Many Vermont schools still need faster Internet access

In classrooms today, high-speed Internet connections can help students learn various digital skills often needed for success in the workplace.

But in Vermont, some still lack sufficient access to the Web.

Peter Drescher, the education technology coordinator for the Vermont Agency of Education and a board member for the national State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA), says that that state has made substantial progress towards advancing connectivity.

“In Vermont, the bar has moved significantly over the last year or so,” Drescher said. “Over 50 percent of schools have (download speeds of) 100 Mbps or more, and many others are moving into the one gig or half partial gig range. That trend is fantastic.”

Still, a dozen schools have subpar Internet connections.

On the Agency of Education’s 2015 Tech Survey, those 12 schools reported having download speeds under 10 Mbps.

The list includes Ripton Elementary School, Guildhall Elementary School, Benson Village School, Orwell Village School, Lunenberg/Gilman Schools, Coventry Village School, Berlin Elementary School, Calais Elementary School, Rumney Memorial School, Doty Memorial School, Roxbury Village School, and the Mount Holly School.

And eight or nine schools have connections that are even slower, Drescher said.

“I think of them as my problem children,” he explained. “Those schools have less than 3 Mbps download speed… They’re typically small, rural schools, located off the beaten path.”

Working on a solution

The Agency of Education is working on mitigating the problem by exploring ways to maximize state participation in the federal E-rate program, a national initiative through the FCC aimed at helping schools and libraries improve their Internet connections.

Approximately 96 percent of U.S. schools receive E-rate subsidies, according to EducationSuperHighway, a nonprofit focused on upgrading Internet access in public schools.

President Obama's “ConnectED to the Future” initiative aims to bring high-speed Internet to 99 percent of U.S schools.

The five-year plan defines high-speed Internet as a connection speed of no less than 100 megabits per second (Mbps), with an ideal target rate of the even-quicker one gigabit per second.

So how far is Vermont from meeting that goal?

Right now, despite strong advances, the state is about halfway there.

The most recent results posted online from the Vermont Agency of Education’s annual Tech Survey of Vermont schools is from 2014. That year, 211 schools responded.

The survey found that 31.3 percent of schools reported having upload speeds of at least 100 Mbps. For download speed, 34.9 percent topped 100 Mbps.

Ways to connect

Regarding the kinds of connections being used, 10.6 percent of schools used DSL, which utilizes a modem and phone lines. 8.5 percent had T1 copper wireline connections, 11.6 percent reported cable connections, and 69.3 percent used a direct fiber optic line.

Upon request, the Agency of Education supplied unpublished data from its 2015 Tech Survey to the Burlington Free Press.

For 2015, participation in the survey increased to 305 schools -- 12 percent reported cable Internet connections, 6.2 percent had DSL, 6.8 percent had T1 copper wireline, and 70.5 percent had a fiber optic cable.

Overall, there was an increase in connection speeds. A little over 44 percent of Vermont schools reported upload speeds topping 100 Mbps.

Vermont fared well compared to other states.

EducationSuperHighway’s 2015 “State of the States” report found that of 90 person of Vermont schools met the FCC’s minimum connectivity target of 100 kilobits per second (Kbps).

That’s good enough for the state to rank within the top 20 speediest U.S. states, but not the top 10.

The FCC minimum connection rate of 100 Kbps, however, is a fraction of the 100 Mbps goal set by the Obama administration.

Former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who left his position in December, previously called for school broadband rates to reach 120 Mbps, saying anything slower was “morally unacceptable.”

Rep. Cynthia Browning, D-Arlington, introduced H.710, a House bill entitled “An act relating to the Connectivity Initiative and broadband access at public schools”on Jan. 28.

“We have schools who can’t participate in long distance learning, or Skype with their superintendent, because of their connections,” Browning told the Free Press. “It’s a real constraint. There are students who can’t do their homework from home, who have to stay after school because they need to use Google docs.”

To her, the issue boils down to basic equity.

“If some students don’t have access to connectivity, it’s just not fair,” she said. “Not now, not with the kinds of things that are required to achieve educational opportunity today.”

Browning’s proposal would use $1 million from the Vermont Capital Bill, which she said will have a windfall of $5 million due to a canceled IT project that was supposed to manage Medicaid systems for the Agency of Human Services.

By reallocating a portion of that bonded money, she said, the overall state budget wouldn’t be affected.

“Burlington residents might think, why do I want to fund more internet coverage in Lunenberg?” Browning continued. “But they’ll benefit. They’ll benefit from what’s called network externalities, when more people are connected and communicating with each other. That’s better for everyone.”