E-Rate 2.0: Can America Win the Race to Capacity?

[Commentary] Reducing disparities in educational achievement and narrowing the skills gap are two important concerns among policymakers and practitioners alike. Education reform is essential to achieving these goals, especially for African American and Latino students who continue to trail their White counterparts in high school and college graduation rates. While debates in this area have primarily focused on strategies for requiring more in-school hours or a set of standard core competencies, a new variable has been added to the equation – faster, more efficient high-speed broadband networks in our nation’s schools and libraries. President Obama’s ConnectEd Initiative aims to engender improvements in educational infrastructure to facilitate 21st century learning by bringing 99 percent of the nation’s schools and libraries broadband networks to minimum speeds of 100 Mbps per 1,000 students, with a target of 1 Gbps per 1,000 students, by 2018. But can this actually be achieved in a nation with a host of disparities in digital access that are complicated by one’s income, culture and physical location?