Obama unveils ConnectEd initiative in Mooresville

MOORESVILLE, N.C.—President Barack Obama unveiled his ConnectEd initiative at Mooresville Middle School Thursday—a plan to provide high-speed broadband internet to 99 percent of American students within five years.

Part of his “Middle Class Jobs and Opportunity” tour, the President used his visit to discuss the importance of technology before a sea of iPhones and iPads recording the speech. In his speech, Obama tasked the Federal Communication Commission with leading the effort to improve and increase schools’ Internet access. 

“In a country where we expect free Wi-Fi with our coffee, why shouldn’t we have it in our schools?” Obama asked the audience, to resounding cheers.

Hundreds of seventh- and eighth-graders were packed into the modest gymnasium, along with more notable attendees such as United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and actress Claire Danes. The school was chosen as the venue because of its successful record of technology use in the classroom, despite a relatively small budget.

“As special as what you've done is, I don’t want this success to be restricted to one school or one school district,” Obama said. “There is no reason why we can’t replicate the success you've found here. And imagine what that will mean for our country.”

He noted that the average American school has roughly the same bandwidth as the typical American home, despite the fact that a school provides Internet access for far more people than a household does. Only 20 percent of students currently have access to true high-speed Internet, he said—compared to 100 percent in nations like South Korea. He additionally noted that increasing Internet access will not only improve educational opportunities, it will stimulate technological progress.

“Once all these classrooms are wired for superfast Internet, that means a big new market for private innovation,” the president said.

He added that the ConnectEd project would not require an act of Congress and instead could be started “right away.”

“There are all kinds of things I do need Congress to do, and I want to work with them everywhere I can,” Obama said. “But where we’ve got an opportunity to just go ahead and do something that’s going to help our young people, help our teachers, help our education system, help this economy, help our middle class, help to create jobs— we’ve just got to go ahead and do it.”

The President briefly discussed both the economy’s recent progress and the work that remains to be accomplished, emphasizing that a strong middle class is essential to a fully healthy economy, and that a well-educated populace is required for a strong middle class. He spoke of the need to equip young people with the tools necessary to compete in a global workforce, adding that the country is obligated to provide every child with the opportunity to be successful. 

“No matter who you are, no matter what you look like, no matter where you come from, every child can learn—every child, every day, deserves that chance,” Obama said.