Axios
The digital divide lurks behind school reopening plans
Students on the wrong side of the digital divide who have struggled to keep up with distance learning will continue to face major obstacles, even with the reopening of schools. The big picture: students without reliable home Internet are already educationally deficient and many of the remote learning tools that the pandemic has introduced are here to stay. Experts and advocates fear that disconnected students may permanently fall behind their more connected colleagues if they don’t get help now. Support safe, intelligent and healthy journalism. Sign up to receive Axios Newsletters here. “Even after children are back in school, to deal with the unprecedented pandemic-induced learning loss, educators, students and families will need robust resources outside of school,” said Amina Fazlullah, heritage policy advisor at Common Sense Media. “This means that, from now on, all students need to be able to continue to connect robustly to distance learning.” By the numbers: schools that strive to ensure that students can stay online at home take advantage of public and private resources to connect an estimated 3 million children since the start of the pandemic, according to a count by EducationSuperHighway , a non-profit organization focused on school connectivity. But another 12 million children still lack the connections they need for distance learning, according to a January report by Common Sense Media and the Boston Consulting Group. And that analysis found that 75% of the pandemic-related efforts to end the digital divide will expire in three years. Children in rural areas and families of blacks, Latinos and Native Americans are hardest hit by the digital divide, according to the common sense study. Texas, California and Florida have the largest number of students without adequate Internet service, while Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama have the highest proportion of insufficiently connected students. What could help: Dinheiro. “One of the lessons I hope to learn during all of this is that internet service is expensive,” Angela Siefer, executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, told Axios. “Now we have to find a long-term solution to resolve this.” At the federal level, FCC acting president Jessica Rosenworcel has started a process to potentially expand a broadband grant program for schools and libraries so that it can be used to connect students at home. The FCC is also moving forward to disburse $ 3.2 billion in federal funds under the latest COVID relief package to help low-income families cover up to $ 50 from their monthly broadband account. At the local level, Chicago created a model program through partnerships with philanthropists and local Internet service providers to sponsor services for students who do not have access. The program connected 50,000 students by December and aims to connect another 50,000 by June. Schools provide student addresses to local ISPs, which identify homes that are not connected. Schools then purchase 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 across the country. Comcast, part of the Chicago program, announced plans this month to connect 1,000 community centers to WiFi by the end of 2021 as part of its Lift Zones project to help expand access to distance learning during the pandemic. Conclusion: “The homework gap existed before the pandemic and will persist after it if we don’t make it a priority now for each student to have the broadband connection they need,” Rosenworcel told Axios. Be smarter, faster with the News CEOs, entrepreneurs and top politicians read. Sign up for Axios Newsletters here.