Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2000/10/02/gores_computer_demagoguery.php
Monday, October 2, 2000
In his debate with Bill Bradley at the Apollo Theater in Harlem earlier this year, Al Gore called for federally-supported 'Info Stamps'—on the model of food stamps—to ensure poor children access to personal computers. He did not develop the theme on that occasion, but recently in an appearance at Morehouse College in Atlanta, a prestigious historically black institution, he went into detail.
Speaking in the chapel, which is named for Martin Luther King, and flanked by former mayor Andrew Young, a top King aide, and by King's son, Martin Luther King III, Gore identified himself with King himself, who had famously spoken of his 'dream' from the 'mountain.' The biblical allusion, of course, is to Moses at the end of Deuteronomy viewing the Promised Land from the highest peak on Mount Nebo, and no doubt also from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.
Gore proclaimed that we are now atop another mountain—meaning prosperity, surpluses, and the 'Information Revolution.'
'If we take this mountaintop moment,' he said, 'and squander the resources that we call a surplus on a tax cut for the wealthy, on a risk that is designed not to lift up those in need, but to give more to those who have much, what will happen to those who are waiting for the help that ought to be extended to them?'
(I will not pause here over the malice imputed by Gore to his opponents through his use of the word 'designed,' or his characterization of tax surpluses as a 'resource,' or his claim that there is something vicious in returning taxpayer overpayments to the taxpayer, or his habitual demonization of the 'wealthy.')
The want ads, Gore continued, are filled with high-paying jobs that cannot be filled because of inadequate training. And he went on: 'Simultaneously, we have hundreds of thousands and millions who have the ability, the curiosity, the desire to learn and to succeed, but have not had the opportunity and the access.'
There he painted with a rather broad brush, but let that pass for the time being. What is his solution?
Big surprise. The solution, he said, will come from the federal government, which will place computers with Internet access in every classroom and library to train teachers in new technologies, to integrate the computers into the full scholastic curriculum, to build computer training centers in needy communities, and to bring Internet access to every household.
From this mountaintop he proposed that the nation establish a national goal of making every student computer literate by eighth grade. As usual, he did not quote a price on all this, but let that go, because it is not the main point here.
And, to be sure, studies are showing that although Internet access is spreading rapidly, a gap is developing that correlates with income, between those who have access and those who don't. Gore wants everyone out there on the information superhighway, as he put it during the 1996 campaign. Line up for your Info Stamps.
But the problem of those hundreds of thousands and 'millions' who cannot get those jobs listed in the want ads is not that they lack access to the Internet, not that they lack computer literacy, but that they lack ordinary literacy, and ordinary mathematical skills, just for starters.
Computer literacy is all very well, but it does not begin to touch the problem of those who cannot qualify for entry-level jobs in the current full-employment economy.
If you could count on ordinary literacy, learning how to access the Internet would be a cinch. Such programs as America Online instruct user at an elementary level. Students refer to them as 'idiot-proof.' Of course, if you are not literate enough to read what comes up on the screen, then we have a problem that is not going to be solved by Gore's vision from the top of Mount Nebo of a computer in every pot, or garage, or whatever.
The problem of the students he has in mind has many dimensions. It has to do with, first of all, the atmosphere in the household in which they come to consciousness and then grow up. Do the parents—or parent—read books, newspapers, magazines, and talk about them? What is the quality of conversation in that household? The extent of the vocabulary used? The awareness of public affairs? How many hours per day is the television on? Do the parents insist that school homework be done? Is good performance in school rewarded?
Outside the home, the quality of the local subculture is important, too. Is achievement in school highly regarded, or not? Is it even denounced and condemned? What are the admired goals of this subculture? Does it regard a Ph.D. more favorably than athletic success? Are books discussed?
And, of course, the quality of the school and the classroom is important. Safety is much more important than fresh paint or class size. And alertness in the classroom is important, too. What is possible in the school is heavily influenced by what has happened at home and what happens in the neighborhood.
Finally, we have the quality of instruction itself. Are the teachers competent, engaged, energetic, effective? By what criteria is their performance judged? Are teachers tested? Is excellence tangibly rewarded? Where is the accountability?
All such questions, of course, are intransigently resisted by the teachers' unions, the American Federation of Teachers, and the National Education Association, from which, again of course, Gore receives lavish and undivided support. These unions care more about job security than about educational results
And, once again of course, Gore is adamantly opposed to vouchers—so are the AFT and the NEA—which would introduce options and competition into the public schools.
Up on his mountain, Gore is just blowing smoke. Marie Antoinette, told about a shortage of bread, legendarily said, 'Let them eat cake.' Gore is telling those who aren't learning, 'Eat computers.'