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.

EducationSuperHighway, a nonprofit dedicated to upgrading internet access in public schools, now reports that 94 percent of school districts have a minimum level of high-speed internet. That leaves about 6.5 million students without it, and many of them attend rural schools that don’t just lack the money to buy this access but also the local infrastructure that would facilitate it.

Still, 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. The program provides discounts of up to 90 percent on goods and services. The money in the fund doesn’t come from taxes, and stands to benefit schools and libraries in every congressional district in the country — two reasons why the 20-year-old program has never truly been at risk of being cut.

Read the full article by Tara Garcia Mathewson about internet access for teaching and learning from The Hechinger Report