By Nathan Martin
September 11, 2013
Sensible and targeted funding fuels long-lasting growth and a modernized E-rate can help fund true growth for promising education models.
Even before the FCC issued its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to update and modernize the E-rate program, DLN called for these changes. When President Obama announced his ConnectED initiative, we joined with other leaders in the industry and praised 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.”
We published a policy brief outlining the history of the program, and detailed challenges to expanding the program. We understand that this chance to modernize the E-rate program is a rare occasion and will not come along again soon. It is vital that the program be focused on supporting the next generation of learning.
Over at Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, Thomas Arnett articulates that same urgency, and has a great blog on Funding the Pipeline for Online Learning. The article details the history of the program, the difficulty of knowing what our education system will need in the next twenty years, but the necessity of modernization.
Arnett highlights a key point for E-rate modernization: the need for the new E-rate program to support and fund mobile learning. Like all technology and digital interaction, mobile is becoming the new normal and federal funding policy should support this new reality.
As the deadline for FCC comments approaches on September 16th, it will be essential that districts and organizations highlight the need for a focus on mobile.
The second barrier to adoption is the E-rate policy itself. E-rate’s current rules only allow funds to cover Internet connections at school buildings and libraries. This rule was presumably intended to discourage schools and districts from getting into the messy business of paying for students’ families’ home Internet access. The scenario of providing mobile broadband for individual devices that can be owned, locked down, and supervised by the school, however, is different from hooking up cable and DSL to houses. As we think about setting the right E-rate policy for the next two decades, we should take a step back and make sure we are fostering a connectivity ecosystem that nurtures future innovation in addition to meeting present needs.