FCC votes to review E-Rate program amid screen time concerns

The Federal Communications Commission voted last week to examine whether its E-Rate program should be amended, or even ended.

Commissioners voted 2-1 to review the E-Rate program, which helps pay for discounted services, internet access, equipment and maintenance for schools and libraries. Agency officials said the review will determine actions it can take to ensure E-Rate is advancing educational outcomes and protecting children’s online safety, as well as ensuring funds from the program are being spent responsibly and for educational purposes.

The FCC is also seeking public comment on any legal or policy efforts for assessing children’s screen time and involving adults more in decisions around their access to networks and services funded by E-Rate. FCC Chair Brendan Carr said this review is part of a wider effort to examine the effects of children’s screen time on their performance in the classroom, and whether E-Rate’s use for various devices has been detrimental.

“[E-Rate] began with a clear focus — supporting basic internet access to schools and libraries for educational purposes,” Carr said during the FCC’s meeting. “Kids could experience digital opportunity for the first time in computer labs at school or at the library. Since then, however, the E-Rate program has expanded exponentially, supporting a much broader list of services. And the number of devices connecting to these E-Rate-supported networks has continued to grow as well.  Gone are the days when schools focused predominately on connecting computer labs.”

But the FCC’s own rule-making documents that are now open for public comment said the review could go even further.

“Nearly three decades after Congress established the E-Rate program to expand access to advanced telecommunications and information services for schools and libraries, broadband connectivity rates have expanded in these institutions,” the document says. “Accordingly, in this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, we seek comment not only on how to ensure E-Rate-funded services are advancing educational outcomes and protecting children online, but also on whether the program should be narrowed or otherwise reoriented to reflect the extent to which its connectivity objectives have been achieved.”

Federal agencies have taken an increasing interest in children’s screen time over the past few months. As well as this FCC action, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration has floated exploring the effects of screen time and determining whether its own spending on broadband and education technology has had a negative impact.

And earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory warning of the links between excessive screen time and poor educational outcomes, urging families, young people, schools and health care providers to be more cognizant of how they can have negative impacts.

Carr cited that study and others in his speech at the FCC meeting, noting that more than half of students now use a computer for up to four hours a day, while a quarter of them spend more than four hours on screens. And, he said, children as young as 8 have been spending up to five and a half hours on screens each day. By the eighth grade, he said more than half of kids report using computers in all or almost all classes, up from 30% in 2019.

Meanwhile, Carr also pointed to findings that show the decline of reading and math skills, as well as lower reading and math achievement on standardized tests in elementary school tied to screen time.

And he noted that various states and school districts have taken action to ban or limit screen time, including the Los Angeles Unified School District Board, which adopted new rules that prohibit screen time for kids before second grade, cap it at 60 minutes for kids between second and fifth grade, and allow middle-schoolers and high-schoolers a total of six hours and 10 hours weekly, respectively.

“Against this backdrop, it is appropriate for the FCC to look at its own programs,” Carr said.

FCC opponents of the plan said this effort to reexamine E-Rate is ill-advised, especially if the U.S. is to be a world leader in adopting and using artificial intelligence. Commissioner Anna Gomez said its effort to expand universal service to every school and library is not finished, arguing the proposal contains “speculative and unwarranted proposals” masked by concerns over children’s screen time.

“We cannot elevate national expectations for digital and AI literacy while simultaneously stripping away the digital tools required to meet them,” Gomez said in a statement. “We cannot declare that AI leadership is a national priority while questioning whether schools should continue to receive the connectivity required to teach it. And we cannot champion innovation while pulling the ladder out from under the students who will build America’s future technologies. This contradiction has a cost, and it will be paid by America’s children.”