Internet access has transformed teaching and learning. In many schools, internet connectivity is a basic prerequisite for lessons in every subject, at every grade level. While this is a problem for schools that don’t have Wi-Fi or a strong enough connection to rely on, the good news is that the portion of schools that don’t is shrinking every year.

The connectivity gap, as tracked by EducationSuperHighway, has narrowed by 84 percent since 2013, thanks in part to changes in the federal E-rate program that allowed schools to use the funding to get or improve their Wi-Fi.

Money to fund E-rate is collected from telecommunications companies (but, really, their customers) and made available to schools and libraries.

Now a new wrench has been tossed into schools’ reliance on the internet for classroom activities. The Federal Communications Commission voted to abandon “net neutrality” protections approved during the Obama administration. That gives internet service providers the freedom to speed up or slow down access to certain websites, making some online actions more tedious or even impossible. Some worry that reliable, fast internet service will become something only guaranteed to those who can pay extra for it.

Read the full article on net neutrality by Tara García Mathewson at Getting Smart