IP: Re: Netday96 as a sadly misdirected promotion of

[Dave Farber <farber@central.cis.upenn.edu>]

Date: Tue, 20 Aug 1996 05:55:16 -0400
To: Dave Farber <farber@central.cis.upenn.edu>
From: swolff@cisco.com (Stephen Wolff)


Oh, foo.  Of coursed NetDay is overhyped.  So what?  The main point IMHO is
that if the California NetDay is any indicator, more local residents will
get involved in their schools' affairs than have resulted from any number
of years of PTA bake sales and flea markets.


And just maybe if the LAN is in place, some benefactor or the local ISP or
maybe even the PTA itself will fund an Internet connection.  Might even get
locally appropriated in a few instances...


Of course the whole operation should be centrally planned, fully and
professionally staffed, and precisely funded out of the tax base for each
and every one of the country's 107,000 +/- primary and secondary schools,
right?
We all know just how far notions like that go in today's political climate.


So if it's not done centrally, what's wrong with raising the consciousness
of local government (i.e., the citizenry) with a large dose of
volunteerism?


Maybe it's not pretty but it beats stasis.


-s