Education technology

A network of community partners working to completely bridge the digital divide for Hamilton County (TN) students came together to thank state leaders for dedicating more than $3 million in Tennessee Community CARES funding toward the effort to help students during the pandemic. The new funding helps advance several carefully coordinated initiatives by more than a dozen public-private partners. Hamilton County Schools serves as the hub for reaching the goal of providing all students with internet access - along with the devices needed to learn online.

Saying the COVID-19 pandemic can't be allowed to create an "irreversible" learning gap for students without access to the internet, Cox is teaming up with Common Sense Media to try and do something about it. Cox is pledging $60 million over the next year to help close the digital learning divide. Cox will also extend its offer to new Connect2Compete customers. If they sign up by year's end, they will get two months free, followed by $9.95 per month internet. Cox's outdoor WiFi hotspots will also remain open to all comers.

With its mountainous topography and sparsely populated areas, West Virginia understands this un-ideal reality as well as any state, so it created what some might call a Band-Aid solution: the Kids Connect Initiative, a unified education network with hundreds of Wi-Fi access points. The project started in early Aug, leaving little time for implementation before Sept 8, the first day of school in West Virginia. The concept was to allow any K-12 or college student the ability to use Wi-Fi from any access point within a network spread over the entire state.

Shemar, a 12-year-old from East Baltimore, is good at math, and Karen Ngosso, his fourth grade math teacher at Abbottston Elementary School, is one reason why.  Remote learning started in earnest on April 6. For Shemar, that meant just four hours per week of live online instruction — an hour for each of the four main subjects once a week, with nothing on Fridays.

Computer shortages have raised nationwide concerns about educational inequities, which are amplified in tribal communities that resisted the Bureau of Indian Education’s (BIE) desire for in-person instruction in an effort to control rising cases of COVID-19. At least five BIE-operated schools in Arizona and five in other states were not prepared to start online because the bureau’s late disbursement of federal relief funding delayed purchases for needed laptops and internet hot spots in communities where fewer than half of rural households have access to broadband internet. BIE schools lagg

The Californian students who could benefit the most from the college- and career-focused approach of Linked Learning are the least likely to have the internet and devices needed to access it from home. Across the state, 1.8 million children live in homes without high-speed internet, and nearly 690,000 have no access to devices. Children of color are much more likely to be cut off from virtual learning: Nearly one-quarter of Black families in California and almost one-third each of California’s Latino and American Indian/Alaska Native families do not have high-speed internet access at home.

I’m leading 45 of my colleagues in the Senate to fight for at least $4 billion to be delivered through the E-Rate program so students receive the Wi-Fi hotspots, modems, routers, and internet connected devices they need to learn at home. Excluding this critical aid from a new coronavirus relief package—as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Republican lawmakers recently did—will exacerbate already substantial inequities for decades. Sixteen million of our nation’s most vulnerable children will continue to suffer. They will continue to fall behind.

All it takes is a nationwide crisis to underline the most glaring equity issues our society faces. The one that has captured my attention during COVID-19 is the chronic lack of home internet access for people of color, low-income households, and rural residents. That lack of access puts schools in an especially difficult position as they expand their use of technology during the pandemic, and beyond. It's important to remember that this technology challenge has been staring us in the face for decades. It is not just a COVID-19 issue—it is a civil rights issue of the utmost importance.

The K-12 Bridge to Broadband initiative will enable more students to participate in remote or hybrid learning for the 2020-21 school year by identifying student needs, standardizing eligibility, and facilitating enrollment for sponsored services. NCTA—the Internet & Television Association, USTelecom, and NTCA—The Rural Broadband Association and their member companies are committed to common principles to work with public school districts or states to identify and connect students. 

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced new funding for two grant programs focused on meeting students' unique learning needs and improving student outcomes. The Expanding Access to Well-Rounded Courses Demonstration Grants Program supports school districts' efforts to develop distance-learning opportunities, expand their course offerings, and ensure students have access to a broad range of advanced, career or technical, and other courses.