A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

   FOR RELEASE:                             Contact:  Kathryn Kahler    March 7, 1995                                      (202) 401-3026

Schools Falling Behind As House Threatens Technology Funds; Proposed Cuts "Severe, Shortsighted," Riley Charges

In remarks to the second annual Secretary's Conference on Educational Technology, Riley said, "Everywhere we look, on the job or at home, when we communicate, travel, or seek entertainment, technology is rapidly changing the way we work and live. Everywhere that is, except in our schools."

Proposals to eliminate 75 percent of the Education Department's budget for technology "are severe, shortsighted and with apparently little thought as to who would suffer," Riley said.

Speaking to state teams of teachers, technology experts and policymakers, Riley said, "Technology offers students the tools to learn to challenging standards, a means of opening opportunities for every student to learn more, and a way to ensure equitable and affordable access to increase knowledge and a lifetime of learning." He cited examples of schools where "technology is making an extraordinary difference in the lives of students." For example, with an Internet connection and financial support from Drake University, students at North High School in Des Moines, Iowa, "now have access to some of the best libraries and most sophisticated resources in the world."

Riley also referred to the use of technology at schools in Union City, N.J., and Albuquerque, N.M.

Calling it "the great equalizer," Riley said, "Technology can take a school in the poorest of communities and provide its students a wealth of learning opportunities that will give them the same intellectual riches that students in the wealthiest school districts have." Technology, Riley said, "should help to close the fault lines in our society, not exacerbate divisions between the haves and the have nots."

He described a future where teachers and parents communicate electronically and said, "Families working together at a computer may become what sitting around the fireplace, listening to the radio, was 50 years ago."

Riley said his department "practices what we preach and is a model of technological application." The department offers an online library, known as INET, which receives more than 15,000 inquiries a week.

Earlier in the day, Riley joined Vice President Gore at an elementary school in Silver Spring, Md., to announce a competition for "challenge grants," which "will allow individual communities to act on their creative and ambitious vision for education reform through the use of technology." Riley said the grants would be eliminated under the House Appropriations Committee rescission proposal, depriving some thousands of the nation's poorest children access to educational technology.

Later this year, Riley said he will issue a national long-range plan for the use of technology. He said the plan will "focus on four essential issues: access and equity; planning and financing school technology; professional development for teachers and staff; and challenging content."

Before his remarks, Riley was presented with an autographed conference poster by artist Peter Max.