If You Reform It, They Will Come

E-rate is the nation's largest education technology program, and it has helped to ensure that almost every school and library in America has basic Internet connectivity. In the 18 years since E-rate was established, technology has evolved, the needs of students and teachers have changed, and basic connectivity has become insufficient. That's why, in 2014, the Federal Communications Commission took steps to reboot and modernize how we connect our schools, libraries -- and most importantly, our students -- to 21st century educational opportunity. We improved the program's cost-effectiveness, set specific, ambitious goals for the broadband capacity delivered to schools and libraries -- a short term target of 100 Mbps per 1000 students, and a longer term target of 1 Gbps per 1,000 students -- and re-purposed funding for Wi-Fi and robust broadband connections capable of supporting cutting-edge, one-to-one digital learning.

The bottom line is that E-rate is devoting its resources to where schools and libraries need the most help: getting access to robust broadband. This will open up new educational opportunities for students across the country. Through their ambitious requests, schools and libraries have told us E-rate reform was needed and appreciated. Work is already underway preparing for 2016's introduction of other changes we made to the E-rate program to support the expansion of high-speed fiber connections. Bur for now, we're thrilled that modernization is working as projected, and grateful that we can play our part in educating the next generation of Americans and informing life-long learners by supporting robust broadband in schools and libraries.