In Michigan, closing the digital divide can unite the ‘red’ and the ‘blue’

Among the many truths COVID-19 has exposed about Michigan’s economy and society is the state’s stark digital divide, which is limiting educational opportunity in both highly segregated urban “blue” communities and rural “red” areas as well. Given the virtual learning demands of the COVID-19 world, closing this divide is now an imperative. Michigan (along with many of its sister Midwest states) to be one of the nation’s laggards in making high-speed internet available to all its residents, with 70 of the state’s 83 counties showing connectivity rates below the national average. Recent research by Public Policy Associates’ Daniel J. Quinn and Nathan A. Burroughs details the county-by-county share of Michigan’s population lacking access to high-speed internet and its impact on educational opportunities. Counties with the worst rates of connectivity (as low as 36% of households, or more than 4,000 homes) are some of the reddest parts of rural Michigan, as reflected by their score from the Cook Political Report. This lack of access is a function both of rural poverty and inadequate infrastructure. But even in strongly Democratic urban communities with much higher overall rates of connectivity, there are hot spots of disconnect.

The citizens, parents, and leaders of both “red” and “blue” Michigan must call a truce. United, they can put pressure on the president and federal lawmakers to close the digital divide and make education—in whatever format—work for everyone this fall. If we don’t come together, Michiganders at both ends of our political spectrum will be worse off than ever before.

[John Austin just completed 16 years of elected service on the Michigan State Board of Education, serving the past 6 years as President. Austin directs the Michigan Economic Center, a center for ideas and network-building to advance Michigan’s economic transformation. He serves as a Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings and lectures on the Economy at the University of Michigan.]