Digital Divide

Louisville has launched a new public workspace — one that combines free loaner laptops and fiber Internet connection with modern design aesthetics, the sort more closely associated with trendy coffee shops than government facilities. And it’s done so in an economically challenged neighborhood where people often lack access to tech.

A central aim of this space is to help foster entrepreneurial partnerships and economic growth in a section of the city facing significant obstacles. The workspace, dubbed the PNC Gigabit Experience Center, is located in the Louisville Central Community Centers' (LCCC) Old Walnut Street development, which is in the Russell neighborhood on the city’s west side. The neighborhood didn’t even have a place where residents could grab a coffee and hop onto Wi-Fi, whether it be to discuss potential business collaborations, apply for jobs or simply browse the Web. The PNC Gigabyte Experience Center seeks to rectify this dearth by providing higher connection speeds and loaner tech, in a space that feels both vibrant and productive. The PNC Gigabit Experience Center is part of Louisville’s recently announced digital inclusion strategy, the city's plan to remove technological barriers so that all citizens have the digital access, skills and hardware to get jobs, degrees and other services.

CoSN and the Alliance for Excellent Education issued two complementary resources for school leaders to advance digital equity and increase broadband connectivity to students nationwide. Advancing Digital Equity and Closing the Homework Gap details the current state of broadband access, its adoption, and its barriers in US communities. The second brief, Advancing Digital Equity: An Update on the FCC’s Lifeline Program, recaps efforts to modernize the Lifeline Program, explains how these changes are at risk, and puts forth ways school leaders can stand up for the program and its positive impact on learning.

In the briefs, the groups underscore current data that paint the picture of broadband access and its implications:

• The Pew Research Center found that 5 million households with school-age children do not have broadband access. Low-income families make up a heavy share of those households.
• According to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 42 percent of teachers reported that their students lack sufficient access to technology outside of the classroom.
• Results from CoSN’s 2016 Annual Infrastructure Survey show that 75 percent of district technology leaders ranked addressing the lack of broadband access outside of school as a “very important” or “important” issue for their district to address.
• In the same survey, 68 percent of respondents reported that affordability is the greatest barrier to out-of-school broadband access.

Over time, the Lifeline Program has provided critical support for underserved Americans to help improve these trends.

In 2016, with the help of a program called ConnectHome -- a partnership between EveryoneOn and the Department of Housing and Urban Development -- the Choctaw Nation connected every single rental housing property in Talihina to low-cost internet service. Choctaw Nation was one of 28 pilot cities to join the ConnectHome initiative back in 2015. The Obama-era program has since connected some 20,000 people in those cities to the internet, and distributed more than 7,000 smartphones and laptops, funded with in-kind contributions and donations from internet providers and advocacy groups.

Now EveryoneOn is announcing its plans to take over the ConnectHome program from HUD and expand its efforts to close the digital divide in more than 100 communities, both rural and urban, by 2020. HUD will still serve on the group’s advisory board, but will no longer manage it day to day. The new entity, rebranded ConnectHome Nation, is an effort not only to grow the program but to protect it from the often mercurial whims of Washington.