Re: A more pertinent question
@P.Lee, I didn't give you a thumbs down, but like the next poster I think you missed the point which is the lack of education of the teachers. Using on-line resources like Wikipedia can be well accomplished using even dialup. You're right though about the disingenious focus on layout and the like.
Nevertheless, I think that the pertinent question would rather be, why don't these people have an internet connection of any kind? Slow, or otherwise. To me the explanation would likely be one of two. One, the incumbents will not spend money on getting a connection to less profitable areas. Or, two, people are not educated in the ways of affording a connection. Those that have only POTS available are, of course, not easily served. But those that have cable or DSL or rural wireless available in the area, can drop their $30-50 per month telephone and put it on an internet connection with very little, if any, additional cost per month. This works for my slow rural wireless connection where I'm using world class VoIP from Callcentric, so I'm not talking theory here.
To me the issue that should be addressed by the Lifeline program is actual access being provided by the Telcos. Internet cost in existing areas is probably a red herring. These users likely already have a redundant telephone bill (as described above) or perhaps an addictive attachment to an even higher priced TV access which they are prioritizing over internet access.