Future of Learning: Hotspots are a spotty solution

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By Javeria Salman

Back in April, as schools across the country shifted to online instruction online to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Scott Muri saw firsthand just how damaging lack of internet access can be for students and families.

A team of fifth grade teachers at an elementary school invited Muri, the superintendent of Ector County Independent School District in West Texas, to participate in an online scavenger hunt they had designed for students. Muri logged into the session and immediately noticed that even though there were five fifth-grade classrooms, only 27 students were in the virtual room. After the scavenger hunt, Muri asked the teachers why the rest of their students were missing. Their response shocked him.

“They said these are the only students that have access to the internet from their homes,” Muri said. “So, the majority of their kids — almost a hundred students —missed out on this opportunity to engage with their teachers, because they simply didn't have the tools.”

Across the country, 9.7 million students don’t have reliable internet connectivity in their homes, according to Digital Bridge K-12, an initiative from EducationSuperHighway, a nonprofit. The initiative addresses home connectivity inequalities, more commonly referred to as “the homework gap.” During the pandemic, many districts have addressed this gap by handing out personal hotspot devices (similar to routers) or smartphones, or provided mobile Wi-Fi on school buses to kids lacking internet. Personal hotspots, which allow students to connect a laptop or tablet with a cellular data connection, have been the most popular solution because they are relatively inexpensive and easy to use.

But in many places, a hotspot isn’t enough, Muri said. “You may get a nice, shiny, brand new hotspot, but in your house, it does nothing except turn on, because there's nothing for it to connect to,” he said. That’s because for hotspots to work, they need to be in range of cell towers capable of sending and receiving data, a challenge for communities in rural areas with already spotty cellular service.

“We knew that we have some issues with internet in our homes, but until the pandemic hit, we had no idea ... the lack of connectivity some of our families had,” Muri said.

In some cases, families weren’t connected because they couldn’t afford internet service, or could only afford a basic plan with slow service. But for other families, the barrier to connectivity went beyond cost. “Depending upon where you live in our county, you could be middle class, upper middle class wealthy, and still have a very marginalized internet access because the cell providers have not built towers in these remote areas,” Muri said.

Without the proper infrastructure, options for families in Ector County are often limited to satellite internet, which can be expensive and unreliable, with very slow download speeds. Some families in the western and southern portion of the County can only purchase a maximum of 25 megabits per second of download speed. At that speed, students are able to access features such as basic web browsing, basic streaming and live video calls, but the quality of service declines when used by more than one person at a time.

“We have to do something about that, especially now that so many of our students are learning remotely,” Muri said.

To assess the full extent of the home connectivity gap in Ector County, the school district commissioned a study. An initial report, which is still being finalized, states that “lack of broadband access in Ector County is a crisis.” The study found that one in five Ector County students rarely or never had reliable internet access at home. Most households that did have internet access were dissatisfied with service, either because speeds were slow and unreliable or because the price of the service was too high, according to the report.

The study highlights some of the challenges communities like Ector County face in bringing broadband access to all residents. The solution that would provide the best service is the use of fiber optic cables. Unfortunately, connecting homes via fiber optic cables can be incredibly expensive and can take years, if internet service providers can even be enticed to invest in rural areas where customers are sparse. Evan Marwell, EducationSuperHighway CEO and founder, said it’s very hard to build fiber out to residents. “It costs a ton of money and it takes five or 10 years. That's not a short-term solution.”

Muri, the superintendent, argues that long-term solutions will need to involve both schools and businesses, and use funding from private and philanthropic companies. He said this is why the city, county and state government agencies, along with business leaders and investors in the area, not only participated in the connectivity study, but have shown interest in working together to find solutions.

“They recognize this opportunity could have significant business implications. So they are willing to use their business capital, if you will, to help invest in this project,” Muri said. “It's a large-scale community opportunity.”

Send story ideas and news tips to salman@hechingerreport.org. Tweet at @JaveriaSal. Read high-quality news about innovation and inequality in education at The Hechinger Report. And, here’s a list of the latest news and trends in the future of learning.

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The Shortlist

1. Focusing on student-centered learning. While school is remote, it is important for teachers to meet the individual needs of their students and to empower them to drive their own learning. However, a new report by the Christensen Institute argues that most K-12 educators today don’t have the training necessary to facilitate student-centered learning. The report, released by the Christensen Institute on Tuesday, identifies specific student-centered skills that teachers need that can be “stacked to create customized student-centered teaching micro-credentials for affordable professional development (PD).”

2. Recognizing diversity in STEM during the school year. The need for school curriculums to provide diverse and inclusive viewpoints is more important than ever before. To help with that effort, First Book and the Aerospace Industries Association have partnered to create an online Diversity in STEM Calendar from August 2020 to July 2012 for this school year. The calendar includes month-long observances, religious holidays, and dates with cultural, historic or inclusive significance in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. The free resource also features science experiments that can be conducted in class with teachers or at home with parents. The calendar, available in English with a Spanish version is coming soon, is available to download here.

3. Rural-urban divide visible in school opening plans. With coronavirus cases still on the rise in some parts of the country, school districts are continuously updating their plans for the 2020-21 school year. The Center for Reinventing Public Education’s latest report collected data from Aug. 17-21 from a sample of 477 school districts to provide an update on what school districts are planning for fall 2020. The report found that almost half of the nation’s districts are returning to full in-person instruction but will offer families the option of fully remote instruction. It also found a sharp rural-urban divide: Students in rural communities are much more likely to have access to fully in-person instruction than students in suburban and city areas. Read more.

4. Equity in the coronavirus era. Aurora Institute’s Center for Policy and Action Research Center offers recommendations to help education leaders make decisions about how to reopen school equitably during the ongoing pandemic. A new report titled “Education Policy Issues for the COVID-19 Era: Policy Actions and Responses to Leverage the Moment for Future Readiness” highlights key K-12 education concerns stemming from the coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing school closures. The report provides recommendations and solutions for education leaders to the 10 leading issues identified by the authors, including how to support blended and competency-based learning as an entry point for innovation, how to provide support for students with disabilities and how to ensure that all communities have necessary technology infrastructure. Read the full report.

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