FCC Chairman Reed Hundt Technology and Learning Conference National School Board Association Dallas, Texas October 24, 1996 Thank you very much for that kind introduction. I would like to acknowledge the leadership of Anne Bryant who has focused the efforts of the National School Board Association, leading the way to get technology and 21st Century tools into our schools. I would also like to thank Cheryl Williams for her hard work, collaborating closely with the Department of Education and the White House to make teacher training a priority and who has built this conference into a premier training forum. Thanks also go to Michelle Richards for her hard work with the FCC in our efforts to make sure all schools get access to the communication services they need. Bob Chase, Reg Weaver and Barbara Yentzer of the National Education Association have been outstanding leaders and advocates for the cause of education technology, spearheading efforts with the government and also playing a key role in the 21st Century teachers program -- the volunteer program initiated by President Clinton to have 100,000 teachers commit to helping five other teachers learn how to use technology effectively in the classroom. I'd also like to acknowledge my colleague Audrey Choi who works on my Education Task Force at the FCC. She is here with me today and will be attending the conference tomorrow to have the opportunity to talk with you at greater length. I urge you to seek her out and discuss any of your ideas and concerns with her. I am truly honored to speak to this distinguished and dedicated group. As a parent of three young children, I am deeply grateful for the tireless, and heartfelt contributions you make every single day to help our children learn and grow. As the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, I am deeply grateful for your input and support as we strive to provide you with the tools of 21st century learning to help our children prepare for the next millennium. You have not only been at the forefront of helping our children learn. You have also been the leaders in the movement helping industry, government and parents learn about the importance of giving computers, connectivity and modern communications to all our children. I would like to thank each and every teacher, principal, superintendent, school board member, and school technology advisor here today. You are the most important partners of every parent in the country in the great, difficult, loving effort to raise our children and prepare them for happy, successful lives in the new millennium. We are partners in the effort to keep the American Dream alive. This is the effort that must be made anew again and again because the test of that dream is always whether there is more one generation to share in it. The poet Langston Hughes asked, "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? .... Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?" With your diligence, dedication and caring, I know that you are already doing more than your fair share to make sure that our children's dreams are not deferred, and left to shrivel or self-destruct. But I also know that in many cases you lack the resources to do all you want. I know that some 25 years ago, when I was a teacher, I certainly felt all too often, that I was forced to watch dreams be deferred or sometimes even destroyed. The school where I taught was built in what you might call fortress-style. To approach it you had to pass through a chain link fence with protective barbs on top, cross a moat, then walk up three floors, past the gauntlet of security guards and then into the classroom. The classroom had broken slate, a handful of pieces of chalk, chairs uncomfortable or broken, a few maps showing that Hawaii and Alaska are territories that might someday be states, and 35 old textbooks for 175 kids, who came through in five classes that roared through the room in fifty-minute intervals. Only half of my seventh graders were expected to graduate from 9th grade. Of those who entered high school, fewer than half would graduate. And of those, fewer than half might go to any level of college. The prospect of obtaining a college degree was less than a one in ten chance for my students; and the prospect of getting an advanced degree or becoming a lawyer or a teacher was beyond dreaming. That classroom was a killing ground for the American Dream. How different it might have been if I had had up-to-date resources instead of outdated, dog-eared books. How different it might have been if instead of experiencing a daily loss of hope that anyone cared enough to invest in their future, those students were able to see that society made sure they had access to the most modern tools of learning. How different it might have been if instead of sporadic notes sent home in backpacks and occasional parent-teacher conferences, I could have communicated frequently with my students' parents to make sure that home and school were working together to help those children stay in school, learn, and get ahead. But for me, and for my children, those what-ifs were not to be, and many of those young people lost the hope and ability to dream that they had as children. Today, despite all the efforts made by teachers who are far better than I was then, I know that there are still far too many classrooms that resemble the desolate, outdated classroom in which I taught in 1969. And in many ways, it is all the more tragic because today there are so many more tools at our disposal that could be used to realize those dreams into reality. Access to the Internet could provide even the poorest school with the resources of the world's libraries. E-mail would allow frequent contact between students, teachers and parents. Computers and quality software would allow children to start learning the skills they need to learn, explore, and find ways of realizing their individual dreams. While I certainly don't have the ability to provide a total solution for all our schools, I feel very fortunate that I do have the privilege of being involved in a process that could go a long way toward helping keep those dreams alive. As you know, Congress in February of this year passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996. In my opinion, one of the most important mandates included in the new law is the provision that calls for modern communication services to be provided at affordable rates to all schools and libraries in the country. It's my privilege as chairman of the FCC to try to write the rules to give meaning to this new law. If we are successful in making modern communications services truly affordable and truly accessible for all schools and libraries, we will finally bring into the modern age 45 million teachers and schoolchildren who until now have largely been left behind by the communications revolution. If we are successful, our agency's initials could well stand for Fostering Children and Community. The new law replaces monopolies with competition. As a result, if we write the rules the right way, it will mean that as schools look for ways to connect to the Information Highway, they will have more choices than ever before. They may choose to get communication services from a cable company with two-way modems that use cable in the classroom to give Internet access. A rural or remote school might seek out one of the new wireless companies starting up with the licenses that we have auctioned for $20 billion. Or schools might find the best solution from long distance companies that are entering the local markets. We are working hard to make sure that these businesses can compete healthily with one another so that schools will have a wide array of different, competitively-priced options. The President has set the goal of getting every classroom in the country wired by the end of the century and of making technology literacy a standard in this country. The Administration has shown continued leadership in this area by proposing recently a universal service plan for schools and libraries that includes a no-cost "E-rate" or educational rate for a basic package of transmission service, Internet access, and internal connection. A bipartisan Congress supports a universal service commitment big enough to network every classroom. The FCC in conjunction with state representatives is in the process of determining how close we can come to implementing that proposal. I hope we will be able to do as much as possible, so that the benefits of the Information Age truly reach every child. We just saw a survey today that reports a huge majority of Americans want communications technology in every classroom and is willing to pay for it. This survey sends a message loud and clear to the state and FCC commissioners who are thinking about how much money to commit to this classroom goal. The survey says Americans as a family want to do the right thing for the next generation. The survey says Americans want to give kids the keys -- not the keys to the car, not that -- but the keys to the 21st Century. I'm positive that if the four commissioners of the FCC write the right rules -- if the state commissioners give us the right advice -- we can cut the total of hidden subsidies snuck into your phone bill today and put communications technology in every classroom. 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 monetary help 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." And the survey you showed me tells us Americans know there is no free lunch and no free link to classrooms. But Americans demand that all children get that lunch and all children get that link in the classrooms. So we commissioners at the FCC and in the states need to do what the people are telling us to do. It's so unfair the way we treat teachers and kids today. Many teachers spend between $500 and $1500 a year of their own money to get the supplies they think are necessary to teach their children the way they want to. And I'm talking here about basic things like crayons, construction paper, pencils and scissors that some poor school districts can't afford in their normal budgets. Is it possible that in the future we can allow that some rich schools are able to offer their students fully networked, Pentium-pro PCs, with ISDN connections while in other schools teachers are using their meager salaries to buy crayons? I know that some skeptics might say that if our public schools today are already having a hard time teaching children to read, write and do arithmetic, then computers and the Internet are frills that we can't afford. But 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 recently 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. Let's listen to the people. Because whether it's working as a high-paid programmer at Netscape or a shipping clerk at Wal-Mart, in today's world 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. Last week, I visited a school in Washington, D.C. where students and teachers had participated last year in a study that sees what effect on-line access had on learning outcomes. The study confirmed what you and I have known for a long time: Access to the world of on- line information and learning really does benefit students. The children who had access to the Internet not only presented their final projects in more creative ways. Their projects were judged to be more complete, to present a fuller picture of different elements of the topic and to provide a better synthesis of different points of view. It clearly showed that communication is not a luxury or a frill but is a real, valuable learning tool that should be present for all students - regardless of income or location. It also showed that computers and connections need to be in the classroom where children can use them all the time -- not locked away in a basement or a lab that children visit once a day. This particular study was personally interesting for me, because in the experimental 4th grade class was the son of one of our employees at the FCC. This child, Seth Teicher, was so inspired by the new learning adventure that he even became one of the Webmasters for the Murch School's home page, eagerly spending hours on the project in addition to doing his homework. He also discovered the downside of being on-line: when he was out sick one day from school, his teacher just e-mailed his homework to him. The really interesting part of the story is that now that Seth is in the 5th grade, he's no longer in that one classroom of the school that had Internet access. This shows that even with the schools that really want to do the most for their kids, we've still got a long way to go. Some say that getting technology into the classroom ought to be the concern of local communities and the private sector. And while I think Net Days are fantastic and have participated in them myself, we can't simply leave this important task to volunteerism. I recently received an e-mail from Rhonda Toon, a teacher in Barnesville, Georgia. She told me that she has Internet in her classroom -- but only because she has "written grants, searched and begged," and already spends a fair amount of her own money on school supplies. She says "I hurt when I see the Net Days with technology going out to a school here and a school there. I know we have to start somewhere, but for this technology to reach schools everywhere it has to be affordable.... Please, please help us." I certainly intend to do everything I can, Ms. Toon. 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. No CEO in this country would allow his workers to rely on pencil, paper and outdated reference materials to do their job. And yet that is the fate we are consigning many of our children to. I have heard from teachers who said that they are still using encyclopedias that read "someday we may send a man to the moon." Well, we've been to the moon. And maybe we need to remember for a moment what we did to get there: Some 40 years ago, government, the high tech industry and this nation's educators worked together in a national effort to improve math and science education. Together we helped motivate our young people with the desire and equip them with the tools to excel in learning and to increase our country's level of expertise and knowledge in science and math. Together, we succeeded and sent a man to the moon. Today, in the era of pioneering cyberspace and the applications of technology for education, we have the opportunity to embark on a similar journey. Working together, government, the private sector and educators have the opportunity to ride the communications revolution and let it give kids the tools they need to excel and prosper as they explore the next millennium. About 130 years ago, an English Lord wrote the following words about America. In America, he said, "a child is not born to the station of its parents, but with... [a] claim to all the prizes that can be won by thought and labor. It is in conformity with the theory of equality .... to give as near as possible to every youth an equal state in life." Americans, he said "are unwilling that any should be deprived in childhood of the means of competition." Isn't that what we believe? We ought to be true to this description. But are we? 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. And so far, the technology revolution seems to be making the divide grow rather than shrink. 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. Let's listen to what the people say about these sorry facts. In your survey, 89% said they believe that rural and poor schools should get extra assistance to have the same access to technology as richer schools. That means we'll have to give more money to poor schools than rich schools. That's fair, isn't it? Let's do it. Does anyone think we should have less electricity or worse roads or fewer police in rural or poor neighborhoods? Why should we tolerate worse education there? But let's not bring good schools down. Let's use technology to lift the quality and equality of education everywhere. Teachers and educators know far better than I that there are many steps to success in using technology in education. You know as well as I that computers and connections to the Internet are vital to our journey. But a successful journey also requires a flight plan and a control tower that pilots can call when they have a problem. In addition to focusing on getting hardware and connectivity into our schools, we also need to think about teacher training and ways to support schools in their efforts to use the new tools effectively. Among the ideas we're trying to build support for is providing schools that are looking for advice on how to get on the Information Superhighway with a central source of information and advice they could turn to. Ideally, there would be an entity that would gather information from hardware and software makers, provide cost and feature comparisons to schools looking for educational equipment, offer cost-benefit analysis of different ways of networking schools, and maintain lists of contacts and case studies of education technology plans that have worked and those that haven't. Schools could call on this organization for advice, analysis or even troubleshooting so that the technology in the classroom becomes a true tool of learning, rather than a high-tech obstacle. Then, we would truly begin to deliver to our children the true promise of an educational discovery of cyberspace. And the potential rewards truly are worth the journey. Think about what it would be like if every teacher walking into every classroom had a computer on a network that gives that teacher access to dozens of variations for the daily lesson plan. Imagine if every teacher could e-mail parents, other teachers, and the principal to discuss how students are faring and what can be done to help them more. Picture a world where teachers could ask questions of other teachers, of parents, of experts in colleges or universities, all by the push-button magic of e-mail. Some people say, with technology changing so fast, we shouldn't run the risk of investing today in technology that could be obsolete in three years or five years or ten years. But as we adults sit and deliberate and argue about it, these children keep getting older every year. And class after class of young people are being sent out into the world without the 21st century skills they need to survive in the increasingly competitive, complex, global information society. Together I am confident that we can find the right solutions to help make the most of the new teaching tools the communications revolution has put at our disposal. Together we will help realize the dream of a true 21st century classroom without walls where a child's only limitations will be his or her curiosity and ability to dream. Thank you for your concern and I look forward to seeing where this journey will take us. - FCC -