Thursday, Dec. 2 —
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, what is parody?
GOP Likes Computers in Schools
Thursday, Dec. 2 —
U.S. Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), the Senate Majority Leader, and several of his colleagues turned up in Silicon Valley Thursday for a show-and-tell at a local elementary school. They were visiting at the behest of various groups including TechNet, a tech industry lobbying arm, to promote a new program to put computers in schools — and, of course, to push the Republican political agenda. (They were also wearing dark suits, unusual garb around here.)
One of the sponsors of the program is America Online, which was naturally on all of the screens of the 21 new Gateway computers (Gateway’s another sponsor) donated to the school under the PowerUP program. The AOL screen was plastered with advertising. An online toy store was on several of the AOL sites I saw the children viewing — just what kids need to be seeing during their school days.
But hey, they get to use computers, so boiling their brains in advertising is just fine, right?
Speaking of commercials, here’s a depressing sidelight to the event. The organizers stationed three children at the door. The kids were handing out PowerBar snacks. PowerBar (you’re way ahead of me) is a PowerUP sponsor, too.
Anything that helps kids is good. Let’s be clear on that. Let’s also be clear that many public schools in this country are dysfunctional and failing our kids — though this is emphatically not the case at the exemplary Holly Oak Elementary in San Jose, the school the pols visited.
Computers in schools are useful, but not the only answer. Nor are right-wing jihads, fulsomely supported by Lott and his compatriots, to promote religious and private schools. Ultimately this will come at the expense of public education, notwithstanding PR events like the one on Thursday. Maybe that’s the right approach, but I don’t see the same fervency to fix the public schools.
”This is what it’s really all about in America,” Lott said at a Silicon Valley school — typical in this respect — where the average teacher doesn’t make remotely enough money to own a house.