roundtable: Senator Kerrey lette

roundtable: Senator Kerrey lette

Senator Kerrey lette

Jill Lesser -- Media Access Project - Washington (jlessern@counsel.com)
Thu, 11 May 95 15:23:27 EDT 

Date: Thu, 11 May 95 15:23:27 EDT
From: jlessern@counsel.com (Jill Lesser -- Media Access Project - Washington )
Message-Id: <9505111923.AA14127@ad0.reach.com>
To: Roundtable@cni.org
Subject: Senator Kerrey lette


--- Forwarded Mail Message ---

Forwarded by:
Jill Lesser
<jlessern@counsel.com>



   Originally From: Andrew Blau  Internet
   Date: Thu, 11 May 95 14:40:38 EDT
   Subject: Senator Kerrey lette


May 10, 1995


Michael M. Roberts
Vice President, Networking
Educom
Suite 600
1112 16th Street, NW
Washington, D.C.  20036

Dear Mr. Roberts:

As a long and still standing supporter of bringing 
communications technology toAmerica's colleges and 
universities, I was surprised by and disappointed with your  
opposition to Section 310, which I cosponsored as an technology  
to America's colleges and universities, I was surprised by and  
disappointed with your opposition to Section 310, which I  
cosponsored as an amendment to S. 652, The Telecommunications  
Competition and Deregulation Act of 1995. It may be that your  
decision was based on the conclusions of a few Educom members  
rather than a majority of the 600-plus post-secondary members  
of your association.  I hope that is the case.   Since a part  
of your association's purpose is to seek taxpayer assistance  
and subsidies for the development of computer networks for  
public and private universities, your position is at best  
difficult to defend.  At worst, it will undercut the support 
of people like myself.  

In your announcement, you offer five arguments against Section 310:  

   1.  It is a bad deal for higher education. 
   2.  It attacks the wrong problem. 
   3.  It creates a costly new federal entitlement program. 
   4.  It turns friends, colleagues and partners into enemies. 
   5.  It violates the Clinton Administration's NII principles.  
 
Allow me to briefly respond to each.  Your first objection is 
unsupportable by the facts.  How could it be bad for higher 
education to increase the access of primary and secondary school 
students to the on-line universe that includes many of your 
services?  How could it be bad for higher education for these 
students to acquire the skills of the new media prior to 
entering your hallowed halls?  How could it be bad to pay 
attention to the 15,000 American school districts that enjoy 
only a fraction of the federal subsidies provided to your 
membership?  Your answer appears to be: Unless the feed is in 
our trough, it is not possible for us to enjoy the benefits. 
 
In my contacts with higher-education, I have consistently heard 
concerns about the need to do a better job of preparing our 
college bound students. This initiative is a cost-effective 
means of helping our primary and secondary schools do just that. 
For this reason alone, Educom should be supporting -- not 
opposing -- Section 310.  

Your second argument -- that primary and secondary schools 
will benefit more if the law provides help with hardware and 
software -- betrays an appalling and predictable ignorance of 
the current situation faced by local boards and schools. The 
cost of connectivity and the difficulty these relatively small 
customers have when requesting service is almost universal.  
Your members, by contrast, wouldn't know a connectivity problem 
if it bit them in the rear since their budgets and influence 
are so much larger.  Further, your efforts to downplay the 
connectivity problem for primary and secondary schools flies 
in the face of your approach to Congress when the issue was 
building the NSFNet. The third complaint about creating a 
costly new federal entitlement should redden your shameless 
face.  In 1994-1995, taxpayers are on the hook for more than 
$25 billion in direct federal assistance to 10,601 public and 
private post-secondary institutions that educate 14.5 million 
full- and part-time students,while the contribution to help 
109,228 primary and secondary schools that educate 43 million 
students is expected to be less than $20 billion.  Higher 
education benefits from $5 billion more to aid one-tenth the 
number of institutions serving one-third the number of students.  
If I were you, I would either apologize for using or retract 
the line: "It taxes everyone to benefit a single class of users 
who are not asked to demonstrate need." Otherwise, you should 
prepare a much different strategy when you haul your cart of 
pleadings to the people's Congress. As to your fourth objection, 
I must agree with you.  Section 310 has turned friends into 
enemies. However, it was your response to the legislation, 
rather than the legislation itself, which got the job done.  
Congratulations.  

Finally, you say it violates the Clinton  
Administration's NII principles of an openand competitive  
telecommunications system, a level playing field for users and  
providers alike, and for flexibility in federal and state  
regulation to promote the growth of a dynamic marketplace.  I  
suggest you climb down from your ivory tower and walk a mile 
or two in the shoes of local schools before you reach such a  
conclusion.  If you did, you would see the world much  
differently.  Where you now see an accounting and regulatory  
nightmare, where you see rigidity and unnecessary cost, you  
would see a very small lever to be used by our schools to lift  
themselves to a position where you already are.  Since you are  
such enthusiastic supporters of using the market to solve this  
problem, I wonder what alternatives your members would propose  
for primary and secondary schools in their states.   Are they  
vocal advocates of using property taxes to get the job done?    
Would they prefer appropriating state sales and income taxes to  
local schools?   Now that you have made it clear what you  
oppose, would it be possible to discover what you support? As  
you no doubt know, your opposition will be used by opponents of  
Section 310 on the floor of the Senate.  They will use your  
words as they hustle votes to strike the only language in this  
important legislation that gives America's schoolchildren any  
hope of gaining the kind of access that you and your  
researchers take for granted.  I fully expect that we will  
defeat this effort. 
 
Sincerely, 
 
Sincerely, 
 
J. Robert  
Kerrey  
------------ 
 
 
 
May 10, 1995 
 
The Honorable J.  Robert Kerrey


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Senders Internet Address blau@benton.org
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