Bill Clinton: “Great question. If we do it right, what the national information superhighway will do is to set up a system in which if…”

“Great question. If we do it right, what the national information superhighway will do is to set up a system in which if the schools can get the appropriate computer equipment, which I think will happen in the future, that a school like this one could be connected to schools all over the country, maybe all over the world, to libraries all over the country. You could interconnect with special television stations that were putting out certain information. In other words, you could have access in the school, in the classroom, to worlds of information that now you have to go someplace to find. It would, in effect, bring instantaneously, literally, in theory, billions of pieces of information into the fingertips of students all over America in all schools. And it's very, very important in its implications for American education because if we do the national information superhighway right and we make sure that we get the kind of communications equipment, the kind of trained personnel we need out in the schools, it could go an enormous way toward vanishing or erasing the difference between wealthy school districts and poor ones, between wealthy schools and poor ones, by giving everybody access to the same information at the same time. You could also have special courses like interactive video to take courses that otherwise could never be made available in schools, immediately, everywhere. So, if we do it right, it's going to be great for education. It's also going to be a great equalizer for us. I'm really hopeful about it. Federal Budget”