Mike…
You can have all the drive in the world, but without easy access, you will be behind. Supportive parents will help provide that. But for many of the poor, the expense can be as illusive as a college education is to the middle class. We can all come up with examples of poor kids who succeed and well to do kids who failed. But they are exceptions to the rule. The key is providing resourses to kids who DON’T have supportive families. Resourses that provide access to others who can model in their place.Providing access through a library is archaic in this day and age and to throw every successful child into a predetermined system of having supportive or non supportive parents eliminates huge numbers of potentially productive citizens. The Internet is but a link in the chain…but unless every link is in place, a chain serves little purpose.
Your own sentiment of public schools being far behind is the reason why the govt. has to step in. The public school I last worked at was a leader many years ago in providing every student with a lap top and Internet access…private schools have the advantage of private motivation and wealth…I taught in one previously. The kids all had their own lap tops and access.
Has the interstate highway helped everyone ? Think of this as the informational international highway.
The key is providing resourses to kids who DON'T have supportive families.
i have several relatives who are teachers in upstate NY in some of the very poor communities. 99% of the kids that do well have supportive families…and 99% of the kids that don’t do well don’t have supportive families.
I’m NOT convinced that lack of internet is detrimental to ones education. Yes it does make things easier…but not the end-all. There are far too many other barriers that need to be removed first before internet access becomes a problem…like proper books…good teachers…family who understands a good education…bullying…hunger…All those are far more important and will have a much bigger impact on their lives and doing well in education then lack of internet. I’d be far more inclined to spend money on that then free internet access.
While we debate whether to spend the money, still being the most wealthy country in the world, the rest are doing it. You just made my point. Kids without supportive families need all the help they can get. Young adults who did not and find themselves in dead end jobs, possibly for life, need the help.
It’s expensive, but taken over time and using every department to bear the cost, it can cost the tax ayers very little. Departments of welfare, defense, education etc. all of whom benefit, just need some of their funds reallocated to this end. That’s what we did to develope the Internet for defense purposes to begin with…now we have more departments to share that expense.
Btw, that $150 per month that we spend on phone service and Internet connection could easily be spent by me to stimulate the economy in other ways. I need new clubs a few more lessons !
So we aren’t talking about just the poor…it’s the entire middle class who benefits.
So, there is a way without adding one dime of taxation. $. 178 billion is doable…except for those who would rather Time Warner and others keep milking profits and limit access to only those with the means.
If you think this is a debate about education only, it’s only the tip.The advancement that we have made with the Internet alone may pale compared to what lies ahead with free access to a super fast system. Everything from continuous health monitoring to finding your lost golf ball makes the world and the technology expand in ways we could only dream.
We cannot afford not to. The bands the govt is proposing to open in part is as a result of our being forced to go digital and part of the long term results of that effort. It’s another necessary step to expand our life in ways we never dreamed if we had to pay for ever minute we used that space.
The internet is the information highway and it is an asset to have access to this highway. Unfortunately, the internet is not the knowledge highway. The hard part is to be able to sift out the useful information from the trash on the internet and convert it to knowledge.
You just made my point. Kids without supportive families need all the help they can get. Young adults who did not and find themselves in dead end jobs, possibly for life, need the help.
That’s NOT my point…Kids without a supportive family are NOT going to benefit from free internet one bit. Many of these kids ARE given great opportunities and don’t take advantage of it. I don’t see wasting money on that.
As I said…there are many other things that we should be addressing BEFORE internet. Adding one tool that will benefit a few kids is not the way to go about it. Lets fix the other problems first that will have a greater impact first.
There is a growing class of poor and they are culturally and financially marginalized and no one has dropped the green path in front of them that leads to financial success. They see the luxuries and comforts and happiness that television paints others enjoying but the only opportunity that most recognize leading to the lifestyle seen on television is lottery tickets, slot machines, dope deals, and professional sports. For the vast majority of the out of touch under class access to the www would have no significant positive influence even though a few of the “nerds” might find a place to connect with “nerds” from the “enchanted” side of town and recognize the opportunity that those around him/her fail to recognize. And although giving those “nerds” a chance is worth some serious effort and financial support it is the vast majority that need to be shown the way and for them the www would be similar to the television in that it would show what others have that they don’t have with no recognizable, realistic path to obtain it.
For several years a young black man worked part time at a local McParts store that I dealt with. This man had a wife and 2 kids and worked full time upholstering at a furniture factory plus weekends and some nights at the parts store. He was a proud person and worked hard to have a nice home and a car and truck and he and his family dressed quite well. He was the exception to the rule for a black man his age in this area. When the furniture industry began to fold up and move the young man’s primary job evaporated and at the same time the value of his house dropped. The last time I saw the young man his wife had left him to live on entitlements and he was so far behind in his child support that he could not hold a full time job. It is likely that he has moved away to find some opportunity and his children will grow up without him in a neighborhood of single mothers living on welfare. The moral here is that even when someone does everything right they can get the shaft.
Tridag
It’s the communication highway as well and this does wonders to enhance our knowledge. It has the capacity to link everyone on earth with everyone else. To have that capacity in the hands of for profit venders is a way of stifling inventiveness and ingenuity. Arguing agaisnt it all you want. It will happen. We had better hope that like the naysayers in past endeavors, we don’t listen to them only to see more opportunity flourish elsewhere.
Use our imagination. Opening access is like providing a little more freedom. Right now, we debate in a narrow minded frame work of reference. Free and open exchange of digital information means connectivity that will enhance the medical, industrial, electronic fields and all others in ways you haven’t even thought of. And all some of us still want to do its to hoard our own immediate assets because some how, somewhere, the thought of all that inventiveness made accessible to eveyone, with or without means scares us.
“let’s fix the the other problems first…” @mike
I would argue that all the other problems we face are better served by increasing and not neglecting our ability to communicate. Is there anything you can think of that does a better job of opening lines of communication for and between everyone then free access to world wide digital communication. I think none does it better. It always comes baçk to the money arguement…sounds like, let’s not buy a new set of tires we can’t afford. Often times, you can’t afford not to. This is one of those times.
The problem I have is the cost…and who’s going to pay for it.
Are we the tax payers paying for it??
We have limited amount of money to spend. We can’t fund everything. And IMHO there are OTHER priorities that should be funded FIRST.
And @Triedaq is correct about the JUNK on the internet. 90% of people who use the internet use WikiPedia as an ACCURATE source of information. And if you know how WikiPedia operates…you’ll know that just by it’s design it has the potential to be VERY inaccurate. Remember Sara Palin’s trip to Boston a few years ago when her idiot followers tried to change WikiPedia on Paul Revere to “Her” statements. There’s a lot of junk out there. And it’s getting worse. Most NEWS websites are now switching over Video news. Just 1 year ago less then 10% of the news websites content was video…now it’s close to 30%. Which means no more in-depth news reporting. Who wants to watch a 30 minute video (who has time)??
The cost Mike, should be shared by all the agencies that stand to benefit. The Department of education, Military, Health and welfare etc, would all in my opinion, have their budgets contribute to this effort.
I know all about the FCC’s public WiFi proposal. Our company designs and builds equipment and software solutions for telecom industry.
Again…it’s NOT a matter of it not being good…just that I have OTHER priorities to spend my tax money. Internet is NOT at the top.
And even IF the FCC’s public WiFi proposal goes through…there will still be MILLIONS of people without access (at least 24/7). We would have to construct tens of thousands of cell towers to ensure coverage. Not going to happen over night…And by then a new technology may come along.
The internet is a useful tool, so is a library. I look at internet usage bandwidth, and twitter and facebook, are not really productive, only time consuming.
For a great many people the internet is a diversion that interferes with their handling responsibilities both business and personal. The people who most desperately need help are often the ones who cannot easily defer gratification. I get a great deal of flack for my suggestion here but it would appear that if schools were open from 7:00 am until 6:00 pm year round and the school’s RESTRICTED internet connection were available a significant number of kids might find themselves becoming occupied with something more enlightening than what they find on the streets.
I think we are missing the point. I know many people who work at home at least half of their working hours using the Internet. Free access means free phone, free video conferencing and free connection for information sharing. This includes location, health monitoring for those with health conditions, your elderly parents, kids, grandchildren etc. there are an infinite number of uses that are restricted by only your imagination that has nothing to do with casually “surfing the web”.
While other nations offer inexpensive connection, at higher speeds available to businesses here, their foreign citizens take our secretarial, engineering and even some management jobs while living overseas as more of them with fewer of us become available. You all heard about the software engineer who was recently fired for farming his work out overseas while he played golf…or what ever, it has started ! If you keep debating about what happens around our little worlds, we totally miss the point.
You guys want to keep riding a horse to work, arriving late, upsetting our coworkers and your boss cause you’re too cheap or short sighted to buy a car or in this case, TAKE PUBLIC TRAnSPORTATION.
If we have kids who miss manage their time using the Internet access, we need to do a better job of parenting. It’s necessary that at some point we give our kids acces to the family car; but it certainly isn’t without restriction and guidance. That same goes for our teachers at school. Abuse occurs without guidance, but this obuse is no reason to throw out an extremely valuable educational and working tool.
I only harken back to LBJ and the great society and war on poverty. After 40 some years of programs for the poor and down trodden, we don’t seem to have made any progress. We have spent trillions on programs from Head Start to WIC to tuition grants to housing subsidies.
I don’t mind spending the money to solve problems, but I like to see the end game. I want to put the program together, fix the problem, and end the program, not continue it forever and build on it. I see more purple head start buses now than I saw 30 years ago, and it was supposed to provide the needed push to the disadvantaged and go away. I’m all for internet access but I don’t for one minute think thats the answer for the disadvantaged.
@dagosa - I agree with what you’re saying…I just think we have different priorities. I think there are other FAR FAR FAR MORE important and will have a great impact then giving free everyone access to the internet…Lets fund those things first.
I’ve been waiting for YEARS to get FIOS to my house. I only have Verizon…and it SUCKS…Constantly goes down…speeds inconsistent…I work at home 2-3 days a week…And it effects my work greatly.
@mikeInNh "Verizon…sucks"
Now we can talk about the real facts in this endeavor !
Fios type (optic) is standard fare in other countries. Our Internet providers find it much more profitable to leave copper wire in the ground and hanging from lines instead of investing in the future. Even wireless is still wired and optic cable is the way to go. Our infrastructure, including Internet service is decaying while Time Warner and others distribute territories and never compete directly with each other while we keep falling behind and they charge prices three to four times that overseas for crap service using copper wire.
Like our highways and bridges, the Internet highway needs big time investment to keep up with the rest of the world. The so called " leader" of Internet service for both the public and business is falling behind. In time, like manufacturing will locate near better infrastructure support, so won’t businesses. ONLY the govt. puts massive amounts of money into infrastructure. That is as much a republican as a democrat as an independent idea. This ain’t rocket science. We can’t afford not to. Jobs depend upon it.
With this high speed optic cable infrastructure, other countries can support their businesses with things like three demnsional printing over the air, which allows best off sight engineering and management practices to take place. Then, smaller business, which supply three quarters of our jobs, can " farm out" these services and produce innovative, competitive products. Without these opportunities, we CAN’T COMPETE. It’s a new version of the interstate highway which paved a way for the spread of our industries.
What the govt. does not want to do, is up grade the infrastructure…THEN turn it over to Time Warner for profit. Like the highways, they want to up grade it, then turn it over to the PUBLIC and let the Stae and local govt. control distribution, just as the highways are done now with federal aid for major improvements. Turning over a public service to the private sector is what Bush did for Medicare part D which is a prime reason Medicare does not have the t Trillion dollar surplus that Social Security has. But the drug companies are making huge profits with our tax dollars just like Time Warner will if we don’t make it public and FREE.
@Bing
I know you are trying to make a point…but saying trillions instead of billions does not support it. The only “welfare” that has seen that amount is social security and Medicare, programs that are specifically taxed programs that the vast majority of REPUBLICANs want untouched.
And yes Head Start works and many of us used govt. loans and grants to get through college. Guess my education was a waste for others tax dollars…