By Nathan Martin
September 16, 2013
It is time for E-rate to be reformed and modernized.
Today, Digital Learning Now! joins the Council for Chief State School Officers, the Alliance for Excellent Education, iNACOL, Chiefs for Change, the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and the Knowledge Alliance in submitting comments to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in response to its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. We ask the FCC to review and modernize the E-Rate program, supporting consensus-based solutions fully reflective of the education community’s needs for 21st-century learning. These comments can be read in full here, and are summarized below.
The coalition offered six principles to ensure a reformed and revitalized E-Rate program that better serves the needs of all U.S. students:
- Expedited Action is Needed. All stakeholders recognize that this review process is long overdue, as rules designed in the 1990’s still shape technology funding decisions almost 20 years later. We urge the FCC to have reforms in place before the 2014-2015 school year begins. Our nation’s students cannot wait another school year without the benefits of the high-capacity broadband networks they need to succeed globally.
- Schools Need to Control Their Own Technology Future.Each state, library, school district, and charter school is embracing digital learning and technology in different ways. This exciting era of experimentation needs flexible E-Rate funding rules to allow local communities to shape their own network and technology needs. The foundation of digital learning is flexibility and individualization, not one-size-fits-all answers.
- E-Rate is Part of Broader Education Technology Efforts. E-Rate is critical to our nation’s successful transition to digital learning, but it is only one piece of a much broader reform effort. While properly limited to its statutory objective of connectivity, the FCC’s reforms should reflect parallel efforts to empower curriculum reform, teacher training, digital textbook adoption, and new modes of online and blended learning.
- The Application Process Should be Streamlined to Better Reflect Education Procurement. The E-Rate application process is too complicated and introduces too much uncertainty into school funding decisions. Reform should be focused on simplifying the process, incorporating concepts from non-technology education procurement, and encouraging states and consortia to be more active in the program.
- Allow for Future Innovation. The FCC would miss a significant opportunity if it simply updated its rules to reflect the immediate needs of schools. Reform should allow for the continued evolution of digital learning and new innovative solutions. Indeed, emerging broadband-dependent models of education, such as blended and online learning, are too often forced to operate without the benefit of E-Rate support. Policymakers can open up new models of learning, or it can restrict them. The FCC can help foster a policy climate that is open to innovation and accelerates new models of learning.
- Fiscal Reasonability is Fundamental to Successful Reform. All stakeholders must recognize that federal funds are limited, and that average consumers are responsible for funding these vital national priorities. Reform should ensure schools have the level of connectivity mandated by the Communications Act in a manner that encourages programmatic fiscal discipline; limits waste, fraud, and abuse; and is respectful of the impact on the monthly phone bills of all Americans.
The E-Rate program was enacted by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to provide discounts to public and private schools and libraries to help connect them to the Internet. At the time, only 14 percent of classrooms had Internet access; and, of those, 74 percent used dial-up. By 2005, the program had helped successfully connect 94 percent of U.S. classrooms to the Internet.
The program has provided the necessary foundation for connectivity in schools; however, additional high-speed broadband and network resources are needed for students to benefit from technological advances and emerging education models, including online and blended learning.
These comments build off of DLN’s public record supporting this important reform effort.
- E-Rate Policy Brief: To assist organizations with thinking through reform ideas, we published a policy brief outlining the history of the program, the challenges that have emerged over time, and summarized some of the reform ideas to date.
- U.S. House Testimony: Back in February, DLN Executive Director John Bailey testified before the U.S House Education and Workforce’s Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education on how education innovation can improve student achievement and recommended that E-rate should be modernized, streamlined, and better aligned to the reform agendas being put into place by our nation’s governors.
- Budget Proposal: In March, DLN also discussed the importance of connectivity, including proposals for E-Rate reform and a $20 billion school modernization proposal included in the Senate budget plan.
- ConnectED: When President Obama announced his ConnectED initiative in June, we joined with other leaders in the community, praising this new push as “an important step needed to encourage the reforms necessary to make the E-rate work better for today’s teachers and students.”
- Hill Op-Ed: In August, we used an op-ed in The Hill to argue that faster broadband connections and a modernized E-Rate program is vital to supporting next generation models of learning. This piece was highlighted by Secretary Arne Duncan.
- Funding Challenges: In response to a Washington Post article and comments from the White House (see here, here, and here), we offered a policy analysis of the challenges the FCC faces with expanding the program due to the USF contribution rate, which is also in need of reform.
- Improving American Education Through Technology: In September, Bailey spoke as part of a one day summit of public and private thought-leaders on Connected Learning in the Digital Age: Improving American Education Through Technology where there was a robust discussion around the broadband, the E-Rate, and digital learning.
We are excited to participate in the FCC’s rulemaking process and hope to see a new E-rate program which is modernized, simplified and focused on the needs of a 21st education system.
(Word Cloud of Education Coalition Comments to the FCC on E-Rate)