New Deal Reloaded?

Came across this interesting article concerning Obama's 21st Century New Deal, and education/technology are primary focuses of the plan. The article states the following:

—SCHOOLS: “[M]y economic recovery plan will launch the most sweeping effort to modernize and upgrade school buildings that this country has ever seen. We will repair broken schools, make them energy-efficient, and put new computers in our classrooms. Because to help our children compete in a 21st century economy, we need to send them to 21st century schools.” —BROADBAND: “As we renew our schools and highways, we’ll also renew our information superhighway. It is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption. Here, in the country that invented the Internet, every child should have the chance to get online, and they’ll get that chance when I’m president – because that’s how we’ll strengthen America’s competitiveness in the world.”

Cool stuff. As we labor through the beginning of a recession, and hopefully stave off a full-fledged depression, it is super-encouraging to see this type of forward-thinking in an incoming administration. Granted, broadband internet has been here for a quite some time, and schools have been woefully behind corporations and industry when it comes to technological integration - hence, this might not be considered forward thinking because Obama is responding to fairly old problems. Nevertheless, I believe this is forward thinking due to the recognition of our country's future and how students role in using technology will play a huge role in America's endeavors.

Increasing America's competitiveness through modernizing schools is an interesting approach in Obama's New Deal, because when I turn on the news all I hear about are decreasing value of the dollar, bailouts, limited consumer confidence, a mortgage collapse, and general cynicism about America's standing in the world. Interesting that Obama would make it a focus to combat these problems by educating youth and improving schools. As opposed to the band aid over the bullet wound effect of forking over billions to poorly ran auto companies, why not develop long term solutions to problems?

FDR's New Deal did not have much of a focus on schools, although providing cheaper school lunches and putting laborers to work building new schools was an initiative. Still, FDR was responding to a mega-crisis, and America's current predicament is not on par with the situation of the 1930s (not yet, anyway). Obama has more wiggle room to include school and technology initiative, while FDR was forced to play the role of crisis manager in a world that was inevitably heading toward another world conflict. But, Obama has history on his side: many of FDR's initiatives had long-term affects that we still see today (TVA, FDIC, Social Security, Fair Labor Standards Act) - here's hoping that Obama's educational initiatives will bear similar fruits.