President, at MIT, urges computer literacy for all students
CAMBRIDGE - Amid the aura of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, President Clinton issued a call to schools across America yesterday to open up the miracles of the information age to all children, offering federal incentives to states willing to require computer literacy among their students.
Clinton, delivering the commencement address to 2,400 graduates and their parents on sun-dappled Killian Court, said computers should provide all children with opportunity rather than leaving poorer students behind for lack of equipment and knowledge.
''We know from hard experience that unequal education hardens into unequal prospects,'' Clinton said. ''We know the information age will accelerate this trend. History teaches us that even as new technologies create growth and new opportunity, they can heighten economic inequalities and sharpen social divisions.''
As a partial and modest remedy, Clinton unveiled a proposal for a $180 million teacher training program, in which the federal government would provide middle schools with approximately $20,000 each to train a teacher as a so-called technology expert. That teacher would be expected to train other teachers, who would then pass their knowledge along to their students, White House officials said.
The commencement address, delivered on a chilly morning near the banks of the Charles River, launched Clinton through a whirlwind day in Greater Boston - a day in which he looked sadly back at the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy and ahead to the promise of future generations of students.
From MIT, the president attended a lunch at Representative Joseph P. Kennedy II's house in Brighton to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the shooting of Robert Kennedy. In the late afternoon, Clinton flew by helicopter to Lincoln and spoke at the grand opening of the Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods. He flew home from Hanscom Air Base at about 6:30 p.m.
Clinton, in a black gown from his alma mater, Yale Law School, was the first sitting president to deliver a commencement address at MIT. He spoke to the largest graduating class in the school's history.
In his address, Clinton cited an effort at the nearby East Somerville Community School, where teachers trained in technology are using equipment supplied by Time Warner Cable to give students in grades 1 through 8 ''an early and enormous boost in life.'' Clinton said the program is so successful that students came to the school over winter break to work on computer projects.
''That small miracle can be replicated in every school, rich and poor, across America,'' Clinton said. ''Yet, today, affluent schools are almost three times as likely to have Internet access in the classroom. White students are more than twice as likely as black students to have computers in their homes.''
In his teacher training proposal, Clinton said he would provide funding for states that make computer literacy a requirement in middle school. White House officials said 10 states, including Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, have computer training requirements in high school, but the goal was to provide training to younger students.
Clinton and his aides urged Congress to ward off efforts by telecommunications companies to gut the so-called E-Rate, which provides poorer school districts, libraries, and rural health centers discounted telephone rates to help them hook computers to the Internet.
''If we really believe that we all belong in the information age, then at this sunlit moment of prosperity we can't leave anyone behind in the dark,'' Clinton said. ''Every child in America deserves a chance to participate in the information revolution.''
Moments before Clinton's address, about 80 protesters decrying US sanctions against Iraq gathered near the ceremonies. The protesters, who included Harvard African-American studies professor Cornel West and Kathy Kelly, co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness, did not disrupt the proceedings.
At Walden Pond, Clinton joined rock musician Don Henley, as well as Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry, in dedicating the new Thoreau Institute, which is meant to honor and advance the legacy and spirit of conservationist and author Henry David Thoreau, who penned the book ''Walden.''
''Let us hope and pray that Walden Pond will flourish,'' Clinton said. ''Let us hope and pray that people will come to these woods forever from now on, to learn not only more about themselves and their relationship with nature, but the proper order of human society and the responsibility of every citizen to preserve it.''
This story ran on page A04 of the Boston Globe on 06/06/98.
© Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.