GETTING CONNECTED: Almost half (45%) of US K-12 schools don’t have the broadband capacity to deploy a 1:1 initiative. That’s according to over 1,000 district leaders and technology directors surveyed in the second annual E-rate and Infrastructure Survey from the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) and the American Association of School Administrators (AASA). The report finds “troubling gaps in broadband and technology infrastructure in US school districts,” as only 9% of the districts surveyed have enough bandwidth to meet the demand anticipated over the next 18 months.
CoSN and AASA intend for the report to inform the FCC’s upcoming decisions about long-term funding through the E-rate program. Affordability and adequate funding were cited in the report as the largest district barriers to sufficient Internet connectivity, and more than 80% of surveyed districts reported that the E-rate program doesn’t meet their monetary needs.
