CHAIRMAN REED E. HUNDT FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION KIDSNET MEETING AUGUST 22, 1995 (as prepared for delivery) Thank you so much Karen Jaffe for that kind introduction. I am glad to see my friend Charlie Ferris here whom I understand is on the Kidsnet board. Charlie held my job in the late 1970s -- and could have warned me, if he'd chosen to. But we'll talk about that later. I was extremely flattered when Karen invited me to speak to all of you because to the extent that the FCC has a legacy of attempting to include children in telecommunications policy, it is because of you. Yours' are the organizations that have petitioned, testified, cajoled, criticized, organized and mobilized in order to force the Commission, Congress, and American parents to recognize that broadcasters and others in the communications field have a responsibility to serve the public -- including our nation's children. During my tenure, the NEA and the PTA have testified at an en banc hearing on Children's TV and others have participated in the effort to link our nation's classrooms to the information highway. This connection is so important to me because I have decided to focus much of my attention at the Commission on ensuring that children are not left out of the information revolution. And I can only do this with your help. But what does communications policy have to do with children? And why should you add issues -- even issues on which you have contributed over the years -- to the many already on your plate? Well, everyone agrees the Information Highway will radically change our society. The Information Highway includes all the ways we create ideas, products, and services with computers, on the phone, or over the air. It is going to account for one sixth of our economy by the end of the decade. It is going to be the source of high paid jobs in the next century. It is the key factor behind America's worldwide lead in productivity. This radical change will present new opportunities but it will also present new dangers. We can't foresee what those are. Therefore -- going in -- we ought to agree to two things. First, where we see harm coming to our children, we will strive to correct that harm. Second, where the communications revolution offers real advances we must make sure its benefits are fairly available to all - especially to our children. Let's talk first about the issue of harm. We have only to turn on the television to see the dangers this lane of the information highway presents to our children's values. Here is a deeply disturbing statistic. Eighty percent of Americans think TV is harmful to society, and especially to children. A New York Times poll released this weekend revealed that "Americans have a starkly negative view of popular culture, and blame television more than any other single factor for teen-age sex and violence. By a large margin, they favor measures like ratings that would give parents more information about what their children are watching and listening to. But by almost as large a margin, they say they believe that such measures would not actually succeed in preventing chidren from viewing or hearing material that is inappropriate." Children themselves report that television encourages them to take part in sexual activity too soon, to show disrespect for their parents, to lie and to engage in aggressive behavior. More than 1000 studies, including reports from the Surgeon General and the National Institute of Mental Health, show a "significant link" between "heavy exposure to TV violence and subsequent aggressive behavior" and lower levels of positive or altruistic behavior. Some studies have concluded that TV accounts for an increase in the level of violence in our society by between 5 and 15%. Exposure to TV violence is a problem for virtually every American child. Preschoolers watch 28 hours of television a week. More than 90% of programs during children's prime viewing hours are violent. Every year, the average American child watches more than 1,000 rapes, murders, armed robberies and assaults and the average American teenager views 14,000 sex references on TV. It gets worse. This spring, ABC canceled "Cro," one of two educational children's programs on its Saturday morning schedule, and replaced it with a cartoon version of the hit movie "Dumb and Dumber." This is beyond irony: Dumb and Dumber is a description of this decision not just a title. The public has every right to act on its disappointment with TV. Broadcasters now operate on spectrum leased to them temporarily by the American public in order to benefit the public interest. The law requires that broadcasters uphold public interest standards regardless of the number of yuppies that they capture for advertisers to sell to. Broadcasters have to live up to that deal as long as they operate on that spectrum. Specifically, the Children's Television Act requires broadcasters to increase the amount of educational programming directed at kids. But until now the FCC has failed to give that Act sufficient regulatory teeth and broadcasters have, as a result, flouted it -- claiming the Jetsons fulfills their requirements. So what is to be done? First, parents need information. The FCC has issued a notice of proposed rulemaking proposing a definition of educational television and a requirement that broadcasters provide this information to program guides and others. Second, parents need to know there will be something worthwhile when they turn on the set. Our notice asks for comments on proposals to require broadcasters to air a minimum amount of educational programming each week. Once again, we need your support to bring these to fruition. Third, just as the President and many Congressmen and Senators have said: parents need something to choose, and they also need the power to choose. They need information and need computer hardware or software -- like the V-chip -- to help them select from the avalanche of programs pouring uninvited over the air into their homes. Congress will decide how to address this issue in the fall. Broadcast television can only do so much, however, to educate and enlighten our children. Its main limitation is that it is a one way medium. It talks to children - but it doesn't get children to talk back, to express themselves, to communicate. When the Vice President first coined the term Information Highway he talked about the vision of the schoolgirl in Carthage, Tennessee, who could go to the Library of Congress to get the learning not available in her small town in rural America. She would be able to travel to Washington without leaving Tennessee. President Clinton built on this vision in last year's State of the Union address to call upon the telecommunications industry to connect every classroom and every library in America to the national information highway by the year 2000. In his words, "...instant access to information will increase productivity, will help to educate our children...(and) will create jobs." This is the second issue I said I wanted us to agree on--the need to have the communication revolution benefit all our people. President Clinton's grand vision is a year and a half old. All over the country people are thinking of plans for providing networked computers to at least some schools. But nowhere have I yet seen a complete plan to give modern communication to every teacher in every classroom. We have teachers in two million classrooms. These are the smithies that forge the "uncreated conscience" of our country - as James Joyce put it. They all need modern tools to do their jobs. A long time ago I was a teacher. We had almost no connection with the teachers in the next room, much less across the town or around the world. Today the situation is sadly similar. Ninety percent of our classrooms don't even have telephone lines. A shipping clerk at Wal Mart is at the top of the charts in productivity because he or she has the most advanced communications networks at his or her fingertips.Why shouldn't teachers and students have the same keys to success as WalMart shipping clerks? Communications technology is a key to the future of education. I have seen networked classrooms, and they work. I saw this future in the Ralph Bunche Elementary school -- P.S. 125 -- in Harlem, New York. Two classrooms the are connected to the phone network. I watched fifth and sixth graders share a lesson with kids in Nova Scotia and Hawaii. They use the CIA World Fact Book to conduct science projects. They electronically questioned researchers in Australia. Networks carry those kids to their classrooms, beyond the walls of P.S. 125, outside of Harlem, and around the globe. Networks show them the way to a brighter future. Networks bring them education resources that no school district could otherwise physically import. I'm not talking about the glitter and glitz of interactive games, or the small amusement of E-mail witticisms. I'm talking about real learning. Social scientists have repeatedly proved that education over networks captures students' imaginations and calls forth a greater willingness to learn. Test scores go up when learning occurs over networks. Self esteem rises. Fluency in self expression increases. Access should be available to in every classroom and every library. It is, or will be, available in the private schools and in the fine universities. However, if no action is taken by government, that access will never reach all the classrooms or libraries. Those with access to the Information Highway will expand their opportunities. Those without it will fall farther behind. The gulf between what in the 16th century Cervantes called the haves and the have- nots can shrink -- or it can widen. The Senate and the House have each passed telecommunications reform legislation. In each bill is a provision that would give the Commission some leeway in making schools targets of our universal service subsidy pool -- allowing us to give schools discounts when they connect to the information superhighway. But those provisions are not strong enough and they are not secure. I'd like to see this group participate in that debate. Now there is no quick fix for the things that ail our nation's schools. No one knows that better than you. Certainly, technology is not a cure-all. But when I think about what it could mean to today's inner-city students, in education, in job opportunities, I know the information highway can help bridge the gap between the hopelessness in our schools today and the hope that can come true tomorrow. You see the information highway can be a bridge. It is a bridge from disadvantage to opportunity, a bridge for our children to cross into the 21st century economy, a bridge we can as a whole country proceed across. But we must not wait for some Pied Piper to tell us how to build the bridge. The solution to our problems lies not in delusions of pipe dreams but in our hands. So send your representatives to work on our legislation, come meet with us at the Commission. Help us lay the building stones for the information bridge. Many thanks.