This report provides information about trends in educational telecommunications for 1996-97. The first section, "An Overview of Educational Telecommunications in the USA," presents a summary of trends in the following areas: the growth of telecommunications and distance education; leadership and governance in telecommunications development; the changing questions of effectiveness and cost; telecommunications as an essential solution; the Telecommunications Act of 1996; state telephone rate regulation; state networks, technologies, and outlets of distance education; funding of educational telecommunications; and education policy issues. The "State-by-State Analysis" section contains a description for each of the 50 states. Each state description is divided into multiple sections:"Recent Developments" highlights activities since the 1994 report; "Statewide and Local Planning" treats planning organizations and their activities in coordinating educational telecommunications development with a particular view to legislation and policy; "Statewide and Local Networks" offers a brief view of the technical networks established for and used by educational institutions; "Higher Education" and "K-12" provide information about programmatic development in distance education and other telecommunications activities at each respective level of education; and "Funding" offers a picture of how educational telecommunications is funded. A glossary is included. (MES)