New from me: a look at the US digital divide, now that most schools are starting the year with virtual classes. This was one of the most frustrating stories I've ever reported. As many as 16.9M kids don't have the connectivity they need for remote school https://cnet.co/2EzzBHi 

This comes as 13 out of the country's top 15 school districts will have remote classes this fall. Nearly half a year after the pandemic first shut down schools, many still don't know how to make sure all students can attend virtual classes 2/

I spoke with public school districts around the country, from Alaska to the East Coast. They're all facing the same problem: they don't have the money to connect their students. And they have to become broadband experts overnight, trying to solve a decades-long issue 3/

If the US and states can't solve the digital divide, how can school districts be expected to? But that's the state of connectivity and education in the country today 4/

One poor school district I spoke with, in rural West Virginia, hopes coronavirus numbers drop enough that it can have in-person classes when the year begins Sept. 8. Otherwise, it likely will be handing out paper lessons with free meals for the majority of students each day 5/

In California, over 700k kids need connectivity at home and over 300K need computing devices for classes. CDE Superintendent Tony Thurmond has asked 100 CA companies for help, but only 10 - yes, TEN - have responded 6/

As a reminder, @Apple, @Google & @Facebook - companies based in CA's Silicon Valley - reported huge profits in Q2. Together, they made $23.4B. CDE estimates CA needs $500M to get all kids hotspots and computing devices this school year. https://cnet.co/2D9qIUp 

. @Apple and @TMobile are offering discounted LTE-enabled iPads and service for CA students -- but the device discount is only $60 off what students/families could pay for the 7th-gen iPad on their own. Unlimited service is about $15/mo. That adds up fast for schools 8/

Another big problem for schools: device availability. Good luck ordering Chromebooks in bulk. That WV school won't get its @Lenovo models until at least November. And I've heard other schools are being told their recently ordered Chromebooks will arrive IN THE SPRING OF '21 9/

This isn't just about getting kids online this fall. It goes beyond that. If students don't have equal access to education, it limits their abilities to go to college & get high-paying jobs like the engineering roles Silicon Valley touts. They end up in a cycle of poverty 10/

People of color are disproportionately hurt by the digital divide. One out of every three Black, Latino and American Indian/Alaska Native households lack internet access at home, one study found https://futureready.org/homework-gap/  11/

Rural households, something I'm intimately familiar with, also have big issues. Lack of connectivity may not only be because of cost. It's a reality that many places still don't have broadband connectivity options at all. The @FCC says 22% of rural ppl don't have broadband 12/

Many schools hoped to tap into an @FCC program called E-Rate to extend internet to students in their homes. It discounts service by 20%-90% depending on a district's poverty rate, and schools thought they could purchase discounted service and hotspots for students 13/

Those schools thought wrong. The @FCC won't let E-Rate extend to service beyond a school's walls. Some commissioners, like @JRosenworcel, are trying to change that, and members of Congress, like @Grace4NY, have proposed bills to fund & expand E-Rate 14/

"There's so much of this crisis we can't fix," says @FCC Commissioner @JRosenworcel, who coined the term "homework gap" well before the pandemic. "But the homework gap is something we can solve." 15/

But the bills that include connectivity funding have stalled in the US Senate. Schools are already starting and can't count on significant federal funding to arrive before students are back in class 16/

What this all means is schools have to cobble together whatever they can to teach their students. Some will be handing out paper assignments. Others will count on grants and money from the public to buy hotspots. None of it is actually enough to bridge the digital divide 17/

Other schools are getting very creative in solving the connectivity issue. Stay tuned for another article from me tomorrow about how one school district in Alaska is addressing its internet access problems. It's very, very cool 18/

As many others have tweeted, be nice to teachers. Be nice to superintendents and other school administrators. Take a breath before you call to yell about something. They're doing the best they can with very limited options, esp when it comes to getting everyone connected 19/

"Even before the pandemic we had a homework gap," says Noelle Ellerson Ng of the School Superintendents Assoc. "We all knew it, we all talked about it. It's not as if the pandemic created the homework gap, it's just that we can no longer conveniently have it swept under the rug"

If you're an educator, student, parent, I'd love to hear from you. The connectivity and tech-access issue is a huge one, and there are many more stories to tell about it. [email protected] 21/end