NEWS September 27, 1996 HUNDT ASKS INTERNET ACCESS PROVIDERS TO LINK CLASSROOMS; PRAISES FISHER BROADCASTING FOR OFFERING CANDIDATE FREE TIME FCC Chairman Reed Hundt today called for Internet access providers "to take up the challenge to make on-line learning a reality for each school and each classroom in that school. " Turning to the issue of broadcast time for political candidates, Chairman Hundt praised Fisher Broadcasting for offering three-minute blocks of time on its TV stations in Seattle and Portland for Congressional and Gubernatorial candidates, and 90-second blocks on its radio stations in those cities and in Montana. "I am pleased to report that the campaign for free time is picking up steam," he said. On Monday, Hundt praised the offering of five-minute blocks of time for "unfiltered statements" by candidates on the seven television stations owned by A.H. Belo Corporation. Chairman Hundt made his remarks in a speech delivered today to the Children Now Symposium, "Children and the Information Superhighway," in Menlo Park, California. Hundt said a crucial first step to "building an on-ramp for classrooms to the Information highway" will take place on November 7 "when the FCC commissioners, state public utility commissioners and consumer advocates charged with examining these issues will make their recommendations on a number of issues. On the basis of those recommendations, the FCC will write the rules that will largely determine how quickly and how effectively that ramp will be constructed," Hundt said. He said, "We must decide, will we provide support for schools building the ramp all the way to every classroom or will the support stop at the school wall? Will the ramp be a high speed, high bandwidth connection that puts schools on the cutting edge of technology? Will we define the term "affordable" so that schools and libraries are given the resources they need to build ramps that will work?" On the subject of Internet access providers, Hundt asked, "Suppose there were an Internet service provider dedicated specially to providing access for educational institutions? Let's call it Learning-on-Line. This service could charge a low, flat, monthly rate to schools for connection and usage, and it would provide Internet access to educational software and to the host of great education-related web-pages that are already out there," he said. - more - Hundt said the content made available through an internet service provider to classes "would be coupled with supplemental material that organizations like the PTA, NEA and local school boards would vouch for. It could also link the many web pages put up by schools so teachers and students could communicate with each other." He said,"In March 1994, just four schools had their own home pages on the Web. As of June of this year, there were 2,850. That's great, but we've got 97,150 to go. Some think its's impossible that computers and the Internet will actually be used to teach every kid in the country. I think we can make it inevitable," Hundt said. On the subject of free time for political candidates, Hundt said the Fisher Broadcasting offer of free time to candidates, called "Straight Talk," is a program that "recognizes that viewers want and deserve to hear the viewpoints of major candidates for governor and federal office directly from the candidates themselves - unfiltered, unedited, and without props or gimmicks. I couldn't agree more." Hundt said, "Isn't this the right time for broadcasters to provide free time at the same time and in prime time? I urge every broadcaster in every community to follow the lead of Fisher Broadcasting and A.H. Belo Corporation. And I urge them to embrace what Senators Bill Bradley and John McCain, Walter Cronkite and Paul Taylor have advocated: a roadblock of straight talk from candidates when voters are most likely to be watching." On the subject of connecting classrooms, Hundt said, "Just as important is modernizing the information infrastructure inside those physical structures. Estimates are that it might cost up to $10 billion over five years to network every classroom in the country. That may seem like a big number but it's actually less than two tenths of one percent of revenues of the information technology industry." Referring to the November 7 recommendations, Hundt added, "If, for example, we adopt a policy that just gave every school the exact same amount of money, for half the schools it would probably be more than they need and for the other half it wouldn't be enough. We need to have a policy that recognizes the disparities between schools and helps to bridge the gap." Hundt said, "The dawning of the Information Age represents an opportunity for equality that we have not enjoyed since Horace Mann first championed the idea of the free public school. Networks in poor neighborhoods or rich suburbs can equally deliver at lightning speed the learning of the Library of Congress." - FCC - FCC Chairman Reed E. Hundt Children and the Information Superhighway : Directions for the Future Children's Now Conference, Menlo Park, California September 27, 1996 Wired magazine recently listed its top picks of the 100 Wired or Tired people or things. I personally was very disappointed that the FCC wasn't mentioned on either list. But maybe that's because they couldn't figure out where to put us since we're both wired and tired. Seriously, though, what really should be wired is every single classroom in the country. And what is tired is the notion that we can afford NOT to wire classrooms and give our children the tools of the 21st century to learn and grow. The Federal Communications Commission is now involved in addressing precisely those issues. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 gives us the mandate to participate in one of most important infrastructure projects for the country: bringing modern communications services to schools and libraries, finally linking up the 45 million teachers and schoolchildren who until now have been left behind by the communications revolution. As we move into the Information Age, you and I know that one of the things that matters most is whether this generation of children will have the tools they need to lead us into the next century. We're not alone in thinking that. The New York Times reported last week that voters care less about tax issues than about how to hang onto their jobs in the next downturn, how to compete in a global economy, and how to make sure their children know how to use computers. Those worries show us what people in public office must never forget: people can be trusted to focus on what's truly important. If we listen to them, they can tell us the really tough issues that need to be solved. They know, for example, that whether it's working as a high-paid programmer at Netscape or a shipping clerk at Wal-Mart, knowing how to use a computer is as necessary as knowing how to read. By the year 2000, 60% of all new jobs will require working with computers. Jobs that don't require computer skills pay far less than those that do. They know that access to technology and its potential aren't available to everyone equally. Eighty-two percent of high school students from the most affluent families have access to computers at home, compared to only 14% of students from the poorest families. Among the rural poor, only 4% of households own computers. Americans are the biggest consumers of communications services on the planet; yet we have one of the most serious problems of income inequality of any developed country. Information from the Luxembourg Income Study shows that out of all industrialized countries -- with the possible exception of Russia -- the U.S. has the greatest gap between rich and poor. According to writer David Lynch, who has been researching this topic, income inequality is directly correlated with education. States with lower reading scores and lower percentages of students finishing high school have greater income inequality. In Kentucky, where there is great disparity, more than 35% of adults hadn't finished high school. In Minnesota, where the disparity is less, just 18% haven't graduated. As usual the common sense of people has it right. Everyone believes that children must get a good education to enable them to fare well in the rest of their lives. John Dewey said, "What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all its children." Yet there is no part of our society that is more inherently unequal for children than education. A child's opportunities in education depend overwhelmingly on the accident of birth. A child born in Mississippi grows up in a state that spends $2500 a year per student on public school education; a child born in Connecticut receives $11,000 per year in funding for education. Some people would argue that high funding for education doesn't necessarily deliver high quality. But it should be fairly obvious that extremely low funding can never deliver high quality. Schools have to have books, enough teachers for small classrooms, communication services and the basic facilities to make quality education a possibility. We all agree that good facilities aren't everything, but schools at least need to have the basics to give them a fighting chance. Children are innocents. No one can believe that children, by accident of birth, should have different opportunities to learn and succeed. We have an ambitious and complex public education system that is the only way to get ahead for 50 million kids; and it's not delivering quality -- or equality -- of education for millions of them. While virtually all businesses today have a computer on every desk and networks linking their employees to each other and the outside world, only 9% of classrooms can give children hands-on exposure to networked computers to prepare themselves for the real world. That's 3 times as many as just two years ago. But we still have 91% to go. The dawning of the Information Age represents an opportunity for equality that we have not enjoyed since Horace Mann first championed the idea of the free public school. Networks in poor neighborhoods or rich suburbs can equally deliver at lightning speed the learning of the Library of Congress. In a true 21st Century classroom without walls, all children can travel as far as their thirst for knowledge will take them. As the President has said, we are building a bridge to the 21st century. But we must not make that a toll bridge that only the lucky, wealthy few are able to cross. The President and the Vice President have challenged us to bring all classrooms onto the information highway. And those classrooms must all have equal opportunities to use the bridge to the future. Fortunately, with the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Administration and Congress have given us a mandate to accomplish just that. Part of the act, known as the Snowe-Rockefeller-Exon- Kerrey amendment, instructs the FCC to find a way to make communications services affordable for all schools and libraries in the country. That means that we at the FCC have the privilege and the challenge of writing the rules that will give meaning to this law and ensure that the education community has the wherewithal to build the on-ramp to the Information Highway. If we are successful our agency's initials could well stand for Fostering Children and Community. We have a crucial vote coming up on November 7. That is when the FCC commissioners, state public utility commissioners and consumer advocates, charged with examining these issues will make their recommendations on a number of issues. On the basis of those recommendations, the FCC will write the rules that will largely determine how quickly and how effectively that ramp will be constructed. We must decide, will we provide support for schools building the ramp all the way to every classroom or will the support stop at the school wall? Will the ramp be a high speed, high bandwidth connection that puts schools on the cutting edge of technology? Will we define the term "affordable" so that schools and libraries are given the resources they need to build ramps that will work? If we do the right thing with the powers Congress has given us, we can address people's deep concern for the education of their children. But if we don't give schools and teachers all the tools and support they need, we risk making technology just another tantalizing apple of education -- always just out of reach for many schools. If, for example, we adopt a policy that just gave every school the exact same amount of money, for half the schools it would probably be more than they need and for the other half it wouldn't be enough. We need to have a policy that recognizes the disparities between schools and helps to bridge the gap. Schools on tight budgets can't strike a good deal on phone connections if they can't get a bargain on putting wiring into the classrooms. They can't learn with the Internet if they get a discount on a phone line but still have to pay high rates for usage. Indeed, it would be a cruel and all too usual punishment for our children if we said -- 'Those of you whose parents or communities have deep pockets can get it; the rest of you, tough luck." I know from my own children, that even some of the schools that ought to be in the best position to take advantage of the tools of technology can't because they lack the funds or the knowhow. My second-grader Sara attends the public school in Maryland that has the best test scores in the entire state. One of the teachers recenty showed my wife and me a computer that the school recently got. It was sitting in a box not hooked up to anything. The classroom doesn't have a telephone jack -- so the Internet might as well not exist. And the school can't even afford a part time specialist to plug the computer in -- let alone try to hook it up one day to a local-area-network. The President has said $5 billion will be devoted to rebuilding our physical schools -- in fact, funded by revenue from FCC auctions. Just as important is modernizing the information infrastructure inside those physical structures. Estimates are that it might cost up to $10 billion over five years to network every classroom in the country. That may seem like a big number but it's actually less than two tenths of one percent of revenues of the information technology industry. Do you believe that's too much to invest in our children's education? Before you answer that, just think about what might be possible for our children if this is done right. Wouldn't it be a good day for our kids and our country if, when children go off to school, they would enter the world of wonder that communications technology can bring them? We'd all like our own children in our neighborhood public school to be in classrooms that have computers on networks with Internet access, distance learning, electronic mail, and cd-roms, wouldn't we? Then in the evenings, when the parents get home, wouldn't it be a good day for our kids and our country if mother and father could call up on the TV screen or the PC the kids' homework? Or could get and send e-mails to teachers? Or could chat on the PC with other parents about soccer games, or the PTA auction, or who is going to be the room parent on Friday? These could be key ways to participate in a child's education. In the 21st Century classroom, learning would no longer be confined to the contents of outdated textbooks. Every teacher and student would be able to tap into a world of libraries or even contact experts directly via e-mail or videoconferencing. Every teacher would have the power of graphics and sound and picture to assist in showing that learning is an exciting adventure for a lifetime. As we think about these possibilities, there is no more appropriate time also to think about renewing the social compact between the communication industries and the public. All traditional media to date have typically been party to some sort of social compact. The cable industry gets right- of-way, but does PEG, leased access and must carry. Satellite operators get to use spectrum, but have to set aside 4%-7% for educational purpose. Broadcasters are renewing their social compact through three hours of children's educational television per week. As the new media emerges, private companies in this area need also to give some thought to their abilities to contribute to the public good. I would like to see at least one Internet access provider take up the challenge to make on-line learning a reality for each school and each classroom in that school. Suppose there were an Internet service provider dedicated specially to providing access for educational institutions. Let's call it Learning-on-Line. This service would charge a low, flat, monthly rate to schools for the connection and usage. And it would provide Internet access to educational software and to the host of great education related web-pages that are already out there. This content would be coupled with online text material, hypertext links, and other supplemental material that organizations like the PTA, NEA and local school boards would vouch for. It could also link the many web pages put up by schools so teachers and students could communicate with each other and share their experiences. In March 1994, just four schools had their own home pages on the Web. As of June of this year, there were 2,850. That's great, but we've got 97,150 to go. Learning-On-Line would contain its own software filters so that the concerns of the Communications Decency Act would be addressed and the fears of parents about inappropriate content would be abated. The government is taking measures to help make computers and connections affordable, accessible tools for our teachers and children. But connections and computers are only half the story, as you know. Teacher training and quality curriculum are the pillars that hold up the other side of the house. That is where the creativity, energy, and contributions of the private sector is needed. To turn computers into true learning and teaching tools, we need high-quality, educational software. Just as quality programming is needed to help make television a positive influence on children, quality software is needed to make sure children using computers don't just become masters of the game Doom, but that they learn to become masters of their own fate. I think we should recognize the importance of Education Technology, a new company started by Michael Milken and Larry Ellison. The market for purely educational software in the U.S. last year was actually only around $300 million. But investments like Education Technology show that some of the sharpest minds in finance and technology are banking on that growing dramatically. After all if the 45 million students who today do not have networked computers in their classrooms actually get them and use them, just think where that market could go. As software developers and inventors of games and entertainment, you have unprecedented tools of sound, graphics and video at your disposal. I extend a challenge to you to use that treasure chest of tools to unlock the riches of learning for our children. Develop the software that you would want your own children to find on their desks when they walk into their classrooms. Develop manuals or training seminars or on-line tutorials that will help teachers understand how to use your products and how to make them a vital part of the teaching and learning experience. Help parents get involved and embrace the technology. The Parents Guide to the Information Superhighway is a great example of how you can help parents catch up with their kids. This guide, developed with the support of groups like the Children's Partnership, the PTA and the Urban League sends the right message. If you don't like some of what's on the Internet, don't turn off your computer. Tune into steps you can take to guide your children and learn together. With the catalyst of public action through government, communities can come together to put communications technology in every classroom. As the President said, "Preparing our children for a lifetime of computer use is now just as essential as teaching them to read and write and do math . . . We must make technological literacy a standard." Making sure that every child -- rich or poor -- has access to a computer and a connection to the Information Superhighway means giving that child the opportunity for enhanced learning, for finding a job after school, for -- quite simply -- surviving in the information age. If we truly want to give all our children a fighting chance we need both quality and equality in educational opportunity. As I said last time I was here, the impossible is only impossible until some inventor, some idea or some occurrence makes it inevitable. And then the inevitable becomes commonplace. Some think it's impossible that computers and the Internet will actually be used to teach every kid in the country. I think we can make it inevitable. After all, with your help -- and with the help of President Clinton, Vice President Gore, Senator Lieberman, Congressman Markey and many other public officials -- we have already achieved one thing that many thought impossible a year ago: guidelines calling for a minimum of three hours a week of educational programming for children. I'd like to take this opportunity to express my deepest thanks to Peggy Charren, the Center for Media Education, and Children Now. Their tireless efforts in raising awareness and generating public support for children's television were critical to our success. They have been the voice for children that would not go away and would not be silenced -- and for that all Americans should be extremely grateful. My friend Peggy is truly the grandmother of children's television. For more than a quarter of a century she fought to give meaning to the term public interest. It shouldn't have taken her so long to win, but I for one count myself lucky to have been present at the victory. Since the adoption of our new rules -- which also tightened the definition of educational TV and ensured more public access to information about educational TV -- we're already beginning to see signs of positive change and an increased market demand for quality programming. USA Today recently reported that "the FCC ruling started a feeding frenzy among producers and creators of potentially educational programming." Alice Cahn, head of children's programming at PBS said she's been swamped with inquiries about supplying educational programming to networks since the FCC ruling. The program "Ghostwriter", which teaches 7- to 12-year-olds to read and write but was dropped by PBS, is being picked up and distributed to commercial stations in syndication. And ABC has committed itself to increasing from two hours to three hours the amount of educational and informational programming it feeds to its affiliates. I'd like to see more good developments that I can report to you. I'd like to see: * An education-Emmy being a coveted prize in the broadcast and cabe industries; * Michelle Pfeiffer, who recently dramatized a teacher in the movie Dangerous Minds, clamoring for the lead role in a hot new network educational series teaching American history in a script written by David McCullough; * Other leading actors and athletes taking up Bill Cosby's suggestoin that they work on educational shows for scale; * Teachers encouraging families to turn on the TV instead of turning it off. We have only begun to skim the surface of TV's potential to teach, enlighten, and inspire our children. With the collective expertise, imagination and dedication of this group of industry representatives, activists and caring parents, we can improve the impact of TV on our children. Bill Cosby's commitment alone can go a long way to revolutionizing educational television. Our kidvid order was designed to create a world in which the public good of television would be used to educate kids. This campaign season is a reminder that we need TV to educate the over-18 set too -- especially about candidates for public office. Following Rupert Murdoch's lead, all of the major broadcast networks have now offered free time to the major presidential candidates. A few days ago it was my privilege to announce the first grant of free time by a commercial broadcaster to candidates for local offices -- for the House, Senate and Governor -- and I congratulate A.H. Belo Corporation for its leadership. Today I am pleased to report that the campaign for free time is picking up steam. Another broadcast group -- based here on the West Coast -- has made a free-time pledge for local candidates. Fisher Broadcasting has offered three-minute blocks of time on its TV stations in Seattle and Portland for Congressional and Gubernatorial candidates, and 90-second blocks on it radio stations in those cities and in Montana. The program is called "Straight Talk" because candidates must appear alone and with no props. Fisher Broadcasting CEO Pat Scott says the program recognizes that viewers want and deserve "to hear the viewpoints of major candidate for governor and federal office directly from the candidates themselves -- unfiltered, unedited and without props or gimmicks." I couldn't agree more. I urge every broadcaster in every community to follow the lead of Fisher Broadcasting and A.H. Belo Corporation. And I urge them to embrace what Senators Bill Bradley and John McCain, Walter Cronkite and Paul Taylor have advocated: a roadblock of straight talk from candidates when voters are most likely to be watching. Isn't this the right time for broadcasters to provide free time at the same time and in prime time. This shouldn't be impossible -- any more than wiring every classroom in the country. I hope we can all work hard together to make the impossible inevitable. We'll certainly get tired in the process -- but it'll be worth it if our kids get wired. Thank you very much. - FCC -