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Head of FCC Proposes Increasing Internet School Fund
Rambo Tribble writes: The commissioners at the FCC are expected to vote, on December 11, on a proposal by Chairman Tom Wheeler to increase the funding for the nation's largest educational technology subsidy program, E-Rate, by 62 percent. The proposal is intended to be paid for by higher fees on phone service. The increased cost is pegged at $1.92 a year, per telephone line. Support for the proposal, or lack thereof, appears to be falling along partisan lines. To quote Wheeler, however, "Almost two-thirds of American schools cannot appropriately connect their students to the 21st century."
See, there is already a fund which is supposed to pay for everybody getting broadband.
The companies collecting that aren't actually investing in expanding broadband except where it makes them more profit, not where it's needed.
So, a telecom tax proposed by someone who is a well known shill for the telecom industry ... I'm not buying it.
Anything which Wheeler proposes at this point, I'm going to assume is designed to line the pockets of industry, and will do nothing at all for the people they claim this will.
Won't someone think of the children, my ass. This is just a cash grab, plain and simple.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
You don't even have to say "fuck the children." How about "fuck the athletics program?" I wonder what kind of connectivity that new AstroTurf field could have paid for? Or the new stadium that surrounds it, complete with lighting system that would have been the envy of a minor league sports team just a few years ago. I remember playing in the mud with spectators that had to sit on portable bleachers and games being called because we ran out of daylight.
In reality there's more important things than uber high speed broadband, like student to teacher ratio, but I think most would agree both are more important than a bloody football field that primarily benefits a small percentage of the student population. PE is important -- look at the American obesity rate -- but one can teach healthy exercise habits without needing an eight digit venue for the occasion.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I already pay a small fortune in school tax. Let them find the money for it from there.
Last I checked, my local government school has a 3 meg connection because that's what Comcast gives them for free. They have a three million dollar budget but can't find $3000 a year to upgrade that to a hundred meg.
It could be that after all the teachers' salaries and benefits are paid for they don't have any money left (and considering the reams of copy paper we get home...) or it could be that high-speed internet allows remote teaching which is seen as a threat to union jobs.
I do work for one private school (area towns tuition their kids there) and they paid a lot of money to get fiber brought to their facility.
The incentives are aligned differently.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
All funds from government and for government should go through the standard tax system, nothing should bypass in the form of fees.
The problem with bypassing in the form of fees is that a certain portion of every dollar you make is related to government supported infrastructure (including education). It takes a lot more public infrastructure to enable the generation of million dollars worth of wealth than it does to generate $30,000. Thus a person making $30,000 has a much smaller debt to society to pay back. Anytime a fee like this is introduced that person with the smaller debt is subsidizing and paying debt owed by the person with the larger income.
You are quite right to curse. The per-pupil spending has quadrupled since 1960ies (inflation-adjusted). And that's just national average. The locales with high population density — where you'd expect economies of scale to provide for lower per-pupil costs — actually pay even more. But the quality of education has remained level at best — 70% of 8th-graders can't be said to read proficiently!
No one in their right mind would willingly pay 4 times more for the same bad (and worsening) service, if they had a choice. Thus, it is not surprising, the teachers' unions have made ensuring, you have no other choice, one of their top priorities.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Teacher's salaries pale in comparison to the administrators salaries. Administrative costs for schools have gone up by thousands of percent over the last 30 years. Where there used to be 1 administrator per every 100 students, there are now sometimes 1 for every 15 in some school districts, more than there are teachers, and the administrators are more highly paid. It is this cost which must be curbed and would free up 2/3 of a school's budget for more appropriate spending. Write your congresscritter.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
As an educator, I can tell you, being cut off from the internet has been a serious hindrance in teaching class.
I taught at one of those evil "For Profit" schools and wasn't able to provide adequate resources for students to be able to download the tools for class, let alone entire operating systems which were needed from time to time.
I used my phone as a hotspot for teaching because there wasn't enough bandwidth for a youtube instructional video.
Place something witty here
two-thirds of American schools cannot appropriately connect their students to the 21st century.
I am unaware of any school system in the United States without internet access. This is probably dependent highly open their own reports definition of "appropriate". I live in a relatively poor school district, and all of the schools have internet including wifi, even in the external buildings like the band room and the gym. there is even expensive switching equipment in every single classroom for some reason.
If schools are struggling with internet costs it is probably because the contractors are raping them on equipment and installation, making them buy unnecessary equipment.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
In reality there's more important things than uber high speed broadband, like student to teacher ratio
There likely are more important things than "uber high speed broadband" but "student to teacher" ratio may not be one of them. There is very little evidence that smaller class sizes improve education in any measurable way, other than for disadvantaged kids in very early grades (K & 1). There is even less evidence that "student to teacher ratio" matters. The main advantage of smaller classes seems to come from the fact that they are quieter, rather than smaller. Maybe we should be investing in sound suppressing insulation rather than more teachers. Brighter kids have been found to sometimes do worse in smaller classes, because they are compelled to follow along with the class, rather than reading ahead or studying on their own.
This doesn't jive with my experience. K-12 schools can get federal funding for IP connectivity and in my experience they generally end up with way more than they need. I've seen bus garages with Gigabit connections and elementary schools with 10Gigabit. That's enough bandwidth to aggregate thousands of broadband customers. Maybe qualifying for that funding is a pain or has limitations that some schools don't qualify for, but there's definitely a LOT of money spent every year subsidizing new fiber for schools.
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Microsoft: Recommends (and gets) it's own punishment for anti-competitive practices. Punishment is to donate their own software to schools, helping create another generation of locked in customers for themselves.
FCC: Refuses to regulate the internet as a utility, allows corporate interests to subvert the open internet. Recommends spending more money on getting that internet to school children.