COVID-19 is a wake-up call to close the digital divide

Our years-long failure to ensure universal access to essential internet service means that millions of kids aren’t getting the same educational opportunity as their peers. Congress and the Trump administration can fix this in their next emergency response to the deadly pandemic — and they must. In the next emergency package, being planned right now and potentially as large as the previous one, Congress and the president should include between $2 billion and $5 billion for the E-Rate program that enables rural and urban schools and libraries to connect to the internet, and it should allow them to connect kids at home and ensure they have a tablet or other device to do their school work.  Congress should also invest $1 billion to $2 billion for emergency broadband service to ensure low-income families have enough connectivity at a price they can afford during this crisis to meet their health care and economic needs. And Congress should take additional steps to close the rural digital divide for education and health care. In the long term, Congress should finish the job that was called for in the National Broadband Plan and ensure, once and for all, that we are the internet-connected United States of America. 

[James P. Steyer is founder and CEO of Common Sense Media]