Al Gore Essay, Research Paper

Former Vice President Gore was born on March 31, 1948, and is the son of the late U.S. Senator Albert Gore, Sr. and Pauline Gore. He was raised in Carthage, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C. Gore received a degree in government with honors from Harvard University in 1969. After graduation, he volunteered for enlistment in the U.S. Army and served in Vietnam. Returning to civilian life, Vice President Gore became an investigative reporter with The Tennessean in Nashville. He went to Vanderbilt University Divinity School and Vanderbilt Law School.

Al Gore began his career in public service in 1976 when he was elected to represent Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1984 and was re-elected in 1990. A candidate for the Democratic nomination for President in 1988, he won more than three million votes and Democratic contests in seven states.

Al Gore is married to the former Mary Elizabeth “Tipper” Aitcheson. They have four children: Karenna , Kristin, Sarah, and Albert III. Gore owns a small farm near Carthage, and the family attends New Salem Missionary Baptist Church in Carthage.

Al Gore was inaugurated as the 45th Vice President of the United States on January 20, 1993. President Clinton and Vice President Gore were re-elected to a second term in 1996, and Vice President Gore was sworn in again on January 20, 1997.

Two of Al Gore s major issues are Technology and Education. Even though the election is over, these two issues are key to winning elections in the future.

One of Gore s idea s involving technology is to add a parents protection page to the Internet so parents can check what websites their children have been visiting. On October 17th, 2000, Gore had this to say about it: Parents feel like you have to compete with the mass culture in order to raise your kids with the values that you want them to have. I ve been involved myself in negotiating with the Internet service providers to get a parents protection page every time 95% of the pages come up. And a feature that allows parents to automatically check, with one click, what sites your kids have visited lately. If you can check up on them, that s real power. Recently the FTC pointed out that some entertainment companies have warned parents that the material is inappropriate for children, and then they turned around and advertised that same adult material directly to children. That is an outrage. Joe Lieberman and I gave them six months to clean up their act. And if they don t, the FTC [would prosecute for] false and deceptive advertising. I want to do something about this-while respecting the First Amendment-but I will do something to help you raise your kids without that garbage.

Along with the previous idea of letting parents check up on their children s web surfing, Gore also wants to filter certain websites and add V-chips to every new television sold in the United States. In a press release, it talks about it further. [Gore supports] giving parents tools to protect children from violence: Gore noted that as of January, new television sets sold in America contain a V-chip. Gore championed the V-chip, a device that enables parents to block inappropriate content, such as graphic violence, from their televisions. Gore also highlighted Internet filters that allow parents to block certain web pages and monitor what their children are doing on-line.

According to his official website, Al Gore wants to provide every school classroom and library with internet access, make the internet as common as the telephone, provide all basic skills and computer literacy to all students by the end of the eighth grade.

In the democratic debate in Los Angeles, when asked his opinion on the government regulating the Internet, answered The government s role should not be to regulate content, obviously. The government should give parents more tools to protect their young children, give citizens more protections against violations of privacy. We should keep the moratorium on taxing transactions on the Internet while the questions are dealt with. And we ve got to close the digital divide so that everybody, regardless of income or social circumstances has access to the Internet. And when asked about his opinion of minority communities gaining access to the Internet, Gore said I believe that we need to get computing centers in the community for children and for adults. And we need to finish connecting every classroom and library to the Internet.

Obviously Al Gore cares a lot about the future of computers and the Internet. But he also feels strongly about education. Here are some examples.

At a debate in St.Louis on October 17th, 2000, Gore was asked what his plan for education in the future was. He said I see a day where there are no failing schools; where the classrooms are small enough so the teacher can spend one-on-one time with each student. That means recruiting teachers. It means hiring bonuses to get 100,000 new teachers in the next four years. It means helping with interest-free bonding authority, so that we can build new schools and modernize classrooms. I want to give every middle class family a $10,000 deduction for college tuition to send their kids to college. If a school is failing, we work with the states to give them the authority and resources to close down that school and reopen it with a new principal, a new faculty.

Gore wants to spend 176 billion dollars over ten years for pre-school, special ed, and more. Here is the breakdown of the money he plans to spend.

+ $50 billion for universal preschool.

+ $20 billion for special education programs for the disabled.

+ $12 billion to build new, smaller schools.

+ $12 billion for after-school programs and to lower dropout rates.

+ $8 billion to raise teacher salaries.

+ $8 billion in bonuses to hire 1 million teachers.

+ $8 billion in tax-free bonds for school construction.

+ $1.8 billion to develop charter schools.

Al Gore also favors school prayer if the teachers are not involved. He said in some school settings the impression is given that it s wrong if a student wants to exercise or display his or her faith or engage in a truly voluntary prayer that the school employees have nothing to do with. He also said that Supreme Court prohibitions against organized school prayer have been taken to an extreme that actually discriminates against some people of faith who wish to bring faith into their school life.

Gore also wants to hire a lot more new teachers. He said We need 2.2 million new teachers over the next ten years. I propose the 21st Century Teacher Corps with $10,000 hiring bonuses for young people, and $10,000 bonuses for mid-career professionals to join the teaching profession. I think that we ought to devote more of our national income to education reform.

And of course, Al Gore wants to get rid of violence and drugs in school. This was said about him on his website Gore has called for more character education and discipline in our schools. He has called for strong national measures to break up violent teen gangs and keep guns and drugs off the streets and away from schools. He has worked to put more drug counselors and violence prevention coordinators in public schools. And he has championed quality after-school care, to give children safe, supervised places to go during the afternoon hours when most juvenile crime takes place.

Even though Al Gore did not win the presidency, Gore had a lot of great ideas for the improvement on the country. These were just some of his strong points on the key issues he discussed.

316