by Michael Schrage

About the author: Michael Schrage is a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of No More Teams! Mastering the Dynamics of Creative Collaboration.

On practically every issue of import—Medicare, tax cuts, welfare reform— you’ll find the President and the Speaker of the House bitterly and diametrically opposed. But when it comes to the future of education, the two enthusiastically agree: America’s schools belong in cyberspace. Every classroom in the country should be wired to the Internet.

Excitement over the Internet and Education

“By being technologically smart . . . we can open up for these young people a very different future,” asserted House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) at a newly wired elementary school in Washington, D.C., in May 1995. Speaking at San Francisco’s...