REMARKS BY CHAIRMAN REED HUNDT
                   FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION 

        National Coalition for Technology in Education and Training
                             September 9, 1996

     Thank you for the opportunity to be here today.  You have been the leaders in
an unprecedented movement that has transformed the 21st Century classroom from a
dream into a possibility.  With your continued work and persistence, we can make it a
reality.

     With the advent of the Internet, high speed telecommunications, and lower
priced computers, we truly can build the 21st Century classroom.  You know better
than I what a great place that will be.  That classroom would be a place without
boundaries to the acquisition of knowledge.  Learning no longer would be limited to
the contents of a few hundred pages in an outdated textbook. Teachers no longer
would be without tools as they sought new ways to capture the interest and
imagination of their students. Parents no longer would feel isolated from what their
children were doing at school.

     In the 21st Century classroom, every teacher and student would have the
entire body of human knowledge literally at their fingertips.  Every teacher would have
the power of graphics and sound and video to help demonstrate that learning is an
adventure for a lifetime.  Every parent would be able to participate in the learning
odyssey.

     Those of you who are parents, like me,  think how different life would be if you
could exchange e-mail with a teacher as easily and as frequently as you do with your
colleagues at work.  No more notes in bookbags or lapses of months between parent-
teacher conferences.  Think about your child being able to download a project at
home so that you could work on it together.  No more gulf between the way you work
and the way your children learn. 

     Your work has never been more important than it will be over the next several
months.  We are at a critical juncture in our battle for improved education in this
country.  You have already heard from the key representatives of the President, Vice
President and Secretary of Education about the initiatives that the Administration has
in high gear to make the President and Vice President's vision for the connected
classroom come to life.  
     As many of you know, the FCC has a critical decision coming up.  The Snowe-
Rockefeller-Exon-Kerrey amendment instructs us to find a way to make
telecommunications services affordable for schools and libraries.  We are to give the
education community the wherewithal to build the on-ramp to the Information
Highway.

     We must answer several questions that will determine how quickly and how
effectively that ramp will be constructed.  Will universal service support include the
cost of building the ramp all the way to every classroom or will the support stop at the
school wall?  Will the ramp be a high speed, high bandwidth connection that puts the
schools on the cutting edge of technology?  Will we define the term affordable so that
schools and libraries truly are given the resources to build the ramps that they need?

     You might not need to guess where I stand on these questions.  But the
answers are very much the subject of debate.  Not everyone shares the vision and
commitment of those in this room.

     We need your continued help.  Many of you are responsible for passage of
Snowe-Rockefeller-Exon-Kerrey.  You need to stay involved all the way through to
the finish line.  Those of you who have not participated yet need to do so and soon.

     The Joint Federal-State Board will make its recommendations on November
7th.  I hope that the FCC can move to a final decision in short order.

     What can you do?  Contact the Joint Board, author an op-ed, spread the word
through your organizations.  Tell us, your colleagues, and your communities that
building the 21st Century classroom will make all the difference for our children's
success in that century.

     In the next several months, the FCC also will act on the proposal to allocate
spectrum for unlicensed, high speed digital communications that will facilitate
affordable access to the NII for schools and libraries.  The comment period closed
August 14, and we are moving quickly toward a final order.  We hope that this is but
the first instance of creative ways that we can harness the information technology 
revolution for the public good.  We trust that you will come forward with more ways to
suggest to us.

     Throughout its history, this country has been blessed in its ability to capture
technological innovation for overall societal gain.  Just as the Erie Canal is the
symbol of the era of National Improvement, the railroad embodies the expansion of
our Nation and economy during the Industrial Revolution.  During the darkest days of
the Depression, rural power and electrification gave hope and a future to those most
devastated.  Farsighted policy built the world's greatest telephone system, and a
massive program of public investment built the highway system that cemented a truly
national economy.  The Internet itself is the result of government academia and the
private sector harnessing technology.

     In each of those cases, the conditions were right for the marriage of
technology and policy.  We had strong leadership in both government and the private
sector, and there was the will among the people to invest in the future.

     I firmly believe that those conditions exist right now to revitalize our education
system. We all need to extend a particular note of gratitude to the President, Vice
President, and Secretary of Education for their leadership on making connections to
the classroom more affordable for all schools and libraries. In addition, members of
Congress of both parties, governors from both parties, business executives from all
industries, education leaders, parents and teachers from across the country have all
placed education improvement at the top of the nation's list of priorities.  The political
consensus and will to take action is there.
      Education reform is no longer something that everybody talks about but never
does anything about.  All over this country, people like yourselves are bringing their
energy and creativity to making sure that our children enter the next century with
hopes, dreams and the knowledge and skills to fulfill those hopes and dreams.


     This commitment comes at the very time that the most powerful force for
change in over a century--The Information Age--has emerged.  There is no stronger
natural connection than that between the seeking of knowledge and the capabilities of
the Information Age.  One defines the other.

     But as strong as the bond may be and as self-evident as it may seem to you
and me, the widespread and intelligent deployment of technology in our schools will
not happen automatically.

     You know the objections.  The technology seems expensive in an era of tight
budgets.  Many parents did not grow up with the tools and are concerned that they
are new-fangled toys that will divert the schools from their true mission.  Integration of
the curricula and the technology is hard work.  

     The American people need to see that improving education is more than just
something to talk about.  They need to participate.  They need to see their
communities transformed.  They need to see people pulling together -- not for their
own immediate self-interest but for the sake of future generations.  That is why
NetDays are so important.

     Skeptics need to see that teachers are willing, eager, able and ready to use
the technology.  That is why 21st Century teachers -- teachers helping other teachers
how to use the technology -- are so important.  

     Schools must be given the resources to build the ramp to the Information Age. 
That is why the Universal Service decision is so important.

     It truly is a critical time.  The convergence of the dawn of the Information Age
and the commitment to improved education will not last forever or even for the rest of
this century.

     We may not get this opportunity again.

     You in this room have made the choice to show the country that technology
and communications will reinvent our schools, rebuild our communities, and renew
our nation.  This Fall, you will place that conviction into action.  You will show the
country the power of that conviction.  For it is on the basis of that conviction that we
can make a commitment to the children of each and every school in the Country that
the 21st Century will be wholly different and marvelously superior to the century that
has gone before.