August 2016

A Q&A with Sarah Solow, Hillary Clinton's domestic policy advisor.

Hillary Clinton wasn’t kidding around when she released her technology policy initiative in June. It was a gloriously wonky Gladstone bag of positions on issues batted around at think tanks, on digital democracy panels, and in Susan Crawford’s Backchannel columns—almost a K-Tel Records version of tech policy’s greatest hits. It was all there. Yes to high-speed access, international Internet governance, immigration reform, orphan works, online privacy, gig economy benefits, diversified workforce, STEM education, cybersecurity, network neutrality, and the United States Digital Service. No to Balkanization of the Internet, the digital divide, and venue shopping in patent litigation. Leading the team drawing the document was Sara Solow, the candidate’s domestic policy advisor. She agreed to provide us with some context on Hillary Clinton’s tech policy — and also wound up venting about the opponent’s apparent lack of a policy. Asked how they produced the tech policy, Salow said, "Last June or July (2015), we pulled together a working group with a whole bunch of outside experts and outside advisors, and a range of stakeholders, to start helping us collect policy proposals and thoughts about technology, innovation, and intellectual property. We had regular monthly meetings or phone calls, and I personally developed relationships with 30 outside experts, at least. It was a very collaborative, comprehensive process."

[Commentary] A recent article in Politico claims that the federal E-Rate program produced no gains in student SAT results in North Carolina public high schools. With this assertion, the author concludes that federal programs supporting school connectivity nationwide should be eliminated, or at least halted until investments can demonstrate a stronger relationship with student outcomes. But the article’s underlying study doesn’t support such a sweeping conclusion, and the author fails to recognize the key role played by professional development for teachers in improving classroom learning through technology.

The article attempts to correlate SAT performance with federal E-Rate program spending. However, only about half of high school students take the SAT and the majority of test takers are not low-income students. The E-Rate program on the other hand provides subsidies for broadband connectivity to schools and libraries based on the number of low-income individuals served – meaning the author’s chosen measurement of E-Rate “success” is primarily based on the academic performance of students for which the E-Rate program provides little to no support. Higher income students, those more likely to participate in the SAT, are also shown to be more likely to have access to high-speed Internet and other technology outside of the classroom. The article’s underlying report is a contribution to an ongoing research program. Many of these existing studies find the E-Rate program increases Internet access in schools, which thereby enables the use of new Internet-based learning technology, an effect that the North Carolina study does not even assess. One negative finding in a stream of research is not a scientific consensus, and should not be a basis for such a broad Draconian conclusion as the end of a twenty-year Federal program.

[Brendan Desetti is SIIA's Director of Education Policy.]

[Commentary] Somebody inside the Associated Press should hide the shovels so editors there will stop digging. The hole they’ve dug in recent days just keeps getting bigger as the wire service refuses to admit obvious mistakes in the lengthy investigation they published last week about Clinton Foundation donors, and the implication they were able to buy access at Hillary Clinton’s State Department. Not only was the AP article itself deeply flawed and lacking crucial context, the news organization also tweeted out this categorically false announcement to its 8.4 million followers to promote its investigation: “BREAKING: AP analysis: More than half those who met Clinton as Cabinet secretary gave money to Clinton Foundation.”

As the AP investigation began to crumble, I noted that the wire service joined a dubious list of news outlets that have gotten burned chasing bogus Clinton “scandal” stories over the years. And now we’re seeing the postscript to that sad tradition: News outlets which then refuse to admit they botched their Clinton “scandal” stories. There’s a stubborn refusal to clean up their own mess.

[Eirc Boehlert is a senior fellow with Media Matters for America]