Schools, libraries sound alarm over potential changes to federal internet program

Filed 1h ago · Via Stateline · The Buffoon Desk

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Covert Affair

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: The White House · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

The FCC is reviewing the E-Rate program, which provides about $3 billion annually in internet discounts to more than 100,000 schools and 11,000 libraries, asking whether it should be “narrowed or otherwise reoriented.”

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr framed the review as “empowering parents,” though the agency's own questions focus on discount rates, geographic limits, and screen time rather than parental input specifically.

Superintendents warn losing funding, like the $11 million one Texas district received over five years, would force cuts elsewhere in already tight budgets, while 73% of public libraries rely on the program to pay for internet access at all.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Nobody at the FCC has explained what problem gets solved by making rural schools pay full price for the internet. “Empowering parents” sounds nice printed on a press release, right up until the school buses can't run their GPS routing because the Wi-Fi bill tripled. Nearly thirty years of connecting classrooms doesn't get undone quietly, and this review is not being run quietly enough to hide that.

Source: Read the original at Stateline → Scored: Covert Affair · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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