Schools/Universities

The Federal Communications Commission is committing over $24 million in a new funding round through the Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF) Program, which provides digital services for students in communities across the country.

The Universal Service Fund (USF) is inefficient, ineffective, and funded by a regressive tax mechanism. Several reforms could improve the program:

A bipartisan effort to push the Federal Communications Commission to expand internet access to rural areas will finally get a Senate hearing, two years after the bill was first introduced. The Reforming Broadband Connectivity Act has support in both the House and Senate and will get its day in the Senate Commerce Committee Thursday, May 11th, 2023. The bill — introduced by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) in the Senate and Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO) in the House — orders the FCC to determine ho

Studies exploring the relationship between technology in the classroom and students’ outcomes have yielded mixed results. We contribute to the debate by examining the effects of broadband subsidies to schools on school performance measures in Florida. Specifically, using a nearly universal panel of Florida schools in the period 2016-2019, we assess the effect of federal broadband subsidies to schools via the E-Rate program on school grades.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit joined the 5th Circuit in rejecting an attack on the constitutionality of the Federal Communications Commission’s Universal Service Fund (USF). The  USF is a critical means of reducing the cost of broadband and other telecommunications services for schools, hospitals and libraries, for low-income consumers, and for residents of rural America. The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, MediaJustice, and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance are intervenors supporting the FCC in this case.

If you’re not yet familiar with the term edtech, now might be a good time to learn about it. Edtech — educational technology — refers to the broad range of devices, apps, and internet-connected digital tools that schools use today as learning or teaching resources. Edtech has taken off in a big way.

The Federal Communications Commission is committing nearly $21 million in a new funding round through the Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF) Program, which provides digital services for students in communities across the country. The funding commitment will benefit approximately 55,000 students across the country, including students in California, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Puerto Rico.

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed schools to provide all their students with their own devices, often low-cost Chromebooks. But now, many of these Chromebooks are failing, according to a new report by U.S. PIRG Education Fund entitled “Chromebook Churn.” Doubling the life of just Chromebooks sold in 2020 could cut emissions equivalent to taking 900 thousand cars off the road for a year, more than the number of cars registered in Mississippi.

The Federal Communications Commission is committing over $2.5 million in a new funding round through the Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF) Program, which provides digital services for students in communities across the country.

During the U.S.