Our schools, teachers, children and families have been forced to the forefront of our city’s reopening with many questions still unanswered. While the city and Department of Education continue to define what reopening schools will look like, many students will grapple with the challenges of remote learning multiple days each week. Whether we have a hybrid model of learning or an entirely virtual model, the city must step up.
As an educator and the president and CEO of the Eagle Academy Foundation, a network of six public schools focused on educating young men of color across the five boroughs and Newark, we have less than a month left to ensure that all of our schools’ students are ready and able to learn on the first day of school. But like so many of our fellow educators, our schools are having to scramble to ensure that all of our children are not only prepared to learn but, critically, have the tools necessary to do so.
According to the Mayor’s Office, 18% of all households in our city do not have access to the internet at home today, with 46% of the city’s households in poverty lacking broadband. This leaves a large number of New York City’s public school students without access to the internet.
This has always been unacceptable but has been amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Department of Education has mitigated the problem, reacting to the pandemic by purchasing 300,000 connected devices to loan to students.
Yet a more strategic approach and permanent solution is needed to close the digital divide. If we do not address the digital divide once and for all, an entire generation of underserved students will be at risk of falling permanently behind in their education, and they may never be able to catch up.
Regardless of what comes next, remote learning is here to stay, and that could be a great thing if all students are connected to the internet. Bringing technology into the classroom and incorporating it into remote learning can begin to close the vast gaps in education that put low-income children and students of color at a disadvantage. Incorporating technology into classes can take education beyond the four walls of the classroom, allowing students to take virtual tours of stock market trading floors, see the inner workings of local government, explore innovative companies like SpaceX, access counseling and mental health resources, attend virtual college tours, and go on virtual field trips. It can even engage busy parents in their students’ education and connect them with their children’s teachers, bringing learning into the home.
Technology could even bridge the gaps in potential teacher shortages, bringing effective teachers into underserved classrooms.
Now is the right time to make the push for more distance learning to bring the outside world and vital resources into our students’ lives. Our city’s internet providers like Spectrum and Optimum have stepped up before, during the early days of remote learning. The city was also able to mobilize quickly to provide iPads and Chromebooks for students without devices. We must now see that same commitment to providing a permanent broadband solution to all students to fill this critical gap in access to technology.
Mayor de Blasio has announced he will accelerate internet access for 600,000 low-income New Yorkers over the next 18 months. The resources are available to permanently address the digital divide immediately. Internet service providers have put forth discounted offerings to provide broadband access to student households to support remote learning.
De Blasio must step up now by working with all stakeholders to ensure that every single child in the New York City school system, now and in the future, is connected to the internet. We have a moral responsibility to get this right.
Banks is president and CEO of The Eagle Academy Foundation and the founding principal of The Eagle Academy for Young Men.
