"We can do it better, more consistently, and in the end, it will cost us less because the students that we produce will be superior to those without technology experience"
About this Quote
Major Owens frames educational technology as both a pedagogical and economic imperative. A librarian by training and a congressman by vocation, he championed access to information as a civil right, and saw the classroom as the front line of that struggle. Saying we can do it better and more consistently points to the power of technology to broaden and stabilize quality: shared digital curricula, real-time feedback, and rich media can reduce the luck-of-the-draw dependence on a particular textbook or teaching style. Consistency here is not uniformity for its own sake, but equitable access to high-quality tools that lift the floor for all students.
The claim that it will cost us less is not a promise of cheap gadgets but a long-view calculus. Upfront investments in infrastructure and training pay off when graduates require less remediation, drop out less, and enter the workforce with skills that match the economy they are joining. Superior students, in Owens’s language, are not inherently better people; they are graduates fluent in the literacies of their era: navigating networks, analyzing data, collaborating online, and adapting to rapid change. Without technology experience, students face a structural disadvantage that compounds over time, widening the very inequalities Owens spent his career fighting.
Context matters. During the 1990s push for school connectivity and the E-Rate program, debates raged over whether the internet belonged in classrooms. Owens’s argument anticipates skeptics: technology is not a luxury or a distraction; it is the infrastructure of knowledge. When public institutions provide access and train teachers to use it well, technology becomes a force multiplier, making good teaching more scalable and targeted. Behind the line is a broader ethic: a society that equips every child with modern tools not only educates more effectively, it also spends more wisely, because the dividends show up in healthier civic life, stronger labor markets, and reduced costs from failure that could have been prevented.
The claim that it will cost us less is not a promise of cheap gadgets but a long-view calculus. Upfront investments in infrastructure and training pay off when graduates require less remediation, drop out less, and enter the workforce with skills that match the economy they are joining. Superior students, in Owens’s language, are not inherently better people; they are graduates fluent in the literacies of their era: navigating networks, analyzing data, collaborating online, and adapting to rapid change. Without technology experience, students face a structural disadvantage that compounds over time, widening the very inequalities Owens spent his career fighting.
Context matters. During the 1990s push for school connectivity and the E-Rate program, debates raged over whether the internet belonged in classrooms. Owens’s argument anticipates skeptics: technology is not a luxury or a distraction; it is the infrastructure of knowledge. When public institutions provide access and train teachers to use it well, technology becomes a force multiplier, making good teaching more scalable and targeted. Behind the line is a broader ethic: a society that equips every child with modern tools not only educates more effectively, it also spends more wisely, because the dividends show up in healthier civic life, stronger labor markets, and reduced costs from failure that could have been prevented.
Quote Details
| Topic | Technology |
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