The wires may be there, but the dollars aren’t: Analysis shows why millions of California students lack broadband
About twice a week, the $9.99 per month internet connection falters. It’s often as Mario Ramírez finally wrangles his kids into their seats — the fourth-grader studies in the bedroom he shares with his 12 year-old sister, who studied in her parents bedroom — in time for virtual class. The screens freeze — sometimes during online tests. At times the little one bursts into frustrated tears as they wait for their connection to resume, precious class time slipping away.
Though he hides it from his kids, Ramírez’ frustration spikes too, along with fear: What if this is the year that his kids lose interest in their education? In Ramírez’ view, it’s their ticket to a life unburdened by the monthly rent panic that Ramírez has often faced since immigrating from Mexico nearly 30 years ago.
“Sometimes I wonder, ‘Will my kids be unable to get ahead?’” Ramirez said in Spanish.
Depending on a student’s access to reliable internet, the last year of virtual school has ranged from enriching to impossibly discouraging.
Which kids have access follows a stark pattern: Across urban and rural areas alike, public schools with more students in poverty were far more likely to serve households that lacked a basic broadband connection at home in the months before school went online, according to an unprecedented CalMatters analysis. For the vast majority, the barrier to access was not a lack of internet infrastructure — indicating that the more common obstacle was affordability. But for the state’s small population of rural students, those two obstacles unite, leaving three in ten households without a reliable connection.
Though schools have scrambled to deliver laptops, tablets and hotspots to students, and promoted low-income internet plans offered by telecoms companies like AT&T and Comcast, one in five California households with K–12 students told the Census Bureau in late March they don’t always have the internet access needed for virtual school. Interviews with over 30 students, teachers, researchers, advocates and education leaders revealed that hotspots and discount broadband are often unreliable, leading to a year of education disrupted by screen freezes, distorted audio, and getting booted out of Zoom classes.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought California’s digital divide out of the shadows and to the forefront of public policy. Families sued school systems and the state for failing to provide poor, Black and Latino students equal access to high quality education online. Education leaders argued that logging on at home will be part of a 21st century K-12 education. Lawmakers are now calling internet access a basic civil right.
“We need to envision being able to provide affordable, reliable internet for all like we provide water and electricity,” said Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, a Democrat from Torrance, during a recent webinar about closing the broadband divide.
With billions of dollars in federal relief money flowing into California — and the potential for billions more from President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan — state policymakers have readied at least 20 proposals aiming to close California’s digital divide once and for all. At stake is the chance to narrow long-standing achievement gaps that got even worse during the pandemic between internet haves and have-nots.
Deep disparity before pandemic
The Ramírez family had neither broadband nor computers until schools shut down last spring. Their charter school loaned them two laptops, but they never received a hotspot, so Ramírez signed up for their current $9.99 Internet Essentials plan with Comcast for low-income households.
“If we had to pay the regular price, we wouldn’t get it because it’s too expensive,” said Ramírez, who receives Social Security because of a kidney illness for which he must do dialysis five times a week. His wife cleans houses, though fewer clients call since the pandemic.
But the $9.99 plan still cuts out too frequently, Ramírez said. The kids’ grades are slipping, especially his son, also named Mario. Before the pandemic, little Mario was a buoyant kid whose afternoons and weekends brimmed with soccer, swimming, karate, and track and field. Now Ramírez struggles to unglue his son from video games or his cell phone, sometimes baiting him with ice cream just to get him out of the house. Ramírez’ son has put on weight, which his mom attributes to anxiety.
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