No Internet access means no school. Here’s how the FCC can help.

More than 700 telecommunications companies have signed on to the Federal Communications Commission's Keep Americans Connected Pledge. These collective efforts stand as a proud point of American solidarity, a silver lining in our hyper-polarized political climate. Unfortunately, these efforts do not go far enough to ensure that our most vulnerable students have online access. The fine print in many Internet service providers’ offers excludes those who enrolled within certain time frames or had debt histories with the company or other issues. The result is that too many of the poorest families still fail to qualify for the free Internet programs supposedly designed for them.

A simple update to the Keep Americans Connected Pledge would cue the nation’s Internet providers to follow Comcast’s lead and waive prior debts. (While they’re at it, they should also waive restrictions excluding families who subscribed to service within the past 90 days.) More than 12,000 people have signed a petition demanding just this from FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. Meanwhile, the FCC should distribute the billions of dollars earmarked under its own power for helping schools and libraries get online. With many schools and libraries closed for the rest of the school year, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel made the common-sense suggestion that libraries and schools should be able to use those funds to buy WiFi hotspots for students and families and get them online.

More than a month into this crisis, we have seen no movement from the administration on these relatively simple changes. At this point, there is no question that the Trump administration has disastrously handled the onset and continued devastation of this pandemic and the concurrent economic collapse. But there is still a chance for Pai and this administration to show that when they say they want to keep Americans connected, they truly mean all Americans.

[Arne Duncan is a managing partner at the social impact organization Emerson Collective and a board member of the nonprofit Brightbeam. He was US secretary of education from 2009 to 2015.]