Clinton Calls for Internet Links in State’s Schools

SAN FRANCISCO — President Clinton on Thursday announced an effort funded by California-based high-technology companies to connect every school in California to the emerging information superhighway by the end of this school year.

Speaking before a group of schoolchildren and technology executives at the Exploratorium children’s museum in San Francisco, the President said that the initiative would involve no federal money. The computer hardware, software, training and Internet access costs all will be borne by the private sector, he said.

Clinton likened the effort to a “high-tech barn-raising” in which more than a dozen technology companies would donate equipment and personnel to bring every California primary and secondary school online by the end of the school year.

He called it an example of the kind of public-private partnership the Administration is trying to achieve to bring Internet access to every school in America and keep the nation’s economy competitive with other nations.

He said that the strained federal budget does not allow substantial public investment in such efforts but that Washington can serve as “a catalyst” even if it cannot write a blank check to bring America’s classrooms into the Information Age.

The goal of the initiative is to connect all of California’s 12,000 public and private schools from kindergarten through high school to the Internet. While there is not enough money to bring online services to every classroom in the state, the hope is to have Internet-capable computers in 50,000 California schoolrooms by next June.

Clinton’s announcement raises the profile of existing private industry efforts to equip classrooms with computers and wire the state’s schools for Internet access.

Coalitions in the Bay Area, Los Angeles County and elsewhere are aimed at combining private corporate and foundation contributions with public dollars to upgrade students’ and teachers’ access to computers and communications technology.

The nation’s most ambitious privately funded project to link schools to the Internet is the $100-million Education First initiative launched a year ago by Pacific Bell to wire 9,000 schools, colleges and libraries with high-speed, integrated data lines.

That project is the brainchild of Phil Quigley, the chairman and CEO of Pacific Telesis, the parent company of Pacific Bell.

Quigley, who was among the business executives who met Thursday with Clinton, said in an interview that the President’s appearance boosts the credibility of such efforts. Even though California is near the bottom among states in terms of the number of computers and other communications technology available for its students, the efforts of private companies to help address that shortage stand out, he said.

“It doesn’t hurt to challenge those who are already engaged in these things,” Quigley said.

Even though there was no announcement Thursday of any new resources to be committed by private companies, Quigley said, the occasion might encourage others to get involved. He said that Education First is on target to wire 2,500 schools by the end of the school year to lines that, among other things, allow students and teachers to interact via video cameras, giving them opportunities to collaborate on projects with peers across the street or around the world.

This past summer, Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles became a demonstration site for the project.

Manual Assistant Principal Earl Veits said that the electronic access gives his students a window on the world. “Our kids still live in a neighborhood and their personal universe is where they live, but with . . . the computers and the Internet they’re going to be able to access people in all kinds of areas, economic strata and ethnic backgrounds.”

A fledgling effort, led by the Los Angeles County Office of Education, is under way to get Internet access to every classroom in the county by the end of the decade. That project has raised between $1 million and $2 million worth of cash and in-kind contributions.

EdSource, an educational resource research group based in Menlo Park, reported earlier this year that the cost of bringing computers fully into the state’s schools could be as high as $14 billion. The state budget for the current school year devoted $25 million in new funding specifically for educational technology.

Among the companies donating equipment and expertise are 3COM Corp., Xerox Corp, America OnLine, Silicon Graphics Inc., Oracle Corp., Sprint, AT&T; Wireless Services, Sun Microsystems Inc., MCI Communications, Pacific Telesis and Apple Computer Inc.

Broder reported from San Francisco and Colvin from Los Angeles.