E-rate Order Leaves Major Issues Unresolved, Advocates Say
For all the last-minute negotiations, partisan bickering and congressional pressure involved in Friday’s FCC E-rate modernization order (CD July 14 p1) -- not to mention the sweep of bringing Wi-Fi connections to millions of schoolchildren nationally -- several major issues facing the program were left on the table, advocates involved in the debate told us. “This was a tough sell, but the next set of deliberations will be even harder,” said Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former West Virginia Democratic governor, who supported FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposal. “There will be an incredible amount of debate."
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The issues go beyond the most high-profile one of whether to raise the program’s $2.4 billion cap, advocates said. They involve how to promote broadband hook-ups in rural areas where school districts and libraries pay steep prices under a two-year test that changes the way Wi-Fi dollars are doled out to individual schools and libraries. Another issue is simplifying the application process, the advocates said.
Tied to raising the cap is the question of “who pays?” Wise said, and whether broadband providers should be required to contribute to the USF “is a dicey question,” he said. It’s one that proponents of raising the cap would prefer avoiding, an education policy lobbyist told us. “It complicates the question,” he said, distracting the debate away from how to help school children. It’s also a question that probably can’t be avoided, said a wireline industry official, because providers will worry about the impact raising the cap would have on consumers’ phone bills.
Last week’s order “was the most sweeping change in education in decades,” Wise said, “but it doesn’t do it all.” Addressing the gamut of issues immediately “wasn’t realistic,” Wise said. Instead, he said Wheeler and the commissioners chose to focus on Wi-Fi to get millions of students hooked up immediately and leave other issues for later. “I look at it like [former Louisiana Gov.] Huey Long said, when he was asked where he wanted the first 50 miles of highway. He said he wanted 50 one-mile sections because more people will see what it can do and want more,” Wise said.
The order “will be a few hundred pages. Imagine doing more,” said Benton Foundation Policy Director Amina Fazlullah. “It makes sense to look at the biggest problems, and pick one of those to work on,” and before seeking more funds, “turn over every cushion and find every nickel,” she said.
The debate will also see a shift in the positions of players, as organizations that held out for an increase in funding immediately will likely join a coalition that supported Wheeler’s plan, while others, like providers that supported the plan, may splinter off and oppose a cap increase, Wise said. The National Education Association, which opposed Wheeler’s plan partly because it did not raise the cap, will be pressing for the funding increase, said Mary Kusler, NEA director-government relations.
Commissioners would not comment this week about the remaining issues. The Further NPRM said the commission will look at long-term funding, how to allocate Wi-Fi funds to libraries, and promoting purchasing through consortiums.
The order’s provision making the rates schools and libraries pay for Internet connections public will help those in rural areas negotiate better terms by knowing what counterparts pay, said EducationSuperHighway CEO Evan Marwell. More steps need to be taken to bring down costs, especially in places where a lack of competition between providers raises costs, said Marwell, whose group includes school districts and advocates for broadband for kids. “The chairman and the commission in the first debate weren’t going to deal with affordability,” which would have included creating a fund to subsidize costs or allowing schools to use dark fiber to create their own connections, Marwell said. That could have raised provider opposition, he said. The commission “decided to pick their battles,” but affordability needs to be addressed in the next go around, he said.
Advocates were still awaiting the order to see the details of what the commission approved, they said. For education groups, a continuing concern is a change in the order, setting a $150-per-student cap for receiving Wi-Fi funds. The change will be tested for two years. Citing national studies showing a $14 to $21 cost per student, FCC officials had said the cap should be sufficient, but “we're going to be watching very closely the pilot program on Wi-Fi,” Kusler said. Also of concern is the order’s reduction of the amount of Wi-Fi costs picked up by E-rate from 90 percent to 85 percent. That school districts have to pay more of the cost for connections, while also having to take on the cost of services like phone service that E-rate will no longer fund, is a “double whammy,” said American Association of School Administrators Associate Executive Director Noelle Ellerson. School districts may have to make other cuts like reducing teaching assistants or professional development, she said.