School Districts Seek Faster Internet Connections

Teachers across the country want to personalize learning through technology, districts are putting 1-to-1 computing initiatives in place, tablet devices are flooding into classrooms, and the 2014-15 deadline for online testing under the Common Core State Standards is drawing near. But none of those approaches or plans is possible without high-speed broadband connections.

The Federal Communications Commission has made it a priority to get such fast, reliable connections to every school. It released a national broadband plan in 2010 with recommendations to achieve that goal, and it is slowly modernizing regulations for the federal E-rate program, which reimburses districts for many connectivity expenses. Though nearly every school is connected to the Internet, not all of them have the kind of connections that allow teachers and students to make full use of digital tools. Schools should have at least 100 megabits per second for their broadband connections by 2014-15, says a report issued last year by the State Educational Technology Directors Association, referring to the speed at which information is delivered to a computer. That's the same speed that the assessment coalitions behind online testing of the common-core standards suggest. But many schools do not have such high-speed connections, says Douglas Levin, the executive director of the Glen Burnie, Md.-based SETDA. Even worse, he says, some think they do—and are paying for such service—without really having it available.