[527] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: addressing needs
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Roy Smith)
Fri Apr 5 03:49:22 1991
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 91 08:53:11 EST
From: Roy Smith <roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu>
To: brian@napa.telebit.COM, com-priv@psi.com
Brian Lloyd <brian@napa.telebit.com> writes:
> Yes, the [K-12 community] will need computers, LANs, and routers but they
> will be provided legislation. What a concept! :-)
Perhaps I am being closed-minded and urbano-centric (and perhaps this
is a socio-political debate that doesn't really belong on this list). At any
rate, from my vantage point of living in New York City, providing computers,
LANs, and routers to the K-12 community seems like an absurd pie-in-the-sky
goal and the people who are pushing it have absolutely no grasp of reality.
We're talking about elementary schools with armed guards in the
hallways and metal detectors at the front door, installed as a reaction to
kids coming to school with knives and guns. Parents pick which school to
send their kids to based on the lowest probability of being mugged on the
way there. The biggest education issue at the last community board meeting
I went to was whether to give out free condoms to high school students.
Classes have 40 students in them, music, sports, remedial math and reading
programs are being shut down for lack of funds, textbooks havn't been
replaced in so long that they are both physically falling apart and
conceptually out of date, and the school buildings themselves are in
desperate need of repair. Not to mention the appalling graduation rate in
New York City public high schools and that a fair fraction of those that do
graduate aren't literate enough to get a job as a low-level office clerk and
don't know enough math to figure out how much 5 apples cost if they are 4
for a dollar.
The only people who send their kids to public school are those who
can't afford to use the private ones, or don't belong to a religious group
which runs their own. I'm sorry, folks, but when you look at what needs
improving in inner-city K-12 school systems, I just don't see computers,
LANs, and routers even making the list.
