Giving Compass' Take:
- According to a report by Connected Nation, 67 percent of K-12 schools still lack recommended connectivity speed to meet the standards of remote learning.
- How can donors understand and spread awareness of this problem?
- Read about COVID-19's connectivity gap in rural communities.
What is Giving Compass?
We connect donors to learning resources and ways to support community-led solutions. Learn more about us.
Nationwide, 67% of K-12 schools still lack the recommended internet connectivity speed of 1 megabits per second per student, according to a report by Connected Nation. That digital learning gap affects 31.5 million students.
The good news is median bandwidth per student has grown by 37.6% in the past year, and the cost of providing it dropped by 18%. Since 2015, connectivity has increased nearly five-fold, and the median cost per megabit has dropped by 84%.
Digital learning is expected to continue to expand, and districts that meet or exceed the 1 mbps per student goal will have fewer network capacity bottlenecks brought about by the introduction of more devices, the report says.
While organizations such as Connect K-12 and Education Superhighway help connect students in classrooms, the need for distance learning due to the novel coronavirus pandemic has exposed the depth of the digital divide that drives the homework gap. To help with aligning these resources and services, Connected Nation's website breaks down each district's internet service providers and costs.
Though stakeholders have been pushing to connect more kids at home during the coronavirus pandemic, connectivity gaps continue. As recently as October, 300,000 to 1 million California students remained disconnected from school by either a lack of a device or weak broadband.
Read the full article about connectivity by Shawna De La Rosa at Education Dive.