Getting the E-Rate to Deliver the High-Speed Broadband Connections Schoolchildren Need

With enormous progress being made by the Federal Communications Commission’s 2014 E-Rate modernization, it became clear that some schools were nonetheless being left behind.  As a result, Benton commissioned Improving the Administration of E-Rate: Ensuring All Schoolchildren Get the High-Speed Broadband Connections They Need to help the FCC make good on the 2014 reforms -- and ensure that every student, regardless of income or geography, had access to the same digital learning opportunities.  I want to especially thank EducationSuperHighway for their partnership in this effort. 

Over the past months, Benton been discussing the future of broadband with a broad range of community leaders from around the nation. We’ve learned about game-changing strategies to improve libraries , including with the help of the E-Rate program. We’ve heard about new ways to reach schools, libraries, and other anchor institutions in a county along the California-Mexico border. Building off these and other insights, in the fall of 2019, Benton will be releasing a compressive and forward-looking new report, A Vision for the 2020s: Access to Broadband in the Next Decade, to offer an agenda for broadband access and availability over the next ten years. The more we talk to state and local leaders, the more we realize that community leadership is a cornerstone to any public-policy agenda. Recognition of the importance of that kind of leadership is critical to the successful administration of the E-Rate program, as it will be critical to meeting the new broadband challenges of the 2020’s.

[Adrianne B. Furniss is the Executive Director of the Benton Foundation]