A panel of educators and experts told the Federal Communications Commission today that its E-Rate program will need a lot more money to succeed in hooking more schools up with broadband connections.
Speaking today as part of the FCC's series of hearings on developing a national broadband plan, the panel praised E-Rate for giving more schools and libraries across the United States access to telecommunications services. However, they noted that the program's annual funding cap of $2.25 billion has gone unchanged since its inception last decade. Sheryl Abshire, the Chief Technology Officer for the Calcasieu Parish School System in Lake Charles, Louisiana, recommended raising the E-Rate cap to roughly $4 billion a year to give schools and libraries the ability to invest in more high-speed broadband equipment.
"The E-Rate program should have a major role in the forthcoming broadband plan," she said. "With more funding the program will deliver broadband to schools and libraries."
Carrie Lowe, a director at the Office of Information Technology Policy for the American Library Association, also praised E-Rate for helping libraries across the country gain access to more telecommunications services, as she noted that "65% of public libraries have benefitted from E-Rate" and that "without E-Rate there's no way libraries could achieve the level of success they have today." However, Lowe seconded Abshire's suggestion that the FCC raise the annual cap to help schools and libraries invest more in information technology.
Tom Greaves, the chairman of the Greaves Group consulting firm that specializes in school technology adoption, said that his group conducted a survey showing that while the E-Rate program had indeed helped schools and libraries purchase telecom services, it could be doing a lot more. For instance, he said that 54% of the schools surveyed said that they won't be able to get enough money to effectively expand their broadband capabilities. 34% of schools surveyed said that even if had sufficient money to purchase broadband services, they wouldn't get them because they aren't yet available in their area.
A recent report issued by the Government Accountability Office backs up the panelists' claims that E-Rate is currently lagging behind where it should be in terms of both funding and school participation. However, the GAO said that the program's funding problems weren't merely that it doled out too little money, but that it didn't efficiently disperse the funds that it allocated.
In a wide-ranging review of the program, the GAO found that only around 63% of the estimated 150,000 eligible schools and libraries have taken advantage of the program. There is a very sharp divide in the participation rate between public and private schools, as 83% of eligible public schools utilize the program vs. 13% of eligible private schools. Additionally, the report found that only half of eligible library systems participate in the program and that less than a third of eligible library branches utilize it.
Moving beyond the participation rate, the GAO said that the program has significant troubles with efficiently dispersing the funds it allocates. The GAO's review of E-Rate funding finds that more than one quarter of the $19.5 billion committed to schools and libraries between 1998 and 2006 were not paid out. In 2006, a full 35% of participants received less than 75% of the funds they were allocated through the program, and 9% of the schools and libraries didn't receive any of the funds they were allocated.
The two major reasons for these unused funds, says the GAO, are that participants overbudgeted their needs and applied for more money than necessary and that participants sometimes did not seek reimbursement for the full amounts of their expenses. These unused funds are a problem, the GAO argues, because it means vastly less funding for routers, switches and other technologies that help improve Web connectivity.
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