Children and Media

A majority of parents in the US (66%) – who include those who have at least one child under the age of 18, but who may also have an adult child or children – say that parenting is harder today than it was 20 years ago, with many in this group citing technology as a reason why, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in March.

How will students from low-income families connect to the internet to learn from home if they can’t attend school physically this fall? What role can school systems play in ensuring home broadband access for all students, given the budget crisis many districts will be facing next year? The simplest solution would be for the Federal Communications Commission to lift the restrictions barring E-rate recipients from using their networks to extend broadband service into students’ homes.

A full 15 to 16 million public school students across the US live in households without adequate internet access or computing devices to facilitate distance learning. Almost 10% of public school teachers (300,000 to 400,000) are also caught in the gap, affecting their ability to run remote classes. The 32-page report, Closing the K–12 Digital Divide in the Age of Distance Learning, fixes a one-year price tag of at least $6 billion and as much as $11 billion to connect all kids at home, and an additional $1 billion to close the divide for teachers.

Chicago Connected is a groundbreaking program that will provide free high-speed internet service to approximately 100,000 Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students. This first-of-its-kind program will be one of the largest and longest-term efforts by any city to provide free, high-speed internet over the course of four years to increase internet access for students. According to Census data, an estimated 100,000 students lack access to high-speed internet in Chicago.

The massive, systemwide move to remote learning over the past few months created huge frustrations for educators. Those sentiments showed up in the results from surveys conducted by the EdWeek Research Center and in Education Week’s reporting. Teacher morale dropped, student engagement was down, and budget cutting plans were already starting. But, at the same time, by necessity, K-12 educators across the country upgraded their tech skills faster than ever before. What impact will those newfound technology and virtual teaching skills have on K-12 education when school buildings reopen?

Homeschooling students amid the coronavirus pandemic significantly amplifies economic inequities between households. Household income and a family's employment status can determine whether a student has the resources to learn remotely. Income significantly affects access to broadband and data plans, the foundations of keeping up with schoolwork when classes are cancelled.

The sudden shift to remote learning has exposed cracks in today's digital teaching strategies, as parents and teachers struggle with the challenges of recreating the classroom experience online. Demand for ed tech services has surged, as has interest in training for teachers to work online. To prepare for the fall, school districts should vet and limit which products they use, says Josh Golin, executive director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.

Sens Ed Markey (D-MA), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) wrote to the Federal Trade Commission urging it to use its authority under the FTC Act to launch an investigation into children’s data practices in the educational technology and digital advertising sectors.

Children are accessing the internet at a younger age, spending longer online and are at greater risk of cyber bullying as the COVID-19 pandemic keeps them at home, said the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). The United Nations agency estimates that 1.5 billion children are out of school due to lockdown measures to stop the spread of the new coronavirus, forcing them to go online for their schooling but also their social lives and hobbies.

Illinois state and local officials are requiring the use of online instruction to effectively implement remote learning plans, but the “homework gap”—that is, the barrier that students face at school when they don’t have access1 to a broadband internet connection at home—disproportionately plagues Chicago’s low-income families and people of color. About 1 in 5 children under the age of eighteen lack access to broadband, and are primarily Black or Latino. With COVID-19 forcing school districts to adopt remote learning for the remainder of the school year, the students who were already the mo