Not All Schools Can #KeepLearning
While educators promote online learning as coronavirus spreads, some Illinois students aren’t equipped with the broadband to even notice.
This investigation is a collaboration between ProPublica Illinois and the Chicago Tribune.
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To encourage learning while schools are shut down, Illinois education officials have gathered online tools for educators and promoted the hashtag #keeplearning.
Some students in Illinois, however, won’t be able to watch their teacher conduct live science experiments or download a story time video. They don’t have a computer or high-speed internet at home, or a cellphone data plan that would support it.
A Chicago Tribune-ProPublica Illinois analysis found digital inequities across the state, the effects of which will be exacerbated as families are isolated inside their homes during the coronavirus pandemic. In more than 500 of the state’s roughly 3,100 census tracts, there were fewer than 600 quality connections per 1,000 residents, accounting for a significant portion of Illinois geography. At least 54 census tracts had even lower rates of connectivity as of the end of 2017, the analysis showed.
The Federal Communications Commission surveys the nation’s fixed internet service availability by collecting data through internet service providers twice a year. It defines fixed high-speed internet connections as those with adequate bandwidth to upload or download. So if a provider offers service at least that fast for at least one household on a census-defined block, the entire area is considered served. The most recent data about individual connections is from the end of 2017 and was released last year; providers may have improved speeds and access since then.
The Tribune-ProPublica Illinois analysis of FCC data, combined with estimates of households per census tract, showed that in a high-poverty tract of St. Clair County, about 250 miles southwest of Chicago, there were fewer than 200 quality internet CONTINUE READING: Not All Schools Can #KeepLearning — ProPublica
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