Ending California’s digital divide must be part of COVID strategy
California leads the world in tech innovation, yet thousands of our children are doing their schoolwork in fast-food restaurants and library parking lots because they don’t have internet access at home.
And seniors, about half of whom don’t have smartphones or home broadband, are missing medical appointments because they can’t connect to telehealth services.
COVID has exposed the painful reality of the digital divide, where people with money and tech know-how get what they need and everyone else gets left behind. People of color, the poor and those who live in rural places are getting the short end of the digital stick — with grave consequences for racial and economic equity if we don’t do something about it.
In California public schools, where 1 in 5 students lack highspeed internet or a laptop at home, parents are forced to pay for access to public education that is supposed to be free. They also have to connect and manage platforms, with limited tech support. Teachers, heroically adjusting to working in virtual classrooms, are also having to troubleshoot student Wi-Fi problems. Wealthy families have tutors, pods and enrichment programs to make up for disruptions in distance learning.
In health care, medical providers are replacing some inperson examinations with video appointments. UC San Francisco physicians have sounded the alarm about disparities in access to care for people of color, older adults, rural residents, low-income patients and those with limited English proficiency. These are the same populations most likely to get sick and die from COVID-19, and they are also the least likely to have high-speed internet access at home.
To end the digital divide, our first step is to change our mindset about access to the internet. We should see broadband as a public utility, just as necessary for everyday life as running water and electricity. California must invest in high-speed broadband as a public infrastructure that leaves no one behind.
It will take years and millions to build this infrastructure, but the need created by distance learning must be addressed immediately. Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered California state agencies to speed up efforts to fund, build and connect all students with highspeed internet. The governor’s task force on business and jobs recovery helped to develop an agreement to ensure devices and connectivity are less expensive and worked with providers such as Cox, Charter and Comcast to pledge to connect California’s students and their families to affordable, reliable highspeed internet service.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond led the California Broadband Council to develop an action plan for school districts. Verizon and the Los Angeles Unified School District reached an agreement to provide nocost internet access to students whose families can’t afford it during the pandemic, and AT&T provided San Jose schools with 11,000 high- end hot spots. Newsom also worked to secure a public-private partnership for 1 million devices from Apple and service from TMobile.
These are temporary measures, and clearly more can be done in the meantime, such as increasing funding for the Lifeline program for lower-income residents.
California has the resources and the know-how to do better in meeting this vital challenge. Ending the digital divide is essential for racial and economic equity, and it must be a cornerstone of the state’s COVID recovery plan.
Angela Glover Blackwell is founder in residence at PolicyLink, host of the Radical Imagination podcast and member of the governor’s task force on business and jobs recovery. Tom Steyer is the founder of NextGen America, former Democratic presidential candidate, activist and co- chair of the governor’s task force on business and jobs recovery.