The Pandemic Is A Perfect Time To Address The Digital Divide

According to a Pew Research Institute study conducted in early April, 53% of Americans say that the Internet was essential during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, more than four-in-ten households with income below $30,000 a year lack home broadband access. With schools closed, the “homework gap” is highlighting the digital divide around the country.

Roughly one-in-five parents with homebound schoolchildren say that it’s likely that their children will not be able to complete their schoolwork because they do not have access to a computer or have to use public WiFi.  In the U.S., we are the leader in technological innovation. Then, how can that many of our children be left behind?

As we step into our new technological era of artificial intelligence, edge, virtual reality, 5G, etc., broadband access is becoming as essential as electricity, enabling remote working, remote learning, virtual healthcare, and remote social services in our communities. Suppose we don’t address the digital divide now. In that case, the risk becomes that there will be a generation of children and adults in underserved communities who will be left behind in our age of innovation.

Mayor of Houston, Sylvester Turner, says, “There is a huge need for student connectivity. There is no other way to reach the child because they’re not sitting in a classroom. Now, if we can’t reach them, we don’t know if they’re okay. So CPS has reported that cases have gone down since the pandemic. However, there were also fewer calls reported overall during the pandemic. Some people are now saying, ‘ Great, kids are safer there at home.’ Unfortunately, if you’ve been an educator or have been in the education space, you know that the only way you know if that child is okay is to look in their eyes every day. And if you can ask them, ‘Hey, what’s going on? You’re wearing the same clothes as yesterday. You have that look in your eyes. Have you eaten breakfast?”

The Pandemic is the Perfect Opportunity to Address the Digital Divide 

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, in each city, the digital divide has been felt by children who were absent from Zoom calls with their teachers, digital homework not completed, and parents who were unemployed but couldn’t apply for assistance online. When the digital divide prevents community members from accessing needed resources during uncertain times, it presents an opportunity for city governments to try to think about humane solutions that can help to address the problem of this digital divide.

Mayor Turner says, “If we start with the premise that every child is important, every neighborhood is important. Then, you have to address the equity piece. If you are not addressing it, then you are saying that some people are less than others. It’s not humane. Because every person has value, every person should be valued. You have to value and respect every person, make sure every child has what they need to reach their potential; you have to address the digital divide. Historically, we’ve treated some communities less than others, and that’s not humane.”

Houston, led by Mayor Turner, has been tackling the digital divide for a couple of years as a part of the city’s Smart City initiatives. However, since the pandemic, Mayor Turner partnered with Intel and T-Mobile to ensure that 10 million Houston’s underserved residents gained high-speed internet access via broadband or mobile connections over the next five years.

Mayor Turner says, “In the wake of Black Lives Matter, one of the reasons why you have so many people out on the street is that there are inequities in many of these neighborhoods leading up to the murder of George Floyd. Communities have been underserved and under-resourced for decades. So, you have the socio-economic dynamics of inequities that exist in these neighborhoods that fuels the fire. With this pandemic, we are talking about remote learning and working remotely from home, even in underserved communities. When they don’t have the ability for remote learning, working remotely from home, there’s a digital divide there.”

Intentionally Putting In Place a Plan That Works For Your City

Houston’s plan is one that puts children first. It is a program to subsidize Internet access in partnership with T-Mobile and Intel. It is only available for students through their school district. The program is not just about gaining unlimited connectivity. It also provides instructional resources, wraparound services, and stipends for children to meet their social service needs.

Dr. Kiesha Taylor, National Education Administrator for T-Mobile, “We are making a substantial investment. School districts know what our children need. They are working with the instructional resources in schools to make sure that our children can be successful. Districts are also working to ensure schools are fully staffed to provide wraparound services. The program is geared toward having school districts offer both subsidized connectivity and unlimited 4G LTE high-speed connectivity to students.”

For the program to be effective, assessing the community’s real needs and learning the real gaps of the digital divide are crucial. There are many nuances in determining the real needs of the city. Before embarking on a solution, the team at T-Mobile and Mayor Turner’s team considered nuances in assessing these real needs of the community. They used various surveys, community engagement, and feedback to figure out the program and the implementation.

An example of the nuance maybe that some parents may check the box on the connectivity survey that says “they have connectivity”, when they have only a mobile phone with hotspot internet access. The speed and accessibility of these hotspots may be too slow to enable remote learning for their children. In this case, the school district will still need to provide these parents with better connectivity to allow their children to complete their school work on time despite the box that they checked on the survey.

Lower-income families often have parents who are working multiple jobs. Children may be staying with relatives or affordable childcare centers for long periods during the day. Older children may be home alone. To complete school assignments on time, these children need to have portable connectivity solutions instead of regular broadband access at home.

Additionally, children who lack a structured educational environment and who’ve been disconnected from their peers for several months during the pandemic are likely not getting their social needs met. Some of these children may also need supplemental nutritious food even when they are at home.

Dr. Taylor says, “We have social workers and counselors in schools, and then we also have these same professionals working out in the industry right now. They have transitioned to providing their services remotely to ensure safe access to their expertise and support via web-based tools….. We have to be very intentional about how we provide connectivity to students, and the real way that it can potentially impact not only the child but everyone who comes in contact with a child each day.”

Corporate Partners Can Enable a Faster Path to Digital Inclusion

For a city like Houston, corporate partners who came on board, such as Intel and T-Mobile, provided resources and guidance for the city’s digital inclusion program. In Texas, the same corporate partners are working across the state with other counties and cities to try to find ways to bridge the digital divide.

Dr. Taylor says, “For T-mobile, outside of Texas, specifically, in California, we have provided over 100,000 hotspots and connectivity for students in partnership with Google. In New York, we have also provided 300,000 students with connectivity and partnership with Apple. We also have other programs in other states that are helping to bridge the digital divide.”

Intel vice president Rick Echevarria adds, “Public-private partnerships are introducing innovative ways to educate and motivate students and teachers while school buildings remain closed. New devices and connectivity extend teachers into students’ homes, but keeping lessons fresh and engaging will be key to educating from a distance.”

Digital Inclusion Means Progress Toward a Legacy of Equality

Amid the Black Lives Matter movement, many cities and states realize the value of bridging the digital divide. African Americans living in underserved communities are disproportionally affected by the digital divide.

Dr. Taylor says, “We know that inequity disproportionately impacts students and families in black and brown communities. Ensuring that students have access to technology and connectivity is even more critical for these populations because we want to be intentional about decreasing the equity gap associated with these populations. Just thinking about these children having the opportunity to expand their cultural knowledge base, and make a tremendous impact on their self-worth and value structure through innovative technology access is enormous.”

With the improvement in the equity ratio, both children and adults can feel safer in their community. In time, that sense of safety can help alleviate the residual anger that has slowly multiplied through generations of systematic racism. By bridging the digital divide and improving the equity ratio in the age of innovation, the next generation of children in these communities can learn to define their roles in advocating for social justice to advance the cause of equality. Technology and digital inclusion can ultimately lay the foundation for a legacy of equality in our communities.

Dr. Taylor says, “We all have a different role in social justice. Each of us has our expertise to contribute to advocacy. So, as long as we hold ourselves accountable to helping children identify their expertise, and we can do that by equipping them with technology to help them determine where their voice is and what position they hold, we are in a good place.”