Report finds US schools lacking adequate computers

American schools have only one computer for every 30 students, and even those pupils with access to computers get to use them an average of just one hour a week, a report to Congress said yesterday. The report by the congressional Office of Technology Assessment said that ``today's classrooms typically resemble their ancestors of 50 years ago more closely than operating rooms or business offices resemble their 1938 versions.''

There are now 1.2 million to 1.7 million computers in public schools, and fewer than 5 percent of schools have no computers. The agency said it would cost $4 billion to buy enough equipment to reduce the student-computer ratio from 30 to 1 to 3 to 1.