    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
    [February 15, 1996]
    [Pages 257-260]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 257]]

    Remarks in a Roundtable Discussion on Education Technology in
    Union City, New Jersey
    February 15, 1996

        The President. Thank you very much, Carol. Good morning, Secretary
    Riley. You look great long distance there--[laughter]--glad you're in
    the Cabinet. Good morning, Bob Fazio, and thank you again for what you
    said and for the remarkable work you have done here. I want to say hello
    to Senator Lautenberg and Congressman Menendez, who had so much to do
    with starting this technology effort in this school system; and to Jim
    Cullen at Bell Atlantic, and the others who are here from the private
    sector; and the teachers, the parents, and especially the students who
    are here; and the students from the 65 schools in Hudson, Bergen, and
    Morris Counties who are with us today, thanks to technology. I want to
    say hello to all of you.
        I have been looking forward to this for some time. And the Vice
    President and I have had some very exciting conversations about what we
    would see here and what all of you have done here. And I want to just
    begin by thanking all of you for making this kind of partnership work
    and by proving what I said in the State of the Union, that we have an
    obligation if we want all Americans to have the opportunities that this
    new information and technology age offers, we have an obligation to make
    sure that all of our children have access to world-class education
    through the finest technology. And you are doing that. And I'm very,
    very proud of you, and I'm very excited to listen to all of you and what
    you have to say today.
        But I would like to talk a little bit about what we are trying to
    do. What we trying to do from the White House is to work in partnership
    with everybody in America who is concerned about this to see that by the
    year 2000 every classroom and every library in the entire United States
    is hooked up to the information superhighway, that all our children have
    access to computers and the finest educational software and all of our
    teachers have the kind of training and support that obviously you have
    provided here, and that there is the kind of connection that we see
    here.
        I am very excited about the prospects that young people like those
    here at this table in this room will be able to learn things that I
    could never have even dreamed of as a child. And while I want districts
    like yours to be able to stand out and be proud, I think all of you want
    every child to have the opportunities that your children have.
        And that's why I wanted to come here to announce what our next steps
    are. As I said in the State of the Union, when I outlined the importance
    of meeting the challenge of providing all of our children an education
    for the 21st century, one of the primary goals I set was making sure
    every classroom was hooked up to the information superhighway by the
    year 2000. Today I am proposing and will include in my budget to the
    Congress a $2 billion technology literacy challenge that will put the
    future at the fingertips of every child in every classroom in the United
    States. Let me explain just briefly how it will work.
        We'll basically do what you have done here in Union City on a
    national level. We will use the resources of State and local governments
    and school districts, of the private sector, the schools, the students,
    the parents, and the teachers. The proposal is part of the balanced
    budget plan, as I said, I sent to Congress, and we will use these funds
    basically as challenge grants to try to make sure that no school
    district, no matter how poor, no matter how urban or rural, will be
    denied the opportunity to do what your children have been able to do
    because of your vision and work.
        I ask for all the people in this country who will support this
    effort to get active, to get involved. Companies like Bell Atlantic can
    do a great deal, but they can also use a lot more help. And obviously,
    none of this will happen unless the school and the parents support the
    endeavor.
        So we're going to try to do our part. We want to support you. And we
    look forward to the day when we can have a conversation like this and
    every school child in America can be a part of it.
        Now I'd like to turn this over to our high-tech Vice President who
    has educated me--between the Vice President and my daughter, I'm about
    to figure out this modern age. [Laughter]

    [[Page 258]]

    And I want to thank them both and introduce the Vice President and thank
    him for all the work he has done in this important area.

    [The Vice President compared President John F. Kennedy's initiative in
    America's early space program with President Clinton's initiative to
    link schools to the information superhighway.]

        The President. Thank you.
        Let me just say one other word and then we'll go back to the planned
    rotation. Bob Fazio said something that sparked a warm response in me
    and reminded me that technology is only as good as the people who are
    using it, and in the service of education, it's only as good as the
    educators who are committed to educating our children.
        And he introduced himself as the instructional leader of this
    school. Having worked now for almost 20 years in the field of education
    reform and having had the opportunity as a Governor to travel all across
    America, to go into many of our country's finest schools, it wasn't so
    many years ago that there were almost no principals in America who would
    have introduced themselves as the instructional leaders of their
    schools. They thought of themselves as managers, people who kept order
    and made sure the books balanced and did all kinds of things that were
    unrelated almost to what was going on in the classroom. And the reason
    this technology initiative is working here is because, from the
    principal to the teachers, people understand what the mission is.
        And I wanted to thank you. That was a statement that people that
    haven't spent a lot of time in classrooms might not have even paid any
    attention to, but to me it meant more than anything else you said. And I
    thank you for that because it's important for all us who are trying to
    put this equipment at the fingertips of our educators to remember that
    what happens then is the magic between the teachers, the children, and
    the parents. And I thank you for what you said.
        Mr. Fazio. Thank you, Mr. President.
        The President. Mr. Vice President, who is going to go next?

    [Mr. Fazio introduced a teacher who described how her school used
    technology and commented that she was nervous.]

        The President. You're doing great.

    [The teacher said that the President's initiative was important to Union
    City students because many could not afford home computers.]

        The President. Thank you.

    [The Vice President introduced a participant who commented that learning
    computer skills in grammar school would give students an advantage in
    high school and college.]

        The President. Let me ask you something. Why do you think that
    students here are doing better now, like on test scores and things like
    that, than they would have done if there had been no technology here?
    What do you think the most important thing is about technology?

    [The participant said that computers gave students immediate access to
    current information and more time to study, without regard to economic
    class.]

        The President. That's right. Do you think that having access to the
    computer makes all children believe that they're equal, that they can
    have equal aspirations because it's an equalizer across income, isn't
    it?
        Participant. Yes, it is.
        The President. Is it also more fun?
        Participant. Yes.
        The President. Do you think that has something to do with why people
    learn more, because it's more fun? [Laughter]
        Participant. Yes, I do.
        The President. That's not bad, that's okay. You can say that.
    [Laughter] It doesn't have to be hard; it can be fun.

    [The Vice President introduced a participant from Bergen Academy who
    described how partnerships were created between businesses, schools, and
    professionals to bring technology into the schools and community. He
    said that technology made teaching more exciting and he woke up every
    morning not knowing what was going to happen.]

        The President. It is like our job. [Laughter]

    [The participant said that rather than being a teacher, he now was a
    facilitator, a teammate in solving problems. He then introduced two
    students who described their computer projects, including an effort to
    put a biovisualization and 3-D gallery on the Internet.]

    [[Page 259]]

        The President. Tell us what biovisualization is. For all of us mere
    mortals, we'd like to know what that means. [Laughter]

    [A participant described the project of electronically reproducing
    specimens from the Smithsonian Institution. Other students then
    described and demonstrated their projects.]

        The President. That's great.

    [Parent Luciano Calles explained that the program motivated children and
    exposed families to the education process.]

        The President. Thank you very much.

    [The Vice President introduced parent Louis Clements, who described
    parental cooperation with faculty and school administrators to expand
    the program.]

        The President. Thank you very much, Lou, and thank you, Mr. Calles.
    I want to just comment very briefly. I think if every school in America
    had 75 to 80 percent parental participation, we wouldn't have half the
    problems we've got, and we'd have a lot more computers in the schools a
    lot faster. I thank you for that.
        And I wanted to say to you, Mr. Calles, one of the things that you
    said that meant a great deal to me personally was that you thought it
    had helped at home, too--the atmosphere of education at home. I mean, I
    gather you feel that you have a higher level of security about your
    child's education, and you feel more involved in it because of this
    technology project.

    [Mr. Calles said that his children taught their parents to use the home
    computer and that school administrators communicated with parents at
    home using E-mail.]

        The President. Do you have a lot of parents who communicate through
    E-mail now?

    [Mr. Fazio affirmed that it provided an opportunity to reach parents who
    could not come to the school.]

        The President. I'd like to call on Jim Cullen, the vice chairman of
    Bell Atlantic. Bell Atlantic has been an indispensable part in this
    project here at Christopher Columbus in Union City. I want to thank you,
    but I'd like for you to talk about your role, why you did it, and what
    you think the future holds.

    [Mr. Cullen described the process of electronically linking schools with
    outside resources. He noted that the Telecommunications Act of 1996
    encouraged the establishment of electronic links to educational
    institutions and libraries. The Vice President said that the President
    was responsible for that part of the legislation.]

        The President. Explain to everybody what is in it, though, so that--
    --

    [The Vice President summarized the legislation, emphasizing the
    challenge grants to create public-private partnerships. Mr. Cullen then
    said he expected that corporations would be eager to participate.]

        The President. Jim, I want to hear from Congressman Menendez and
    Senator Lautenberg and the mayor and Secretary Riley about their
    perspectives on this and their involvement with it, because they all
    have been involved. But just before I do, I'd like to ask you to just
    touch once more on something that has come up several times today that
    comes up in other places where I've been--I was in Concord, New
    Hampshire, several days ago, 2 days after they connected all the schools
    in their community--and that is the challenge of making sure that
    children have access and their parents have access to computers and to
    being hooked in when they're at home. How important do you think that
    is? Could you say again, very briefly, what steps you took to do that,
    just to emphasize that for the people that are listening here, because
    this is one thing that's going to require an extra amount of effort in
    several places in the United States to get this done. And so if you
    could just--and maybe, Bob, you might want to comment a little bit--but
    if you could just talk briefly about it, and then we'll go to our public
    officials.

    [Mr. Cullen summarized the vision of the information superhighway,
    concluding that it had the potential to be available around the clock in
    schools, small businesses, and homes.]

        The President. But it's important to hammer that home. I mean, the
    ultimate vision of this is that the reach of the information
    superhighway will equal the reach of telephones and television here. It
    will be in every house.

    [A participant reported that Mayor Bruce Walter's vision was to open the
    public library to on-line users as a way of providing a safe haven for
    children.]

    [[Page 260]]

        The President. Congressman and Senator and mayor?

    [Representative Robert Menendez said New Jersey was willing to work with
    the President to move the rest of the Nation onto the information
    superhighway.]

        The President. Great.
        Senator?

    [Senator Frank Lautenberg emphasized that technological advances had
    sharpened students' learning abilities and concluded by thanking the
    President and the Vice President.]

        The President. Mayor, I'd like to let you speak last, so let me
    interject here and call on Secretary Riley out there in cyberspace to
    ask if he has any comments.

    [Secretary of Education Richard Riley discussed the role of Government
    as a leader and supporter of technology initiatives.]

        The President. Thank you very much. And thank you for your
    leadership to make sure that's exactly what we did.
        Mr. Mayor?

    [Mayor Bruce Walter discussed the role of local government and concluded
    by thanking the President and the Vice President.]

        The President. Thank you.
        Mr. Vice President?

    [The Vice President reviewed the concept of universal service as it
    would apply to computer communications and thanked the participants for
    demonstrating the future. A participant then invited the President and
    the Vice President to continue the discussion at another location.]

        The President. We will do that. But before we get up from this table
    I want to leave you with one final thought to muse about, and I hope not
    only all of you but all the people who will read or see about this--as
    President, I have said repeatedly, I believe--when it comes to the
    American people I have two great objectives, and that is to do
    everything that we can do to make the American dream available to every
    person who is willing to work for it, and secondly, to do it in a way
    that brings the American people together instead of divide them.
        Technology has been a big part of this debate. Technology clearly
    here is uniting us and moving us forward. Erika said it: It doesn't
    matter where you come from, doesn't matter who your family is. And
    Luciano said it: You can be an immigrant family; you can bring a
    computer there; you can have access to the information. People--all
    people can have high expectations for themselves, no matter what their
    income background, no matter what their roots are, they can do that.
    This is bringing us together and moving us forward.
        If you look beyond the schooling years, there are lots of people who
    are afraid that technology is doing the reverse. In our economy, where
    we have global information and global markets and breathtaking changes
    in productivity, you read every day--and I have talked about it in my
    State of the Union Address--we have almost 8 million new jobs, but half
    the country hasn't gotten a raise and a lot of people are wondering what
    will happen to them if their big company becomes a smaller company
    because of information productivity.
        What I want the American people to see about this is that when we
    complete the work of bringing the information superhighway to all
    education and to all of our people, it will empower everybody, and it
    will close the circle, and it will enable us to use these great new
    forces of the modern world to bring all of America together and to move
    all of America forward.
        You know, you can't turn around and go back. This will carry us
    forward. And I think it's a very, very great thing for our country. And
    some day, when Erika is about our age thinking about her children and
    her grandchildren, we will look upon what you are doing as the beginning
    of a great renewal of American society that goes even far beyond
    education and proves that we can make this technology our friend and
    reinforce the American dream and give everybody a chance to live up to
    their own dreams.
        And you are real pioneers, and I'm very grateful to you. Thank you,
    everybody.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:45 a.m. in a classroom at Christopher
    Columbus Junior High School. In his remarks, he referred to Carol Lisa,
    principal, Bergen Academy for the Advancement of Science and Technology,
    and Bob Fazio, principal, Christopher Columbus Junior High School. A
    portion of this discussion could not be verified because the tape was
    incomplete.