Minnesota state efforts to close internet gap hampering distance learning aren’t being expedited — at least for now

Using data collected from providers across the state, many Minnesotans live in areas that are underserved or unserved — meaning they have inadequate downloading and uploading speeds or no access at all. In addition, there are households that show up as being covered in this map that are actually unserved. Getting a clear count on just how many Minnesota students are lacking adequate broadband access, however, has proven to be a challenge.

In early May, the state Department of Education asked all public school districts and charter schools to self-report the number of individual students without internet access or access to a device for distance learning. The data set isn’t complete, but based on the counts provided by 540 districts and charter schools — including the state’s three largest districts — 20,899 students were still lacking access to a device in early May, and 21,523 were still lacking internet access. According to the Minnesota Rural Education Association (MREA), those counts seem a bit low. Their analysis shows that nearly 31,000 rural public students live in households that do not have adequate broadband access (defined as a connection with at least 25 Mbps download speed and at least 3 Mbps upload speed), accounting for 85 percent of the statewide total.