Locked Out of the Virtual Classroom

America came face to face with the festering problem of digital inequality when most of the country responded to the coronavirus pandemic by shutting elementary and high schools that serve more than 50 million children. The time has long passed for the country to open the door to the information age for communities that are locked out. The lack of internet access in poor and rural communities comes up again and again as educators talk about the pandemic. Finally closing the digital divide — and bringing all Americans into the information age — will require a momentous effort on the scale of the federal project that brought electricity to darkened regions of the country during the New Deal. And it will be similarly worth the effort.c