As pandemic painfully shows, Kentucky desperately needs a ‘New Deal’ for internet access

A group of Kentucky leaders, including former education commissioner Wayne Lewis, State Senator Max Wise, and non-profit president Peter Hille, called for a “New Deal” on broadband access in Kentucky last week at a press conference held by the Walton Family Foundation. With more than a third of students lacking access to high-speed internet at home, their case is strong. Kentucky ranks among the worst states in the nation for connectivity.

Governor Beshear’s recent recommendation that all districts start their school year with remote learning has only further illuminated the breadth of Kentucky’s “digital divide.” Most families who were anticipating some form of in-person learning will now have to wait until at least Sept. 28, and unlike the spring, they should not expect paper packets to dominate their children’s school day.

School leaders have spent the lion’s share of their summer securing additional remote learning technology and navigating new digital learning platforms. Now that districts have largely raced to adopt Gov. Beshear’s recommendation and delay in-person learning, it is clearer than ever that Kentucky families need a “New Deal” for internet access. But who can deliver it?

While leaders like Lewis, Wise, and Hille called for the federal government to assist with expanding internet access, the hard reality is that no single entity holds the magic elixir to cure Kentucky’s connectivity ills. Closing the commonwealth’s “digital divide” will take a strong coalition of federal, state, and local partnerships.

The federal government can indeed play a vital role in strengthening connectivity in our nation’s rural communities. Many of the barriers to web access are economic in nature, and legislators should consider this as they continue negotiations over the fifth round of COVID-19 stimulus funding. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) could also have an immediate impact by using its bully pulpit to demand that telecommunications companies provide free internet to low-income families, even if they owe outstanding debts.

But federal intervention alone will not be enough. In some cases, rural connectivity boils down to geography more than income; it does not always matter that a family can afford to connect if they are surrounded by mountains and hills. Even if leaders in Washington agree to supply additional funding to get families connected and turn up the heat for telecommunications corporations, thousands of families still lack the very infrastructure needed to get online.

Consequently, state and local initiatives will be just as essential in delivering a “New Deal” for Kentucky. Gov. Beshear can lead the way by heeding the call of Kentucky’s education leaders and launching a statewide working group to help close the “digital divide.” Taking this easy action would allow for additional oversight of KentuckyWired, the commonwealth’s flawed broadband initiative, and would apply additional pressure to internet service providers to actually connect rural families to it.

We have already seen promising results from community-based innovators like the Peoples Rural Telephone Cooperative, which used a combination of federal grants and loans to expand high-speed internet in low-income areas like Jackson and Owsley Counties. Thanks to old-fashioned Kentucky ingenuity and help from a mule named Old Bub, who helped crews haul cable for two to three miles a day, two of the nation’s poorest communities now have some of the fastest broadband connections.

This would have been impossible with the laissez-faire approach that so many leaders have chosen. Wireless corporations have little financial incentive to prioritize sparsely populated communities in places like rural Kentucky. To transform our commonwealth into the “silicon holler” we once dreamed of, we need a sense of urgency.

Now that thousands of students across Kentucky are gearing up for a virtual opening of the school year, we should recognize that the best time to expand internet for all was years ago. The second best time is right now.

Garris L. Stroud is a public education advocate, former KY Teacher of the Year Semifinalist, and alumnus of the Kentucky State Teacher Fellowship.

This story was originally published August 21, 2020 at 8:42 AM.