Pending FCC Decision on Lifeline Program Could Impact 'Homework Gap'

Led by Chairman Tom Wheeler, Federal Communications Commission commissioners voted in June 2015 to open a public comment period on a proposal to overhaul the agency's Lifeline Program, which provides subsidies for phone service to America's low-income households.

The proposal, which the commissioners are considering, would expand the program to offer subsidies for high-speed Internet access, in addition to revamping the rules that govern the existing landline and mobile phone program. Attention to the "digital divide" and the "homework gap" have heated up in recent months with the revelation that 70 percent of teachers assign homework that requires Internet access while nearly five million low-income households with school aged children lack high-speed Internet. As a result, millions of already disadvantaged students, many of them minorities, must overcome the additional barrier of finding a high-speed connection in a library or local business that their wealthier classmates often have at home. One of the most vocal advocates of expanding the Lifeline program, Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, has called the homework gap "the cruelest part of the digital divide." Commissioner Rosenworcel has scores of school leaders, and advocacy groups behind her.