Remote education is forcing the US to confront the digital divide

How did the birthplace of the internet become a nation where broadband is unavailable to large chunks of the population, keeping students from taking part fully in modern education and their parents from taking advantage of the modern economy? Big investments have been made in the internet in the U.S., but not uniformly or with an eye to expanding connectivity as far as possible. It’s not a task that private industry cares to take on, nor is it one that the public sector can solve on its own—not in a country with such a strident free-market ethos. But even before COVID, some communities were finding ways to provide more equitable connectivity. The urgency of the pandemic-fueled connectivity crisis could be an opportunity to finally bring the internet to everyone—if we’re able to see past the immediate challenges of 2020 and implement longer term solutions.