One lesson of the COVID-19 pandemic was that many families did not have reliable internet access at home. When schools closed and classes moved online, educators scrambled to improvise solutions for families without stable connections, installing mobile Wi-Fi hotspots on school buses, sending portable hotspots to the homes of those who needed them, and more.
And even before the pandemic, educators were working to close the “homework gap,” the divide between students who can easily go online at home to access critical school materials and those who lack reliable internet at home.
Now that schools have reopened and pandemic relief funds are about to expire, there is a risk that this gap will widen rapidly unless policymakers take a fresh look at the country’s connectivity. And it is a gap that disproportionately affects students of color and those from marginalized communities.
That's the argument made by Nicol Turner Lee, director of the Center for technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution, in her new book, “amazon.com/Digitally-Invisible-Internet-Creating-Underclass-ebook/dp/B0C4GCWYL9″ target=”_blank” rel=”noopener nofollow”>Digitally Invisible: How the Internet is Creating the New Underclass.“
“The truth is that most of these programs created during the pandemic relied on philanthropic and private sector support and continue to do so,” she writes of efforts to ensure students have online access to schoolwork. She calls for new federal legislation to “make these programs less vulnerable to political changes.”
The largest federal program offering support to school districts and libraries for internet connections, E-rate, was created nearly 30 years ago. Back then, much of today’s crucial technology for life and learning hadn’t yet been invented, including smartphones, social media, and artificial intelligence chatbots. “It’s been too long since we’ve had these same policies in place,” Turner Lee told EdSurge. “We need ways to ensure support for schools for the kind of infrastructure they need.”
EdSurge reached out to Turner Lee for this week’s EdSurge podcast. The sociologist shared her experiences traveling around the country—in places like Marion, Alabama, West Phoenix, Arizona, and Hartford, Connecticut—and asked people to share how they connect and the challenges they face in accessing digital.
Check it out on Spotify, Apple Podcastsor in the player below.
