Would a ‘SNAP’ program for broadband help bridge the homework divide?
Sarah Kelsey is an instructional coordinator at Greenup County School District in eastern Kentucky. Her school population is mostly rural and internet access is limited. “The COVID-19 pandemic is causing a lot of unequal learning experiences for our students,” Kelsey said. “About 25 percent of our students don’t have access to internet, which is causing a great deal of students to fall behind.” The experience of Greenup County Schools is unacceptable, but unfortunately all too common. At a time when access to educational opportunities are so critical for long-term success, an estimated 17 million students in unserved and underserved communities lack the connectivity that makes distance learning possible. And new research from the Morning Consult shows that while more than three quarters of parents and teachers are concerned about today’s homework gap, more than 70 percent also expect the traditional classroom learning environment to rely more heavily on technology after the pandemic. If we think this is a problem just for parents, we are wrong. Policymakers and business leaders should also be concerned. The digital divide has been with us for much too long, and now poses a crisis to education that threatens an entire generation of leaders and innovators. The stakes are high, and Sal Khan, founder of the Khan Academy online learning platform, described them to us: “Even when the school districts, the cities and the local telecom carriers have done heroic efforts to get kids internet access, there are still 10-15% of the kids that are disengaged. If we don’t really engage them, we are going to see long-term consequences for economic viability.” (Khan Academy is among our collaborators as we work to bridge the homework gap by providing free services, devices and educational content to schools and communities.) AT&T is helping by providing free hotspots and internet to students around the country. Earlier this year we provided Sarah Kelsey’s district in Greenup, Ky., and more than 100 organizations and schools with free wireless hotspots and connectivity as part of our $10 million Connected Nation commitment. And today AT&T is committing more than $2 billion to deepen our relationships while expanding affordability and subsidies over the next three years to help bridge the digital divide Read More …