Its genesis was as a resource for adult users. The sheer size and number of users on the Internet have created a huge diversity of opinions, tastes, and interests. There are materials which in many school districts may be deemed as inappropriate for student use. However, the presence of potentially objectionable materials on the Internet cannot become a justification for denying children their rights to information. The same selection criteria should apply to on-line resources as we apply to other educational materials.
Schools can, to a degree, control the Internet resources which are available to their students.
Schools which have their own Internet nodes can select which news groups they will carry, and can structure their gophers and other menus to give easy access to some resources, and not to others. The selection of Internet resources should done by professionals at a local level. Just as some books meet the educational standards of some districts and do not meet the educational standards of other districts, so will some Internet resources be locally judged as educationally suitable or unsuitable. Just as some audio-visual materials are essential to one district's curriculum and are not essential to another district's curriculum, so will some Internet resources be viewed as necessary or unnecessary to individual programs. A few students will use the Internet to obtain materials which may be viewed as inappropriate to their age or maturity level, just as some students now use interlibrary loan to obtain materials which are unavailable in their school or local public libraries.