[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]

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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.]

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    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.]

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    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.