SPEECH BY REED HUNDT CHAIRMAN FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SECONDARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS FEDERAL RELATIONS CONFERENCE BANQUET WASHINGTON, D.C. (AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY) FEBRUARY 12, 1996 KEEPING THE DREAM ALIVE FOR OUR KIDS Thank you, Dominique, for that kind introduction. And thank you all, especially Samuel Salva and Timothy Dyer, for inviting me to share this special evening. I am very honored to receive your Distinguished Service Award. This award makes me as proud and excited as a kid who gets his first "A". And I am only a little nervous about being summoned before a hundred principals. You all could mete out a great deal of punishment if you were so inclined. Fortunately I'm bringing you a shiny new apple: the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Thanks, in particular, to Senators Snowe, Rockefeller, Exon, and Kerrey, and the Administration, this law includes provisions that make my dreams come true. This law gives all of us the chance to make come true the President's challenge in the State of the Union to connect every classroom of every school to the information highway by the beginning of the next century. Before I was chairman of the FCC I was a lawyer. And before that I had a respectable job. I was a teacher. I'll never forget my first class on the first day of my short and ancient teaching career, a quarter-of-a-century ago. I had 35 textbooks for the 35 students in the first class. I gave them out at the beginning, attempted to take attendance and maintain order, and then, before an appropriate learning environment was in fact achieved, the bell rang. Everyone ran for the door. And they took the books with them. I stopped the last dozen kids and retrieved the books. And that left me with one book for each three kids in the second group of 35. And by the third class I had no books left. I spent the rest of the year handing out purple mimeographs of lesson plans I made up myself. I was teaching in a school that gave its kids no good reason to believe they had a bright future. Thirty-five books for 175 students was the least of our problems. I tried, but the sad truth is that I wasn't able to do much for my students. Ultimately, I did the teaching profession and my students a favor and went to law school. I learned much more from my students than they learned from me. Most of all, I learned about the depth of the gulf between the worlds of those who have real opportunity in this country and those who do not. It was then and it is now a broad and deep gulf, and the bridges are few. One of those bridges should be what Vice President Gore more than 20 years ago first called the information superhighway. That bridge can now be built to every child in the country. That's why the President signed the law in the Library of Congress. We brought the law to that great library. Now we have to build the network from every classroom to that library. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is the first major overhaul of telecommunications law in almost 62 years. It turns the old law on its head. The old law was based on monopoly. The new law is based on competition. In the past, until last Thursday, big government tightly managed a few large communications companies. In exchange for their services, these companies enjoyed monopoly status. Today, in the communications field, to paraphrase the President, the era of big government is over -- at least the era of big government management of state-supported monopolies is over. The Telecommunications Act is intended to lead to a new era of competition. The goal is to let anyone enter any communication business -- to let any communications business compete in any market against any other. This competition, if we can make it happen, will give us all better value -- more communications services for our money. Meanwhile, even as the business sector in this country is roaring into the 21st-century information age, 45 million American children go to school in a 19th-century world of chalk- and-blackboard technology. Only 12% of our classrooms have phone lines. Only 3% have computer networks. For each of our children to have his or her fair chance to make the American Dream come true, each needs to be taught both with and about the latest technology. Networked computers have the power to boost learning in numerous ways. They can help teach the basics -- the three R's -- better than traditional tools. In a technology trial in Oxnard, California students' statewide test scores jumped from below the 40th percentile to the 92nd. At the same time, absenteeism decreased by 18%. Technology is so effective because it encourages children to participate in the learning process -- to ask probing questions and develop teamwork skills. It changes the dynamic of the classroom. Learning, rather than teaching, becomes the focus. Today, over 50% of children from high-income families have computers at home, while fewer than 5% of children from low-income families do. In our public schools all children need a fair chance to learn with and about information age skills. Here's what is necessary: In every school there is a need for -- networks, servers, and computers connected to these networks -- distance learning -- curriculum development that uses communications technology -- Internet access -- training teachers in the use of the new technology -- parental involvement in the new networks You can already see what can be delivered for schools. AT&T announced last fall that it will provide $150 million in the next five years to offer free Internet access to every classroom in the country. And TimeWarner has agreed to provide a free modem to all the schools in its service areas, to provide them inside wiring at cost, and to provide them free Internet access using their new on-line service as soon as it is on the market. On March 9th, the President, together with members of the telecommunications industry, educators, and parents, will announce the networking of all California's schools. By the end of this spring, 20% of our largest state's classrooms will be on the information superhighway. California will serve as an example for the rest of the country. As another great example of cooperation, IBM is holding an educational summit for governors and CEOs across the nation later this spring. In the words of Lou Gerstner, Chairman and CEO of IBM, "We will see how technology can multiply a teacher's power, speed the education process, and draw increased numbers of students into learning activities. And we will see how technology can restructure and expand the schoolday and the schoolyear." The Telecommunications Act of 1996 specifically states that our policies should guarantee that teachers and kids in every classroom get access to advanced telecommunications services. The so-called Snowe-Rockefeller-Exon-Kerrey provision of the law orders the FCC to create special discounts for schools to make telecommunications services affordable. Companies that provide such services to schools will be reimbursed, in part, by a fund to which all providers of similar services contribute. This funding mechanism is the one we have used in the past to ensure universal access to the telephone network. Now it will ensure that all of our children have access to the tools of tomorrow. In addition, the law lets us create an Educational Technology Corporation to fund educational technology and serve as a clearinghouse of ideas. The new law can be one of the most important education laws ever passed. It depends on what we make of it. We need a comprehensive solution to the problem of introducing information age opportunity into the world of education. We're all aware of the tragedy of inequality of education opportunity today. A child going to public school in East St. Louis, Illinois, and a child going to public school in the Chicago suburbs of Illinois are given fundamentally unequal opportunities. The two school systems might as well be in different countries instead of in the same state. The inequalities of educational opportunity are so great that we are all naturally suspicious of any new idea offered to improve education. We tend to believe that there are no panaceas. That is correct. But we should not believe, as well, that there are also few, if any, steps that can be taken to treat children in different school districts fairly. We sometimes wonder if in some way income disparities, political problems, a general lack of funding, union negotiations, crumbling buildings, security issues, and a host of other problems mean that inequalities in educational opportunities are, like a hurricane or a blizzard, just something that has to be suffered. We need to recognize that technology can bring us help. In no way is technology going to be a complete cure-all for educational equality or for all societal problems. But in absolutely no way is it destined to be a failure. There is no question we can improve educational opportunity if we find the ways to put communications technology in the hands of every teacher and every child in this country. Education technology can be an equalizer of opportunity. That's what it has been for businesses and scientists and college students. That's what it can be for pre-schoolers and elementary school teachers and PTAs and community groups and all those interested in what ought to be a fundamental goal of our society: making sure that every child gets an education that keeps the American dream alive for that child. So when we talk about education technology we should recognize that although there are many dimensions to the subject, success is within our grasp. But we need to reach for it. We need to work on all parts of the problem: curriculum reform, teacher training, parental involvement, the mass customization of education, security, maintenance, and affordable rates. These parts all need to be put together for us to have success. But the Telecommunications Act of 1996 provides us nuts, bolts, glue, even some steel frame, to rebuild our education structure. 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." Part of a national commitment to education should be a guarantee that parents get more tools for teaching at home. The creative community has great skills and is filled with big-hearted people. If called upon, they could deliver to all Americans truly educational TV shows, designed for young children, that would be a kind of Headstart in the Home, for free, over- the-air. Examples like "Cro" and "Bill Nye the Science Guy" prove the point. TV is in virtually every home. Wouldn't you like to see parents have the choice of letting their young children watch educational TV that prepared them for school, improved their test scores, and incidentally substituted for violent cartoons or adult-oriented shows? In passing the Children's Educational Television Act of 1990, Congress required broadcasters to air children's educational television. Congress gave the FCC the job of issuing rules that guaranteed this result. On February 29th the President will meet with members of the broadcast industry to explore ways to improve the quality and quantity of educational TV. I'm hoping for progress. We can have new tools in the classroom. We can use our media to help teach kids at home. The opportunities of the Communications Revolution are limitless. There should be no limits on who has those opportunities. This afternoon, the FCC announced its schedule to implement the new telecommunications law. We have to undertake over 80 rulemakings. In the long run the most important might be a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to examine how to ensure that teachers and kids in classrooms have access to advanced telecommunications services, ranging from e-mail to the Internet. Our rulemaking proceedings are one of the most important things we do. We always hear from industry, but to best represent the public interest we need to hear from everyone who has a stake in the issues. And that means you. On issues related to children, we need to hear from principals and teachers and parents and PTAs and NEAs and all the advocates and allies you can find. You are an essential part of the process. So talk to the Commission staff and the five Commissioners. Come see us. Call us. Write to us at the FCC, or e-mail me at rhundt@FCC.gov. I want to tell you why this is such a big moment for me. As I mentioned, I was a teacher. But so was my mother. After having three kids, she went back to school at night to get her teaching degree. My brother has just completed college and will become a teacher. His wife is a teacher. My sister is a librarian. My family honors your profession. It is an honor for me to do anything I can to make your jobs easier, more productive, and more fulfilling. Teaching is noble work. We all should do all we can to make that work more productive and more successful for all the teachers and all the children in the country. -FCC-