Undoubtedly, the main reason for the lack of modern machinery in Schools is that of cost. CNC machines are v. expensive and the Schools just can't afford the amount of money these things cost. OK, you can get these hobby type machines (like Rob (CruzThs) has got) which are great but I don't think really bring the excitement that a modern CNC machine ripping off loads of material or contouring at high speed can do. And you need to get the kids excited about a subject for them to become interested in it and eventually make a career out of it. Maybe the M/C tool manufacturers should donate some CNC machinery to Schools

I actually had hands on experience with CNC equipment in high school (just a few years back for me), and it was all possible due to one teacher. He taught a "technology" class, and it had different modules to complete based on what you wanted to try. Each one was geared towards a different field. CNC was one, and others were things like fibre optic technology, circuit design, publishing, analog and digital video editing/producing, and several other topics. It was a great way of giving us hands on experience with the tasks we might see in jobs down the road. And to fund all of this, he allied with local places here in Colorado to get grants and such. The nice effect of this is that we got to go on field trips to places like HP, Atmel, and even NORAD to see what it was like working there and the technology involved. His constant flow of funding has kept the lab current as well. When I was there, we had a few 8088-486 machines for miscelenous tasks, and as I was in my last year, some fast Pentium machines as the main systems. Now the lab has mostly 1.5Ghz machines, new equipment for most of the modules, and some updated modules to represent the current state of things. And all of this was possible to one teacher, at a public school. I was very glad I had the opportunity to take his class, and later end up becoming the sysadmin of the lab as well. (I still maintain it today, about 8-20 hours a year and it's fine).