one of the nation’s largest independent IT solution providers, for approximately $175 million in cash. This acquisition will enhance CDW’s offerings of advanced technology products and services to address customers’ more complex business requirements. In addition, the acquisition is consistent with CDW’s strategies to expand its customer base, capture a greater share of its customers’ IT spending, and increase its addressable market…

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Report Knocks Quality of Teacher-Education Programs

Despite growing evidence of the importance of quality teaching, the vast majority of the nation’s teachers are prepared in programs that have low admission and graduation standards and cling to an outdated vision of teacher education, concludes a new four-year study authored by Arthur Levine, president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and former president of Teachers College, Columbia University. The report, Educating School Teachers, released by the Education Schools Project, identifies several model programs but finds that most education schools are engaged in a “pursuit of irrelevance,” with curriculums in disarray and faculty disconnected from classrooms and colleagues…

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A Laptop at Every Desk

Last year, officials at Henrico County Public Schools in Virginia set out to provide a laptop computer for every student in the county’s nine high schools. The district got an enthusiastic response to its request for bids, with proposals from Apple Computer and Dell the most alluring. But Dell edged out its smaller rival with a lower price and by addressing concerns over service and hardware backup. The sting was short-lived for Apple. Earlier this year, Apple won a four-year contract to provide laptops for the county’s middle schools. So goes the tug of war amid big computer makers for share of the market for outfitting schools and colleges with the latest in high-tech gear...

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