COVID-19’s impact on schools shows California’s need to connect students to internet

Even in the best of times, launching a statewide online learning program would be a monumental task, akin to landing on the moon. Trying to do this in the middle of a pandemic has resulted in outcomes that are, putting it mildly, uneven and unequal – leaving hundreds of thousands of students without access to the public education they need to realize their potential.

But public-private partnerships like one pioneered between Los Angeles Unified School District and Verizon may hold the key to bridging the digital divide by connecting every public school student in California to the internet – a lifeline today during school closures, but also the foundation for future opportunity in an increasingly digital economy. Based on an agreement with Los Angeles Unified, Verizon will offer to any school district in the state a significantly reduced price for wireless internet access so students can stay connected to learning.

There are about 6.2 million students in public schools across California and about 1.2 million – or nearly 20 percent – do not have access to the internet at home, either because of geography or the inability to afford it.

I grew up in an era when we were all connected – everyone had a landline phone and the same ten-cent postage stamp carried thoughts anywhere in the country. That sense of connection and equity was lost in the transition to a wireless world, but we’re committed to ensuring that all of our students and employees remain a part of their school community. Out of crisis, we can create opportunity.

Part of this is to make sure every student has a digital device and internet access to stay connected with their school community and continue learning.

Connecting everyone is just the beginning. In Los Angeles Unified, we’re training educators and helping students master the tools and technologies and all are beginning to see the opportunities they can provide. And we’re working with the innovators that made California the world’s fifth-largest economy to develop content that engages students in new, uniquely digital ways.

This summer, for example, Los Angeles Unified students will be offered an unprecedented opportunity. A great set of partners are working together with educators to offer entertaining online classes which will tie in math, literacy and critical thinking skills.

Working together with Illumination, the creators of “Despicable Me,” and James Cameron, the award-winning director of “Titanic,” we will help students learn to draw, create animation and share their own stories and to learn about the biology and physics of the deep ocean and underwater exploration on a special voyage of the Titanic. And Fender Guitars is helping to provide the opportunity for 1,500 students to learn to play the guitar or ukulele.

In all of these classes, students will be provided, at no cost, the materials they need to participate.

This extraordinary effort needs to continue as we transition back to schools. That will require funding for schools to provide the technology and access. But it won’t require a moonshot.

The devices, laptops or tablets, cost $300 apiece and last about three years. Internet access, appropriately discounted, should be about $10 a month per student. Add it all up and the annual cost would be about $600-$700 million to make sure every student across the state is connected to the internet and their school community. That may sound like a great deal of money, but last year the State of California invested in excess of $84 billion in K-12 education.

The effort can be funded based on the same model used to pay for access in landline phones or the same logic used to make sure a letter to Alaska costs the same as it does to send it across town. Californians spend an estimated $100 billion on phone bills and internet access and more than that on cloud services. A very small portion of those bills would provide the funds to pay for an effort to keep students connected students with the future.

The investment in the digital future of all students will help make sure there’s opportunity to match the talent we know is in every student in every classroom, whether at school or at home. It’s time we find a way to do extraordinary things to make sure we deliver on the promise of a great education for every child in public schools.