The Federal Communications Commission was roundly criticized today for proposing to reduce or eliminate E-Rate, the $2 billion-a-year universal service program that provides rebates for telecommunications services and equipment in schools and libraries.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said the E-rate should be changed because students are getting too much screen time. He led a 2-1 vote to issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), which proposes changes and asks the public to comment on them.
“Over the past decade, school districts across the country have experimented with massive increases in screen time for students,” Carr said at today’s meeting.
Carr blamed schools for replacing books and pencils with digital devices and said data showed that “more than half of students now use computers for up to four hours a day, and a quarter of them spend more than four hours on a screen.” He said that E-rate began in 1997 with a clear focus of “supporting basic Internet access to schools and libraries for educational purposes”, but that it has “expanded rapidly”.
Carr said, “We seek comment on whether the program should be redesigned in light of all of the above developments, as well as increased connectivity to schools and libraries across the country since 1997.”
FCC seeks comments on ending E-Rate
Despite Carr’s use of the word “reorientation”, options on the table include closing the E-rate. This is made clear in a public draft of the NPRM, which seeks comment on whether e-rates should be limited or eliminated:
Should the E-Rate program be limited or eliminated to reflect today’s widespread connectivity rates? At what point should policy makers conclude that the main objective of the program has been achieved? We seek comment on whether Congress intended for E-Rate to operate indefinitely, regardless of the extent to which schools and libraries achieve universal connectivity.
Commissioner Anna Gomez, the FCC’s only Democrat, asked Carr’s office to remove language seeking comment about ending the E-Rate program. A spokesperson for Gomez told Ars today that the speaker’s office declined that request.
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