69传媒

Stuck with huge bills for Internet service that barely works, Calhoun County schools have missed out on the digital revolution.

Here in the tiny town of Vardaman, everything moves slowly. Especially the Internet at the local high school.

The trouble begins early each morning. Teachers sweet-talk their computers while trying to load the school鈥檚 online attendance system. A few get lucky. The rest shake their heads, write the names of absent children on a sheet of paper, and send a student to the main office.

Today, school secretary Lisa Sutherland is given 15 names to enter. Each click of her mouse is followed by an excruciating delay. The system times out. Sutherland grits her teeth and starts over. Nearly half an hour after it begins, a process that should take seconds is finally complete.

The 2,500 students in Calhoun County can鈥檛 do Internet research in school. Computerized state testing here last spring was a disaster. Teachers have given up on using online tools in the classroom. The district has given up on buying the new digital technologies that are transforming schools elsewhere.

And the most outrageous part: For the privilege of being stuck with the slowest Internet service in all of Mississippi, the nine-school Calhoun County district is billed $9,275 each month.

鈥淔rustrating is a mild word for it,鈥� said Mike Moore, the district鈥檚 superintendent. 鈥淪maller districts like us are at a tremendous disadvantage.鈥�

It鈥檚 true, despite a rapidly evolving landscape.

Over the past two years, the country has made huge strides in connecting schools, including those in rural areas. More than three-quarters of districts nationally now provide at least adequate Internet access, according to a new analysis by the broadband advocacy group EducationSuperHighway.

But 1 in 5 rural districts still can鈥檛 access the fiber-optic cables that are bringing high-speed Internet to schools elsewhere, the analysis found. And even when they do get decent connections, rural schools are typically charged far more than their urban and suburban counterparts. In places like the vast, sparsely populated plains of western New Mexico, that means telecommunications companies routinely bill $3,000 per month or more for Internet service most U.S. schools could get for one-sixth the cost.

The result, experts say, is that many rural districts still face a steep climb to meet long-term federal goals for school connectivity, even though most currently provide students with the minimum recommended bandwidth.

鈥淭he challenge for rural America is the future,鈥� said Evan Marwell, EducationSuperHighway鈥檚 CEO. 鈥淚f we don鈥檛 get affordable fiber out to those communities, they鈥檙e going to get left behind.鈥�

Geography, bad policy, and a severe shortage of technical expertise within schools all contribute to the problem. So do the business practices of telecoms: AT&T and Verizon have been accused in lawsuits and other legal actions of , while many smaller companies have taken advantage of local monopolies and generous federal subsidies.

Ultimately, efforts to find a solution will be underwritten by the American people. Fees on consumers鈥� phone bills fund a little-known federal program called the E-rate. The E-rate in turn covers a portion of the cost of phone and Internet service for schools and libraries. Since its inception in 1996, the program has paid out over $30 billion.

This fall, it will begin paying out even more.

The Federal Communications Commission recently approved a huge increase in E-rate spending, to $3.9 billion each year. Over the objections of the powerful telecom lobby, the commission also approved a number of policy changes intended to help rural schools.

On a steamy September morning, 23 of America鈥檚 12 million rural public school students sit in second period world history at Vardaman High, a one-story red-brick building just off Sweet Potato Avenue.

Many are struggling just to stay awake.

A digital whiteboard, paid for with federal stimulus dollars several years ago, hangs on the classroom wall. Unable to reliably access the Internet, the $2,500 piece of hardware functions primarily as an expensive screen for teacher Brad Easley to project his lecture notes.

When Easley tries to load a YouTube clip about World War I, the students barely stir. They know what to expect: the school鈥檚 network bogs down under the strain of downloading an online video. For 40 minutes, they flip through fraying textbooks in search of answers to questions on a packet of photocopied worksheets.

After class, 17 year-old Clemmie Jean Weddle describes her growing anxiety. She鈥檚 worried about falling behind students at neighboring schools, with whom she will soon be competing for a slot at Mississippi State University.

The problems at Vardaman High aren鈥檛 limited to low bandwidth. By the end of the 90-minute history period, nearly a third of the students have their heads on their desks, and some are clearly asleep 鈥� a consequence, their teacher said, of how challenging it is to keep teenagers alert during long DVDs played in class.

Weddle, though, has never been afflicted by such complacency.

鈥淪he really wants to be big,鈥� said her mother, Ladonna Williams, watching C.J. from the deeply furrowed fields of the sweet potato farm that鈥檚 been in the family for four generations. 鈥淪he wants it to be an event when she comes back to Vardaman.鈥�

鈥淚 had those 15 pages, and they had the Internet at their fingertips,鈥� she says.

The problems at Vardaman High aren鈥檛 limited to low bandwidth. By the end of the 90-minute history period, nearly a third of the students have their heads on their desks, and some are clearly asleep 鈥� a consequence, their teacher said, of how challenging it is to keep teenagers alert during long DVDs played in class.

Weddle, though, has never been afflicted by such complacency.

鈥淪he really wants to be big,鈥� said her mother, Ladonna Williams, watching C.J. from the deeply furrowed fields of the sweet potato farm that鈥檚 been in the family for four generations. 鈥淪he wants it to be an event when she comes back to Vardaman.鈥�

For now, Weddle raises dozens of goats, chickens, rabbits, and dogs behind her mother鈥檚 tidy brick house. They鈥檙e her ticket to somewhere else: She earns money selling eggs to the ladies down the street, blue heeler pups to area cattlemen, and Easter bunnies to local families. Since she was 8, Weddle has also been showing her best livestock at statewide 4-H and Future Farmers of America competitions. In 2014, the teen鈥檚 prize goat Katie won her a $2,000 college scholarship.

鈥淚鈥檓 not going to sit here all my life and this be the only option I have,鈥� Weddle said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 some great opportunities out there. You just have to be the one to go find them for yourself.鈥�

In school, however, that determination is often stymied.

Take the Vardaman High quiz bowl team, which Weddle joined last year in order to travel the state and measure herself against other students.

In preparation for a recent contest, the Vardaman team booked time in the high school鈥檚 lone computer lab. For the better part of a week, the school鈥檚 network teetered between balky and downright hostile, often taking as long as 10 minutes to load a single page.

Weddle came home from the competition with an award for participation.

Losing at quiz bowl is bad enough, she said.

But it鈥檚 when she imagines life after high school that she starts to really get upset.

鈥淚鈥檓 worried that I鈥檒l get to [college] and they鈥檒l say, 鈥極K, here鈥檚 your first research project, go do it,鈥欌�� she said. 鈥淎nd I鈥檓 just sitting there, lost, like, 鈥榃hat am I supposed to do?鈥欌��

The search for the cause of Calhoun County鈥檚 Internet woes eventually leads to a three-mile stretch of no-man鈥檚 land between two small Mississippi towns; to Jackson, the state capital; to Madison, Wis., where one of the district鈥檚 Internet providers is headquartered; and ultimately to Washington.

But the journey begins inside the Vardaman High teachers鈥� lounge, where a beaten-up blue sofa barricades a wooden door.

Inside that closet sits the school鈥檚 server. Behind that, mounted on the back wall, is a box. Out of the bottom of the box run two cables, one yellow, one gray.

Each contains copper wire capable of carrying 1.5 megabits per second of bandwidth - next to nothing in an era of streaming videos, cloud-hosted services, and online collaboration.

The first copper line was installed around 15 years ago. For years, it suited Calhoun County鈥檚 modest needs just fine.

Then the district, awash in federal stimulus money, decided to buy dozens of smartboards and desktop computers. Turned out, 1.5 mbps wasn鈥檛 enough to allow that many devices to get online at once, even if the district was being charged more than $4,000 a month to bring the Internet to all of its schools.

So Calhoun County went to its service providers, asking for faster speeds.

The companies offered to upgrade the district to 3 mbps of bandwidth, by running a second copper line to each building.

The cost: an additional $5,000 per month.

It seems outlandish. But with the federal E-rate program picking up almost 90 percent of the bill, Calhoun County officials determined that second copper line to be a plunge worth taking.

鈥淲e thought, 鈥榃ow, that鈥檚, like, three times faster than what we鈥檙e doing,鈥欌�� said Moore, the superintendent.

Still, when Calhoun County tried to administer online state exams last spring, chaos ensued: Four-hour waits to log into the testing platform. Video-based questions that buffered endlessly, even after being left overnight to download. 69传媒 who had to solve math problems without the help of online calculators their computers couldn鈥檛 load.

鈥淚t was gut-wrenching,鈥� said Raven Hawkins, the district鈥檚 testing coordinator.

鈥淲e felt helpless.鈥�

Across the country, the pressure is on to bring school Internet speeds up and prices down, especially in rural areas.

President Barack Obama has vowed to bring 100 mbps-or-better connections to schools serving 99 percent of U.S. students by 2018. States including Arkansas, California, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, and New Mexico are pursuing major upgrades to their broadband infrastructure. Backed by millions of dollars from the foundations associated with Microsoft鈥檚 Bill Gates and Facebook鈥檚 Mark Zuckerberg, advocacy groups such as EducationSuperHighway are rallying support.

The barriers are huge. But Wheeler of the FCC is adamant that a shakeup is coming.

Thanks to the biggest overhaul in the history of the E-rate program, the prices that telecoms charge schools will be transparent to the public, beginning this school year. Soon, it will be easier for schools to use federal funds to cover the costs of new construction on fiber-optic networks. Carriers who don鈥檛 offer competitive Internet speeds and rates to schools could lose other federal subsidies. And, perhaps most importantly, districts that can鈥檛 find affordable high-speed Internet on the private market will soon be able to use E-rate funds to buy or lease their own networks.

As one of the first test cases in the country, Calhoun County offers an early look at whether the changes will be enough.

The signs are promising: After years of previous fights failed to yield results, the E-rate overhaul has opened the door for a major breakthrough here. In April, Calhoun County received an offer for Internet connections 300 times faster than what its schools have currently, at about one-half the cost.

See Also

IT Infrastructure & Management Video Are Rural 69传媒 Getting Shortchanged in the Digital Age?

Education Week talks with students, educators, and FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to gauge whether billions of new federal dollars and new rule changes to the federal E-rate program can finally help bring affordable high-speed Internet access to America's rural schools. This video segment appeared on PBS NewsHour on February 16, 2016.

April 7, 2016

•

7:00

鈥淚t鈥檚 a perfect example of the power of what the FCC did, without ever having to put a shovel in the ground,鈥� said Marwell of EducationSuperHighway.

But while there is much room for optimism, Calhoun County also serves as a cautionary tale. Due to a mistake largely of the district鈥檚 own making, the battle for affordable high-speed Internet here is not yet won.

And in places like New Mexico鈥檚 vast Catron County, home to just 3,600 people spread out over an area larger than Connecticut, the fight is just beginning.