Community Anchor Institutions

Forty-six senators introduced the Emergency Educational Connections Act, legislation aimed at ensuring all K-12 students have adequate home internet connectivity and devices during the coronavirus pandemic. The bill is the Senate companion to legislation recently introduced by Rep Grace Meng (NY-06), but makes one important change: increasing the appropriation from $2 billion to $4 billion.

State and local governments are working overtime to provide Internet service to all who need it during the pandemic, pushing out a range of ad hoc projects designed to keep members of their communities connected.

It’s unfortunate that it took a pandemic to reveal that the Internet is a basic human right. Yet in California, home to Silicon Valley, 20 percent of students are not connected in their homes. The solution is clear — build an infrastructure with public-private partnerships to enable systems-level change that addresses the root causes of the issue, creates coordination and empowers various groups across communities. Tech companies, state and local governments, school districts, ISPs, and community organizations all need to invest in a coordinated manner.

The parking lot of Free Pentecostal Holiness Church in the historic town of Tatums (OK) is a little busier these days. The grassy areas on either side of the small, white building now serve as the town's main Wi-Fi hot spot. People in cars parked outside the church's doors can access broadband internet, which isn't common or cheap in the town of about 160.

Cisco is partnering with the State of Arizona to expand Wi-Fi internet access to high-need communities across the state.

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

Many digital equity advocates applauded the Federal Communications Commission’s recent clarification explicitly allowing public schools and libraries to let their communities access E-Rate-supported Wi-Fi services while their buildings are closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On April 30, the SHLB Coalition partnered with CoSN, Funds For Learning, and SETDA to share the funding and policy actions necessary to connect students, teachers, and library patrons. Schools have either closed or shifted to online learning to mitigate further spread of COVID-19. According to analysis from Funds For Learning, at least 7.15 million U.S. households are unable to show up for class because they lack broadband access at home.

This report examines the ability of K-12 students in California to engage in distance learning based on the availability of an internet-connected computer at home.