Axios
Digital divide lurks behind school reopening
Students on the wrong side of the digital divide who have struggled to keep up with distance education will still face major obstacles, even as schools reopen. The big picture: students without reliable home internet already have an education deficit, and many of them the distance learning tools that instituted the pandemic are here to stay. Experts and advocates are concerned that students who are not connected could end up permanently behind their more wired peers if they do not get help now. Supports safe, smart, sensible journalism. Sign up here for Axios newsletters. “Even after children return to school to address the unprecedented learning loss addressed by unprecedented pandemics, educators, students and families will need robust resources outside of school,” said Amina Fazlullah, Common Equity Policy Advice. Sense Media. “This means that all students must be able to continue to connect strongly with distance education going forward.” According to the numbers: Schools scrambling to ensure students can go online at home have tackled public and private resources to an estimated 3 million children since the pandemic began, according to a story by EducationSuperHighway, a non- for-profit organization focused on school connectivity. According to a report by Common Sense Media and the Boston Consulting Group in January, another 12 million children still do not have the necessary connections for distance education. 75% of the pandemic related attempts to close the digital divide are 75% of children. According to the Common Sense study, children in rural areas and black, Latino, and Native American households are hardest hit by the digital divide, but Texas, California, and Florida have the most students without adequate Internet service, while Mississippi, Arkansas, and Alabama have the largest number of students who are not adequately connected. What can help: money. “One of the lessons I hope we learn during all this is that internet service is expensive,” Angela Siefer, executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, told Axios. “Now we need to come up with a long-term solution to address this.” At the federal level, Acting FCC President Jessica Rosenworcel began a process last week to expand a broadband subsidy program for schools and libraries so that it could be used. The FCC also continues to pay out $ 3.2 billion in federal funding under the latest COVID assistance package to help low-income families cover up to $ 50 of their monthly broadband bill. At the local level, Chicago has created a model programmed by partnerships with philanthropists and local Internet service providers to sponsor service for students who do not have access. The program has committed 50,000 students by December and aims to join another 50,000 students by June. Schools provide their students’ addresses to local ISPs, which identify the houses that are not connected to each other. The schools then buy internet services for low-income families who do not have access, and work with community organizations to connect families. EducationSuperHighway and ISPs are trying to expand the Chicago model nationwide. Comcast, which participates in the Chicago program, announced plans this month to connect to WiFi community centers by the end of 2021 as part of its Lift Zones project to increase access to distance education during the pandemic. The bottom line: ‘The homework gap existed before the pandemic and after that it will continue if we do not make it a priority now to get every student the broadband connection they need,’ Rosenworcel told Axios. Get smarter, faster with the news CEOs, entrepreneurs and top politicians read. Sign up here for Axios newsletters.